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It seems to me that SF city government has been openly hostile to tech this entire time. If they don’t care about impoverished minorities being murdered by viol

It seems to me that SF city government has been openly hostile to tech this entire time. If they don’t care about impoverished minorities being murdered by violent criminals, what makes you think they would care any more about tech executives?

alephnerd 4y ago
The tech hostility issue was surrounding tech workers moving to the Mission District (a formerly working class Latino neighborhood that had a bunch of white bohemian alternative types). In city politics, a handful of major tech moguls have always been active. Ron Conway and Mark Benioff have both historically been massive players in SF politics and have been supporting more moderate Mayoral candidates for some time, but the SF Board of Supervisors tends to filled only with NIMBY activists and real estate owners (Dean Preston, Aaron Peskin, Hillary Ronen). Now that someone who is Seacliff adjacent is dead, they'll finally do something. I used to live in a Tenderloin adjacent neighborhood and my street literally reverted to mob justice after the riots because it was filled with working class undocumented immigrants+asylum seekers who were targeted and Tenderloin PD's hiring basically collapsed (on that note - if you're trying to stick up someone, don't stick up someone who fought in the Yemen Civil War and the Afghan Civil War. A couple people learnt their lesson in that neighborhood from what I heard at the local mosque). While those riots went on, the police were guarding Seacliff, Russian Hill, and PacHeights. And it's those same people who's kids end up in SF progressive politics and setting up organizations that push these kinds of policies. Btw, if anyone downvotes me thinking I'm some GOP nut - I'm not. My politics lean moderate Dem and I have worked in the moderate Dem space for years. That said, the SF Dems are entirely out of touch. It's a level of machine politics that makes Chicago look competent (and they've had actual Supes get arrested for arms trafficking, but then again so did we in 2012).
- philwelch 4y ago
  > In city politics, a handful of major tech moguls have always been active. Ron Conway and Mark Benioff have both historically been massive players in SF politics and have been supporting more moderate Mayoral candidates for some time, but the SF Board of Supervisors tends to filled only with NIMBY activists and real estate owners (Dean Preston, Aaron Peskin, Hillary Ronen). Now that someone who is Seacliff adjacent is dead, they'll finally do something. OK. So let me see if I understand what you're saying here. Tech was always a force in SF politics, but it hasn't been powerful enough on its own because it was in conflict with middle class progressives. But now that people are getting stabbed to death in those middle class neighborhoods, the middle class progressives are going to take it seriously instead of butting heads with the tech moguls. > I used to live in a Tenderloin adjacent neighborhood and my street literally reverted to mob justice after the riots because it was filled with working class undocumented immigrants+asylum seekers who were targeted and Tenderloin PD's hiring basically collapsed Yikes. > (on that note - if you're trying to stick up someone, don't stick up someone who fought in the Yemen Civil War and the Afghan Civil War. A couple people learnt their lesson in that neighborhood from what I heard at the local mosque). Makes sense! > Btw, if anyone downvotes me thinking I'm some GOP nut - I'm not. My politics lean moderate Dem and I have worked in the moderate Dem space for years. That said, the SF Dems are entirely out of touch. It's a level of machine politics that makes Chicago look competent (and they've had actual Supes get arrested for arms trafficking, but then again so did we in 2012). Yeah, I think any single party system is going to end up pretty bad eventually. I definitely agree that there's room for moderate Dems to criticize SF politics. I lived in Seattle for almost a decade and the main political conflict seemed to be between moderate Dems and avowed Socialists.
  - alephnerd 4y ago
    > OK. So let me see if I understand what you're saying here. Tech was always a force in SF politics, but it hasn't been powerful enough on its own because it was in conflict with middle class progressives. It's not that it's weak. It's more so that most of the big political donors who are from a tech background in SF (eg. David Sacks) don't touch local politics. They'll only really fundraise and hobnob with State and Congressional level politicians and maybe the Mayor on occasion (eg. Sacks has hosted fundraisers for both Ro Khanna and DeSantis within a week of each other). SF local politics is extremely complex and time consuming, and most of the large donors aren't natives and are insulated from a number of the issues surrounding the city. That's why SF native billionaires like Conway and Benioff have been the only prominent techies in the SF local politics space (Though Manny Yekutiel is increasingly prominent too, but his family is also extremely prominent in LA politics). What ends up happening is local SF elections get taken over by local old money/real estate families, NGOs, and unions (including the police union) because those are the only groups and people that actually know who's who in SF politics and are impacted at a personal level. This is unlike other major cities in the US like Dallas, NYC, Chicago, oe even San Jose where prominent national level business leaders also enter the fray. Now that one of them has actually been impacted, stuff will change - especially since this happened in Rincon Hill.
    - philwelch 4y ago
      Is it more that new money can't just roll into SF local politics and make anything happen, or is it a question of not doing the work? > eg. Sacks has hosted fundraisers for both Ro Khanna and DeSantis within a week of each other That's an interesting contrast. But if Sacks' Overton window is roughly the area between Khanna and RDS, even though that's a pretty wide spread on the national level, I have the feeling that puts him well to the right of SF, to the point that he might have trouble finding anyone to support in local politics. It certainly would work out that way in Seattle, at least.
      - alephnerd 4y ago
        It's a LOT of work. There are 11 Board of Supervisor members, 7 SFUSD Board Members, and numerous additional local elected supervisory positions. On top of that, elections being elections, you need to make alliances with Interest Groups that will rally voters to your candidate. All this takes a lot of time and money which has little impact outside of this 49 square mile rock on the Pacific Coast. You could better use that time (the most expensive part) and money to have an actual impact at the State or Federal level, which can have an actual lasting impact. Also, people forget how insular and parochial SF is because it's a smaller city by US and California standards: within California, Los Angeles City is 3.8mil, San Diego City is 1.3mil, and San Jose is 1mil - while San Francisco is barely 800k, roughly comparble to the City of Seattle or City of Charlotte, NC. You almost never hear about Seattle or Charlotte city politics despite both being equally as dysfunctional and sharing similar issues. > he might have trouble finding anyone to support in local politics Money speaks. Why else would Bernie Sander's protege and Donald Trump's former protege turned rival kiss the ring of the exact same billionare. For example, all SF Progressive politicians de facto HAVE to stump at an (imo extremely overpriced) cafe called Manny's (they have OK hummus, but Oasis Grill across the street is way better and a fraction of the cost), owned by an ex-FB lobbyist and personal friend of Zuck named Manny Yekutiel. And SF city politicians are fine taking money from Marc Benioff even though Salesforce has massive contracts with ICE and the DoD. If the other local business tycoons who live in SF actually cared enough about SF, they'd be playing a role in the local politics as well. But, as they don't due to time constraints, what ends up happening is Old Money Real Estate families in SF are able to have an oversized impact on electoral politics in the city.

