It is not OpenAI's or Anthropic's responsibility to build housing in SF. It is the city's. Putting the heat on the mayor and supervisors is the correct move.
I've been "entertaining" myself recently with a report on how various Bay Area cities are tracking against their housing elements. Remember, these housing elements were their state-mandated plans for additional housing units between 2022 and 2030, and extra emphasis was put on this cycle to make sure the plans were realistic, accountable, addressed the magnitude of the need, and included (relatively) affordable housing.
We are close to halfway through this time period. San Francisco has built, according to this report, less than 10% of their commitment. They have a little over four years now to come up with 76K units. See: https://cities.fairhousingelements.org/cities/san-francisco
Last year SF built 1.75K units. This year, by June, they had built 400 units.
This isn't an OpenAI problem.
artisinal
The federal government should step in. Give San Francisco four years to build the 76,000+ homes it needs. If the city fails, impose a substantial penalty for every unit missed and authorize the federal government to take over suitable public land and build the housing itself. At some point, housing shortages require consequences.
pibaker
I don't think the local political mess in San Francisco warrants breaking two hundred years of federalism. Nothing does, really.
Also worth keep in mind the US tried mass public housing projects in the 60s. And then they stopped because they all ended up being crime ridden shitholes.
phlakaton
Those were arguably due to neglect rather than public housing being problematic per se. Perhaps the same thing would happen if the Feds tried it again; perhaps the neglect is a practically unavoidable consequence given our politics. But I think it should still be on the table. We tilted at the Bank of the US a few times before figuring out the Federal Reserve, after all.
But I agree, it would be far preferable to let property developers solve this problem. I support regional and state-level interventions and accountability. I don't want this particular federal administration within a thousand miles of the problem!
grackasthebig
"It's full of bad ideas/effort like 1960s housing projects, but that's no reason to chuck 200 years of idiocy in the bin."
JumpCrisscross
Carrots work better. Bankroll HSR and the burying of PG&E’s power lines in exchange for Sacramento forcing San Francisco to build. Tie funding distribution to actual housing starts.
skybrian
You're not wrong, but from load-balancing perspective, if one of these companies moved to another city then probably both cities would be better off?
Aurornis
Anthropic and OpenAI don’t have that many employees compared to most big employers. Their employees are highly compensated. The ratio between the housing the occupy and the taxes paid by their employees has to be one of the most favorable ratios of all companies in the area.
Losing those companies and their employees would cost the cities far more than they might gain.
skybrian
Makes sense financially, but I suspect that the reason this isn’t all that appealing politically is that ordinary people can’t get those jobs. “We have a few, very rich employees” doesn’t seem like much of a selling point. It’s another example of inequality.
Data center finances seem vaguely similar? They could be a good source of tax revenue but don’t provide many jobs.
phlakaton
Silicon Valley exists as a persistent thumb on the nose against load-balancing ideas. It's had an absolute glut of tech companies for many decades now, with no apologies needed. Many people in the region benefit from that concentration of talent, wealth, and capital.
skybrian
It does seem that way nowadays, but I wonder why more tech companies don't bring it to a different city, like Microsoft did in Redmond. The old tech companies did things like that but the newer companies mostly aren't for some reason.
I suppose there are some moving to Texas. But the East Bay is a lot closer.
jdale27
SF is the quintessential boom town. Yet every batch of newcomers eventually thinks they have the right to be the last batch of newcomers and get to declare that the city should remain the same forever more, in its current state, perfected by their presence.
Aurornis
Their crime is compensating their employees too well, which this author thinks makes them responsible for higher rental prices?
The other complaint is that the author doesn’t think they see any benefit from all the taxes the companies are paying. Shouldn’t they be taking this up with the city? Companies don’t decide how their taxes are spent.
SpicyLemonZest
As the article says, companies this wealthy and successful are generally understood to have a civic responsibility to make contributions to their local community, above and beyond their tax obligations. It's a good equilibrium for everyone: the city doesn't have to hike taxes when companies get too successful, the companies get to appear generous, the public gets more stuff. I haven't fact checked the article, but if it's true that OpenAI has made "less than a million dollars" in SF civic contributions, that would be shockingly low for a company with their level of impact.
