Frustration with Covid-19 policies and crime have recently led many tech workers in San Francisco to engage in local politics for the first time
David Ingram / NBC News : Tweets: @recallsfboe , @commonsense415_ , @nbcnews , @sbuss , and @zachcoelius Tweets: @recallsfboe : “This is not a conventional political campaign,” he said. “We have a real, serious crisis now. Our kids are at risk.” via @David_Ingram https://www.nbcnews.com/... @commonsense415_ : For the past ~10 years, I've been shocked by how little most of my co-workers knew about local politics. Glad to see people becoming more informed. https://www.nbcnews.com/... @nbcnews : Tech industry employees, founders and investors who used to shrug off local politics have taken a sudden and fierce interest in San Francisco government. https://www.nbcnews.com/... Steven Buss / @sbuss : “There's this truism in startups: You're either growing or you're dying. And that's true for cities,” Buss said. “Our local politics is dominated by de-growth progressives. They don't believe it should be easier to build housing or start businesses.” https://www.nbcnews.com/... Zach Coelius / @zachcoelius : Tech's revolt against the incompetence of SF leadership made national news. @David_Ingram covers the hard work of @GrowSF @garrytan @bilalmahmood and even a pissed off tweet of mine. The responses by city officials are predictably laughable. https://www.nbcnews.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Bloomberg's year-end 2020 analysis warned that the Bay Area's grip on the top tech hub title depended on lawmakers fixing the governance failures fueling backlash — a warning issued while most tech workers, by the account of longtime residents like Steven Buss in this piece, barely followed local politics. By mid-2021, some of those who had quit during the pandemic were trickling back as Twitter and Google expanded in the city, meaning the frustrated workers stayed and became constituents.
First-order effects
- Organizers behind the school board recall effort — including Steven Buss and Zach Coelius, who describe it as 'not a conventional political campaign' — convert tech workers' first-time political attention into an immediate electoral threat to incumbent board members.
Second-order effects
- City leadership now faces a mobilized, professionally skilled opposition bloc it did not have before, forcing incumbents to defend Covid-era school closures and public safety records in a recall fight they previously would have won by default.
Third-order effects
- If the engagement outlasts the recall, it points toward a durable realignment of San Francisco politics — a shift later embodied by YC's Garry Tan's push to move the city from idealistic progressivism toward centrism — while the hollowing-out dynamic of remote work and layoffs (only 43.1% of workers back at offices by late 2022) raises the stakes: governance quality becomes a retention variable for the hub itself.
The trend: San Francisco's tech workforce is converting from a politically disengaged class into an organized local political bloc, with school-board recalls as the entry point and a broader centrism push as the destination.