A friend from London has arrived in San Francisco with a request to see the technology companies that take up so much of our collective time and attention. This, as residents know, is not a particularly fun activity. The best-known companies such as Google and Facebook live in low-slung headquarters south of the city, amid the suburban housing and freeways of Palo Alto and Mountain View.
In San Francisco itself there is the obnoxiously big Salesforce Tower, but companies like Twitter occupy unobtrusive offices in Market Street and the Tenderloin. No gleaming skyscrapers. No logos. After a dull walk along a mostly empty street, we give up and visit the seals at Fisherman’s Wharf.
Tech’s low-key physical presence here is one example of San Francisco’s strange relationship with its biggest and best-known businesses. Wealth and growth are bound up in the tech sector’s success, yet the industry is also widely seen as contributing to the worst aspects of this oddly filthy city.