Aurornis
> are generally understood to have a civic responsibility to make contributions to their local community, above and beyond their tax obligations
Literally what taxes are for. If there are expectations that a company contributes to civic duties then make it a law and apply it equally.
Government should work on what the citizens should need. Having individual companies play it like a marketing game where the loudest voices get appeased is a very bad expectation. Decide what the people need centrally and apply tax dollars collected on a fair basis.
> but if it's true that OpenAI has made "less than a million dollars" in SF civic contributions
If you completely ignore all of the taxes paid by the corporations and their employees and also discount their civic contributions as not counting because the author of the op-ed doesn’t like them and therefore has decided they don’t count.
Even I can see why this game is unwinnable. The person writing this piece doesn’t understand how taxes work or the role of the government. They don’t even have great ideas for what would appease them. They just want to be angry at the current companies in the news and will move on to being angry at a different set of companies when the news cycle shifts in a few years.
SpicyLemonZest
Again, what you're saying is not what the social compact has historically been. Most companies, both inside and outside of Silicon Valley, happily recognize their informal responsibilities to the communities where they're located. Our AI overlords certainly have a legal right to skimp on social responsibility, but then they may not like the taxes that we have to enact on them in response.
> Even I can see why this game is unwinnable.
The point is that this is not supposed to be a "game" to win or lose. As a San Francisco business, OpenAI is supposed to care about the health of San Francisco in and of itself, not just doing the minimum to discharge some abstract duty. If San Francisco residents are going around saying "I'm unhappy about OpenAI, they're making my housing cost way too much", there should be a team working on that as passionately as the team working on training the next model.
JumpCrisscross
> OpenAI has made "less than a million dollars" in SF civic contributions
OpenAI and Anthropic are going to drop metric fucktons of taxes into California—and San Francisco—when they IPO.
phlakaton
Let's just say I'll believe that when I see it. Looks to me like they'll be operating at losses well beyond their IPOs.
JumpCrisscross
> they'll be operating at losses well beyond their IPOs
Doesn’t matter for taxes on wages, options, realized gains, distributions, et cetera.
zaptheimpaler
IIRC other tech companies like Meta and Google attempted to build housing in SF but were shot down by NIMBYs and city regulations the same as any other construction. Most of the US can barely build a lego house without years of permitting and consultations now, then it gets cancelled or overruns the budget and time by 20x. Any actual plan to rezone or build anywhere in the west, a 1000 boomers descens like a zombie army at the city meetings and stop it. Dumping money into the city can’t solve this particular problem.
SpicyLemonZest
The regulatory environment for housing construction has changed a lot in the past 5 years, and in SF in particular the new "Family Zoning Plan" is a big deal. If OpenAI has been attempting to build housing in SF and got shot down by NIMBYs and regulations, I would agree that discharges their responsibility, but as far as I know they have not done this.
intunderflow
City that refuses to build housing and is stacked to the brim with NIMBYs has skyrocketing rents.
lacker
I think the tech companies would be supporters of new rules that would let builders create more housing all throughout San Francisco. We need a big tent, with all pro-housing groups coming together, to change the rules, and start allowing new housing again.
If you own a lot in San Francisco you should be able to build an apartment building on it.
nozzlegear
As much as I love to dunk on OpenAI and Anthropic, it's NIMBYs who "ruined" SF.
Abolish zoning, legalize housing.
sharts
Majority of these folks should be remote. Most orgs should distribute evenly throughout US.
gregglain
"And that AI companies undoubtedly accelerated this economic turnaround. OpenAI has contributed $236 million in gross receipt taxes over the past several years, which is great for the city coffers, but the success has come with a damning cost."
.. that's generally how it works.
If the city wants more money from the companies, tax em.
bdcravens
Isn't it more a matter of "ruining this version of SF, which was the result of the previous version(s) of SF being ruined by the previous silicon overlords"?
questionableans
There once was a time when tech companies mostly stayed out of SF. People who worked in the valley but hated it lived in SF amongst mostly people who had nothing to do with the tech industry. Then someone had the bright idea to put branch offices or even whole companies in SF. Convenient for the commute (and you could move to the East or North Bay), but then SF got overrun by the tech monoculture + NIMBYs trying to “keep it the same” by preventing construction, effectively kicking out so many of the people who were the reason why valleyphobic tech workers sought out the City of Saffron in the first place.
