S.F. tech companies' civic image at stake as backlash grows Outrage over evictions, buses underscores need for outreach

Nikkiya Carlos, who works in customer service and lives South of Market, does laundry at Brainwash. Carlos says tech workers seem to focus mainly on their jobs, and she wants them to "start participating in city life." less Nikkiya Carlos, who works in customer service and lives South of Market, does laundry at Brainwash. Carlos says tech workers seem to focus mainly on their jobs, and she wants them to "start participating in ... more Photo: Liz Hafalia, Chronicle Photo: Liz Hafalia, Chronicle Image 1 of / 18 Caption Close S.F. tech companies' civic image at stake as backlash grows 1 / 18 Back to Gallery

Rachel Ceasar, a 29-year-old doctoral candidate in medical anthropology, sat in Sightglass Coffee surrounded almost exclusively by men - many of them staring at MacBook laptops, wearing designer eyeglasses and drinking artisanal coffees - and made a confession.

"I actually can't stand tech people," Ceasar said with a slight laugh that suggested she was only partly joking. "I think there just needs to be more conversations about what's happening and not this, 'Let's all move to the Mission and take it over.' "

Even here, home turf for San Francisco's tech set - a modern, South of Market coffee shop that lists Twitter and Square co-founder Jack Dorsey as an investor - the tech industry faces a backlash.

But sometimes it's more obvious.

One morning last week, protesters swarmed the corner of 24th and Valencia streets and for half an hour blocked a Google bus headed to Mountain View. That afternoon, another group of protesters marched down Market Street from Twitter headquarters to the Westfield San Francisco Centre to protest the city's growing economic inequality.

Local and national media have been filled with stories about longtime residents' simmering resentment about the economic good times squeezing out families, artists and low-wage workers. In its forecast for 2014, the Economist even predicted the anger in San Francisco and Silicon Valley will fuel a "peasants' revolt against the sovereigns of cyberspace."

Self-inflicted wounds

Some San Franciscans say the leaders of the technology industry are bringing the scorn upon themselves. Techies are often seen as being immersed in their own world of coding, deal making and socializing.

Antonio Garcia agrees that the tech sector is insular. The former Facebook product manager is now the vice president of products at Nanigans, which specializes in online advertising.

"Your whole social world is tech," Garcia, 37, said as he finished a bagel sandwich at the Creamery, a cafe at Fourth and Townsend that's a hotbed of tech deal making.

"The reality is that there are real people in San Francisco, but they're usually in neighborhoods like the Richmond or Sunset," he continued. "The wall between them and us, so to speak - not to get too postcolonial about it here - is pretty high."

That wall is creating what some critics call a tale of two cities. Ellis Act evictions, used most often so a landlord can clear his or her building to sell it, are up 170 percent since 2010. Meanwhile, the median home sale price in the city hit $1 million in June.

Foot in the mouth

The occasional outlandish statement by tech workers and executives about their adopted city doesn't help.

On Tuesday, Greg Gopman, founder of AngelHack, which organizes hackathons, posted a screed on Facebook that read in part: "In downtown SF the degenerates gather like hyenas, spit, urinate, taunt you, sell drugs, get rowdy, they act like they own the center of the city ... there is an area of town for degenerates and an area of town for the working class. There is nothing positive gained from having them so close to us." When he later apologized, plenty of commenters on Facebook said there was no need to say he was sorry.

Even Mayor Ed Lee, a huge champion of the tech sector who visits individual companies on a weekly basis, has acknowledged that some individuals in the field "might be a little excessive," but said the vast majority are "as ordinary as anybody else."

"The bulk of the people I've met in technology, particularly the employees of these tech companies, they love this city, they love its diversity, they love its immigrants," he said.

He said the backlash is "misdirected" because tourism and hospitality are the biggest industries in San Francisco and are also driving the economic boom.

Still, as the mayor has touted, there are an eye-popping 1,892 tech companies in San Francisco. They account for 22 percent of all occupied office space in the city. The number of tech jobs here has soared 58 percent from 2010 through 2012, the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics figures available.

