San Francisco tech couple with combined $360K income struggles to find affordable housing

In San Francisco, a tech couple with a combined annual salary exceeding $360,000 spent three months viewing 30 apartments but failed to find a one-bedroom rental under $5,000 per month. With OpenAI and Anthropic preparing for IPOs, AI-driven wealth is rewriting the city’s cost of living. Six-figure salaries have become the new baseline for “not enough.”

Katrine Razniak, 27, joined LinkedIn in 2022 as a recruiter with an annual salary of $70,000.

After switching to the software company Rippling, her annual salary increased to $180,000, managing a team of account managers.

Her partner, Adam Woodbury, 39, a software engineer, earns an annual salary of $185,000.

The two combined exceed $360,000.

In the vast majority of cities across the United States, this is a ticket to middle- and upper-class life.

In 2026 in San Francisco, this ticket won't even rent you a decent apartment.

This spring, the two began looking for a home.

The goal isn’t unreasonable: a one-bedroom apartment with rent under $5,000 per month. Over three months, we viewed about 30 units—all either above budget or too competitive. One apartment listed at $5,200 had 30 names on the sign-up sheet within an hour of its open house.

In the end, they gave up.

Razniak said, "I'm not completely hopeless, but I feel like I can't stay in San Francisco anymore."

Woodbury added, "At some point, we both gradually realized that staying here no longer made sense."

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Woodbury's income ranks approximately within the top 20% of household incomes nationwide.

His own feelings, however, were different: “I feel like I don’t deserve to live here because I don’t work at an AI company.”

This accurately describes what is happening in San Francisco in 2026: AI companies are rapidly squeezing the quality of life for workers in other industries—even including internet companies.

$180,000, equivalent to approximately RMB 1.2 million.

This seven-digit number sounds impressive, but it’s far from as lucrative as it seems—it certainly doesn’t mean $15,000 is deposited into your bank account every month.

In Silicon Valley's tech circle, the numbers mentioned when discussing salary are almost always Total Compensation, or "total package."

An annual salary of $180,000 is likely composed as follows: base salary accounts for approximately 75%-80%, or around $135,000 to $145,000. The remainder consists of equity incentives (RSUs or options), a sign-on bonus, and performance bonuses.

For a private company like Rippling, equity is just a paper number and cannot be used to pay the bills.

Signing bonuses are typically one-time payments, amounting to only a few hundred extra dollars per month when spread evenly throughout the year.

The only amount you can actually spend each month is your base salary.

What is the net base salary?

Based on a base annual salary of $140,000, the pre-tax monthly income is approximately $11,667.

Then there's the pain most California workers are familiar with: taxes.

The effective federal income tax rate is approximately 15%-16%, the effective California state tax rate is about 6%-7%, Social Security and Medicare (FICA) are withheld at a fixed rate of 7.65%, plus California’s unique State Disability Insurance (SDI) at 1.3%. Combined, these deductions amount to approximately $4,100 to $4,500 per month.

When including 401(k) retirement contributions (typically 5%-6%) and the employee’s share of health insurance premiums, the actual monthly take-home pay is approximately between $6,500 and $7,500.

Take a midpoint—$7,000 net per month.

Next is the rent.

The current average monthly rent for an apartment in San Francisco is $3,827, surpassing New York to become the most expensive in the U.S.

The actual transaction price for a one-bedroom unit typically ranges between 4,500 and 5,200.

Razniak searched for three months but couldn't find anything under 5,000.

7000 minus 4500 equals 2500.

These $2,500 must cover utilities and water (41% higher than the U.S. average), transportation (43% higher), groceries (19% higher), mobile phone bills, and the occasional meal out with friends.

Converted annually, a $180,000 salary translates to approximately $1,500 to $2,500 in monthly disposable income.

Converted to RMB, the monthly disposable income is approximately 10,000 to 18,000.

This is what “a million-dollar salary” really feels like in San Francisco.

Razniak once said she thought that once she earned $200,000 a year, she would no longer have to worry about money.

The reality is that last year, she and her friends stopped going to restaurants and started cooking and dining together at home while watching reality TV shows.

What makes this number truly striking is the control group.

According to data from Levels.fyi (updated in June), the median total compensation at OpenAI is $640,000, with the median for software engineers exceeding $800,000.

Level 5 engineers, with data points from multiple sources ranging between 840,000 and 1,150,000.

The median salary across Anthropic is approximately $420,000, and the median salary for software engineers is approximately $750,000.

The base salaries of mid-level and above engineers at two companies already exceed Razniak’s entire compensation package.

Razniak earns a lot, but she lives among people who earn much more.

The cost of living in San Francisco has always been high, but this latest surge since 2024 has a clear driver: AI-generated wealth.

OpenAI and Anthropic, two AI companies headquartered in San Francisco, have a combined valuation nearing $1 trillion and are preparing for an IPO.

Analysis by private market research firm Sacra shows that just these two companies, along with Elon Musk’s recently publicized SpaceX, could create more than 20 new billionaires among current and former employees.

San Francisco Chief Economist Ted Egan pointed out a scaling issue.

When Uber went public in 2019, its valuation was approximately $82 billion—a capital event that impacted housing prices across entire cities.

Today, OpenAI and Anthropic are valued more than ten times that of Uber.

To what extent?

