ExclusiveDoes San Francisco Need Saving?

Then what I realized is that my skin, my whole body was almost numb because the water is so cold. I was kind of getting desperate, like I'm not going to make it. So I'm like, help, help. You know, I tried to ask them. So they came and picked me up and they took me to the shore. In those kinds of situations, you don't get to be picky. For the people who are in that life and that situation, they were welcome. Welcome back to another episode of Silicon Valley Front Row. I'm David Lam, and this is Steve Ispas. So we're going to talk about Salesforce, Dreamforce, one of the biggest events for the company every year. So this year was in San Francisco, like always. And Steve, so what have you heard about how it's happened and how the city has changed during this conference? Well, so it's a big event, right? I think it's probably the biggest event, tech event that happens in the country. I heard they had like 50,000 participants, but before they had like 100,000 or so. So it's a huge event, Moscone Center, right in the center of the city. And we talk about how Mark Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, has been replacing positions, right? And he was talking about letting go 4,000 people, I think. We covered this in another episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's kind of interesting. So he's not really laying them off, but he's changing their position somehow. So the fact that he's able to not lay them off and have him do something else, it's interesting, but it's a huge event. It has like a lot of media attention, a lot of speeches, you know. I haven't been to it, maybe we'll go next time. I guess you get to experience all kinds of gadgets and things. Bring me with you. We'll get to test out the new... I heard you can do some kind of a virtual golf or something, you know, or whatever, you know, it sounds pretty interesting. Right. But what kind of was in the headlines with this event was the fact that Mark Benioff made a kind of short comment that he welcomes the National Guard to come to San Francisco to clean up the city and to make sure the event goes well. So you know a little bit more about that because you did some interviews on the street, right? Yeah, yeah. So it was all over the news. It definitely made headlines. So I looked into it a little bit. So David Sachs is an investor, and he's also one of the hosts in the All In podcast. He said he spoke to Benioff after apparently those comments came out. And it seems like it was a sad comment and it might have been just referring to... Security for the event, I guess. Yeah, for the event. But, you know, who knows? But it seems like it just got blown up in the media, made headlines. So yeah, I mean... And then he kind of retracted it, right? He said like, no, we don't need it or something. He got a lot of pressure, I guess. Yeah, yeah. What do you know about that? All I know is that he retracted the statement and then probably a lot of people told him, hey, we don't need help, you know. And I think he hired 200 extra off-duty police officers to help security for the event. And I guess the question that comes to me is, if you're being offered as a city, if you're being offered help to clean up the city or support the police or whatever, or deport the drug dealers or whatever, the ones who are not illegal, why not take it, right? You know, why not take that support? And I can think of two reasons, right? One is that you'll be criticized by the people who don't want that to happen, because they have a different ideology, different political system that they believe in. And the other one is ego. It's like, oh, this is my city. I take care of it. I don't need help from outside. And somehow both reasons don't seem to be very good ones. You know, it also seems that if anything that's just been labeled or have influence from the Trump administration, maybe it seems like parts of San Francisco, they don't want to be involved. But, you know, with San Francisco, it's actually pretty easy to figure out what the situation is like, right? Because we can show this picture right here with the camera. I can pick it up. But this is a picture taken on 6th and Mission. The article says 6th and Market, but it's incorrect. It's 6th and Mission. But this is just an example of what it looks like. But all one has to do is just go over there and walk on the street, if you're not too worried about it, to see what it looks like. And indeed, it doesn't look good. I want to give you a short kind of example of what I went through, you know, personally. It was about a year ago, and I was leaving a show. I actually saw the Shen Yun performance, and I was driving home, and I was going on this one-way street that ends up going on 280 or 101 by 280. And then there's a guy on a scooter who's obviously high. He's not normal, right? Who's coming against traffic, against all these cars, right? The opposite way. He's just coming towards us at an angle, right? So he's coming. I just see him the last minute. There's no lights or anything. The last minute I see him, I barely miss him. So for me, I was lucky, not for him. You stopped in time. No, I didn't stop. There's no time to stop. But he just kind of cut in front of me. And you were still driving. I was still driving. I had no time to react. But then the next car that was to my right going this way, we heard this big bam. And the next car hit him, you know. And then we saw the windshield kind of being cracked of the car, right? So that did not look good at all. And this is just some guy, right, that's just randomly riding his scooter. Obviously, he's on drugs. So these kind of experiences give you a sense of what it's like over there. And now, that doesn't mean there's many parts of San Francisco. I hang out there a lot that look very nice. They're very clean. You don't even think this exists. Yeah. How did you know