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Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan’s War on San Francisco Politics Has Only Just Begun

67 points by programd 3y ago

kr0bat 3y ago
A politcal landscape of career politicians and undignified, multi-millionare ideologues may be better than a landscape of just career politicians; I'm not sure if it's much better, however.
- ipnon 3y ago
  A successful political system is more about surviving to the next round of the game than scoring highly in any particular round. And voting usually boils down to choosing between what makes you sick and what kills you. Politics is certainly not a career for the faint of heart.
samr71 3y ago
Godspeed you, Garry Tan! May the painted ladies be demolished and replaced with supertall skyscrapers jam-packed with cheap apartments, maker spaces, and startup incubators! (I say this with no sarcasm. SF should look like Manhattan; allow a few historic houses but most gotta go.)
- moomoo11 3y ago
  One earthquake later…
  - newZWhoDis 3y ago
    Tall buildings fair better in earthquakes due to resonance.
    - Zigurd 3y ago
      Is anyone taking bets on Millennium Tower? Are those bets cheaper than insurance?
      - phendrenad2 3y ago
        Well, Millennium Tower is an outlier. A boondoggle. They should take it down and start over.
      - armchairhacker 3y ago
        Idk about Millennium Tower but see Taipei 101: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipei_101#Structural_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipei_101#Structural_design > Taipei 101 is designed to withstand typhoon winds and earthquake tremors that are common in the area in the east of Taiwan. Evergreen Consulting Engineering, the structural engineer, designed Taipei 101 to withstand gale winds of 60 meters per second (197 ft/s), (216 km/h or 134 mph), as well as the strongest earthquakes in a 2,500-year cycle. > During construction, on 31 March 2002, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake rocked Taipei; two construction cranes from the 56th floor, the highest floor at the time, toppled. Five people died in the accident, but an inspection showed no structural damage to the building, and construction soon resumed
      - baron816 3y ago
        The worst case scenario for Millennium Tower is that it will lean so much that the elevators don’t work anymore. That’s it.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  If only Manhattan were known for cheap apartments
  - akavi 3y ago
    Sounds to me like there’s demand for a second one then
- 7e 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - pohuing 3y ago
    The people have to live somewhere. Put them in a skyscraper instead of square miles of suburbs with sterile lawns and zero biodiversity.
    - TimedToasts 3y ago
      I cannot think of a region of this planet with LESS biodiversity than Manhattan/San Fran/megalopolii. "Concrete Jungle" is just a euphemism.
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        But that region of low biodiversity prevents those humans from spreading across a huge swath of land and ruining biodiversity for thousands of miles in every direction
  - ctoth 3y ago
    > Even better, don't build even more breeding habitat for an expanding population which is choking the earth. Ah, the anti-human shows through. I guess we should just ... what, with the people then?
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    Literally the more developed a country is, the lower it's birth rate. More education, especially women's education, less religiosity and better contraceptive prevalence is all you need. The US is already at 1.6 births per woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1 You don't need "less breeding habitat" you just need more development.
- striking 3y ago
  If you want to live in Manhattan, go live in Manhattan. I run by the Painted Ladies regularly as the sun rises and I love being able to see the skyline behind them. Sure, we should have higher density apartments in more areas, but they'll probably still all cost the same, the demand is pretty unlikely to be met and landlords will continue to charge insane rents no matter what. They'll probably all be luxury apartments as everyone is looking to maximize their profits.
  - doomroot 3y ago
    Increasing any amount of supply will decrease prices while demand stays constant. Do you have reason to believe demand will grow at the same rate as new housing is built?
    - rurp 3y ago
      I mean, yes? Housing prices have continued to shoot up in many western cities despite large increases in housing supply. It's weird to me that the concept of induced demand is pretty common knowledge when it comes to road traffic, but mostly ignored in housing discussions.
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        >I mean, yes? Housing prices have continued to shoot up in many western cities despite large increases in housing supply. Well yes, because we have decades of undersupply to correct! Of course a small step in the right direction doesn't magically fix everything. We need to build WAAAAYYY more, like to a vast overabundance, which capitalism unaided can never do because a builder will never start building a hundred rooms if that makes the market go down because that would ruin their profits elsewhere. I would be surprised if, after there is enough supply, there is an "induced demand" effect for housing. Humans take like 20 years to go from born to needing a house, and most people don't choose to have children when they otherwise wouldn't because of cheap housing.
    - nradov 3y ago
      As long as the Federal government has a de facto open borders policy, demand will continue growing. I'm not trying to start an off-topic debate about immigration policy here, but regardless of your feelings on that issue the reality is that today we have a lot of people crossing the border and looking for places to live. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-allowing-hundreds-of-thousands-of-venezuelans-in-the-country-to-work-legally https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-allowing-hundreds-of-...
- woodruffw 3y ago
  > May the painted ladies be demolished and replaced with supertall skyscrapers jam-packed with cheap apartments, maker spaces, and startup incubators! Without value judgement: Manhattan doesn't look like this. The parts you're thinking of (midtown and downtown) are full of luxury skyscrapers; the majority of the "cheap" (by relative standards) housing is in the north of the borough in 6-10 story apartment buildings.
  - bilbo0s 3y ago
    I was just going to say this. This guy clearly doesn't know Manhattan real estate. A skyscraper full of cheap apartments in Manhattan? Only in the fever dreams of the relative peasants with 6 figure salaries. Besides, geotechnical engineering is your friend. A landscape of supertalls may not be the best way to go for San Fran's geography.
- coding123 3y ago
  We'll just have more leaning towers - SF land is horrible to build on, unless the foundation hammered in for months - even then I wouldn't trust it for tall skyscrapers.
- nradov 3y ago
  Do people who actually live and vote in San Francisco want to turn it into another Manhattan? If we want more super tall skyscrapers jam packed with cheap apartments and offices then why should they be built in SF specifically? Why not Bakersfield or Cleveland?
  - paddy_m 3y ago