OpenAI currently has approximately 7,850 employees, with an average equity compensation of about $1.5 million per employee in 2025—seven times the per-employee level at Google prior to its IPO, adjusted for inflation.

When these equity stakes are converted into real money through an IPO, this wealth will flow concentratedly into San Francisco’s real estate, consumer, and rental markets.

Mayor Daniel Lurie stated in a statement that the city government is working to reduce costs by improving child care, implementing family housing zoning, and enhancing public transportation. However, he did not specifically address the challenges faced by those earning six-figure incomes.

People earning $180,000 per year are not considered vulnerable populations by policymakers. But when these individuals begin leaving in large numbers, cities lose the middle-tier technical talent they rely on to function.

Data shows that money is flooding in.

The average annual salary in San Francisco increased from $153,359 in 2020 to $196,365 in 2025, a 28% rise.

But this is an average—skewed upward by the ultra-high salaries at AI companies, making it almost ironic for other tech professionals.

Housing is the most immediate pain point.

According to Redfin's report, the median home price in San Francisco surpassed $1.7 million in April, while the national median was approximately $450,000.

CoStar data shows that the average monthly rent for apartments in San Francisco has reached $3,827, surpassing New York City in recent months to become the highest in the U.S.

CoStar senior researcher Nigel Hughes used one word—“pressure cooker”—and said, “and it’s heating up very quickly.”

In San Francisco’s most sought-after neighborhoods—Marina District, Pacific Heights, and South of Market—apartment vacancy rates have dropped to around 3%, down from 13% in 2020. Meanwhile, new housing construction has nearly stalled.

Supply remains unchanged, demand surges—price can only move in one direction.

According to the Cost of Living Index published by the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER), San Francisco’s overall cost of living is 65.6% higher than the national average.

Breaking it down, utilities are about 41% higher, transportation is about 43% higher, and groceries are about 19% higher.

These numbers themselves are abstract; a more intuitive understanding comes from everyday life.

Razniak said her monthly budget has increased by about $1,000 compared to previous years, with little change in her quality of life.

She described this state as a low-grade, persistent financial anxiety—not urgent enough to feel like a paycheck-to-paycheck existence, but far from the sense of ease she expected at this income level.

Razniak's experience is not an isolated case.

Woodbury recently moved to Carnelian Bay on Lake Tahoe, where the cost of living is lower.

Does it look familiar? Lake Tahoe is the default wallpaper for macOS 26.

Razniak lives in an apartment in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, sharing it with two roommates and paying $1,650 per month. The two are in a long-distance relationship.

A team lead earning $180,000 a year lives in a shared apartment—this is no longer news in San Francisco.

The housing squeeze effect is accelerating.

In June, 25-year-old Varsha Madapoosi rented a four-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in the Lower Pacific Heights neighborhood and posted listings for two available rooms in a private Facebook group, with monthly rents of approximately $1,200 and $1,500.

She attached a Google Form that was open for only 24 hours and received 88 applications.

Last July, a similar post in the same group received only 28 replies over four days. Madapoosi said, "I've never seen this kind of response."

Jolie Gan, 23, moved to San Francisco in January after completing a Fulbright scholarship program at MIT.

She currently holds two jobs: working at the venture capital firm a16z and writing for a tech and science publication called Core Memory, with a combined annual salary of approximately $250,000; she has no student loans.

Sounds like you're doing well.

But she and her roommate moved three times within two months—once because the so-called "two-bedroom" apartment wasn’t actually two bedrooms, and another time because the apartment had black mold and rats.

Gan said that with an income of 250,000, she could manage and even save for retirement.

But she saw her friends earning less than 200,000 yuan per year having nearly all their income consumed by rent, utilities, and food.

Razniak’s feelings were more specific—she once believed that an annual salary of 200,000 was the tipping point, where she would no longer worry about money.

I found that the state of not worrying about money is impossible to achieve in San Francisco.

She isn’t a paycheck-to-paycheck spender, nor is she financially strained—she’s simply stuck in between, in a low-level state of financial vigilance that she thought she’d already outgrown.

Gan chose to stay.

Her reasons had nothing to do with salary—career opportunities, the city’s energy, and the social network she had built over several months.

Although housing is indeed absurd and has become increasingly expensive, I still find these intangible things worthwhile.

She plans to stay for at least a few more years.

Razniak and Woodbury have started looking at Seattle.

The life Razniak imagined there was one she could never have afforded in San Francisco, even though their combined income would have been substantial in any other U.S. city.

She said:

We want a house, a garage, and a storage room—here, these things feel out of reach.

Neither of these options is right or wrong.

But they point to the same reality: when an industry's wealth-creation speed is fast enough to reshape the cost of living in an entire city, the very meaning of "high salary" is being rewritten.

$180,000 is still a high income.

But in San Francisco, in 2026, on the eve of AI creating a new wave of billionaires, it cannot buy security.

This is not just a story about San Francisco. Each wave of technological wealth creation repeats a similar squeezing pattern across a set of cities.

The difference is that the scale and speed of wealth creation through AI this time far exceed those of any previous occasion.

In a world where OpenAI employees receive an average equity incentive of $1.5 million, a software engineer earning $180,000 per year has gone from being a “winner” to being “pushed out.”

Reference materials:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/29/technology/san-francisco-tech-salaries.html

This article is from the WeChat public account "New Intelligence Yuan," authored by ASI Revelation.