alephnerd 4y ago

The tech hostility issue was surrounding tech workers moving to the Mission District (a formerly working class Latino neighborhood that had a bunch of white bohemian alternative types). In city politics, a handful of major tech moguls have always been active. Ron Conway and Mark Benioff have both historically been massive players in SF politics and have been supporting more moderate Mayoral candidates for some time, but the SF Board of Supervisors tends to filled only with NIMBY activists and real estate owners (Dean Preston, Aaron Peskin, Hillary Ronen). Now that someone who is Seacliff adjacent is dead, they'll finally do something. I used to live in a Tenderloin adjacent neighborhood and my street literally reverted to mob justice after the riots because it was filled with working class undocumented immigrants+asylum seekers who were targeted and Tenderloin PD's hiring basically collapsed (on that note - if you're trying to stick up someone, don't stick up someone who fought in the Yemen Civil War and the Afghan Civil War. A couple people learnt their lesson in that neighborhood from what I heard at the local mosque). While those riots went on, the police were guarding Seacliff, Russian Hill, and PacHeights. And it's those same people who's kids end up in SF progressive politics and setting up organizations that push these kinds of policies. Btw, if anyone downvotes me thinking I'm some GOP nut - I'm not. My politics lean moderate Dem and I have worked in the moderate Dem space for years. That said, the SF Dems are entirely out of touch. It's a level of machine politics that makes Chicago look competent (and they've had actual Supes get arrested for arms trafficking, but then again so did we in 2012).

