In the bay area, most people I know only work in the office three days a week (working sparingly on the other two days) and they come in at 10am and leave at 3pm. Never work weekends etc. Crime is low in South Bay. Most amazing trails and mountains right near home for hiking, riding, and driving. All of this while making enough to buy a house and go vacationing. COL is completely dwarfed by the pay. West coast work ethic is very chill compared to midwest or east coast -- part of the reason I avoid those places.
You might have a serious amount of selection bias going on. People in SV definitely work much harder than those in NYC. I routinely had to work at 2AM and had many coworkers who were doing the same.
We'd show up at the office at 9-10AM and then work until 6-7PM then go home and work more and work weekends as well. It was very common from small seed stage to FAANG. PIPs, stack ranking, and backstabbing psychopaths wouldn't be commonplace in SV if it wasn't for all the H1B indentured servants.
