Far from the palm trees of Miami or Austin's taco trucks, Catalin Voss has set up his literacy startup headquarters between a cannabis club and a pawn shop in the heart of the Mission District.

Voss rents a nondescript office building in one of San Francisco's busiest neighborhoods as a home for Ello, a company he co-founded in 2020 that uses artificial intelligence-based speech recognition technology to help struggling students develop their reading skills. The office is within walking distance of his home in Noe Valley and just steps from some of the city's best taquerias and cocktail bars. And those are just a few of the benefits he cited when explaining why his headquarters are in San Francisco.

Damn the doom loop.

Voss is part of a sizable cohort of San Francisco loyalists – old and new – who say they are baffled by the “all is lost” narrative promoted by conservative media anchors and, more recently, a vocal contingent of tech leaders which also includes billionaire entrepreneurs. Agitator Elon Musk.

The naysayers portray San Francisco as a city in decline – in Musk's words, “a decrepit zombie apocalypse” – ruined by liberal policies that have allowed street crime and illegal drug use to fester. In a November debate with Gov. Gavin Newsom, Republican presidential candidate and governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis repeatedly cited the city's poor reputation and once held up a “poop map” of human feces littering the streets of San Francisco.

In contrast, Voss says San Francisco is still the “it” city for innovation and opportunity in the tech industry.

“There’s no better place to do it than SF,” said Voss, sitting in a small conference room in Ello’s apartment-style office, just around the corner from OpenAI’s headquarters.

“If you want to be the best in the world in finance, move to New York. If you want to be the best in the world at acting, you move to LA. If you want to be the best in the world in technology, you move to San Francisco,” said Voss, a native of Germany.

San Francisco supporters say the city remains a vibrant hub for tech startups, talent and funding.

(Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times)

Several tech leaders interviewed — some have spent decades in Silicon Valley, others are newcomers to the region — argue that San Francisco and the broader Bay Area continue to be a thriving nerve center of talent, institutional knowledge and abundant venture capital. They say emerging tech hubs — think Nashville, Miami, Austin — don't really compare.

Rather, they argue, alternating between upswings and downswings is simply a natural part of San Francisco's rhythm. And while they acknowledge the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as tech companies traded downtown offices for remote work, they see the next boom in the industry built on artificial intelligence.

“It actually feels like this really optimistic and exciting moment,” said Angela Hoover, who recently moved her AI search chatbot company Andi from Miami to San Francisco. “People want to be in San Francisco, and the people on my team who live here are falling in love with the city.”

Moving from the East Coast to the West Coast was like “rocket fuel” for Andi, Hoover said. She has discovered a wealth of leaders in the AI ​​space who are willing to provide feedback and collaborate on ideas.

Some key data points also contradict the narrative of a region in decline. According to an October report from Ernst and Young, the Bay Area maintained its top spot nationally for venture capital investment last year, followed by Boston and New York, thanks in part to investments in artificial intelligence.

And while California as a whole has lost about 37,200 people since July 2022, San Francisco and other Bay Area counties have seen a net gain of thousands of residents, according to the state Department of Revenue. And San Francisco's unaffordable real estate prices have fallen over the last year, a trend that is expected to continue in 2024.

“I've seen over the last six months a gradual — a gradual — mood of optimism returning,” said Homa Bahrami, a lecturer at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. “Every day you hear about another layoff, another layoff, another layoff. But at the same time, you also see that this new start-up has been founded, this new start-up has been acquired and venture capital has flowed into this area.”

Bahrami attributes the Bay Area's importance in the tech industry to its tangible resources, including education, mentorship and funding, which “make it difficult for other places to replicate.”

The region's many elite schools, including Berkeley and Stanford, are nurturing the next generation of startups and executives. Many retired CEOs are available to mentor younger executives, and venture capital funding is more readily available than in many of the newer tech hubs.

“The Bay Area is a global ecosystem,” Bahrami said. “It’s not just an American ecosystem.”

Nevertheless, Bahrami urged caution not to interpret the first signs of the next “boom” too much.

“I would use the word 'paradox,'” Bahrami said. “I think we're kind of in a transition from the pandemic world to the post-pandemic world. But we’re not quite there yet.”

And Bahrami noted that “dark clouds” are still looming, including inflation, geopolitical challenges and the difficulties San Francisco faces in revitalizing its downtown after the pandemic.

