Not to mention that buying a house isn’t a requirement of living in a location (and isn’t the right financial choice for many places when comparing to rent).
It's also not just my "current job", I make more than any peer that works in office and I always have at any employer that I've been at. If you want me to work for you, you have to pay what I require. That's how the market works.
lol to any in office startup being doomed. That’s a large percentage of YC startups and currently doing quite well startups.
You make more than any peer you know in office? Might need to meet more people or you’re a true outlier in which case this is not about you
A large percentage of YC startups fail, so that's not really a metric that's useful. Basic market analysis will do: more potential employers = higher pay.
It sometimes makes sense, when you are junior, need to form a network, and have low expenses. One can look at it as an investment. But not for the average engineer over the long term. It just doesn’t pencil out. Especially if you want a family.
But no I wouldn’t live in rural Arizona over the Bay Area or most cities unless there was a very strong extra reason to live there (like a manhattan project) and definitely not for a pay cut even if cost of living was near 0.