    San Francisco (and cities in general) are places of great opportunity. Limiting that opportunity only to incumbents who already live there is stifling to our nation as a whole, and it's cruel. As a thought experiment, what if we treated immigrants to the country in the same manner... "What if existing US residents don't want to turn it into Mexico by allowing Mexicans into the country. Why can't the Mexicans go to Canada or Guatemala". Allowing more housing to be built is key to allowing more opportunity in a vibrant and active community. Allowing more housing to be built reduces housing costs which lets people flourish. Dense urban areas obviate the need for a car, reducing greenhouse gasses and isolation. All of these are good things.
    - khazhoux 3y ago
      > San Francisco (and cities in general) are places of great opportunity. Limiting that opportunity only to incumbents who already live there is stifling to our nation as a whole, and it's cruel. Instead of punishing residents by doubling their population density (more traffic, more crowded schools, etc), the mega-companies (the "great opportunity") should start hiring elsewhere. And of course we're already seeing that happening post-pandemic. These companies need an endless supply of engineers, sales, and support staff to build out their ad-revenue engines, so that the execs can continue receiving their multi-million RSUs every year... and somehow the residents are cruel for not wanting their city and neighborhoods to change to accommodate them?
      - dotnet00 3y ago
        You're phrasing that as if the residents aren't thrilled to have the megacorporation there. They want the company there to drive up their house's value without having to deal with the consequences.
- babl-yc 3y ago
  San Francisco could add a ton of housing without adding super tall skyscrapers across the city. Maybe some YIMBYs want to Manhattanize SF but certainly not all of them. Paris has a height limit of 12 stories for most parts of the city https://www.archdaily.com/1002165/paris-reimposes-the-ban-on-skyscrapers-after-tour-triangle-controversy https://www.archdaily.com/1002165/paris-reimposes-the-ban-on... Hopefully the San Francisco BoS does their part and approves reasonable housing so it's not purely up to developers with SB 35/423.
tikkun 3y ago
> Over the course of two hours, the CEO of startup incubator Y Combinator personally attacks or retweets criticism of “extremist judges,” whom he accuses of emboldening criminals with the help of local media; any supervisor who dares to oppose bonuses to hire more cops; Nancy Pelosi and lawmakers concerned about the safety of autonomous vehicles; education activists who want to change math curriculum in public schools; venture capitalists who are “evil” to startup founders; “decels” who want to pump the brakes on technological progress; Apple’s monopoly on apps; YouTube censors; and last, but certainly not least, NIMBYs. I once learned a lot about helping people with alcohol addition for a family friend. A few of the things I learned were: 1) labeling the person as an alcoholic will make them drink more 2) yelling at them and forcing them to defend themselves will make them drink more 3) any kind of aggressive intervention will make them drink more. Unfortunately, attacking people generally serves to make them feel defensive and want to defend themselves. When we defend ourselves, that generally makes us dig in further. I'll note that I hope that SF shifts in the direction of Garry's vision, and I'm in favor of the end outcome. If Garry's goal is attention ("if you want to get an audience, start a fight") then attacks are a good method. If his goal is to change minds, I'd note that he may be more successful if he picks up a few books on helping people who have addictions, and borrows some of the methods from them (in short: make them first feel understood by you, and understand their hesitations and what makes them tick). He could kind of treat it like he's doing customer development for a startup. Find people who've gone from one side to the other, talk to them about their journey, and so on. The main point I'm hoping to emphasize is that attacking the other side like this to win may result in victory, but it won't result in peace.
- lazide 3y ago
  Ho man. If ever there was a place that was a perfect example of the limits of this approach, it’s SF. How is that peace and understanding coming along in dealing with that street drugs/addiction problem? How is that non-confrontation approach to politics on getting things done/getting effective decisions made?
  - bilbo0s 3y ago
    How is that non-confrontation approach to politics on getting things done/getting effective decisions made? Just Devil's Advocate, but in DC we have a confrontational approach and we still get nothing done. Nor do we get any effective decisions made. My suspicion is that anyone doing anything other than collaborating with each other, is probably not getting anything real done. I guess I'm just not sure any of what you said is unique to San Fran. Or even if the opposite of what you just said would yield any better results in San Fran. In fact, I'm positive that it won't, because that's not really a San Fran problem. That's the public discourse problem that we've been having in the US nationally for 30 plus years now.
tayo42 3y ago
I liked living in sf when I was there. One nice thing about moving is not having to feel like I care about all these little political battles people get outraged about. Something about that city attracts the most toxic and loud people like this. Every city has problems, but there is a lot of media and internet outrage about sf.
ivraatiems 3y ago
It's embarrassing to watch a CEO of anything fire off what they think are 'pithy' and 'clever' tweets. It's pathetic when Musk does it and it's no better here. Doesn't he have something better to do with his time as the CEO of YCombinator? Edit: To be clear, I don't care about the content of the tweets, I'm not taking a position on Tan's politics. I just can't fathom him spending time on this stuff.
- mikeodds 3y ago
  I guess YC has a vested interest in SF being a liveable and safe city which seems reasonable.
  - ivraatiems 3y ago
    If they have a vested interest in anything, how is a pithy tweet the mechanism for achieving it?
    - phendrenad2 3y ago
      [flagged]
    - ipnon 3y ago
      I would submit that it’s influencing the public discourse, since it’s being reported in the Standard and now we are contesting the issues in these comments. Public discourse affects politics, and politics affect our lives. Some people think SF can do better!
    - helicalmix 3y ago
      Why assume a pithy tweet is the only mechanism they’re using?
    - ilikehurdles 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - 3y ago
mberning 3y ago
The coin of the realm. Nice Hellraiser reference. Very apt allusion to the state of San Francisco.
ipnon 3y ago
The “tech bro” angle of critique is getting stale, although I understand the reasoning. People are fine with those who solve problems. It is the people who modify the set of problems they must deal with that upsets them, even if the problem set is net smaller.
- deleted 3y ago
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femiagbabiaka 3y ago
