If I were a Google multi-millionaire living in San Francisco, here’s what I’d do
A lot of my friends have been talking about all the protests against the Google bus. Someone asked me what I thought, and I said, “it’s dumb—I’d rather have 45 people in one vehicle driving down 101 than 45 cars.” They said, “But those people shouldn’t live in San Francisco at all. If they work in Mountain View they should live there. They are ruining this city.”
People want to live in San Francisco because it has energy, it’s full of interesting people, amazing food, it has history, it’s beautiful. I moved to San Francisco in 1990 and shared a one-bedroom apartment with a friend, we paid $325 each, just a half a block from Zeitgeist on Elgin Park. In 1994 I got my first Silicon Valley job, at General Magic, which was in Sunnyvale. I drove my little 1987 Volkswagen GTI down and back every day for two years. The commute was worth it because I love San Francisco, my friends were here, and General Magic was an amazing company founded by the people who created the Apple Macintosh. Throughout my career I’ve worked in Palo Alto, Redwood City, and San Mateo (also San Francisco when I happened to get a job in town). I do not support the blind mandate that people should live in the city they work in, especially when the cities in question are vast expanses of Baja Fresh and TJ Maxx.
The actual problem that the Google Bus protesters are upset about is a real problem—housing prices are so high that the energetic, interesting people that have traditionally migrated here will now never be able to move to San Francisco unless they have a tech job. And what that means is that San Francisco is in danger of becoming just like Sunnyvale—homogenous and dull.
IF I were a Google employee right now and the bus protests were tugging at my conscience, here’s what I’d do: I’d start buying up apartment buildings. Then, without kicking anyone out, as my units became available I’d offer them to people kicked out of their houses by the Ellis Act, who are going to art school, who bartend, who are teachers and auto repair guys and chefs. I’d charge rent, but not a lot.
VCs always say that they’re investing in the people with the ideas, and they’re prepared to lose more than half the time. Why not invest in something more concrete than another shopping comparison app or targeted ad platform/cloud storage/social monetization technology?
I have some friends with well-known and well-appreciated food and beverage endeavors here in San Francisco. They told me that a consortium of tech billionaires, like Instagram and Twitter founders, are starting to invest in clubs and restaurants and coffee roasting facilities around. They clearly want to encourage part of what makes San Francisco great, the whole food creation and appreciation landscape. Why not invest in the people who could be the next wave of artisans, teachers, winemakers, or even just bike messengers?
Capitalism as it is now is going to have to change anyways, the world is getting broken by the disparity between those who are good at making money and everyone else, the people that are doing essential things for a society to exist—raising kids! Growing food! Picking up garbage! Tech zillionaires wind up starting some foundation to “give back” and they parcel out money to various charities to fix big problems in the world (Gates Foundation, Omidyar Network). Why not get a little less removed from the people living next to you and instead of supporting “charity,” just be a landlord with real low rents who’s not a huge prick caring only about money?
