View the San Francisco for Sunday, August 18, 2024
There are thousands of tech workers who live and work in San Francisco. Like other residents, many of them have become more politically active in recent years. Over that same period, tech moguls and political groups with tech-industry ties have flexed their muscles in local elections.
But the local elected officials, consultants and activists who spoke with The Examiner said they didn’t perceive tech workers as comprising a distinct bloc of voters. They don’t generally see tech employees as a constituency to which they specifically have to appeal. Instead, they see those in the industry as having a wide range of viewpoints reflecting the interests and concerns of city residents as a whole.Working in the tech industry can mean a lot of different things, said state Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat who represents San Francisco. Some people are venture capitalists, some are startup founders. Some work at large tech companies, some at startups, and others work for themselves. And on many issues, you can find people in the tech industry on opposing sides, he said. “I don’t view tech as a monolith,” Wiener said. “And I think that would be disrespectful of folks who are in technology, because ... they are a very, very diverse community who hold a lot of different perspectives.” Twenty years ago, the very idea that San Francisco would have a tech voting bloc would be laughable. The center of the Bay Area’s tech industry was in the South Bay. To the extent that tech workers lived in The City, many of them commuted from there to Silicon Valley.. The City itself draws in a greater share of venture-capital investment than nearly all states — and far more than the valley.of the tech industry’s latest focus, artificial intelligence. And the number of tech workers in the area has swelled. In early 2010, around 46,000 people total worked in the tech industry in San Francisco and San Mateo counties, according to data from the state Employment Development Department. Today that number stands at more than 150,000 — even after the industry shed more than 30,000 jobs in those counties over the last two years. At least in San Francisco, many of those jobs are filled by people who live in The City rather than commute in, according to Ted Egan, San Francisco’s chief economist, citing U.S. Census data. Only a smaller portion of tech workers who live in San Francisco now commute to jobs outside of The City.Current Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan, pictured during the opening day of Web Summit 2018 at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal, has emerged as a powerful influence in San Francisco politics. In recent years, many of the City’s tech moguls have become much more active in local politics. In 2018, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, which raised taxes on businesses to provide housing for homeless people. Venture capitalists David Sacks and Garry Tan were among the leading donors to the 2022 campaigns to recall three school-board members as well as District Attorney Chesa Boudin, and Tan is a board member and backer of local political group GrowSF. Meanwhile, fellow venture capitalist Michael Moritz founded TogetherSF, another political group that has pushed The City to focus on government dysfunction, homelessness and public-safety issues. And Chris Larsen, the executive chairman of cryptocurrency company Ripple, has become a big donor to various local campaigns. But it’s unclear that any of those moguls represent anyone other than themselves, local political experts said. “I don’t know that any of them have individual constituencies,” said one longtime San Francisco political consultant who asked not to be named. To be sure, some of the groups those moguls have founded or backed have built loyal followings. But the people affiliated with the groups aren’t exclusively in the tech industry. And the policies they’ve advocated have resonated beyond just techies. Sachin Agarwal co-founded GrowSF after working for Lyft and Twitter. Initially the group focused on San Francisco’s tech community, which traditionally hadn’t been very engaged in local politics. Although a lot of tech people — including Tan — have donated to the group, Agarwal said he doesn’t see GrowSF today as representing the tech industry or workers. It doesn’t advocate for policies that would benefit the tech industry, he said.Instead, it focuses on issues such as public safety and public education that have broad appeal, he said. The group mailed its voter guide for the March election to every household in The City, and its website in that period drew 100,000 unique visitors, which would represent a sizable chunk of San Francisco’s electorate, Agarwal said. “We’re not about any single industry,” he said. “We are about normal people ... people with families who have kids, who are homeowners who want to stay in The City long term.”Supervisor Hillary Ronen said she has numerous friends who work in the tech industry, but they are independent thinkers. While organizations such as GrowSF recruit from the tech community, they don’t represent the values of her friends or other regular tech workers, Ronen said.Supervisor Hillary Ronen speaking about the San Francisco Reproductive Freedom Act at Planned Parenthood in San Francisco on Tuesday, June 18, 2024. Indeed, within San Francisco’s tech community are a lot of diverse viewpoints — even about industry–related policies, local political experts say. Wiener said there are people in the community on both sides of the debate over his bill that would attempt to prevent artificial-intelligence models from causing catastrophic harm. While many tech people are intensely in favor of housing construction, some