Still in a thick fog of war after the most incredible display of US technology power in history, with the dramatic silencing of a sitting US president and the elimination of a platform competitor, the tech conversation switched gears for a night and focused on a narrow culture war issue: the San Francisco District Attorney entered a chat I was co-hosting to argue 1) crime was a not a problem in San Francisco and 2) San Francisco’s crime problem was not his fault. The real enemy, I learned, was hateful tech bros all along (me). A couple days later, Benioff tripled down on the meme that leaving San Francisco was an act of exploitation, a ridiculous argument I took apart back in December with a wire called “Extract or Die.” And elsewhere, in a sunny Bizarro World version of our reality where politicians are helpful and want their city to thrive, Miami’s Mayor Francis Suarez pitched his alternative to sclerotic, hateful local government, and finally crossed our most potent industry power.

*Elon Musk has entered the chat.

Crime is safety, and other things I learned this week. The intersection of local politics and industry has been a favorite subject of mine since I started Pirate Wires six months ago. As I believe (hope?) our local government is only as bad as it is because most people living in our city are uninterested in local politics, I’ve tried to make the subject interesting. I’ve also wanted to do more with the topic, so when Michelle Tandler asked me to co-host a conversation on the future of San Francisco over Clubhouse, a platform for voice chat still in beta, I said yes. Michelle expected something like forty people to attend. I’m a little more familiar with the app, and expected a couple hundred. My goal was to start on the ground floor, talk about the structure of local politics and what local politicians are empowered to do, then bring in audience members to talk about their own goals for the city. But a few minutes in, one of the most controversial men in San Francisco entered the room. Our District Attorney Chesa Boudin had arrived, and he was furious. 3,000 people flooded the chat to listen, and so began The Drama.

Before we get into the summary, it’s worth noting the wild industry piece, which every “tech reporter” who covered the story mostly ignored. 3,000 people in a single chat room listening to a conversation between a couple of moderately popular Twitter people and a powerful city leader who felt he had to attend to defend his job is a huge deal for Clubhouse. The Boudin chat was followed a couple days later by another massive conversation, this time planned, between a handful of tech leaders and the mayors of Miami, Austin, and San Francisco, hosted by Felicia Horowitz. This particular instantiation of voice chat has unlocked something powerful, and a new dimension of social media is emerging. Five years from now, it’s possible Clubhouse, or a similar application, will be something political leaders actually have to engage with in order to succeed. Were such a shift to happen, voice chat would have as dramatic an impact on the shape of politics as Twitter, without which, for example, neither the Republican presidency of Donald Trump nor the domination of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over the Democratic Party would be possible. In a Clubhouse world, we would see an entirely new kind of politician emerge.

Rogan for president? I’m not even joking.

The particulars of the Boudin drama are difficult for me to reasonably parse, my being so central a figure in the narrative. I also appreciate the fact that writing so extensively about myself risks a kind of irritating self-indulgence. This is all to say I wouldn’t hold it against you if you skipped ahead to my Benioff extraction redux (bold below). But for those of you who love pain, I’d like to share my perspective.

I didn’t invite the district attorney to our chat, and was surprised when he arrived. Michelle and I hadn’t even planned a panel, let alone an interview with someone actually in power. I expected a conversation with a couple friends, and a few strangers from the audience. I advised Michelle to have a drink, my own go-to Clubhouse move. A few minutes in, after a brief exchange with Nancy Tung, a former candidate for DA who went on to speak thoughtfully throughout the night, Boudin joined, and the conversation exploded.

