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November 10, 2022
November 10, 2022

My experience Wednesday in SF

It's pouring rain.

I take the Bart to Fidi. Everybody on the train is wearing a mask. As
we roll to a stop at Embarcadero, the train loses power. We wait "for
the generator to come on so we can open the doors."

Finally outside, I pass 10 people on the three-block walk to 345
California. Half are "our unhoused friends."

The Cafe-X coffee robot tent at the corner of Pine is no longer
there. Somebody is bundled up, sleeping in its place.

I roll into Industrious at 9:15am. All of the bagels from the
breakfast spread are gone. This isn't San Francisco's fault! Although
since most private offices are empty, I'm not sure how I missed the
rush.

I get some third wave drip coffee and begin my morning scroll.

I learn Facebook is laying off 13% of their employees. Just down
Market Street, Twitter is embroiled in an internal war - payroll,
servers, and debt payments all competing over declining ad revenue.

Worst of all, it turns out the guy with the curly hair plastered on
every billboard around town is a total scam who rug pulled every FTX
customer, creating an $8 billion hole in his balance sheet and
sending crypto into a free fall. Bitcoin is down to $14k, not far off
its price when I left San Francisco in August of 2020.

I take a Lyft to dinner. We get stuck behind two ambulances on Polk.
As we idle, watching a woman get loaded onto a stretcher, I realize
nine years ago I was picked up for my first-ever Lyft ride just a
block away. I tell my driver about this personal history, about how
magical it felt to order a car at the push of a button, how a Honda
Accord adorned with a pink mustache pulled up to the curb, how I
donated the suggested $8 to be driven to a bar near [DEL:AT&T:DEL]
Oracle Park.

He asks me how much Lyft is charging me for this ride. $22.50.

He grunts. They quoted me $9.

I get to the bar where I'm meeting two of our investors. One has just
come from a CEO roundtable. He decides not to drink because he has to
"wake up early now." Everybody is planning layoffs, he explains.
People are burning millions a month. Capital markets don't exist. I
don't think half of these people are going to have businesses in a
year.

A couple hours later, I schlep back to Oakland. Lyft quotes me $0.50
more than Uber, so I flip a mental coin and go for the Uber. Boy does
my gamble pay off. I'm matched with a Model 3.

In bed by 12:30, awake four hours later, and hungover from my three
glasses of wine, it's time to catch my Delta Main Cabin 5.5 hour
flight back to NYC.

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I forgot my laptop

I got home and unzipped my backpack. My laptop wasn't in its padded
pocket. I fired up Find My... and there it was, pulsing on the map, at
Park and

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