According to the city's chief economist Ted Egan, San Francisco's office vacancy rate is now over 30%. The number of workers coming into the office is just 43% of pre-COVID levels, and that's bad news for restaurants and retail.

“Downtown was a pretty rich ecosystem before the pandemic. But at its core, it was about people coming to work in offices,” Egan said. “Until you get that back, it will be difficult to get a positive dynamic going again in the city center.”

Even San Francisco's defenders admit the pandemic exodus was a blow. In recent years, tech giants had taken over swathes of the downtown core, building shiny new towers that employed thousands of workers who needed places to eat and drink, shop and live.

After the coronavirus crisis and tech companies allowing people to work from home, it was only a matter of time before “home” became another city and then another state, with cheaper rent, less Homeless camps and less property crime. Many tech leaders followed suit and realized they could raise money and run a business in states with lower tax rates.

It's not that Voss doesn't see any problems. He believes San Francisco is still thriving.

“I perceive it as background noise,” he said.

Voss said Ello employs about 35 people with offices in New York and Nairobi. The company recently raised $15 million in Series A funding, and Voss said he convinced a well-known machine learning engineer to move from China to San Francisco.

“If you are the person who is so ambitious and wants to be the best in the world at what you do, I don't think you will not consider San Francisco again because of what Fox News says. Voss said.

Russell Hancock, president and chief executive of think tank Joint Venture Silicon Valley, agreed, saying most people in the tech world disagree with the narrative that San Francisco has somehow lost its appeal.

“San Francisco is alive. “It’s a great city,” Hancock said. “There’s a reason it’s attractive. And part of the appeal, let’s never forget, is that it’s kind of quirky and crazy and progressive.”

Hancock doesn't think other cities becoming tech hubs is a bad thing, arguing that the changing dynamics could ease pressure on the Bay Area's infrastructure and drive down real estate prices.

But as artificial intelligence takes hold, San Francisco has a “head start” over other regions, Hancock said.

“That’s what Silicon Valley is like,” he said. “These things come in waves. And this appears to be the next wave. And it seems real.”

A big part of San Francisco's enduring appeal for technology is that it's in the city's DNA to be a “tolerant place,” added Peter Leyden, a Bay Area entrepreneur and most recently founder of Reinvent Futures, a Company that helps bring together top talent leaders in artificial intelligence.

In Silicon Valley, Leyden said, failing at one company is pretty much a requirement to gain the capital and skills needed to succeed at another company. While the right-wing and libertarian “crypto crew” fled to red states during the pandemic, the old guard remained there, confident that San Francisco would rise again, he said.

“The point is, every place has its problems, and so do we, but the narrative out there is just wrong,” Leyden said. “Because there’s really nothing like San Francisco.”

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The NFL is a weekly league. Unlike college football, where Georgia infuses every single game with absurd results, unpredictability is what makes people scream for the NFL. The Detroit Lions have been predictable of wins and losses this year. After the goodbye they sit at 0-8. As they roll out their plan of attack against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 10, what happened in Week 9 can give them some hope.

The Jacksonville Jaguars were a joke this year. Their squad is talented but not enough to fight for a nearby playoff spot. Urban Meyer, who is in his freshman year, has had more than his fair share of debacles on and off the field.

Jacksonville welcomed Josh Allen and the AFC-leading Buffalo Bills on Sunday. The Jaguars were 14.5 points underdog. In a game that seemed like a minor matter, Meyer’s team somehow emerged with a 9-6 win. A defense that had just given up 31 points to Geno Smith kept Allen at six. It didn’t make sense, but sometimes the NFL doesn’t either.

If the Jaguars can beat the Bills, the Lions can certainly beat one of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Cleveland Browns, Chicago Bears or Minnesota Vikings in the next four weeks. Nobody demands a winning streak. Nobody expects a post-bye run into the competency. Detroit fans just want one win. That alone would help alleviate the anxiety and recurring nightmares of the 2008 0-16 season.

This week the Dallas Cowboys arrived in Minnesota in a game where they started Cooper to freak out Rush as quarterback after a street win. With Dak Prescott back in the middle, they would certainly have no problem with the Denver Broncos. Dallas came up as a 10.5 point favorite. This was a no-brainer. Not correct.

The Broncos didn’t just beat the Dallas cowboys. They tore them down.

