As somebody who spent 18 years in Silicon Valley, I certainly could identify with the folks. On the other hand, after chating online with early retirees in other parts of the country, I can understand how crazy some of this stuff sounds.
It is expensive to live in Silicon Valley, especially housing. Also any type of services gardeners, plumbers, nannies LOL, are very pricy compared to the other parts of the country. It doesn't seem crazy to spend $100 for a bottle of wine, $250 for dinner, or $10,000 for the family vacation when everybody at work and your neighbors do the same thing.
As for the work, I think that Silicon Valley is the best place in the country, and possibly the world to work. Especially if you are interested in any type of technology. There is amazing synergy and energy in Silicon Valley that is almost magical. Despite predictions for the last 20 years that other lower cost places would displace Silicon Valley, it remains at the forefront of most technological changes, computers, networking, biotechnology, even alternative energy. The per capita: patents, IPOs, fast growing companies, best places to work, most admired companies, hottest products etc in Silicon Valley are way ahead of anyplace else on the planet.
A lot of people in Silicon Valley work very hard 60-80+/hours because it is very exciting to part of a revolution products that will effect the lives of millions. Imagine being part of the team that made the iPod, Google Maps, Earth etc., Yahoo mail, World of WarCraft, and know that literally 10s of million of people happily use your product every day. I suspect that brand manager at Proctor Gamble have tens of millions of customers also, but you don't hear people getting excited when the new and improved Tide gets released.
I can remember several years having so much fun at work that I would have happily done it for 1/2 my salary. I don't think I was unusual in the Valley, but probably that sounds bizarre to a lot of people.
Finally, there are huge financial rewards in Silicon Valley for everyday smart people. Good engineers, marketing managers, salesman, financial specialist, and HR managers all have a chance of making millions of dollars via stock options, if they are that right company at the right time.
In my case, when I stop having fun at my job, I started evaluating my options (pun intended) and decided that being able to retire to Hawaii, looked better than working. A fair number of my co-workers joined me in early retirement over the next few years...
However, as other have said, we really want to thank all those hard working multi-millionaire in Silicon Valley for continuing to work. The earnings growth and US stock market increase, which we depend on, are due to a large extent on their work.