The $150,000 number is the cost of the mortgage needed to buy a home the size of the one they rented in Palo Alto [1]. The breakdown was that they rented the home with another couple for $6200/mo. If they wanted to buy a similar home, it would cost ~ $2.7M, thus the $12.5k/mo mortgage. They were already renting a place in Palo Alto at ~ $3100/mo. Their problem was that they wanted to start a family and needed more space. Doing so in Palo Alto was prohibitively expensive.
I don't think that she was whining about not being able to live in a neighborhood where multi-millionaire lived. It was about being able to establish roots anywhere in the Palo Alto area. It's all but impossible and it will become harder and harder to run a city where all of the labor force needs to be imported (police, teachers, city gov't, etc).
I know this is already starting to become an issue with some departments at Stanford where it's very difficult to recruit/keep faculty and postdocs due to the cost of living in the immediate area.
I don't think that she was whining about not being able to live in a neighborhood where multi-millionaire lived. It was about being able to establish roots anywhere in the Palo Alto area. It's all but impossible and it will become harder and harder to run a city where all of the labor force needs to be imported (police, teachers, city gov't, etc).
I know this is already starting to become an issue with some departments at Stanford where it's very difficult to recruit/keep faculty and postdocs due to the cost of living in the immediate area.
[1] https://shift.newco.co/letter-of-resignation-from-the-palo-a...