These things are quite rare. Moreover, you could feasibly buy insurance for such things which would be the financially appropriate way to think about it in ter

These things are quite rare. Moreover, you could feasibly buy insurance for such things which would be the financially appropriate way to think about it in terms of risk. Tack on the cost of insurance to the cost of ownership to make the calculation. Owning in SF has been smarter than renting for the last 20 years in almost all cases. All the surpluses in the Valley have gone into real-estate. In fact - given the failure rate of startups ... if you had $10 M in 1990, the best investment you could possibly make would be simply to buy real-estate, assuming you don't have access to the top tier VC funds as an LP. By buying real estate - you're basically 'investing in tech' indirectly, across the board. And there's considerably less risk.