JumpCrisscross
> was a time when tech companies mostly stayed out of SF
San Francisco has been a boom town since before California was a state.
bbor
I said as much on the subreddit, but I’ll repeat it here for emphasis: the idea that OpenAI and Anthropic are to blame for a housing crisis in a city of hundreds of thousands because of their hundreds of researchers is absurd, even for an opinion piece.
Do they pay back enough? No, they should of course be nationalized alongside YC and the rest of the giants. But this feels like performative anti-AI pot-banging than an honest concern (and I don’t think the author is prepared for the Molotov-laden Reign of Terror that is rapidly building towards…)
I've been "entertaining" myself recently with a report on how various Bay Area cities are tracking against their housing elements. Remember, these housing elements were their state-mandated plans for additional housing units between 2022 and 2030, and extra emphasis was put on this cycle to make sure the plans were realistic, accountable, addressed the magnitude of the need, and included (relatively) affordable housing.
We are close to halfway through this time period. San Francisco has built, according to this report, less than 10% of their commitment. They have a little over four years now to come up with 76K units. See: https://cities.fairhousingelements.org/cities/san-francisco
Last year SF built 1.75K units. This year, by June, they had built 400 units.
This isn't an OpenAI problem.
Also worth keep in mind the US tried mass public housing projects in the 60s. And then they stopped because they all ended up being crime ridden shitholes.
But I agree, it would be far preferable to let property developers solve this problem. I support regional and state-level interventions and accountability. I don't want this particular federal administration within a thousand miles of the problem!
Losing those companies and their employees would cost the cities far more than they might gain.
Data center finances seem vaguely similar? They could be a good source of tax revenue but don’t provide many jobs.
I suppose there are some moving to Texas. But the East Bay is a lot closer.
The other complaint is that the author doesn’t think they see any benefit from all the taxes the companies are paying. Shouldn’t they be taking this up with the city? Companies don’t decide how their taxes are spent.
Literally what taxes are for. If there are expectations that a company contributes to civic duties then make it a law and apply it equally.
Government should work on what the citizens should need. Having individual companies play it like a marketing game where the loudest voices get appeased is a very bad expectation. Decide what the people need centrally and apply tax dollars collected on a fair basis.
> but if it's true that OpenAI has made "less than a million dollars" in SF civic contributions
If you completely ignore all of the taxes paid by the corporations and their employees and also discount their civic contributions as not counting because the author of the op-ed doesn’t like them and therefore has decided they don’t count.
Even I can see why this game is unwinnable. The person writing this piece doesn’t understand how taxes work or the role of the government. They don’t even have great ideas for what would appease them. They just want to be angry at the current companies in the news and will move on to being angry at a different set of companies when the news cycle shifts in a few years.
> Even I can see why this game is unwinnable.
The point is that this is not supposed to be a "game" to win or lose. As a San Francisco business, OpenAI is supposed to care about the health of San Francisco in and of itself, not just doing the minimum to discharge some abstract duty. If San Francisco residents are going around saying "I'm unhappy about OpenAI, they're making my housing cost way too much", there should be a team working on that as passionately as the team working on training the next model.
OpenAI and Anthropic are going to drop metric fucktons of taxes into California—and San Francisco—when they IPO.
Doesn’t matter for taxes on wages, options, realized gains, distributions, et cetera.
If you own a lot in San Francisco you should be able to build an apartment building on it.
Abolish zoning, legalize housing.
.. that's generally how it works.
If the city wants more money from the companies, tax em.
San Francisco has been a boom town since before California was a state.
Do they pay back enough? No, they should of course be nationalized alongside YC and the rest of the giants. But this feels like performative anti-AI pot-banging than an honest concern (and I don’t think the author is prepared for the Molotov-laden Reign of Terror that is rapidly building towards…)