aren’t on board with that movement, he said. They have a range of views on policing and public safety and even on who they favor for mayor in November, he said. “In my experience, quote-unquote tech people are as diverse in their political views as anyone else,” Wiener said. Matters such as quality of life, public safety and homelessness are important to many of those in the industry, said the political consultant. But those issues are the top priorities for many San Francisco residents, tech or not, the consultant said. No matter what industry they work in or where they live, residents generally want the same things from The City — a safe place with good schools, affordable housing, frequent and reliable transit service, and activities they can enjoy with friends and family, said Maggie Muir, a political consultant who works with Wiener and Mayor London Breed.Many of those items are the focus of The City’s so-called moderates. But just because tech workers prioritize such things doesn’t mean that they also ascribe to the pro-business policies favored by such centrists, the consultant said. In fact, folks in the industry can’t be counted on to support policies that might benefit their own companies, such as local tax reform, even when those policies are popular, the political consultant said. Instead, it’s not unusual “that tech employees will go out of their way to vote against the interests of their employer,” the consultant said.A Waymo autonomous vehicle on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco on Monday, June 10, 2024. Uber is one of The City’s leading tech companies and one of its biggest private employers. The ride-hailing services it and Lyft offer took off due in no small part to The City’s tech workers. And Waymo is the leading developer of a new iteration of technology — autonomous vehicles and robotaxi services. But those companies have also drawn plenty of criticism over the years, charged with helping undermine the traditional cab industry, treating human drivers as second-class workers, and — in the case of Waymo — offering a service that’s under-tested and potentially unsafe. So one might think that the measure might come out of a backlash against tech, but no: The three authors of the proposition all work or have worked in the industry. Many of the people they’ve signed to support it are in the industry. Although Uber opposes the measure, Prop. L’s backers say don’t see it as particularly antitech. Instead, they see it as a measure that would not only benefit Muni but the ride-hailing services also, said Lian Chang, one of its authors. By keeping the transit system healthy, the measure would encourage people to continue to use the system instead of driving, thus keeping the streets less congested for Uber and Lyft drivers, she said.For her part, Chang said, she sees support for the measure among tech workers as indicative of what actually might be a unifying theme among the community: While many in tech do support transit, what they actually have more broadly in common is what she called a “problem-solving attitude.” Technically minded people love to solve problems; it’s what they do for a living, Chang said. Those who work in the industry have a lot of experience collaborating to find solutions, she said. And especially as the community has become more politically active in recent years, they’ve been looking for ways to address The City’s problems. “There’s a lot of political diversity in tech, so it doesn’t all go in one way,” Chang said. “But there is that problem-solving vibe.”Monday marks the first day of school for nearly 50,000 San Francisco public-school students, and many of The City’s parents say they are approaching the new year with optimism amid the challenges that lie ahead. Public schools across the state are starting the year cash-strapped, as declining enrollment and the loss of federal pandemic relief funds force districts to do more with less. The San Francisco Unified School District is no exception. The district is contending with a budget deficit that requires immediate corrective actions — including a Superintendent Matt Wayne said the ensuing school closure-and-merger process will be “undeniably challenging.” But many parents and public-school advocates expressed a glass-half-full attitude ahead of their children’s first day of school. “We’re mindful of the challenges that may arise from SFUSD’s resource alignment initiative, including potential school closures and mergers,” Eddie Kaufman, executive director of Mission Graduates, told The Examiner. Kaufman said his program, which provides after-school programming for SFUSD teenagers, “ navigated evolving educational landscapes for over 50 years” and that his team is prepared to adapt programs as needed. “We see this as a chance to reinforce our commitment to equitable education,” he said. “Focusing on student success allows us to adapt to change while consistently supporting our students’ journeys from kindergarten to career, regardless of the challenges ahead.” Still, parents said the necessary cost-cutting will deepen festering wounds for families that layoffs and staff shortages have already affected. Sam Murphy, parent of two students at Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School, told The Examiner that she fears assistant-principal layoffs at elementary schools will pull resources from special-education students. She said assistant principals are often the ones that administer individualized education programs that special-education students require for daily instruction. “When we needed my daughter’s paraprofessional to have training, and time to coordinate with the classroom teacher, the assistant principal executed the plan within union contract agreements,” she said. “This cut by