Paper funded by one VC publishes glowing writeup on another VC, talking about how everyone else is just getting it wrong and we all need to get into.. effective accelerationism. (What is it about tech and the word effective?) We promise, say VC's, that if you just get rid of one more $PERSON_GARRY_TAN_DOESNT_LIKE, everything will magically get better, despite no fruit coming from that tree so far. I, the millionaire tech investor, am the real scrappy working class person, not like those supervisors, I really care about you. Also go SFPD.
- ilikehurdles 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - femiagbabiaka 3y ago
    I wish it was snark. It's actually just the truth.
    - ilikehurdles 3y ago
      Oh, this is not snark? > I, the millionaire tech investor, am the real scrappy working class person, not like those supervisors, I really care about you. Also go SFPD. That’s not snark? Ok in that case I 100% agree with you. And thank you for your investments into our community. Fully support SFPD. Fund the police. And yes, a tech investor in SF is without a hint of a doubt a harder working, more valuable person than those supervisors. As are a lot of other people. For a second, your comment sounded like the meaningless drivel from the twitter-born progressive activist class that has inundated the politics of west coast cities. And all of us living in urban centers across these states have become completely tired of it. It was interesting in 2015. It’s toxic in 2023.
      - femiagbabiaka 3y ago
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mattdeboard 3y ago
[flagged]
- BryanBeshore 3y ago
  Ahh yea, it has nothing to do with the massive amount of crime, violence, decay and grift by those enabling it. A person can be both ‘rich’ and want better for the community they choose to be part of.
  - mattdeboard 3y ago
    where you and i differ is thinking that more cops & more prisons actually solves anything. i'm getting old, and watching the ultra rich play the same tune on the same horn, exploiting people's legit fears & concerns to stump for the same ineffective solutions that have proven over and over and over and over and over again to be nothing but gussied-up racial & socioeconomic oppression is getting old too. we've already done the carceral state thing. It doesn't solve anything. history has taught us this lesson already. it's brain-dead to keep pimping for it like he's doing.
- ianbutler 3y ago
  Doesn't mean he's not right. I'm from NYC, and at 10x the population we seem to have a much better handle on violent and property crime as well as sanitation per capita.
  - mattdeboard 3y ago
    No I get it, warehousing poor and mentally ill people in prisons definitely hides social problems from rich people & lets us pretend we've fixed something meaningful. Cops & prisons are a great way to do that.
    - ianbutler 3y ago
      I wonder how much of the car robberies are mentally ill people? I wonder how much of the shop lifting is mentally ill people? Hiding actual criminals behind a group that does deserve help while doing nothing to protect your every day populace is absurd. It's not just hiding social problems from rich people, it's protecting the shift worker who's car window just got smashed for the 3rd time in a year and really can't afford that shit.
pwarner 3y ago
I'm not following the details of this closely, but it sounds like he's a Democrat criticizing Democrats in SF for going to far left. Often these critiques from within the party are the best. There are lots of voices on the Republican side who see that party shifting too far right. I find those voices trying to pull to the center the most useful from both sides.
- davidguetta 3y ago
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- compsciphd 3y ago
  we'd all do better a country (IMO) if we all were more willing to criticize our allies for failing our supposed shared values than for criticizing our opponents for failing the values we believe they should have. This won't win elections, so it wont happen (easily at least).
- banannaise 3y ago
  Republican politicians are significantly to the right of their constituents. Democratic politicians are also significantly to the right of their constituents. And the solution of mainstream Democrats appears to be... embracing the left wing of the Republican party, while rejecting the left wing of their own party, thus ceding significant power to the Republican party as a whole (the left wing of which happily goes along with the right wing's lunacy). Is it good that we have to play "my team/your team" with politics? No, but it becomes a simple prisoner's dilemma. One team plays "always defect" and the other team... insists that not defecting is the right thing to do, and thus loses repeatedly.
  - the_snooze 3y ago
    I think the solution is simple: Democrats need to vote in Republican primaries and pull that party back closer to the center. Primaries are low-turnout affairs, so a Democratic bloc can put the scare in any nutso incumbent.
TheCaptain4815 3y ago
I wonder what it would take for folks like that to vote GOP. Given the issues he brings up being so extreme, that still isn't enough?
- deleted 3y ago
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- khazhoux 3y ago
  Won't happen, because they view the Left as well-intentioned, but --in the case of SF-- badly executed in some specific policies. Whereas they view the Right/GOP as fundamentally ill-intentioned: theocratic, increasingly authoritarian, etc.
- djur 3y ago
  To paraphrase an old saying about bipartisanship, no matter how poorly run the restaurant you're eating in is, if the competition across the street is serving tire rims and anthrax you're going to stay put.
  - TheCaptain4815 3y ago
    I get that for social issues, but when we're talking about crime, affirmative action (which greatly affects Asians especially),etc - why wouldn't those take priority?
    - nickthegreek 3y ago
      Maybe the competition hasn't put forth an actual plan to fix the issue either? The devil you know and all that.
    - djur 3y ago
      That assumes that the GOP offers better alternatives on policy other than social issues and that social issues are insufficient to outweigh them. You don't get to vote for party policies or even for parties, you get to vote for candidates.
- 3y ago
steve76 3y ago
[dead]
paxys 3y ago
Is the author really trying to make the case that Garry Tan in the second most influential person in SF politics after Mayor London Breed? Give me a break. People really need to get off Twitter and live life in the real world once in a while. This is nothing more than a puff piece desperately trying to paint Tan as a new Elon Musk. He may have thrown money at a few candidates, but on the streets of SF he is a nobody, and his Tweetstorms don't really amount to political activism (at least not the effective kind).
officialchicken 3y ago
LOL, an article about some posts where the author has confused Xitter slactivism as a proxy for actual involvement devoid of any actual policy. It's all just a morass of criticism.
- justin66 3y ago
  He's donated some money. Local politicians will dance around for money.
  - khazhoux 3y ago
    I don't think people realize how little money they'll dance for. I always imagined you had to donate in the hundreds of thousands at a minimum to get their attention. Turns out for even a <$5K donation you can get an invite to a dinner party where you get to whisper in your senator or representative's ear for 2 hours.
- deleted 3y ago
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khazhoux 3y ago