Out of the gate, our DA furiously accused me, specifically, of spreading disinformation about his past work for Hugo Chavez, a brutal socialist dictator, which he insisted (and presently insists) a total invention. As this is a well-documented association — with reporting from the Guardian, the Times of Israel, NBC News, Business Insider, the New York Post — I genuinely didn’t believe the story was in question. I also didn’t realize Boudin was embarrassed of the association given his public writing in defense of the Chavez dictatorship. The accusation of disinformation forced me to a defensive position, with my honor as a random ass Twitter person in question for reading the news, where clearly we should have been discussing Boudin’s job performance as the district attorney of a major city presently scandalized by a double homicide that could have been prevented by his office. It also forced us onto a topic perceived by many as tangential, and therefore petty. But while I do love to ridicule a fetish for socialist dictators, it was Boudin’s accusation that forced the conversation. The Chavez exchange has been characterized untruthfully by pathetic gossip columnists like Eric Newcomer as a “line of questioning” in a broader conversation that has also been characterized untruthfully by pathetic gossip columnists like Eric Newcomer as a “debate.” Really what happened is 3,000 listeners were gaslit by an oily politician who, it does seem, worked — in some capacity! — for Hugo Chavez.

I don’t know what to tell you people. If you don’t like it, take it up with NBC.

My sense was Boudin would leave the chat if he felt disrespected, and he was clearly furious with me (my readership, it seems, a little broader than I thought). As I felt this was an important opportunity for our city to learn about the way our district attorney thinks about crime, I didn’t want drive the man away, so I took a step back. I asked maybe four or five questions over the next two hours, careful not to antagonize Boudin, with a few follow-ups when I attempted (in vain) to get him to commit to positions. Not once did I forward a counter position, as this wasn’t a debate. It was an interview. I’m working from memory here, but here is roughly what I recall:

Crime in San Francisco is down, Boudin insisted (editor’s note: while population is down, home invasion, arson, car theft, and homicide are all up). Okay, I asked, are you saying things have been improving then? No, Boudin insisted (???). Got it, why are repeat criminals not being prosecuted? The police, Boudin insisted, and the parole officers. Interesting, I said, are you saying you do want to put away repeat offenders, but can’t? A gross mischaracterization, Boudin shouted, an absolute crazy thing to say! So you’re happy with these results, then? Absolutely not, he said, there is a system in place, and that system is terrible, and by the way (this one in response to a question of Delian Asparouhov’s, I believe) we need better data analytics.

Ok, this we can work with.

Cyan Banister helpfully mentioned that data was a problem with a solution in that very chat. You’re in a room full of software engineers, she said, at least a few of whom are likely data scientists. How specifically can we help? This will never work, Boudin said, because [long monologue about bureaucracy, about his hands being tied, about everything is fine, actually, but even if it weren’t fine it wouldn’t be his fault].

Eventually Balaji Srinivisan showed up, attempted to press the DA, and the DA left.

It’s been said I was rude to Boudin, it’s been said I was too polite to Boudin, it’s been said Boudin was eloquent, Boudin was right, Boudin was wrong, Boudin was obviously lying, and that actually, what we see here, is a systemic problem that no one man can fix. It’s been said the chat was great, and the chat was terrible. I was told a quite famous TikTok reporter (she’s blocked me, so who knows) said this chat proved the importance of professional journalists, who prepare for interviews, as if all journalists are prepared at all times for Chesa Boudin to enter their novice chat on the structure of local politics.

Overall, I do think our chat a great success. As mentioned, my goal this year was to interest people in local politics.

I’d say interest has been achieved.

Extraction and chill, Marc Benioff edition. Felicia Horowitz included a handful of tech leaders and workers in her Clubhouse chat with the mayors of Austin, Miami, and San Francisco. The topic of her chat was the much-discussed Bay Area Techxodus, the role of government in provoking the exit of many people working in tech from the region, and the responsibility, if any, of the technology industry for the chronic failures of our San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Jonathan Hillis provided a brief summary here:

The tech camp, which I’ll be focusing on, generally divided in two positions. In one corner, workers felt they had no choice but to leave the city because the local government had made it impossible for them to thrive, and especially to thrive with a family. In the other corner, where the billionaire Marc Benioff was sitting — though IRL safely ensconced in his coastal mansion, far from the city decay — it was the extraction position: founders didn’t build their companies, they mined them like gold from the fertile soils of San Francisco. Leaving now with what they “took” would be immoral. Did the San Francisco government contribute in any way to the technology industry’s boom? No. Are most people leaving the city right now even founders or venture capitalists? Also no. But the truth has never gotten in the way of one of Marc Benioff’s trademark “I’m a good guy” brand crusades.

