Mountain View is cheaper and has quite a lot of startups. Palo Alto is a nicer area, still destraction free and full of great startups. (Flipboard, Quora, Pint

Mountain View is cheaper and has quite a lot of startups. Palo Alto is a nicer area, still destraction free and full of great startups. (Flipboard, Quora, Pinterest, Stripe, Color, Shazam, etc). You'll still be traveling to SF quite a lot most likely so The Mission and SoMa are places to look in that direction. A lot more startups are here.