What is a list of the policies of the Board of Supervisors, and now Dean Preston in particular, which people find have been destructive to SF? There's endless articles about how they've allowed criminality, they're too progressive, and so on, but I've had a tough time finding the actual specific policies that they've voted for.
- next_xibalba 3y ago
  How about his recent suggestion, in response to the car burglary epidemic, that people should stop keeping any possessions in their cars?
  - pr0zac 3y ago
    I resided in SF for longer than any other city and in the bay area for more than two decades, over half my life. However I moved away a bit more than five years ago. While I like to think my experience is still relevant and I try to keep up with SF news I'm aware that my understanding of the city and its political context has drifted from reality (or reality has drifted from me). That said, it confuses me how everyone talks as if issues like open drug use, the exploding homeless population, and property crime are recent issues in the city when I know the same problems existed during my time there. I saw people smoking and injecting drugs on the street and homeless people struggling with mental illness sleeping or relieving themselves anywhere. I had friends get mugged, my girlfriend's car window got smashed twice, and my roommate's Subaru got hot-wired, stolen, stripped and then dumped in Oakland. I agree those problems and how common they are need to be addressed and that the government is doing a terrible job doing so, but it feels like they are framed as new and on the rise when I don't think they are. A year or so ago I looked at crime stats for the city currently compared to when I was there and they didn't seem hugely different in either direction. On the specific topic you mentioned, I agree the comment was tone deaf and unhelpful, but its not particularly unusual or unexpected or only "recent", its one of the most common pieces of advice I'd hear about car break-ins. When I first moved to SF people were saying never leave valuables in your car, there were news reports and PSAs giving the advice. People already victim-blamed anyone that accidentally forgot a backpack or purse in the back seat. I don't understand why the same brain-dead, empty platitude is getting discussed now as some new low or blunder. Yes its worthless advice from someone who should be trying to improve things, but the city has been saying the same things and being bad at their jobs in the same way for decades. Am I missing discussion that includes the city's history with these issues and an inability to solve them? Are there better news or communities I should be following? Does SF's largely transient population mean most current residents moved in recently while previous ones familiar with that history have left? Am I being a hackneyed "back in my day" hipster focusing on how a discussion "feels" instead of the topic being discussed? Am I just wrong and SF is actually way worse off now than it was when I was there?
ilamont 3y ago
Serious question from someone who doesn't live in California or follow local politics there: Has Tan or any other well-off tech leader sharing similar visions/values run for supervisor or mayor? I see that Conway et al poured donations into the local party apparatus in the past (https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/ron-conway-big-tech-drop-thousands-into-sleepy-sf-election/article_00342725-0356-5f79-a4c4-9e4a025a5d35.html https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/ron-conway-big-tech-drop-tho...) but wouldn't their goals be more effectively served from an elected position of power, as opposed to back-room lobbying and social media attacks?
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  The people in office are figureheads, beholden to those who paid to put them there. The back-room lobbying is where things really get done.
xrd 3y ago
This article feels like it displays a more balanced Tan than I see in the other coverage of him, or the rage-filled responses to his tweets. I'm glad to understand more of the context. And, I'm left feeling like there are so many "smart" people who feel that the best way to fix things is to rage on Twitter. Tan isn't doing just that: he is donating money, and fundraising, and getting involved in conversations. Why not run for office? The people he is criticizing are putting their asses on the line, and he isn't really risking much other than his reputation.
RC_ITR 3y ago
My biggest criticism of this and most of the discourse you see on here is everything always has to be left vs. right. Do you think people shouldn’t go to jail for being homeless? Ok left extremist. Do you feel uncomfortable with outdoor drug use? Ok right extremist. So as a result, you get people arguing about what a centrist policy is rather than just evaluating the policy for what it is. Would SF be better if we had a large indoor space for safe drug use (like the armory)? Maybe maybe not - but let’s talk about that rather than dividing ourselves into teams based on imagined identity.
aaomidi 3y ago
Everytime I see a bil/millionaire techy complain about "far left" politics I'm always like, my dude do you know what far left actually means? Far left would mean you literally wouldn't exist. SF's problem is hyper-liberalism, not "far left". All of the actions being taken are band aids, while also maintaining the extreme levels on inequality that has put the city in the state that it is in. Reducing policing and criminalization is always a good thing, but for it to be successful it has to be followed up with all the other (argubly much harder) tasks. Rent is skyrocketing, NIMBYism is alive and well, lack of social and housing support is still there. The war on drugs is alive and well. SF can't decide if it wants to care about the 99% or the 1%. And until it makes that decision, it's going to continue being shit. Also, a single (rich) city is not going to be able to counter the hyper-capitalist mentality of the country. These changes need to come from every level of government & not just a city.
- qp11 3y ago
  There is a long history of technocracy movements. Always fails. Cause the connection with ordinary people is not real.
gnicholas 3y ago
> education activists who want to change math curriculum in public schools Is this a reference to SFUSD's experiment to not allow any student to take algebra 1 before 9th grade? If so, it's not so much about changing curriculum, but preventing students from learning.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Can we please stop mistaking "Twitter wars" for what most people care about in real life? It's normally always an exercise in taking some of the most extreme views, on both sides, so that you can then paint your "enemies" with the most caricature-ist brush imaginable.
skmurphy 3y ago
“Most people want certainty. They want to feel comfortable. And then the true founders, they want to find chaos, and they want to turn chaos into order.” Garry Tan I thought this quote summarized an important insight for founders. It echoes a model from Amar Bhide's "Origin and Evolution of New Business" that startups have to hunt for situations where the probability of high value cash flows is uncertain because the situations with low uncertainty will be dominated by existing firms who can make substantially larger investments of money and effort.
friend_and_foe 3y ago
Yet another "news" article about tweets. God it's tiring.

