The thing you're missing about San Francisco is that in the early to mid '90s, commercial real estate crashed hard enough that you could get plush offices with

The thing you're missing about San Francisco is that in the early to mid '90s, commercial real estate crashed hard enough that you could get plush offices with bay views for less than a tilt-up in a Mountain View office park. That's one reason that so many internet startups ended up there instead of the valley back then. When things heated up in the late '90s, the combination of hipness and by then very expensive office space made it even more desirable in those "let's spend as much money as possible to show how serious we are" days of internet bubble 1.0 silliness.