An honest question - is this really because of the talent, or simply because people there tend to work more?
When you have so many people competing for engineering jobs I expect that people, especially the ones with no kids, will work on average a lot more. Is that the case or am I wrong?
It's probably got more to do with automakers chasing software engineers as cars start to become more like computers.
Automakers are definitely looking at Tesla and trying to emulate some things.
The difference is that in the Bay Area it may be that the ratio of those with to those without obligations is lower. It's certainly socially acceptable to implicitly discriminate against "older" (mid-30s and up) workers in certain sectors of the tech industry out here.
That said, I briefly considered applying to Tesla. Then I did my homework and asked around: their pay is below what even a green "webdev" at some random startup might expect (well below in some cases), and the work/life balance seems to resemble something closer to the video game industry (lots of "crunchtime") than to anything respectable. (NOTE: Of course that is based on anecdotes from contacts and, e.g. sites like glassdoor.com; it's not a scientific survey of employment at Tesla.)
They might work "more", but that doesn't mean that their actual output is any better than that of their family-raising peers.
I'd go much further, but then this comment would be downvoted into oblivion, so I'll stop here.
I tend to believe that the throughput of the top 5-10% can be exponentially more than the next 5-10%. The objective for a lot of these firms is to get the top couple percent and get 4x as much value of out someone but paying 2x as much. As it relates to the parent comment, I think there is an incredibly high demand for the top 5-10% of tech talent and exponentially less demand for the subsequent talent. It's very similar in NYC for finance talent. I know people who work in SF and NYC both who work insane hours but they get paid SO MUCH MORE for it.
So, no one is scrambling for good engineers or good bankers or good consultants but they are scrambling for that tiny sliver of the market that they believe will generate exponential returns and turn into leaders of the company.
Perhaps this is simply too anecdotal and I've had a poor experiences, but I can say, in my personal experiences, most candidates we've talked with are doing 1x and there are other candidates doing 2x, 3x, or better. Perhaps not 10x, but I have definitely seen very similar people on paper deliver on VERY different levels.
The latter is an aspect of the supply of talent (in terms of available labor hours of any particular kind and level of talent available), so those aren't really two opposed options.
If you worked 3-6 year at Apple already or another company renowned for its quality oriented processes, there is probably a reduced risk in poaching you which offset the higher salary you can command.
I see that more as a way of outsourcing the cost of vetting personnel.
Witness the massive number of startup teams that get acquired and assimilated and then do nothing of note after.
acquihires are indeed risky, you have to factor in both the culture change and the sudden shift in middle management directives, but onboarding an apple engineer isn't the same as purchasing a whole company.