The commenter didn't say anything about where developers live. A very small percentage of the world's software developers live in San Francisco / Silicon Valley, and a very small percentage of the ones who don't are working, remotely or otherwise, for companies based in those areas.
Also, they didn't say mindlessly churning through tickets, they said working on concrete tickets.
You're right, everyone who doesn't live in San Francisco is just mindlessly churning through tickets all day.