Introduction to San Francisco’s New Mayor

Last November, the people of San Francisco elected Daniel Lurie, one of the wealthy heirs to the Levi Strauss fortune, as their new mayor. Now, Lurie appears to be turning to individuals with substantial financial resources, similar to himself, to make crucial decisions on how to "revitalize" the heart of Silicon Valley.

The Partnership for San Francisco

The San Francisco Standard reports that Lurie’s administration has discreetly launched two separate initiatives aimed at allowing private, affluent members of the city’s upper crust to have a greater influence over the city’s political system. The first initiative is a new mayoral council, dubbed the Partnership for San Francisco, comprising a host of powerful and influential Silicon Valley executives. The council will include notable figures such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, and others. It will be headed by three women: Katherine August-deWilde, a former president of First Republic Bank, Steve Jobs’s widow and owner of The Atlantic, Laurene Powell Jobs, and Ruth Porat, the president and chief investment officer of Alphabet, Google’s parent company.

Purpose and Funding of the Council

The council is designed to "present the mayor with CEO-level views on policy," according to the Standard, and will be privately funded through dues paid by participating companies. This initiative is intended to provide the mayor with high-level insights and guidance on policy matters.

Public-Private Partnership

Simultaneously, Lurie’s office is launching a public-private partnership, the San Francisco Downtown Development Corp, aimed at infusing the city’s business development efforts with private capital. This corporation will utilize a combination of public and private funds to support various revitalization efforts in the city’s business district. The initiative will involve both public taxpayer money and funds from private donors.

Comparison to Similar Initiatives

The new organization bears similarities to the Partnership for New York City, founded in the 1970s, when New York City faced its own budgetary and governance crisis. That organization invited wealthy industrialists to contribute to the city’s future, shifting attention and power from the public sector to private ventures. Similarly, San Francisco’s new organization can be seen in the context of the current transformation at the federal level, where public agencies are being downsized and federal revenue is being stifled in favor of a more private, corporately-run approach to governance.

Secrecy and Independence

The Standard notes that the two new groups have been working secretly for weeks, coordinating closely with the mayor’s office. Although they aim to operate independently of City Hall and each other, the Lurie Administration hopes to establish both as permanent civic institutions that will continue their work after the mayor leaves office, much like the New York groups they are modeled after.

Request for Comment

Gizmodo reached out to the San Francisco Mayor’s office for comment on these developments.

Leadership of the Downtown Development Corp

The Downtown Development Corp, Lurie’s new public-private partnership, will be headed by David Stiepelman, a former Goldman Sachs official. Stiepelman is currently seeking funding sources for the corporation and has been engaging with multiple city financial and philanthropic players to assemble a board for the new organization.