philwelch 4y ago
> In city politics, a handful of major tech moguls have always been active. Ron Conway and Mark Benioff have both historically been massive players in SF politics and have been supporting more moderate Mayoral candidates for some time, but the SF Board of Supervisors tends to filled only with NIMBY activists and real estate owners (Dean Preston, Aaron Peskin, Hillary Ronen). Now that someone who is Seacliff adjacent is dead, they'll finally do something. OK. So let me see if I understand what you're saying here. Tech was always a force in SF politics, but it hasn't been powerful enough on its own because it was in conflict with middle class progressives. But now that people are getting stabbed to death in those middle class neighborhoods, the middle class progressives are going to take it seriously instead of butting heads with the tech moguls. > I used to live in a Tenderloin adjacent neighborhood and my street literally reverted to mob justice after the riots because it was filled with working class undocumented immigrants+asylum seekers who were targeted and Tenderloin PD's hiring basically collapsed Yikes. > (on that note - if you're trying to stick up someone, don't stick up someone who fought in the Yemen Civil War and the Afghan Civil War. A couple people learnt their lesson in that neighborhood from what I heard at the local mosque). Makes sense! > Btw, if anyone downvotes me thinking I'm some GOP nut - I'm not. My politics lean moderate Dem and I have worked in the moderate Dem space for years. That said, the SF Dems are entirely out of touch. It's a level of machine politics that makes Chicago look competent (and they've had actual Supes get arrested for arms trafficking, but then again so did we in 2012). Yeah, I think any single party system is going to end up pretty bad eventually. I definitely agree that there's room for moderate Dems to criticize SF politics. I lived in Seattle for almost a decade and the main political conflict seemed to be between moderate Dems and avowed Socialists.
- alephnerd 4y ago
  > OK. So let me see if I understand what you're saying here. Tech was always a force in SF politics, but it hasn't been powerful enough on its own because it was in conflict with middle class progressives. It's not that it's weak. It's more so that most of the big political donors who are from a tech background in SF (eg. David Sacks) don't touch local politics. They'll only really fundraise and hobnob with State and Congressional level politicians and maybe the Mayor on occasion (eg. Sacks has hosted fundraisers for both Ro Khanna and DeSantis within a week of each other). SF local politics is extremely complex and time consuming, and most of the large donors aren't natives and are insulated from a number of the issues surrounding the city. That's why SF native billionaires like Conway and Benioff have been the only prominent techies in the SF local politics space (Though Manny Yekutiel is increasingly prominent too, but his family is also extremely prominent in LA politics). What ends up happening is local SF elections get taken over by local old money/real estate families, NGOs, and unions (including the police union) because those are the only groups and people that actually know who's who in SF politics and are impacted at a personal level. This is unlike other major cities in the US like Dallas, NYC, Chicago, oe even San Jose where prominent national level business leaders also enter the fray. Now that one of them has actually been impacted, stuff will change - especially since this happened in Rincon Hill.
  - philwelch 4y ago
    Is it more that new money can't just roll into SF local politics and make anything happen, or is it a question of not doing the work? > eg. Sacks has hosted fundraisers for both Ro Khanna and DeSantis within a week of each other That's an interesting contrast. But if Sacks' Overton window is roughly the area between Khanna and RDS, even though that's a pretty wide spread on the national level, I have the feeling that puts him well to the right of SF, to the point that he might have trouble finding anyone to support in local politics. It certainly would work out that way in Seattle, at least.
    - alephnerd 4y ago
      It's a LOT of work. There are 11 Board of Supervisor members, 7 SFUSD Board Members, and numerous additional local elected supervisory positions. On top of that, elections being elections, you need to make alliances with Interest Groups that will rally voters to your candidate. All this takes a lot of time and money which has little impact outside of this 49 square mile rock on the Pacific Coast. You could better use that time (the most expensive part) and money to have an actual impact at the State or Federal level, which can have an actual lasting impact. Also, people forget how insular and parochial SF is because it's a smaller city by US and California standards: within California, Los Angeles City is 3.8mil, San Diego City is 1.3mil, and San Jose is 1mil - while San Francisco is barely 800k, roughly comparble to the City of Seattle or City of Charlotte, NC. You almost never hear about Seattle or Charlotte city politics despite both being equally as dysfunctional and sharing similar issues. > he might have trouble finding anyone to support in local politics Money speaks. Why else would Bernie Sander's protege and Donald Trump's former protege turned rival kiss the ring of the exact same billionare. For example, all SF Progressive politicians de facto HAVE to stump at an (imo extremely overpriced) cafe called Manny's (they have OK hummus, but Oasis Grill across the street is way better and a fraction of the cost), owned by an ex-FB lobbyist and personal friend of Zuck named Manny Yekutiel. And SF city politicians are fine taking money from Marc Benioff even though Salesforce has massive contracts with ICE and the DoD. If the other local business tycoons who live in SF actually cared enough about SF, they'd be playing a role in the local politics as well. But, as they don't due to time constraints, what ends up happening is Old Money Real Estate families in SF are able to have an oversized impact on electoral politics in the city.