It's not...he's being quite hyperbolic. I live in SF and my rent+utilities is under $2k/mo with the rest of my expenses coming in at well under $1k/mo. Commuting doesn't cost $300/mo if you take public transportation...it's only that much if you're taking Lyft/Uber. Similarly, he's pricing everything based on living alone which is completely unnecessary if you don't have a family. Living with roommates lowers the cost of everything by a lot, especially if you do communal meals/food.
I can sympathize with people who have families when they talk about how expensive SF is, but when single people do it, it's almost always possible to cut their spending in half and still live comfortably, they just don't want to give up the little luxuries they've accustomed themselves to.
It's certainly possible to live on less (I'm a decent negotiator/dealhunter, so I'm speaking from experience here), but most people don't have this skillset. I can't assume everyone has this capability.
> Living with roommates lowers the cost of everything by a lot, especially if you do communal meals/food.
Wholesale pricing is a good strategy, correct. This isn't viable for everybody, or even for most people. Not everybody can live this way for various reasons, and certainly many engineers that I've interacted with aren't able to or need the alone time to be productive.
I've seen a pretty wide spread of living situations. I wouldn't call anything I said hyperbolic.
It claims a 1 bedroom is 3k. Living outside the city would be cheaper, but by over 2/3 cheaper?