67 points by programd 3y ago

A politcal landscape of career politicians and undignified, multi-millionare ideologues may be better than a landscape of just career politicians; I'm not sure if it's much better, however.

ipnon 3y ago
A successful political system is more about surviving to the next round of the game than scoring highly in any particular round. And voting usually boils down to choosing between what makes you sick and what kills you. Politics is certainly not a career for the faint of heart.

samr71 3y ago

Godspeed you, Garry Tan! May the painted ladies be demolished and replaced with supertall skyscrapers jam-packed with cheap apartments, maker spaces, and startup incubators! (I say this with no sarcasm. SF should look like Manhattan; allow a few historic houses but most gotta go.)

moomoo11 3y ago
One earthquake later…
- newZWhoDis 3y ago
  Tall buildings fair better in earthquakes due to resonance.
  - Zigurd 3y ago
    Is anyone taking bets on Millennium Tower? Are those bets cheaper than insurance?
    - phendrenad2 3y ago
      Well, Millennium Tower is an outlier. A boondoggle. They should take it down and start over.
    - armchairhacker 3y ago
      Idk about Millennium Tower but see Taipei 101: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipei_101#Structural_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipei_101#Structural_design > Taipei 101 is designed to withstand typhoon winds and earthquake tremors that are common in the area in the east of Taiwan. Evergreen Consulting Engineering, the structural engineer, designed Taipei 101 to withstand gale winds of 60 meters per second (197 ft/s), (216 km/h or 134 mph), as well as the strongest earthquakes in a 2,500-year cycle. > During construction, on 31 March 2002, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake rocked Taipei; two construction cranes from the 56th floor, the highest floor at the time, toppled. Five people died in the accident, but an inspection showed no structural damage to the building, and construction soon resumed
    - baron816 3y ago
      The worst case scenario for Millennium Tower is that it will lean so much that the elevators don’t work anymore. That’s it.
dotnet00 3y ago
If only Manhattan were known for cheap apartments
- akavi 3y ago
  Sounds to me like there’s demand for a second one then
7e 3y ago
[flagged]
- pohuing 3y ago
  The people have to live somewhere. Put them in a skyscraper instead of square miles of suburbs with sterile lawns and zero biodiversity.
  - TimedToasts 3y ago
    I cannot think of a region of this planet with LESS biodiversity than Manhattan/San Fran/megalopolii. "Concrete Jungle" is just a euphemism.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      But that region of low biodiversity prevents those humans from spreading across a huge swath of land and ruining biodiversity for thousands of miles in every direction
- ctoth 3y ago
  > Even better, don't build even more breeding habitat for an expanding population which is choking the earth. Ah, the anti-human shows through. I guess we should just ... what, with the people then?
- arcticbull 3y ago
  Literally the more developed a country is, the lower it's birth rate. More education, especially women's education, less religiosity and better contraceptive prevalence is all you need. The US is already at 1.6 births per woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1 You don't need "less breeding habitat" you just need more development.
striking 3y ago
If you want to live in Manhattan, go live in Manhattan. I run by the Painted Ladies regularly as the sun rises and I love being able to see the skyline behind them. Sure, we should have higher density apartments in more areas, but they'll probably still all cost the same, the demand is pretty unlikely to be met and landlords will continue to charge insane rents no matter what. They'll probably all be luxury apartments as everyone is looking to maximize their profits.
- doomroot 3y ago
  Increasing any amount of supply will decrease prices while demand stays constant. Do you have reason to believe demand will grow at the same rate as new housing is built?
  - rurp 3y ago
    I mean, yes? Housing prices have continued to shoot up in many western cities despite large increases in housing supply. It's weird to me that the concept of induced demand is pretty common knowledge when it comes to road traffic, but mostly ignored in housing discussions.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      >I mean, yes? Housing prices have continued to shoot up in many western cities despite large increases in housing supply. Well yes, because we have decades of undersupply to correct! Of course a small step in the right direction doesn't magically fix everything. We need to build WAAAAYYY more, like to a vast overabundance, which capitalism unaided can never do because a builder will never start building a hundred rooms if that makes the market go down because that would ruin their profits elsewhere. I would be surprised if, after there is enough supply, there is an "induced demand" effect for housing. Humans take like 20 years to go from born to needing a house, and most people don't choose to have children when they otherwise wouldn't because of cheap housing.
  - nradov 3y ago
    As long as the Federal government has a de facto open borders policy, demand will continue growing. I'm not trying to start an off-topic debate about immigration policy here, but regardless of your feelings on that issue the reality is that today we have a lot of people crossing the border and looking for places to live. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-allowing-hundreds-of-thousands-of-venezuelans-in-the-country-to-work-legally https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-allowing-hundreds-of-...
woodruffw 3y ago
> May the painted ladies be demolished and replaced with supertall skyscrapers jam-packed with cheap apartments, maker spaces, and startup incubators! Without value judgement: Manhattan doesn't look like this. The parts you're thinking of (midtown and downtown) are full of luxury skyscrapers; the majority of the "cheap" (by relative standards) housing is in the north of the borough in 6-10 story apartment buildings.
- bilbo0s 3y ago
  I was just going to say this. This guy clearly doesn't know Manhattan real estate. A skyscraper full of cheap apartments in Manhattan? Only in the fever dreams of the relative peasants with 6 figure salaries. Besides, geotechnical engineering is your friend. A landscape of supertalls may not be the best way to go for San Fran's geography.
coding123 3y ago
We'll just have more leaning towers - SF land is horrible to build on, unless the foundation hammered in for months - even then I wouldn't trust it for tall skyscrapers.
nradov 3y ago
Do people who actually live and vote in San Francisco want to turn it into another Manhattan? If we want more super tall skyscrapers jam packed with cheap apartments and offices then why should they be built in SF specifically? Why not Bakersfield or Cleveland?
- paddy_m 3y ago
  San Francisco (and cities in general) are places of great opportunity. Limiting that opportunity only to incumbents who already live there is stifling to our nation as a whole, and it's cruel. As a thought experiment, what if we treated immigrants to the country in the same manner... "What if existing US residents don't want to turn it into Mexico by allowing Mexicans into the country. Why can't the Mexicans go to Canada or Guatemala". Allowing more housing to be built is key to allowing more opportunity in a vibrant and active community. Allowing more housing to be built reduces housing costs which lets people flourish. Dense urban areas obviate the need for a car, reducing greenhouse gasses and isolation. All of these are good things.
  - khazhoux 3y ago
    > San Francisco (and cities in general) are places of great opportunity. Limiting that opportunity only to incumbents who already live there is stifling to our nation as a whole, and it's cruel. Instead of punishing residents by doubling their population density (more traffic, more crowded schools, etc), the mega-companies (the "great opportunity") should start hiring elsewhere. And of course we're already seeing that happening post-pandemic. These companies need an endless supply of engineers, sales, and support staff to build out their ad-revenue engines, so that the execs can continue receiving their multi-million RSUs every year... and somehow the residents are cruel for not wanting their city and neighborhoods to change to accommodate them?
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      You're phrasing that as if the residents aren't thrilled to have the megacorporation there. They want the company there to drive up their house's value without having to deal with the consequences.
babl-yc 3y ago
San Francisco could add a ton of housing without adding super tall skyscrapers across the city. Maybe some YIMBYs want to Manhattanize SF but certainly not all of them. Paris has a height limit of 12 stories for most parts of the city https://www.archdaily.com/1002165/paris-reimposes-the-ban-on-skyscrapers-after-tour-triangle-controversy https://www.archdaily.com/1002165/paris-reimposes-the-ban-on... Hopefully the San Francisco BoS does their part and approves reasonable housing so it's not purely up to developers with SB 35/423.

tikkun 3y ago

> Over the course of two hours, the CEO of startup incubator Y Combinator personally attacks or retweets criticism of “extremist judges,” whom he accuses of emboldening criminals with the help of local media; any supervisor who dares to oppose bonuses to hire more cops; Nancy Pelosi and lawmakers concerned about the safety of autonomous vehicles; education activists who want to change math curriculum in public schools; venture capitalists who are “evil” to startup founders; “decels” who want to pump the brakes on technological progress; Apple’s monopoly on apps; YouTube censors; and last, but certainly not least, NIMBYs. I once learned a lot about helping people with alcohol addition for a family friend. A few of the things I learned were: 1) labeling the person as an alcoholic will make them drink more 2) yelling at them and forcing them to defend themselves will make them drink more 3) any kind of aggressive intervention will make them drink more. Unfortunately, attacking people generally serves to make them feel defensive and want to defend themselves. When we defend ourselves, that generally makes us dig in further. I'll note that I hope that SF shifts in the direction of Garry's vision, and I'm in favor of the end outcome. If Garry's goal is attention ("if you want to get an audience, start a fight") then attacks are a good method. If his goal is to change minds, I'd note that he may be more successful if he picks up a few books on helping people who have addictions, and borrows some of the methods from them (in short: make them first feel understood by you, and understand their hesitations and what makes them tick). He could kind of treat it like he's doing customer development for a startup. Find people who've gone from one side to the other, talk to them about their journey, and so on. The main point I'm hoping to emphasize is that attacking the other side like this to win may result in victory, but it won't result in peace.

lazide 3y ago
Ho man. If ever there was a place that was a perfect example of the limits of this approach, it’s SF. How is that peace and understanding coming along in dealing with that street drugs/addiction problem? How is that non-confrontation approach to politics on getting things done/getting effective decisions made?
- bilbo0s 3y ago
  How is that non-confrontation approach to politics on getting things done/getting effective decisions made? Just Devil's Advocate, but in DC we have a confrontational approach and we still get nothing done. Nor do we get any effective decisions made. My suspicion is that anyone doing anything other than collaborating with each other, is probably not getting anything real done. I guess I'm just not sure any of what you said is unique to San Fran. Or even if the opposite of what you just said would yield any better results in San Fran. In fact, I'm positive that it won't, because that's not really a San Fran problem. That's the public discourse problem that we've been having in the US nationally for 30 plus years now.

tayo42 3y ago

I liked living in sf when I was there. One nice thing about moving is not having to feel like I care about all these little political battles people get outraged about. Something about that city attracts the most toxic and loud people like this. Every city has problems, but there is a lot of media and internet outrage about sf.

ivraatiems 3y ago

It's embarrassing to watch a CEO of anything fire off what they think are 'pithy' and 'clever' tweets. It's pathetic when Musk does it and it's no better here. Doesn't he have something better to do with his time as the CEO of YCombinator? Edit: To be clear, I don't care about the content of the tweets, I'm not taking a position on Tan's politics. I just can't fathom him spending time on this stuff.

mikeodds 3y ago
I guess YC has a vested interest in SF being a liveable and safe city which seems reasonable.
- ivraatiems 3y ago
  If they have a vested interest in anything, how is a pithy tweet the mechanism for achieving it?
  - phendrenad2 3y ago
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  - ipnon 3y ago
    I would submit that it’s influencing the public discourse, since it’s being reported in the Standard and now we are contesting the issues in these comments. Public discourse affects politics, and politics affect our lives. Some people think SF can do better!
  - helicalmix 3y ago
    Why assume a pithy tweet is the only mechanism they’re using?
  - ilikehurdles 3y ago
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    - 3y ago

mberning 3y ago

The coin of the realm. Nice Hellraiser reference. Very apt allusion to the state of San Francisco.

ipnon 3y ago

The “tech bro” angle of critique is getting stale, although I understand the reasoning. People are fine with those who solve problems. It is the people who modify the set of problems they must deal with that upsets them, even if the problem set is net smaller.