that he was under the influence or high or something? Was he yelling things or? No, actually, I assumed. I didn't know that. But for someone to just go against traffic like that, it's just... No, but I didn't know. He might have not been. But then he's not normal either. Oh, that's sad to hear. I mean, I think you're right about the city being beautiful. Because like City Hall, right? If you see the classical architecture and the designs, and even the gold embellishment on the top of the building, it's very nice. But yeah, there are other parts or even right in front of it, where there's homelessness and just, you know, it is the opposite of what it should be. Pieces. Yeah, yeah. Pieces. So the other day, I went to talk to people in San Francisco and ask them about the National Guard. How do they feel about the troops potentially coming in into their city? Right. It seems like most of them saying that they would not like the troops to come in. But they did admit that the city does need help with these things, right? Homelessness, the drug crises, and crime. So with the mayor, the current mayor, he's been in office just this year. And it seems like people are saying that there's already been a change. But we could play a clip of what they say. As your mayor, my top priority every single day is keeping San Francisco safe. With the support of local law enforcement, community leaders, and the appropriate federal law enforcement partners, we're achieving that goal without compromising our values or our laws. As a result, violent crime has fallen to levels not seen since the 1950s. I think if it will make the people from California or even the tourists feel safer, then that would be a welcome idea. Sometimes I'm unsafe, to be honest. Yeah. There's not really any need for that here. There's no major protests or people attacking federal buildings here in San Francisco. In terms of enforcement, maybe it could be helpful, but it might also be a bit of an overstep. I'd like to say local law enforcement could do it. But, I mean, the SFPD is severely understaffed and they've had so many cuts. I can only see people getting really agitated and then, well, I find myself on the left, but you're going to find the real leftists out there. I think the mayor, almost everyone you talk to, they will say that the mayor has been doing a good job, you know, compared to previous mayors, and they see a difference. The only question is, is the difference significant? Is it big enough? Or even more than that, is he able to do as much as he would like to do? You know, maybe there's limitations, maybe there's judges or there's legal blocks in place that he cannot go over. Like a slowdown in this process. Exactly, exactly. But just from his comments, from what we heard, that he's actually supportive of the federal troops, but not necessarily that he needs them here, but in general, he's supportive. He said he would also like more cooperation with the federal agencies like FBI, DEA. That's pretty different than what other politicians say, that they don't like to hear that at all, or even curse it, you know, at the military or whatever. Or Mayor Daniel Lurie. I've seen him a few times in the Tenderloin. He was, you know, interacting with people in the area. I went to go do a story there, and it seems like he's well-respected. You know, he gave a short speech saying that he wants to do more. He said he wants to do more to fix the city and help people. And after he was done, and even when he was walking there, everyone was giving him handshakes, taking photos with them in the area. So that was really nice to see. So it seems people really do like him. But I would still love to ask him, and maybe we'll have him on this program in the future, and I would still love to ask him. With Vincent Huang. Why not take the help if it's being offered to you, right? It's almost like saying you make $1,000 a month, that's your salary. I'll give you another $500, or I'll give you another $1,000, you know, to help you, right? And why would you not take it? Again, it could be pride, but I really, you know... Some people, what do you hear? Why would they not take it? Because of friction? Yeah. So one of the interviewees, he said there might be chaos out of it. People might counter protest. Or riots or something. Yeah, because of having federal troops here, or because it's from one of Trump's actions. And then other people said that it's not necessary, because they don't see any riots yet. But the tourists from the Philippines, they said... So as a tourist, they said they already saw... They're already uncomfortable. They felt unsafe during their first three days visiting San Francisco for the first time. But they said they welcomed it. And Darren Stalka, he's a San Francisco native. And he posted saying that he welcomed the troops. Well, you know, I think that the issue of drugs and fentanyl is one. It maybe comes hand in hand. But the other one is being kind of weak on crime. And I think in so many ways, San Francisco and maybe the Bay Area is known for that. Where either criminals are not being prosecuted, or people steal. You know, this was big news maybe a year ago or so. People steal from stores and nothing happens to them. And actually, we did a story on a security guard. And I've seen this myself. I've seen it in Safeway, where someone steals things from a store. And the security guard, at best, he can kind of talk to him and ask him, you know, when you come here, you know, let me see your coat. You know, and he was full of stuff, of stolen stuff. But in some cases, they are told you cannot interfere at all with the thief. You cannot stop them. You cannot even get in front of them. You have to move out of the way so they can actually pass through with the stolen stuff, right? So when you have those kind of policies, it makes it real difficult. But to me, the bigger problem is not even that. It's how