If you're already rich, yeah, that's a different scenario, then you have a whole wealth-planning thing to think about. If we're talking about a startup founder

If you're already rich, yeah, that's a different scenario, then you have a whole wealth-planning thing to think about. If we're talking about a startup founder making more in the neighborhood of low 6 figures, though, taxes are basically a wash between Norway and SF, and cheaper in Norway if you take into account that it includes health insurance while the US taxes don't. For me, what taxes I'd pay if I exited with a fabulously wealthy payday are more in the "Maserati problem" category, but ymmv. Putting in $100k into a Norwegian [1] and CA [2] tax calculator, for example, at that particular income they coincidentally come out almost identical: about $32k (~32% effective rate) in both cases. In Norway it's one central tax at the effective rate of 32%. In SF it's the sum of: 18% federal, 7.65% payroll, 6.3% state. [1] https://skattekalkulator.app.skatteetaten.no/ https://skattekalkulator.app.skatteetaten.no/ [2] https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator