Rent alone would come out to about 50% of your take home pay[1] (estimated of course - you would probably get less depending on benefits). Assuming if you hunted you might be able to rent for $1500, but from zillow[2] the rent appears to be from $2-4k+. If you showed me an apartment for $1.5k and the average is $2k I would want to know what is wrong with it.
In my suburban area - I could get a mortgage for a $100k house with at least 2br for about $500/month.
Of course people at Google probably don't get paid exactly $100k but keeping in mind a good sized chunk of that is just going toward living there.
Assuming $2k/month is $40k - that is almost half of $100k. So almost half your salary is going towards just rent.
Let's say you made $50k in a suburb area - using your numbers you would only pay $10k/year for a mortgage ($500/month) - with only $20k difference in salary.
$100k in CA ~ $60k
$50k in suburbs ~ $40k
Realistically you would probably make $60-$70k in suburb areas which, according to your numbers, would make the same if not more AND own a house.
Of course this is ignoring other factors like food, utilities, bills and taxes.
In my suburban area - I could get a mortgage for a $100k house with at least 2br for about $500/month.
Of course people at Google probably don't get paid exactly $100k but keeping in mind a good sized chunk of that is just going toward living there.
[1] - http://www.calculator.net/take-home-pay-calculator.html?cann...
[2] - http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_rent/Redwood-City-CA/house,c...