Thinking About Sovereign Wealth: Death of An Artist

Raising money in the Bay Area is fueled by worldwide demand to own part of its real estate and technology firms. In 2014 Uber took investment from the QIA, a $350B sovereign wealth fund as part of a large $1.2B capital raise. The same nation funding Uber’s euphoric valuation recently sentenced Qatari poet Mohammed al-Ajami to a less euphoric life in prison. Al-Ajami’s crime was privately reciting poems critical of the king.

San Francisco, a city of less than a million residents feels like a coastal village compared to the skylines of Tokyo, New York or London but each of these cities tithes a portion of their wealth

San Francisco the money arrives without the cultural contamination of its origins — the sovereign wealth funds behind many of the most generous valuations are just happy to be a part of the parade.

As word spreads of the pending execution of a Poet in Saudia Arabia reconciling our liberal abundance with the fate of a 35 year old sentenced to death for hints of a secular lifestyle seems anachronistic, as far back and isolated as peine forte et dure in the Massachusetts colony.

While surreal to the Bay Area mindset these intolerant cruelties persist today, and some even suspect influenced the casualties from gunfire just this week in Los Angeles to the south.

Behold, Fortress San Francisco walled behind the purified tithes from around the world, creator of the new gears of society, blameless in their use and blithely unaware.