Most Silicon Valley companies produce products or services whose revenue does not scale with the cost of living in the area. Yet they pay their employees a lot

Most Silicon Valley companies produce products or services whose revenue does not scale with the cost of living in the area. Yet they pay their employees a lot more than in most parts of the world and they pay a hell of a lot more for office space. Contrary to what is written very frequently here by SV dwellers, it is actually not common for fresh graduates to get six figure salaries--only in Silicon Valley and NYC. The terrible irony of it is that the over-abundance of high salaries has led to those salaries meaning practically nothing; there have been plenty of threads here on how people can barely afford 1br apartments in San Francisco while still saving for retirement and living a comfortable life, etc. Salaries for very senior folks become so massively inflated due to the cost of living--sometimes in the $200k+ range--that very few startups can afford to hire even just a few of these guys. If they were in a cheaper area where a top salary, rather than a starting salary, was $120k, though, then they'd be in a much better position to hire a range of employees in terms of experience and age.