“There’s no other city in the world that is so global, being so intimate.” -- Santiago Corredoira Jack, Veon Group
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Today's top story comes from my long-time neighborhood news source, Mission Local:
"Older tech workers may be leaving San Francisco, but the young and hungry — including those with startup dreams — are moving in."
If you know even a smidgeon about San Francisco's boom-and-bust history, you know that a big-time renewal after the pandemic was bound to happen.
I certainly did and I've been waiting for the evidence to show up. Now it has started.
But I should explain. For the many people who have never given up on life elsewhere to flee to the sanctuary on the coast, San Francisco may seem like a quaint little tourist destination.
They come, take rides on the cable cars, eat Ghiradelli's chocolate, sourdough bread, visit Chinatown, take photos of the Golden Gate Bridge and buy T-shirts saying "I Left My 💜 in San Francisco."
And that is fine and it is good. We love them for loving our town -- tourism is our biggest revenue-producer.
But those of us who came and stayed here haven't been doing that since the Gold Rush of 1849 just because sometimes we find gold. No. People come here for a more fundamental reason -- to try and make their dreams come true.
Of course it sounds corny and it *is* corny but sometimes what we all need a little more corniness. And the would-be entrepreneurs who come here aren't just settling into a new place -- they are *leaving* another place.
A place where it turned out that their dreams could not come true. They may not come true here either but for those of us wired in a certain way this is our best chance and it is also the end of the line.
Allow me to tell a personal story. Once upon a time there was a boy who grew up in the Midwest, went to a great university there, discovered he could write and that he felt passionately about the injustice and racism and war and environmental destruction all around him.
Not only did he write about those things, he took part in demonstrations, got arrested and wrote about *that* too. When he graduated from college with a degree in journalism, he expected he would easily find a job in his home state, where his professors would recommend him as a promising young leader in his field.
Wrong! He couldn't find a job anywhere despite multiple applications. Finally one of his former professors, probably feeling sorry for him, confided to him what the problem was.
"The newspaper editors call us to check you guys out before they hire you and there is a blacklist. If you participated in the anti-war and civil rights demonstrations, your name is on it. You'll never get hired around here."
Soon after, he left that place and ended up in San Francisco, where such personal histories were not cause for exclusion but inclusion. What made you a pariah back there gave you street cred here.
Plus here you didn't need the old companies. You could start your own new ones. Or at least you could try to.
Today's entrepreneurs may have very different circumstances and there probably aren't any blacklists anymore but they are still leaving from somewhere to come here because there is no place quite like San Francisco.
Our second headline today is not an article but a book called "The Entrepreneur's Face." Some of today's newcomers may just wish to give it a shot as they set off the next start-up boom in the city by the bay. One of the authors is my friend.
And let me be crystal clear what I am predicting here: A new wave of startups. I don't yet know how they will be different from the dot.com boom and web 2.0 but they will be. For now let's just call it the post-Covid boom.
Welcome to San Francisco.
***
I've got to admit something and that's that I'm on a serious kick of watching romantic comedies again. It started exactly two weeks ago after a long hiatus. By this point I know when this happens what is going on with me.
Hope comes, hope goes, sometimes after it's gone it comes back again. The stars align and I start believing in life and love again. And I love movies that make me laugh and cry at the same time.
They're a lot like real life. They're a lot like real love.
So my latest film crush is "No Strings Attached," with Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher. Got to watch it multiple times to get this out of my system.
THE HEADLINES:
* Older tech workers may be leaving San Francisco, but the young and hungry — including those with startup dreams — are moving in. (Mission Local)
* The Entrepreneur's Face -- How Makers, Visionaries and Outsiders Succeed" by Jonathan Littman and Susanna Camp (Snowball Narrative Press)
* How to Achieve Sustainable Remote Work -- Companies must move away from surveillance and visible busyness, and toward defined outcomes and trust. (New Yorker)
* Citizens, Not the State, Will Enforce New Abortion Law in Texas -- The measure bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. And it effectively deputizes ordinary citizens to sue people involved in the process. (NYT)
* Charlottesville removes Confederate statue at center of deadly 2017 protest (Reuters)
* Biden’s effort to rein in corporate powerhouses sets off battle over who holds economic power -- Containing 72 initiatives, President Biden’s executive order is striking in its scope and ambition. (WP)
* Taliban Enter Kandahar City and Seize Border Posts -- The insurgent assaulted a vital city in Afghanistan’s south on Friday, less than 24 hours after President Biden reaffirmed his decision to withdraw from the country. (NYT)
* With an uptick in Covid-19 cases, there is growing alarm. 'We've seen almost an entire takeover in the Delta variant,' one state official says (CNN)
* Covid-19 Pandemic Led to Big Swings in Median Pay (WSJ)
* How We'll Know When The COVID-19 Crisis Is Over (NPR)
* Tears, politics and money: School boards become battle zones (AP)
* Heat-Related Deaths Increase as Temperatures Rise in the West -- Record-breaking heat was expected throughout the West Coast this weekend, days after a deadly heat wave struck Oregon and Washington State. (NYT)
* Death Valley soars to 130 degrees, matching Earth’s highest temperature in at least 90 years (WP)
* G20 warns of risk to global recovery from virus variants (Reuters)
* FDA head urges probe of agency’s dealings with maker of controversial Alzheimer’s drug (WP)
* Smoke, extreme heat pose harsh test for West Coast vineyards (AP)
* The C.D.C. Issues New School Guidance, With Emphasis on Full Reopening -- The guidance acknowledges that many students have suffered from months of virtual learning. (NYT)
* The science of heat domes and how drought and climate change make them worse (WP)
* China’s gene giant harvests data from millions of women (Reuters)
* The public needs more answers on the children lost to Native American boarding schools (WP)
* Oath Keepers Leader Sits for F.B.I. Questioning Against Legal Advice -- In a bold move, Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the right-wing militia group, sat for an interview with federal agents after they seized his phone in May. (NYT)
* Heat, wind spur California fire; evacuation hits Nevada area (AP)
* Did a Cuttlefish Write This? -- Octopuses and squid are full of cephalopod character. But more scientists are making the case that cuttlefish hold the key to unlocking evolutionary secrets about intelligence. (NYT)
* For singer Jakob Dylan, ‘your heart has to be in everything you’re doing, or everything’s pointless’ (WP)
* Giant cat looms over Shinjuku (NHK)
* Giraffes get frozen treats in heatwave (Reuters)
* Warner Bros studio tour expands with DC Universe, Potter -- Batman’s secret cave, Harry Potter’s cupboard under the stairs and the infamous “Friends” apartment are major centerpieces to the huge Warner Bros. studio lot expansion. (AP)
* Mom Sent On Fact-Finding Mission To Read What Parking Sign Down Street Says (The Onion)
***
"San Francisco"
Just to think of her, it gives my heart a pang
I never will forget, how that brave Jeanette
Just stood there in the ruins and sang, and sang...
You'll let nobody wait outside your door
San Francisco, here is your wanderin' one
Saying I'll wander no more.
Tell me you're the one in all the golden west
San Francisco, I'm coming home again
Never to roam again...
I really come alive...
And you will laugh to see me,
Perpendicular, hanging on a cable car
Up and down Market Street
I'm gonna climb Nob Hill, just to watch it get dark
From the top of the mark
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