Crew Ainge

A funny thing about the deluge of wealth about to hit SF is that SF tech has always been about arcane status and legibility games much more so than money, and as we're about to mint a whole generation of UHNWs: there's nothing to buy. The nicest houses in SF top out at $30M. We do not have Malibu-style $100M+ mansion compounds, and we don't have NYC-style $20M+ ultra-luxury apartments. There are a few penthouses at the Avery and a few other buildings and that's it. A handful of $50M+ estates available in the South Bay, but there's nothing these people hate more than commuting to where the cool events are. Megayachts would be out of gauche and out-of-place in the Bay. To a large extent, the real estate that you would associate with the kind of wealth about to befall Anthropic employee #100 simply does not exist and will take years to build as a physical matter and much more than that as a regulatory matter. The consequence of this is that the arcane status and legibility games will come to matter much more than ever before -- if there's so much wealth that you can't really differentiate yourself on wealth, then everything ends up coming down to social proof games. Ah you have money? But does so-and-so follow you on Substack? And when you speak at Manifest, do people nod and say "wow what's your Twitter" or do they silently turn to get another Spindrift?