Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the bay area, I think compensation drop will be far worse. The base salary of bay area companies has never been that impressive. Even the big tech companies like Google and Facebook, base salary is not much more than other regions. The impressive compensation numbers are always because of bonus+RSU. These will probably be massively reduced or even eliminated completely if the tech downturn gets bad enough.
Tech employees making $200k+ are the only ones who can afford a $4k per month apartment in SF. If salaries drop then rent drops. I don't see this being a bad thing.
Maybe I'm being irrational, but I suspect that the drops won't be proportional and the housing isse in SF will just get worse.