May 13, 2022
Hey, San Francisco
Twenty years ago, today, I landed on your lap.
Right off the heels of the dot com crash, for love and to work for a startup.
Yes, it was surreal to uproot and weird to be amid your transition.
You had a heartbeat that I could not syncopate with. Yet.
I didn’t fall in love with you. In fact, I disliked many elements of you. I hated the nightly fog. Sun worshiper that I am, Karl, was antithetical. Daily life’s dichotomies and oxymorons were nothing short of alien, foreign, and, at times, harsh.
You. The safest social liberal Gay Mecca with the most ambitious category-defining unapologetically-capitalistic technological industry. Homelessness, poop, tech giants, and gays, for days.
It was a vertigo-inducing study in contrasts. And like most
t contrasts it slowly highlighted your uniqueness and your sameness.
It highlighted my tribes, both and at once. LGBT and startups. Not together, mind you. That was a no-no back then. There is still friction today, of course, but it is so much better. Our tribes. They embraced me. From day one. What started as two separate and unique social spheres is now an almost overlapping Venn Diagram for me.
This brings me to today, twenty years later. We say change is constant, and it is. San Francisco, you embody it yet somehow retain most of the same deeply rooted goodness of your promise.
From my humble point of view, you are literally the only place on earth where I can shamelessly aim towards the highest of northern stars of self-actualization, vocationally and personally (they are interchangeable).
From walking down your streets to attending investors or startup’s pitch hand-holding my men.
Being me. An out and proud gay, throupled, serial entrepreneur living in the heart of the Castro. Gratitude isn’t an apt enough word for my full and complete awe of the potential and promises you, San Francisco, have yet to offer us. But. I’m certain of its delivery.
True, there’s a metric ton of shit of work to do to better it all. But I’m surrounded by us, and we’re working on it. You’re the cradle of innovation and the ultimate global gay landmark. We got it. We’re on it. We’re building for it, for betterment, and for all of us.
Had you described to Ron twenty years ago even a modicum of my life now? I’d automatically peg you down as a cruel jester…
Well, it turns out you and life had a benign, no, much more than that, an affirming and empowering sense of humor.
Thank you, San Francisco; my love for you is cemented.
Thank you for our amazing gay tribe and our warm embrace. You’re the first family to accept me fully and urge me to be more and more me fully. At every turn, at every fall, and every transition, position, you were there, “You’reat,” You’reafe,” and “You’reme,” “d” You’re loved. “I love you all, too.
Thank you for our mind-boggling innovation industry for your challenges, triumphs, and endless opportunities. Making the future our present is an amazing career path. I’m nothing short of gleeful to build for and live up to its optimistic promise. I love our groundbreaking space.
I know, deeply and with gratitude, that I’m more than fortunate. I’ve seen firsthand much of what the world has to offer. I’ve lived, loved, dined, traveled, experienced, and explored much of our human condition- its promise, its failings, and my place in between.
For me. It’s here. I am home.
San Francisco, our heartbeat syncopated.
Thank you for the last twenty years. While never easy, they were always full of love, warmth, and endless support. You’ve helped me, and all I can do is work on paying forward more and more.
The next twenty with you are shaping up to be a magnitude more.
Here’s to more of San Francisco.
Because “more,” San Francisco, is the one promise you have and always will deliver on. And I’m here for it.
With love,
Ron