the superintendent places a larger burden on the principals of those schools, just in scheduling IEP meetings alone.”Buena Vista Horace Mann School, pictured on Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021, has had yearslong facility issues that continue to concern parents. Murphy said that she continues to be concerned about facility issues at Buena Vista Horace Mann. Elevated levels of lead were found in the 100-year-old campus’ faucets in 2022, and a rat infestation and falling ceiling tilesBut “poorly worked out plans for temporary location during construction may tear apart” the BVHM community, Murphy said. The elephant in the classroom is the question of which facilities will close permanently. The district is exploring closing, merging and relocating an undetermined number of schools, and families have voiced concerns over which ones will be selected. Still, the move is necessary in order for the district to truly balance its budget, said Patrick Wolff, executive director of Families for San Francisco. “The immediate imperative right now is to get the budget under control. And unfortunately, resource alignment will ultimately lead to much better uses of resources,” he told The Examiner. But “the district is doing a lot all at once that’s painful,” he said. He said that his hope is the district will be transparent with affected families as the process continues. “It’s so important that we work as hard as we can to get to a shared understanding of where we are and why we’re here before we even debate where to go,” he said. There are still silver linings to celebrate. Siva Raj, parent of an A.P. Giannini Middle School student, said the first day is especially significant. “For the first time in over a decade, kids are going to be walking into algebra class in eighth grade more than half the middle schools in our city,” he said. “And I think that’s pretty solid.” His oldest son graduated from the district last year and wasn’t given that opportunity during his time in middle school, Raj said.Siva Raj, co-founder of parent group SF Guardians: “We’re not helping kids if you don’t challenge them enough. They need to be set up for success in life.” The parent group SF Guardians, which Raj co-founded, put pressure on the school district to reintroduce algebra classes before high school. After a lengthy back-and-forth between parents and the district,“That’s a big deal,” Raj said. “And I think it’s a big step for the district to kind of acknowledge that, hey, we f---d up, right?”“We’re not helping kids if you don’t challenge them enough,” he said. “They need to be set up for success in life. And the district needs to hold itself accountable to making sure that every kid who graduates actually has the ability to build a successful career.” Challenging curriculum and access to resources will entice families to enroll — and re-enroll — in the district, Raj said. Academy High School teacher Roberta Lawrinsky said she is hoping the district does more to ensure those students show up to classes., 63% of Californians who responded said they are very or somewhat concerned about chronic absenteeism in their local public schools. “A percentage of students show up to school once every two weeks or once a week, on average, so they don’t complete their classes nor do they gather sufficient units to graduate,” Lawrinsky told The Examiner.“Counselors and teachers are blocked from connecting ,” she said. “Their phone number given to the school is not in service and the email on file at school is not current.” San Francisco’s deep-seated homelessness crisis contributes to the district’s chronic absenteeism problem, Lawrinsky said, because a portion of students are unhoused themselves. “Home visits are scheduled, although they are the very last item on the to-do list, or the home address may be the third blue tent on the corner of Geary and Ellis,” she said. Educators such as Lawrinsky serve as the conduit between schools and families. Despite the challenges SFUSD grapples with, many parents pointed to teachers when asked why they remained hopeful for the new school year. Raj said his family is settling into the A.P. Giannini community, which became a support system to him and his son. “You kind of lean on each other to help you out and, like, navigate this strange new world that you landed in,” he said. “And it’s especially valuable to have that school community for so many reasons.”“They love their teachers, principal and staff,” she said. “Our school is doing something right to have my children, who struggle with disability, to still love school and learning.” And Wolff offered cautious optimism that the district will balance its budget to avoid state takeover and make due on its promise to provide all students with the resources they need to succeed. “I’m 100% confident that the district can,” he said. “I’m 100% confident that Matt Wayne will put forward a balanced budget. The Board of Education then needs to adopt it.”President Joe Biden’s administration has assisted The City in many areas, including pandemic response, transportation and housing, writes San Francisco Mayor London Breed.Click and hold your mouse button on the page to select the area you wish to save or print. You can click and drag the clipping box to move it or click and drag in the bottom right corner to resize it. When you're happy with your selection, click the checkmark icon next to the clipping area to continue.This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!Create a password that only you will remember. If you forget it, you'll be able to recover it using your email address.Forgot Password An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the email address listed on your account.
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