Teddy Bridgewater looked like a starting quarterback, rookie running back Javonte Williams was finally let go and Denver dominated. A quarterback who was below average this year played above average, and a young running back who was up and down in terms of touch got a lot and thrived in that role. Look familiar to a Lions fan?

Jared Goff isn’t the long-term solution for the quarterback. But he’s an average QB who has been below par this year, much like Bridgewater. D’Andre Swift has what it takes to be a star that runs backwards. Still, head coach Dan Campbell and offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn had some headaches when they left Swift on the fixtures for the year. The Broncos put it together in a game against a 6-1 cowboys team. Detroit has no excuses. They should be able to do that too.

If you get the impression that these two were outliers for a week during an 18-week one-season marathon, you’re wrong.

The Cleveland Browns were underdogs in Cincinnati on Sunday and won straight away. The same goes for the Tennessee Titans and their win over the Los Angeles Rams in SoFi. How about the Atlanta Falcons as the touchdown dog going to the Big Easy and beating the New Orleans Saints?

One key difference is that the Lions are closer to the Jaguars than the other underdogs who have won. That alone shows that Detroit can achieve something in the next few weeks.

They’ll be underdogs in all of their next four games, but they can throw that thought out the window. As long as something very strange happens, Lions will be underdogs in any remaining competition on their schedule. It does not matter.

Detroit had two extremely tight calls that year, and both were lost to game-winning field goals after time ran out. You’ve had inspiring performances, but that means absolutely nothing in the NFL. Before Goodbye Week, the Philadelphia Eagles blew them out at Ford Field. It was by far the worst performance by Campbell’s side in the whole year. So the goodbye week came at a perfect time.

Now that Lions have had a chance to catch their breath, they can turn the page and consider this a fresh start. First up are the Steelers, who will leave their seats a short week after the Chicago Bears game on Monday night. The Lions have had plenty of time to prepare for this tournament while Pittsburgh will compete against the clock. It may not mean much, but Detroit can take the positive where it finds it.

There were seven games in week 9 that the underdogs won. If Colt McCoy can end the San Francisco 49ers and Jaguars on the Bills offensive, Goff and the Lions may soon find a solution. At least they hope it is.

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SAN FRANCISCO – Adam Bergeron is excited to reopen the Balboa Theater, the independent San Francisco cinema that he owns and operates.

He has watched other cinemas in the US take the audience back in front of them. But San Francisco reopened more slowly than other cities. Now the time feels right.

“San Francisco was a role model for getting Covid right, if there is such a thing,” said Bergeron.

“At this point, everyone I know is fully vaccinated. Cases are falling. And we just picked a time that seemed like the right time,” he added. He plans to reopen May 14th with a “Godzilla” marathon.

Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

San Francisco and its suburbs were cautious and maintained various restrictions while other parts of the country reopened businesses and eased masking mandates. The vaccination rate is now among the highest of any major US city. Two thirds of all adults have received at least one dose.

And as parts of the city open up – some bars in San Francisco have waiting lists to get a table again – experts are showing cautious optimism. The city may see signs of herd immunity.

“This is our moment to leave the pandemic behind,” said Dr. Grant Colfax, San Francisco’s director of health. “It is clear that the vaccines are our way out.”

Herd immunity is about transmission. When not enough people can catch and spread a virus, especially in a community where cases are already low, the virus struggles to find new hosts. Eventually, of course, infections would subside. It’s a simple concept, but it can be elusive and difficult to define – especially at the national level.

However, it may be clearer on site. In the past seven days, San Francisco, which was home to more than 870,000 people, had an average of just 26 new Covid-19 cases per day. Two-thirds of all adults in San Francisco and nearly 60 percent of the larger metropolitan area of ​​4.7 million were vaccinated with at least one dose – one of the highest rates in the United States. The positive test rate is 1.2 percent.

All over San Francisco, there are signs that residents are beginning to relax, at least slightly, their emergency arrangements and be rewarded with vaccinations. Some people go maskless on walks outdoors – a rare sight until recently – while small gatherings such as running and cycling clubs have resumed and gym yoga and other fitness classes have resumed. With applause from the city, the main office of the city library reopened for browsing on Monday, and the city could enter California’s “yellow tier” this week – the least restrictive pandemic tier.