do young people or other individuals who are maybe borderline, right? Maybe they're going towards crime or not or whatever. But what is their impression, right? They say, okay, nothing happens to these people who steal stuff. You know, why would I not do it? I can get stuff and it's cool. It makes me look cool. And nothing happens to them, right? So that's a really bad influence. Yeah, if they don't see the repercussions or consequences right away, they don't have the guidance to right or wrong, right? You also interviewed a hot dog vendor, right? He had some kind of interesting things to say. Yeah, that's Lorenzo. He's a funny guy. Yeah, actually, he was the one that was worried about protest, right? Or chaos. Yeah, he was. He was saying about stepping on poop and not watching where you're going near the fentanyl infested areas. Yeah, he has an interesting take. It was nice talking to him. He's a funny guy. But yeah, in my experience, like when I think of San Francisco, every time, almost like every single time I go to City Hall, right? I just have this. I know I could expect to smell urine, like the parking lot that's next to City Hall. Yes, I go up the steps after and even coming down. Yeah, it's just be not a pleasant smell. Reflects the whole situation in so many ways. It does, and it's kind of not very good because I think everyone in San Francisco deserves more. Politicians, they use this parking lot. I wonder if they deserve more than that. How do they feel, too? Again, I feel really good about the mayor and what he's trying to do. But one comment he makes there is that if the National Guard comes, there wouldn't be much for them to do. I'm not sure about that, but if ICE is there and if you have all these drug dealers, many of them are heard are illegals from Honduras. Hondurans, they are the ones who are maybe in charge of the drug dealing. If they are being taken back and removed from there and taken back to, you know, expelled, right? To me, that would be a huge advance, right? So I kind of challenge his statement that there's nothing they can do, but maybe he's referring specifically to the National Guard, not to other elements of the military or ICE. David, I want to give you an example about, you know, getting help. And when you say, I don't need help or I need help, and I think it really depends the situation you're in, right? If you're in a life and death situation versus you're at home sitting on a couch and it doesn't make much of a difference one way or another, right? So I'm a pretty good swimmer. I took swimming in high school and in college, I played water polo for Cleveland State and San Jose State, right? So I was a pretty good swimmer. So one time a friend of mine, and we visited Tahoe, and then there's something called Emerald Bay, and there's an Emerald Island, right? I think it's the only island in Lake Tahoe, right? Beautiful place. And I thought it would be fun to swim to that island, you know? How far was it? It's not as close, you know? I don't know, like maybe half a mile or maybe not, I don't know. I don't remember, but I definitely could do that normally, you know, because I swim a lot. And there were no girls there to impress, right? I just felt myself that I wanted to do it like a challenge, right? Yeah, and you bike like almost every day too, so I know you're fit. Yeah, so the distance wasn't a problem. So I got in the water and I started swimming, and I think I went a little bit more than halfway, right? And then all of a sudden, I feel very weird. I feel very uncomfortable, almost like something is strangling me, and I cannot move anymore. I cannot swim. So then I'm thinking to come back, but I'm getting confused. So I go back a little bit. Then I go, I feel, oh, maybe the island is closer. So I go back to the island. So I'm kind of getting confused, and I'm not sure what to do. So then luckily, there's all these boats that pass by. So the first boat I see, I'm kind of hesitant. I just try to wave at them, you know? They wave back, and then they just go, right? So the next one that comes, I was kind of getting desperate because I felt like I'm not going to make it. It just felt really horrible. So I'm like, help, help. I tried to ask them. So they came and picked me up, and they took me to the shore, right? And then what I realized is that my skin, my whole body was almost numb because the water is so cold. It numbed my body, so that's why I couldn't move, right? I wasn't tired. I just couldn't move. I see. Yeah, it was pretty crazy. But the point I'm trying to make is that in that situation, I didn't care about the color of the boat. I didn't care if the boat is Republican or Democrat. I didn't care if the boat is run by a mafia person or a criminal, right? Whoever it was, I'm thankful that they saved me, right? They let me use the boat to get back to the shore. So I think in those kind of situations, you don't get to be picky, you know? So for the people who are in that life and that situation, they will welcome help. Again, if you're comfortable, it doesn't affect your mind, you're probably going to say, I don't need it. So that's, I think, the message to leave it with. And I think we have some questions for our audience. Yeah, of course. So the first question is, do you think San Francisco should have the National Guard come in? And the other question is, do you feel safe in San Francisco? Do you feel safe if you live there or if you travel there, regardless of whether you think the National Guard should come or not? Do you feel safe or not? So please put your answers in the comments. And I think San Francisco is such a nice city. I grew up going to San Francisco for family trips. It's always like a highlight, right? Yeah, the Golden Gate Bridge, downtown. So anyways, for the viewers, if it's the first time you're watching, welcome. And if you're a repeated viewer, welcome back. And thanks for subscribing.