San Francisco's AI Boom: Trillionaires Unite to Form Support Group for the 'Barely' Six-Figure Earners

A poignant new report from the Bay Area's Institute for the Seriously Affluent indicates a devastating trend: even a paltry $180,000 annual salary is now considered the financial equivalent of a crumpled napkin in San Francisco. Sources close to the newly struggling tech class suggest that the rampant success of OpenAI and Anthropic, poised to unleash a literal deluge of IPO cash onto the streets, has tragically redefined 'poverty line' to include anyone not currently bathing in a vat of venture capital. 'How am I supposed to afford my artisanal kombucha habit and a studio apartment in a closet if everyone else is buying entire city blocks with their stock options?' lamented one visibly distraught engineer, whose annual compensation barely scrapes into the top 5% of US households. Experts warn that this growing economic disparity could soon lead to a mass exodus, as these 'middle class' tech workers are forced to relocate to less desirable locales, such as Palo Alto, where they might actually be able to afford a second avocado toast.