The motherships are trying to spread their people out. Being in SFBay only is not the best way to go. Even Amazon is spreading out.
If you’re the first one to a Satellite which is intended to grow, you’ll be the first up for the promotion and management.
For wage earners, state income tax is the reason to flee California. Once you retire or FIREd, state income tax might not be an issue anymore since your property tax is low and your taxable income can also be low
Why are you still here? 
The best way is to buy many rentals at low price and then retire. 
best of all the worlds
I don’t want to be a wage earner forever. Go FIRE
FIRE in BA is the best FIRE.
FIRE in the BA will take a quarter the time if you move somewhere else when you’re done.
Amazon is building another HQ. Moving to HQ2 won’t be career limiting at all. It will offer the same breath and depth of opportunities.
I don’t know how many projects are done at google Seattle. But I imagine it can’t be the same number. Say you grew tired of optimizing Adsense just to pick a random one and itching to work on self driving cars can you do that in Seattle? Unlikely.
I’d argue that as companies spread, they’ll need leaders in new locations. Competition for those spots won’t be as fierce as it is at HQ. My friend who left FB for Uber did it while working in Seattle. He was the first Uber employee in Seattle. Now he’s back at FB as a director. Being a director at FB isn’t exactly “career limiting”. I guess maybe it is if everyone here is a VP at google, apple, or netflix.
With Google you can probably pick your next project and start a group.
The thing I didn’t like about South Bay was anti-development and nimby-sm. The entire Peninsula still feels like a suburbia, and everyone seems fine with it. 
Bulk of SF still has that issue, and commute from western part of SF (a mere 5 mile away) takes 30~60mins on stinky Muni. No wonder services like Charit is taking off.
South beach / Mission Bay / Dogpatch is slightly better.
Meanwhile, things like this is happening in Seattle:
I haven’t noticed too much homelessness while I was there - I should find out more during our trip! We’re actually in South Beach (bordering Yerba Buena) where there’s more homelessness, so that could be it. Noe/Bernal seems nice but we’ll be missing out from being near to Embarcadero which we love. Maybe we should also look in North Beach. 
Add San Diego, Tahoe, Cabo, St. Moritz. St. Tropez
North beach close to the ferry building seems pretty nice. Walk to weekend farmers market.
I see. So you like urban. How about moving to NYC the most urban in USA?
Not only for money, but also health perspective, stay near by kids. During my son’s stay at UCD, I have faced 1) at least 3 lock out situation, we rushed and helped. 2) IIRC, 4 times sicks, 5 or 6 times bike accidents where we rushed and helped. One time, he is bed ridden…etc
3 Kudos to you 100% Perfect. For that, first everyone needs to have primary home at least. Earlier the better.
These are all very sound points which we’re weighing as well. But I’m not contemplating the move right now - I’m contemplating whether to exchange SJ rental to Seattle rental now, and move into it later, in say 5 years time.
In terms of career growth, yes you’re absolutely right that growing at mothership is 10x easier. But I’ve personally reached a point where the next steps require major breakthroughs (director level onwards), and I don’t know if I want the political battles required to get there. The extra stress is barely worth the extra income at this point, so I guess I’m thinking about passively growing asset thru rentals while happily coding and leading a small team of engineers.
Then again, it’s all me dreaming, since the wife is happy at her job and walking commute. 
In that case you are screwed dude. Dream on…
Can’t say NYC is off the table. But condos there are horribly old and streets are pretty dirty. I wouldn’t mind renting there for couple of years, but even I don’t think I can live there for many years to come.
Re: projects in Seattle - yup, projects there are definitely limited. The thing is, I thought I’d have all the different companies in BA to choose from, but I’m still at the same co after 6+ years, and switched projects only once. I guess I get more bored at living at one location than working on same projects.
My 2 cents: the homeless in SF are aggressive and in your face. I’ve been downtown in Boston, DC, Chicago, and SF, and I have homeless people who are on our own streets, and the ones in SF are the only ones I’ve ever felt uncomfortable with. They’ll get in your face to ask for money, walk into a group of people talking to demand money–they get aggressive. I had one jump out of a doorway across the two people I was walking with, grab my shirt sleeve and beg. It was literally the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. I had another who asked for money, and I made the mistake of looking to see if I had a granola bar in my purse, and after saying “no, I don’t have anything”, the guy followed us continuing to ask. Took a guard outside a store to get him to stop.
I love homeless people. I’ve spent time chatting with some–others don’t want you bothering them, but man in SF–they’re just different there…
Ooooooohhhh. That’s different… So you could keep your SF home as a rental later? Sure go for it.