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femiagbabiaka 3y ago

Paper funded by one VC publishes glowing writeup on another VC, talking about how everyone else is just getting it wrong and we all need to get into.. effective accelerationism. (What is it about tech and the word effective?) We promise, say VC's, that if you just get rid of one more $PERSON_GARRY_TAN_DOESNT_LIKE, everything will magically get better, despite no fruit coming from that tree so far. I, the millionaire tech investor, am the real scrappy working class person, not like those supervisors, I really care about you. Also go SFPD.

ilikehurdles 3y ago
[flagged]
- femiagbabiaka 3y ago
  I wish it was snark. It's actually just the truth.
  - ilikehurdles 3y ago
    Oh, this is not snark? > I, the millionaire tech investor, am the real scrappy working class person, not like those supervisors, I really care about you. Also go SFPD. That’s not snark? Ok in that case I 100% agree with you. And thank you for your investments into our community. Fully support SFPD. Fund the police. And yes, a tech investor in SF is without a hint of a doubt a harder working, more valuable person than those supervisors. As are a lot of other people. For a second, your comment sounded like the meaningless drivel from the twitter-born progressive activist class that has inundated the politics of west coast cities. And all of us living in urban centers across these states have become completely tired of it. It was interesting in 2015. It’s toxic in 2023.
    - femiagbabiaka 3y ago
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mattdeboard 3y ago

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BryanBeshore 3y ago
Ahh yea, it has nothing to do with the massive amount of crime, violence, decay and grift by those enabling it. A person can be both ‘rich’ and want better for the community they choose to be part of.
- mattdeboard 3y ago
  where you and i differ is thinking that more cops & more prisons actually solves anything. i'm getting old, and watching the ultra rich play the same tune on the same horn, exploiting people's legit fears & concerns to stump for the same ineffective solutions that have proven over and over and over and over and over again to be nothing but gussied-up racial & socioeconomic oppression is getting old too. we've already done the carceral state thing. It doesn't solve anything. history has taught us this lesson already. it's brain-dead to keep pimping for it like he's doing.
ianbutler 3y ago
Doesn't mean he's not right. I'm from NYC, and at 10x the population we seem to have a much better handle on violent and property crime as well as sanitation per capita.
- mattdeboard 3y ago
  No I get it, warehousing poor and mentally ill people in prisons definitely hides social problems from rich people & lets us pretend we've fixed something meaningful. Cops & prisons are a great way to do that.
  - ianbutler 3y ago
    I wonder how much of the car robberies are mentally ill people? I wonder how much of the shop lifting is mentally ill people? Hiding actual criminals behind a group that does deserve help while doing nothing to protect your every day populace is absurd. It's not just hiding social problems from rich people, it's protecting the shift worker who's car window just got smashed for the 3rd time in a year and really can't afford that shit.

pwarner 3y ago

I'm not following the details of this closely, but it sounds like he's a Democrat criticizing Democrats in SF for going to far left. Often these critiques from within the party are the best. There are lots of voices on the Republican side who see that party shifting too far right. I find those voices trying to pull to the center the most useful from both sides.

davidguetta 3y ago
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compsciphd 3y ago
we'd all do better a country (IMO) if we all were more willing to criticize our allies for failing our supposed shared values than for criticizing our opponents for failing the values we believe they should have. This won't win elections, so it wont happen (easily at least).
banannaise 3y ago
Republican politicians are significantly to the right of their constituents. Democratic politicians are also significantly to the right of their constituents. And the solution of mainstream Democrats appears to be... embracing the left wing of the Republican party, while rejecting the left wing of their own party, thus ceding significant power to the Republican party as a whole (the left wing of which happily goes along with the right wing's lunacy). Is it good that we have to play "my team/your team" with politics? No, but it becomes a simple prisoner's dilemma. One team plays "always defect" and the other team... insists that not defecting is the right thing to do, and thus loses repeatedly.
- the_snooze 3y ago
  I think the solution is simple: Democrats need to vote in Republican primaries and pull that party back closer to the center. Primaries are low-turnout affairs, so a Democratic bloc can put the scare in any nutso incumbent.

TheCaptain4815 3y ago

I wonder what it would take for folks like that to vote GOP. Given the issues he brings up being so extreme, that still isn't enough?

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khazhoux 3y ago
Won't happen, because they view the Left as well-intentioned, but --in the case of SF-- badly executed in some specific policies. Whereas they view the Right/GOP as fundamentally ill-intentioned: theocratic, increasingly authoritarian, etc.
djur 3y ago
To paraphrase an old saying about bipartisanship, no matter how poorly run the restaurant you're eating in is, if the competition across the street is serving tire rims and anthrax you're going to stay put.
- TheCaptain4815 3y ago
  I get that for social issues, but when we're talking about crime, affirmative action (which greatly affects Asians especially),etc - why wouldn't those take priority?
  - nickthegreek 3y ago
    Maybe the competition hasn't put forth an actual plan to fix the issue either? The devil you know and all that.
  - djur 3y ago
    That assumes that the GOP offers better alternatives on policy other than social issues and that social issues are insufficient to outweigh them. You don't get to vote for party policies or even for parties, you get to vote for candidates.
3y ago

steve76 3y ago

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paxys 3y ago

Is the author really trying to make the case that Garry Tan in the second most influential person in SF politics after Mayor London Breed? Give me a break. People really need to get off Twitter and live life in the real world once in a while. This is nothing more than a puff piece desperately trying to paint Tan as a new Elon Musk. He may have thrown money at a few candidates, but on the streets of SF he is a nobody, and his Tweetstorms don't really amount to political activism (at least not the effective kind).

officialchicken 3y ago

LOL, an article about some posts where the author has confused Xitter slactivism as a proxy for actual involvement devoid of any actual policy. It's all just a morass of criticism.

justin66 3y ago
He's donated some money. Local politicians will dance around for money.
- khazhoux 3y ago
  I don't think people realize how little money they'll dance for. I always imagined you had to donate in the hundreds of thousands at a minimum to get their attention. Turns out for even a <$5K donation you can get an invite to a dinner party where you get to whisper in your senator or representative's ear for 2 hours.
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khazhoux 3y ago

