After eight years in Silicon Valley, we returned home to Seattle last year.  Bought a huge house on an acre with awesome schools.  Now that I&#x27;m a parent, it just wasn&#x27;t worth the cognitive dissonance of doing very well financially, but not being able to buy my family a good home.  There are definitely things I miss, but overall, it was absolutely the right move to make.<p>The job market, while 1&#x2F;10th what is was back in the valley, is still great.  Now that Microsoft is embracing open source, the vast pool of talent that was previously locked away in msft&#x27;s proprietary tech will be free to leave and spin off many new start ups over the next few years.<p>SF in your 20s, South Bay in your early 30s and Seattle when you have a family.