And there are signs that the city is preparing for a long-term reopening. Kevin Carroll, executive director of the San Francisco Hotel Council, a trading group serving the city’s hospitality industry, said the majority of San Francisco’s 34,000 hotel rooms are expected to be open by the end of May. More downtown offices, including the big tech companies, are about to return. Salesforce, the software company that occupies San Francisco’s tallest skyscraper, is aiming to reopen its headquarters this month, spokeswoman Annie Vincent said.

It is estimated that 70 to 85 percent of a city’s population must be immune to achieve herd immunity, but that number can be a moving target. A better indication is whether the number of cases and hospitalizations in a city is falling to a low level and staying so with few restrictions, said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease doctor and professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco.

San Francisco has had the advantage of speeding up its vaccination campaign, while cases, hospitalizations, and daily deaths are already relatively low, which most likely accounts for much of the city’s success to date. Last winter, when much of the country was grappling with a devastating wave, cases in San Francisco peaked on January 4, with 560 infections reported. For comparison: Los Angeles peaked on December 26th with more than 29,000 new cases.

Vaccines can help bring these numbers down, but how quickly this happens depends largely on the local situation. In places where cases are increasing, scientists have observed a tipping point in vaccinations. After that, hospital admissions and deaths begin to drop dramatically.

“It appeared to be 40 to 50 percent at the first dose rate,” said Gandhi. “After that, things started to decline.”

There are currently 15 people hospitalized in San Francisco for Covid-19, which is roughly less than 2 per 100,000 people. While there isn’t a magic number, Gandhi said it is these types of low hospital stay rates that health officials monitor to make sure a city is on the right track.

In March 2020, San Francisco became the first city in the country to issue mandatory on-site accommodation in response to the pandemic. And the city has maintained other stringent mitigation practices that have helped the city “hit back three waves,” according to Colfax, San Francisco’s health director.

Colfax also recognized the widespread acceptance of the city’s public health interventions for this advancement.

“That culture and public health support and public health infrastructure are deeply ingrained in San Francisco, largely because of our response to the HIV / AIDS epidemic,” he said. “It’s anchored in our cultural DNA.”

But the real test is likely to come this week when the city starts lifting some of its restrictions.

“The final test when you achieve herd immunity is not to be on lockdown and not having mitigation procedures in place,” Gandhi said. “The way we could tell we got herd immunity with measles is because people were out and mixing and people didn’t get sick and children weren’t hospitalized with severe measles.”

However, herd immunity is not a set target and the threshold can vary depending on a number of factors including population dynamics. Reaching herd immunity also does not automatically guarantee that the coronavirus will simply go away. For example, even though more than 90 percent of the US population has received a measles vaccine, outbreaks can still occur.

Hence, herd immunity should not be seen as an end goal, said Dr. Julie Parsonnet, Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health at Stanford University.

“It’s not permanent, and just because we’ve achieved herd immunity doesn’t mean there won’t be any cases,” Parsonnet said. “Herd immunity is a good construct for modeling, but not for life.”

There is also a risk of developing a variant of the virus that escapes the protection of vaccines. There is no evidence that this has happened so far, but if it did it could jeopardize the protection that communities have built.

And while pockets of land like San Francisco may already have reached a level of immunity that can lift most major restrictions, it can take the entire country a long time to get there – if it ever does. But that doesn’t mean that the lockdowns will last for years or that life can’t go on.

“If we get to a point where the coronavirus isn’t making people very sick, we’re in good shape,” Parsonnet said. “If we don’t get herd immunity as a nation, we will still protect vulnerable people with vaccines and hopefully not have hospitalizations.”

While San Francisco is the first major U.S. city to appear to have lost control of the pandemic, others are likely not far behind.

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More than 46 percent of people in New York City have received at least one dose of vaccine, and cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are steadily declining. Los Angeles County, considered the epicenter of the U.S. pandemic less than five months ago, saw no new deaths from Covid-19 on Sunday and Monday. 54 percent of residents have received at least one dose of vaccine, and it is among several California counties planning to lift restrictions this week.

In other parts of the country, smaller cities such as Albuquerque, New Mexico; Portland, Maine; and San Diego are seeing similar encouraging progress.

“It is deeply hopeful,” said Gandhi. “The vaccines have put us in a whole new world.”

Denise Chow reported from New York City and David Ingram from San Francisco.

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