>> Real estate is still more expensive than just about anywhere else in the country. > That's a bad thing, and if you don't realize that, you're a dumbass with

>> Real estate is still more expensive than just about anywhere else in the country. > That's a bad thing, and if you don't realize that, you're a dumbass with little insight into how the economy works (101 lesson: elasticity). Expensive real estate is what you get when regulatory corruption (NIMBYism) meets the extreme inelasticity of housing costs: a 2% gap between how much housing there should be and what there is can cause prices to go up 50% or even double. The price/income ratio of housing is constant absent regulatory dysfunction. Bay Area incomes are higher than the national average, but not by enough to match the housing prices. Yes high housing costs are a bad thing but I don't think pg was saying they are/were a good thing. What he was saying was that the impression that Silicon Valley was dead was wrong. The fact that house prices remained high was an indicator that there was demand and that Silicon Valley was not dead. I think that the last decade suggests he was right on this issue. As an outsider to the VC/SV world I generally enjoy your different perspective on it but this post felt like it was crossing the line from sceptic to slightly crazed conspiracy theorist with some good points hidden in the middle. It does name names but they are unfamiliar to me. I do remember in other posts you have mentioned not wanting to name names about the bad experiences you had in VC startups as good people still worked in the bad companies, has enough time passed that you can tell your story as I think you need to get it off your chest (apologies if you have and I missed it).