I think this is a side effect of having jobs which are, relative to the rest of the country, extremely well paid, combined with very high cost of living. In th

I think this is a side effect of having jobs which are, relative to the rest of the country, extremely well paid, combined with very high cost of living. In the UK if you told someone you'd be moving to the Bay Area on a starting salary of $130k you would be looked at like you were minted for life. For most tech graduates that's more than their parents' final salary and that's where you get in at! However there's a disconnect between what seems like a high salary and your spending power in somewhere like San Francisco. Over here tech salaries are a lot lower, though still good compared to everything except finance. Anyone who lives in London will assuredly not be buying a Tesla on a Google starting salary. People like saying "Oh he earns a six figure salary", it's a status symbol, and the natural response to earning that sort of cash after going through college and being dirt poor is to splash it a little. It's a fairly common question on Quora: https://www.quora.com/I-just-received-a-full-time-job-for-100k-year-and-I-really-want-to-get-the-Tesla-Model-S-Should-I-buy-one https://www.quora.com/I-just-received-a-full-time-job-for-10...