In Defense of San Francisco

And reads on getting scammed, Hermes, and five years of IQ

Last week I stopped over in Geneva on my way back home to San Francisco.

Walking through Geneva….you get the sense that Switzerland has it figured out. Per capita GDP is extremely high so everything is very expensive. But that’s because Geneva actually a well designed a city with strong public transportation infrastructure, great public amenities (bridges, waterfront views, bike lanes), and a healthy and thriving population.

Then I come back to San Francisco. And while it’s still the city where I’ve decided to lay down my roots for the long term (more on this later), it just doesn’t feel like it was designed as well with stagnant public transportation infrastructure, low housing development and modernization, and of course rising homelessness.

But personally, what draws me back to San Francisco after nomading the world for 3 years is that it’s still the best overall place I’ve ever lived in. And for some reason that statement itself can generate controversy.

Here’s my defense - San Francisco is great and gets shit on so much because it’s second best at everything. Therefore is is the city with the most compromises and overall best living conditions in the United States. Which also the easiest to pick a fight against because it just can’t win in any singular category (except for tech jobs, but even then people will say the salary to cost of living ratio is not as good as other cities).

For example:

• The weather isn’t as sunny and warm as SoCal or Hawaii, but name another region with better overall weather. NYC is scorching hot and frigid cold. Texas is even hotter in the summer and somehow still very cold during winter. Yet SF has mild temperatures between 55 and 65 every single day.

• Everyone complains about the public transportation but somehow it’s still second to the NYC region in the U.S. If you look at data on ridership as well - it’s squarely in the second tier of cities with similar amounts of commuter public transit ridership.

• A common complaint is that places close early and it’s got bad nightlife compared to NYC and Miami. But is there any other city in the U.S. that has better nightlife that’s not specifically a vacationer party city like Vegas or New Orleans?

• In terms of winter sports, Colorado and Utah have better snow and closer resorts but Tahoe has 14 ski resorts with world class infrastructure and is only a 3 hour drive away.

• Cities in the Pacific Northwest probably have better nature and hiking access but SF and the Bay Area is a close second with a mix of mountains and coastline with Yosemite, Big Sur, etc. And to all people that think nature is better in SoCal - try to find something that’s the color green down there…

• Certain parts of San Jose, Irvine, or LA have more Asian food areas but San Francisco competes or is a close second.

• Everyone in the city lives within 10 minutes of a park.

• It’s surfing is not as good as top tier in Hawaii but Ocean Beach is still very good and we’re just a 90 minute drive from the most consistently surfable place in the world.

So these are it’s best features. But even if you look at the cons of San Francisco - it’s still not the WORST place. It’s somehow still second worst.

• SF is expensive but still second to NYC when looking at overall cost of living.

• In property crimes it’s 4th in the nation but if you filter out cities that have nominally high violet crimes, then it’s 2nd behind my hometown of Vancouver, WA?! SF is a relatively safe city from a violent crime standpoint however.

• In homelessness - SF is still behind LA, NYC, and Seattle on a per capita basis.

• Lack of diversity - I have no statistics to determine what people call diversity.

Anyway, you might look at my reasons why SF is second best and think, WTF, why would anyone care about density of Asian food and surfable waves per year?

But that’s the beauty in our opinions. If you enjoy something more than the people around you - you can find cities where you’re willing to make adjustments to end up living there and naturally attract people that also find it enticing to live long term.

Overall though, I do think most people’s cons of San Francisco can be refuted with data and a broader exploration of areas of San Francisco that are not just SOMA and the Mission district. The city has a lot of gems - and so there’s a reason why it’s so expensive.

Things to Share

• Here’s a story about how a women getting scammed out of $50,000. It reads a bit unbelievable at first because as the reader you → 1. know what’s going to happen to her and 2. are reading it and not living it. But put in her shoes, it’s hard to determine if you can’t also get scammed in a similar situation. The core thesis for why this scam works is that the scammer slowly changes your baseline reality over time. They started with some level of authoritative proof with knowing the last four digits on her social security number and then slowly distort reality with more and more unbelievable things like telling a layered lie that is so far from reality by the end until it’s too late.

• I’m not so much into reading different metaphors on how Hermes sells time as much as I believe that the company is truly selling a story. The difference between Birkin bags and NFTs is that Hermes has a track record of 200+ years while NFTs and crypto have maybe 2 to 3. And so at the end of the day the length of the brand and reputation is what matters more. “Selling time” IMO is just another bullshit branding piece that the CEO understands is part of their product.

• Speaking of brand, Interview Query started five years ago and I was reminded of it last week when I stopped over in London with my friend Kate. We were part of a bigger group trip five years before when I started working on the product. I remember the conviction I had talking to a friend about it in the trip and further points in the trip where I decided to, instead of going out that night, spend some time in the Airbnb working on the project. Time really does fly by.