The dicey assumption made in this piece is that most of the people who work in major Silicon Valley companies actually live in San Francisco.
I wouldn't know any statistics but, in general, Silicon Valley is much more centered in the South Bay and than it is in San Francisco and those who work at Adobe, Sun, Apple, Oracle, etc. would normally live either on the Peninsula or in the San Jose area.
Just to take Apple as an example, in general, it is pretty crazy for the thousands of people who work in Cupertino (which is immediately adjacent to San Jose and is some 50 miles from most points in San Francisco) to live somewhere other than the South Bay or at least the Peninsula - from which locations the commutes would be pretty modest (still likely 20 minutes or more for most people but not the hour-plus it would be from the City).
Some people undoubtedly live in San Francisco while working at Apple simply because they like the City so much and prefer to live there in spite of the long commute. But these would likely be unusual exceptions and not the rule.
I think you'd be wise to talk to a lot of people that work at these companies. A huge portion of Apple/Yahoo/Google employees live in the city or some equally far-away place in the East Bay. Each of these companies (and others) send in free buses with Wi-Fi to various parts of the city several times a day.
So sure, they're "commuting" — but really they just walk a couple of blocks, hop on board a free bus and start working during their commute.
Among my team within Google, the people with kids live in the South or East Bay. Those without live in San Francisco. The only ones I know living on the peninsula just moved to the area and haven't migrated to the extremes, yet.
The post is focused on 20-somethings who want to live in an urban area. Manhattan is somewhat analogous to San Francisco; it tends to have a high concentration of young people who want to work in tech and startups.
I wouldn't know any statistics but, in general, Silicon Valley is much more centered in the South Bay and than it is in San Francisco and those who work at Adobe, Sun, Apple, Oracle, etc. would normally live either on the Peninsula or in the San Jose area.
Just to take Apple as an example, in general, it is pretty crazy for the thousands of people who work in Cupertino (which is immediately adjacent to San Jose and is some 50 miles from most points in San Francisco) to live somewhere other than the South Bay or at least the Peninsula - from which locations the commutes would be pretty modest (still likely 20 minutes or more for most people but not the hour-plus it would be from the City).
Some people undoubtedly live in San Francisco while working at Apple simply because they like the City so much and prefer to live there in spite of the long commute. But these would likely be unusual exceptions and not the rule.