I strongly disagree with the first point. The high salaries in the Bay Area and NYC filter out jobs where the marginal value of the labor is low. This also filters out low margin, low productivity businesses. This in aggregate also filters for higher skill employees on average. As a result, the chances of you working at a highly profitable (or fast growing) company is higher. The chances of you working with (and being mentored by) high skill colleagues is higher. Working at a growth potential or high margin company where you are a profit center, working with/collaborating with/being mentored by other (on average) high skill workers means you have a much higher earnings cap, even factoring for COL.
I completely agree. I made the mistake of taking a lower paying job in a lower cost area at the start of my career. When I did move to a higher paid area, I found that new grads were almost being paid my rate.
Same. The comment was a reflection of my observation from Plano -> SF -> NYC. I started my career in Plano. I personally was able to grow a lot more in my career after moving to SF (and later NYC).
