Comment by the_reformation
6 years ago
Fascinating that the Stripe CEO has become the foremost critic of San Francisco municipal governance.
6 years ago
Fascinating that the Stripe CEO has become the foremost critic of San Francisco municipal governance.
Is this in relation to Stripe's move out of San Francisco (https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/2nd-most-valuab...) or something else?
San Francinsco's city government is completely incompetent and the city itself has devolved into a disgusting cesspool.
But if you live in the city, you don't mention this. Instead, you loudly proclaim at every opportunity that San Francisco is best city in the world, and you express your pity for the poor schmucks who are forced to live anywhere else.
The crime, the drug addicts, the homelessness, the mental illness, the broken car windows, the absurd cost of living, the blighted neighborhoods, the pervasive human misery, the garbage, the heroin needles, the human feces -- this is to be considered part of San Francisco's urban charm. Anyone who acknowledges how bad the situation has become should be ostracized, downvoted, or told to move to Walnut Creek.
You especially shouldn't be critical if you run a tech startup in the city, since you need a continual supply of young, impressionable employees to buy into the hype and move here.
But once you move just outside the city perimeter, then you can afford to be a obliquely critical of the city's slow bus lane construction.
I wrote a song for San Francisco after reading so many negatives...
To the tune of Dancing in the Street by Van Halen
(In the background) (taking a shit sounds... grunting farting)
Dropping out around the town
Are you ready for a big brown stain
Summer's here and the time is right
for shitting in the street
They're shitting on Gough Street (they'll be shitting)
At the MOMA (shitting in the street)
Up at Fort Point (shitting in the street)
All we need is fiber, (sweet sweet)
sweet fiber (sweet sweet fiber)
There'll be piles everywhere
There'll be ooooohing, ahhhing, farting, squatting
Shitting in the street
It doesn't matter when or where
As long as you shit there
Whether you're a guy or a girl. take a shit while you twirl
There'll be shitting
It's just an invitation for defecation
don't get it on your feet
There could runny or solid, but guaranteed to be squalid
Shitting in the street.
All we need is fiber, (sweet sweet)
sweet fiber (sweet sweet fiber)
There'll be piles everywhere
There'll be ooooohing, ahhhing, farting, squatting
Shitting in the street
It doesn't matter when or where
As long as you shit there
Whether you're a guy or a girl. take a shit while you twirl
Shitting in the street.
The San Francisco way!
Shitting in the street.
Finally moving out of SF was the best decision I ever made. It only became clear once I was removed from SF for enough time. Fuck that place. Yeah, it's the home of technology, but it's slowly rotting and dying and it makes its resident miserable terrible people.
I'm happy to be living somewhere I love now (HK). And if things ever change, I'll hope not to make the same mistake and stick around so long.
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'pc proclaims that San Francisco is the best city in the world elsewhere on his site. Your critique has a tinge of irony to it.
https://patrickcollison.com/advice
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I assume it's just the list of examples he uses in his pep talks to startups and product teams. "Second prize is a set of steak knives."