What it’s like to live in a city that no longer believes its problems can be fixed.
In the spring of 2019, Marc Benioff surveyed his kingdom and it looked good. He stood on the top floor of the Salesforce Tower, the tallest building in San Francisco, named after his company, then the largest employer in San Francisco. You could see every part of the city and out across the bay. The UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and the Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland (to which Benioff had donated $250 million). The site of a 200-bed Navigation Center for the homeless (which Benioff had defended in the face of other rich — but less rich — San Franciscans who tried to fight it off). The city looked sun-kissed and thriving from this view: the elegant Golden Gate Bridge, Twin Peaks, the surreal green of the Marin Headlands.
“It’s cool up here, right?” said Benioff. “And the vibe. Are you getting the vibe, too? There’s, like, a vibe.”