What is a list of the policies of the Board of Supervisors, and now Dean Preston in particular, which people find have been destructive to SF? There's endless articles about how they've allowed criminality, they're too progressive, and so on, but I've had a tough time finding the actual specific policies that they've voted for.

next_xibalba 3y ago
How about his recent suggestion, in response to the car burglary epidemic, that people should stop keeping any possessions in their cars?
- pr0zac 3y ago
  I resided in SF for longer than any other city and in the bay area for more than two decades, over half my life. However I moved away a bit more than five years ago. While I like to think my experience is still relevant and I try to keep up with SF news I'm aware that my understanding of the city and its political context has drifted from reality (or reality has drifted from me). That said, it confuses me how everyone talks as if issues like open drug use, the exploding homeless population, and property crime are recent issues in the city when I know the same problems existed during my time there. I saw people smoking and injecting drugs on the street and homeless people struggling with mental illness sleeping or relieving themselves anywhere. I had friends get mugged, my girlfriend's car window got smashed twice, and my roommate's Subaru got hot-wired, stolen, stripped and then dumped in Oakland. I agree those problems and how common they are need to be addressed and that the government is doing a terrible job doing so, but it feels like they are framed as new and on the rise when I don't think they are. A year or so ago I looked at crime stats for the city currently compared to when I was there and they didn't seem hugely different in either direction. On the specific topic you mentioned, I agree the comment was tone deaf and unhelpful, but its not particularly unusual or unexpected or only "recent", its one of the most common pieces of advice I'd hear about car break-ins. When I first moved to SF people were saying never leave valuables in your car, there were news reports and PSAs giving the advice. People already victim-blamed anyone that accidentally forgot a backpack or purse in the back seat. I don't understand why the same brain-dead, empty platitude is getting discussed now as some new low or blunder. Yes its worthless advice from someone who should be trying to improve things, but the city has been saying the same things and being bad at their jobs in the same way for decades. Am I missing discussion that includes the city's history with these issues and an inability to solve them? Are there better news or communities I should be following? Does SF's largely transient population mean most current residents moved in recently while previous ones familiar with that history have left? Am I being a hackneyed "back in my day" hipster focusing on how a discussion "feels" instead of the topic being discussed? Am I just wrong and SF is actually way worse off now than it was when I was there?

ilamont 3y ago

Serious question from someone who doesn't live in California or follow local politics there: Has Tan or any other well-off tech leader sharing similar visions/values run for supervisor or mayor? I see that Conway et al poured donations into the local party apparatus in the past (https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/ron-conway-big-tech-drop-thousands-into-sleepy-sf-election/article_00342725-0356-5f79-a4c4-9e4a025a5d35.html https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/ron-conway-big-tech-drop-tho...) but wouldn't their goals be more effectively served from an elected position of power, as opposed to back-room lobbying and social media attacks?

SoftTalker 3y ago
The people in office are figureheads, beholden to those who paid to put them there. The back-room lobbying is where things really get done.

xrd 3y ago

This article feels like it displays a more balanced Tan than I see in the other coverage of him, or the rage-filled responses to his tweets. I'm glad to understand more of the context. And, I'm left feeling like there are so many "smart" people who feel that the best way to fix things is to rage on Twitter. Tan isn't doing just that: he is donating money, and fundraising, and getting involved in conversations. Why not run for office? The people he is criticizing are putting their asses on the line, and he isn't really risking much other than his reputation.

RC_ITR 3y ago

My biggest criticism of this and most of the discourse you see on here is everything always has to be left vs. right. Do you think people shouldn’t go to jail for being homeless? Ok left extremist. Do you feel uncomfortable with outdoor drug use? Ok right extremist. So as a result, you get people arguing about what a centrist policy is rather than just evaluating the policy for what it is. Would SF be better if we had a large indoor space for safe drug use (like the armory)? Maybe maybe not - but let’s talk about that rather than dividing ourselves into teams based on imagined identity.

aaomidi 3y ago

Everytime I see a bil/millionaire techy complain about "far left" politics I'm always like, my dude do you know what far left actually means? Far left would mean you literally wouldn't exist. SF's problem is hyper-liberalism, not "far left". All of the actions being taken are band aids, while also maintaining the extreme levels on inequality that has put the city in the state that it is in. Reducing policing and criminalization is always a good thing, but for it to be successful it has to be followed up with all the other (argubly much harder) tasks. Rent is skyrocketing, NIMBYism is alive and well, lack of social and housing support is still there. The war on drugs is alive and well. SF can't decide if it wants to care about the 99% or the 1%. And until it makes that decision, it's going to continue being shit. Also, a single (rich) city is not going to be able to counter the hyper-capitalist mentality of the country. These changes need to come from every level of government & not just a city.

qp11 3y ago
There is a long history of technocracy movements. Always fails. Cause the connection with ordinary people is not real.

gnicholas 3y ago

> education activists who want to change math curriculum in public schools Is this a reference to SFUSD's experiment to not allow any student to take algebra 1 before 9th grade? If so, it's not so much about changing curriculum, but preventing students from learning.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

Can we please stop mistaking "Twitter wars" for what most people care about in real life? It's normally always an exercise in taking some of the most extreme views, on both sides, so that you can then paint your "enemies" with the most caricature-ist brush imaginable.

skmurphy 3y ago

“Most people want certainty. They want to feel comfortable. And then the true founders, they want to find chaos, and they want to turn chaos into order.” Garry Tan I thought this quote summarized an important insight for founders. It echoes a model from Amar Bhide's "Origin and Evolution of New Business" that startups have to hunt for situations where the probability of high value cash flows is uncertain because the situations with low uncertainty will be dominated by existing firms who can make substantially larger investments of money and effort.

friend_and_foe 3y ago

Yet another "news" article about tweets. God it's tiring.