Crisis consultant Sam Singer said it's clear tech companies have "an image problem," but said they could easily improve their reputation just by better sharing all the positive impacts they are having on San Francisco: the 23,500 jobs they've created since 2009, according to one report; the tax base they have helped shore up; their direct impact on helping the city's unemployment rate shrink to 5.3 percent, the lowest since 2008. That compares with Los Angeles at 9.7 percent and Sacramento at 8.1 percent.

Beyond survival stage

But San Francisco's tech industry as a whole isn't doing a good job of self-promotion or reaching out to the larger community, Singer said.

"Like most corporations and industries in their infancy, they are rightly concerned about making money and hitting their marks," Singer said. "But they're at a stage now that they're beyond that initial stage of survival. And they need to be more socially aware."

Supervisor David Campos, who represents the Mission District, which has become ground zero for discontent over the perceived techie invasion, said he is setting up a meeting between some longtime Mission residents and Facebook to begin a dialogue.

"As an industry, it hasn't done enough," he said.

Campos said many longtime Mission residents are concerned that their neighbors and small businesses are being squeezed out by rising rents. And they blame tech workers.

Some neighbors say the resentment isn't helped by the fact that they see the tech workers only when they're boarding the private shuttle buses that take them down Highway 101 to Google or Apple, delaying Muni buses and blocking traffic while they're at it.

"They don't see them active in the local school or helping the local merchants or helping with the local playground," Campos said.

There are some small signs that tech companies are beginning to get the message that they need to work on repairing their image.

Lee has invited top tech executives to a "private lunch and discussion" to be held Monday on the "emerging challenges in housing, transportation and affordability for our city."

"Together we must respond to these challenges to ensure we can sustain our economic recovery and extend this prosperity to all our city's residents and neighborhoods," read the invitation, which listed Salesforce.com and tech investor Ron Conway as co-hosts.

Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce.com, is widely credited with being the most generous tech titan in San Francisco and has funded a children's hospital, housing for homeless families and computer equipment in public schools.

Other tech companies are starting to follow suit. Facebook recently gave laptops to students at two Mission District public schools, Yelp announced $100,000 in grants to local nonprofits, Google helped fund free Wi-Fi in parks, and Zynga has offered mentorship to students at Balboa High. Volunteers from Kontagent served a holiday meal to homeless children and their families.

The tax break

Others get involved because they must.

Companies with a payroll of $1 million or more and that seek a city tax break for locating in the historically downtrodden Mid-Market area - Twitter and Zendesk are there - must provide a community benefits package, which may include volunteering, helping nonprofits and purchasing their catering from nearby businesses. As part of its commitments, for example, Twitter provides attorneys for a free program to help residents fight evictions.

It doesn't always work out, however: One company, 21Tech, withdrew from the tax break program in October as its compliance was being scrutinized, saying "the overhead burden is too significant for our means."

And a city official who wasn't authorized to talk to the media put the overall picture into context: "Did (Mid-Market tech companies) meet their obligations? The answer to that is yes - other than 21Tech. Are they doing enough? Well, that's a different question."

For Peter Steinauer, a 43-year-old software engineer who lives in Duboce Triangle, the brouhaha over the divide between longtime residents versus tech workers doesn't ring true. After all, he's both.

He has lived in San Francisco since 1991 and commutes south on one of the controversial corporate shuttles three or four days a week. He didn't want to say which company employs him because he's not authorized to speak on its behalf.

"It's silly to be mad at technology workers for coming to San Francisco," he said. "It's actually kind of phenomenal that we're getting a whole new crop of talent into the Bay Area that wants to live in San Francisco and wants to work for these companies."

Boost to environment

Steinauer mostly ignores the chatter about tech backlash but said he gets irritated by the Google bus controversy, saying the shuttles are helping the environment by keeping thousands of people out of cars.

"I think it's ridiculously penny-wise and pound foolish to say we don't want those buses on the streets," he said.

Supervisor Scott Wiener agrees the companies and their workers are getting an unfair bad rap. He said they're not contributing to the city like business titans, including the late financier Warren Hellman, who created the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival and helped fund the San Francisco Free Clinic, but that the companies are still in their infancy and have the potential to increase their civic participation.

"None of us like to be stereotyped - I get stereotyped as a politician all the time," he said. "We need to stop demonizing them. They're as much San Franciscans as we are."