Trump’s Vice Presidential pick, JD Vance has been heavily backed by Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal and Palantir, the highly controversial military and domestic surveillance and info collection company based in Palo Alto, CA. In this Part I episode, we explore how San Franciso and Bay Area-based tech and venture capital executives like Thiel, Garry Tan, Balaji Srinivasan, Elon Musk and others have “taken over” the politics of San Francisco, where Vance worked for Thiel’s venture capital firm, Mithril. On this program, we interview Kevin L. Jones and D. Scott Miller, two Bay Area journalists who co-host the “Doom Loop Dispatch” podcast and who have been tracking the rise of tech and VC money in San Francisco for some time. We also cover the alternative and citizen journalists who have been working to unearth the big money connections that helped fund San Francisco recalls of the DA and three school board members.
Shout out to Toshio Meronek, who hosts the podcast “Sad Francisco,” from which we stole this episode title.
Links:
Sad Franciso, the podcast from which we stole our episode title. Hosted by journalist Toshio Meronek.
Please also see Emily Mills on Twitter: (@sf_mills)
The Phoenix Papers takes a deep dive into the influence of Far Right $$ in San Francisco politics, channeled in under the guise of “neighborhood friendly” non-profit organizations like GrowSF.
The MOT Malcolm Harris episode on the history of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, capitalism and racism
Important article in the New Republic on Balaji Srinivasan and the Tech Bros of SF, by Gil Duran, New Republic
See all our past episodes at the KSQD YouTube channel and our podcast stream there. Or find us at Spotify, Apple and etc.
An early past show with Ali Collins, a recalled school board member.