His sanctimony further thickened on Twitter, with the following Hallmark moment:

Giving is taking, creating is exploiting, and remaining in an abusive relationship with a local government that is by the way also committed to publicly humiliating you? That’s love. If you aren’t willing to torture yourself like that masochistic freak show in The Da Vinci Code you are, frankly, a bad person. And there was Salesforce Marc with his metal whip, and that rosy, sultry wink of his, just begging us to step a little closer.

“Marc painted a picture of valley elites who are almost treasonous for not staying and pledging to spend tons of money on various aid + charity programs,” texted one listener. It’s interesting to see Benioff come out swinging against a techxodus, which I assumed the entire purpose of San Francisco’s Prop C, the city’s special tax “for the homeless” that Benioff loudly championed in 2017. The tax was sold on the promise of raising an additional $300 million dollars a year by juicing huge companies based in the city. Eat the rich, and bless the poor. Sounds great, right?

Oh, you sweet summer child.

Long story short: the proposition targeted lower-margin businesses, which meant the tax would disproportionately hit companies like Stripe and Square, the latter which was valued at a quarter of the Salesforce market cap, but was set to pay 2x more than Benioff’s company in new taxes. At the time, Jack Dorsey tried to explain as much:

Stripe’s Patrick Collison further and importantly added the proposition provided no insight into how it would solve homelessness. Mayor London Breed — also opposed at the time — echoed the sentiment with several other prominent local politicians. Prop C passed, and is presently poised to solve nothing. It was classic corporate warfare dressed up as charity by a man who was literally working from his skyscraper emblazoned with the eye of fucking Sauron. Benioff’s proposition was designed to drive an entire class of tech companies out of the city. Would forcing companies out of the city long-term kneecap the tax ostensibly designed to help the homeless? Absolutely. Did he care? Of course not.

Benioff’s position that tech is exiting the city for no other reason than exorbitant taxes is just not true (though, back here on Earth, that would be a perfectly reasonable reason to move). On top of housing costs, poor sanitation, poor transportation, poor public education, and actual Board-initiated public humiliation, I should further like to note literally fearing for the safety of ones employees is a good reason to seek out greener pastures. This — the increasingly dangerous crime in our city — is something Benioff presumably understands, given he’s currently guarding Salesforce tower with a small, private force of armed guards.

I don’t begrudge the man his little military. Our city isn’t safe. But neither should Benioff begrudge the founders or employees of any other company for valuing their lives. Not everyone can run to their private Hawaii estate every time the sky turns orange. Some of us actually have to live with the policies he endorses.

Meanwhile, in Miami. As Gavin Newsom pressed forward with his disastrous vaccination roll-out, in which countless doses have wound up in the garbage per state regulations — death by “fairness,” we’re told, so it’s all good — leaders across the technology industry expressed further frustration with their government.

But not all governments are created equal, and some political leaders are happy not only to listen, but to work with industry leadership. Out in Miami, Mayor Suarez has provided us with something many Americans aren’t really used to seeing from a politician: the courage to say yes.

Yesterday, Elon Musk tweeted about digging tunnels under Miami to solve a traffic issue. While I’m no geologist, that strikes me as difficult in a sinking, swampy state at sea level, and it’s the kind of thing a leader might discard out of hand in San Francisco. Tech utopianism, no thank you, now give us your money and stop talking. But, apparently, there is another way.

Is a twenty-first century transportation infrastructure headed for Quantum Beach? I don’t know, but a serious conversation concerning the possibility, at least, is the most exciting thing I’ve heard about in this already-insane year. And I’ve got to be honest, I’m getting tired of the pessimism.

For now, at least, I’ll take the hope.

-SOLANA