A friend is constantly bugging me about moving to SF. I understand it is tech central but the PR of the city is just really not great currently.
Currently? The place is unrecognizable to us Californians since the late 90s; it's been a cesspool created by a long series of events, which at it's core has to do with wealth inequality, and overt NIMBY-ism and gentrification coupled with mental health issues and ends with substance abuse and crime: and it's been like this for some time, but it's only now that the monied interests are having to deal with the very real prospect of having land/building depreciate they call foul and are using the media to leverage the undoing of WFH.
This is big tech's blight, and I want nothing more for them to finally own up to this and do something about it, instead of enabling the squalor that they have created: even as a person in tech it's hard not to give credence to the techno-feudalism arguments many of it's detractors point out as the inevitable outcome from constant wealth and power consolidation given this reality.
Examples: https://missionlocal.org/2017/06/queers-hate-techies-gay-sha... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_tech_bus_protest...
That frightens me, because the last time I was in San Francisco was in the late 90s for an event at the Moscone Center. It was so shockingly bad then that I've avoided going back. The poverty, filth and drugs were a nightmare. I got followed down the street by a very angry man yelling at me, seemingly for the crime of smiling and nodding at him as I walked past. If those were the good old days, it must be bad.
Doesn't SF have the highest concentration of leftists and progresives in the whole US?
But not enough progressives to get those homeless drug addicts homes and rehab, so they stop stealing things and shitting in the street.
But even so, those are loosely held ideals as the last few decades have shown that such trivial things will not get in the way of protecting their wealth. Idealism is set aside when it comes to ensuring inexplicable perpetual growth in one's most valuable asset.
That's what I meant. My English is a bit broken.
I have kids now, and affordance aside the family opportunities here are sparse. So for me the time has passed. But I think anyone building their career in tech should at least consider a temporary stint in SF, or perhaps somewhere similarly tech dense (NY? Seattle?).