Startup CEO complains 'degenerates gather like hyenas' in downtown SF

[Newsjock]

http://valleywag.gawker.com/happy-holidays-startup-ceo-complains-sf-is-full-of-hum-1481067192

Behold a perfect Silicon Valley denizen, an archetype: he's been written up in TechCrunch for his hackathon-organizing company. He's been fluffed in Business Insider. And now, inevitably, he's publicly savaged the homeless and generally less fortunate of San Francisco.

Greg Gopman, and his company, AngelHack, offer no apparent utility or value to our planet. ... But Gopman thinks he's earned some sort of high social spot, from which he can type out horrid Facebook updates like this one:

Just got back to SF. I've traveled around the world and I gotta say there is nothing more grotesque than walking down market st in San Francisco. Why the heart of our city has to be overrun by crazy, homeless, drug dealers, dropouts, and trash I have no clue. Each time I pass it my love affair with SF dies a little.

... The difference is in other cosmopolitan cities, the lower part of society keep to themselves. They sell small trinkets, beg coyly, stay quiet, and generally stay out of your way. They realize it's a privilege to be in the civilized part of town and view themselves as guests. And that's okay.

In downtown SF the degenerates gather like hyenas, spit, urinate, taunt you, sell drugs, get rowdy, they act like they own the center of the city. Like it's their place of leisure... In actuality it's the business district for one of the wealthiest cities in the USA. It a disgrace. I don't even feel safe walking down the sidewalk without planning out my walking path.

[jsr]

1. Why should the Internet nouveau riche waste their beautiful minds on something like that?

[Blue_Tires]

2. So he's just like 90% of the tech community there?

He's far from the first wealthy tech guy who thinks the downtrodden underclass is ruining his view of the city...

[SomethingFishy]

5. +1.. Just the only one dumb enough to blatantly post it on Facebook..

I wonder about his "working class" comment, is he saying he thinks he's "working class" or that the working class needs to be away from him too?

[KamaAina]

45. Actually, he's not.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/16/peter-shih_n_3768505.html

Confirming nearly every negative stereotype about the tech community, the founder of payment startup Celery penned a satirical post bashing his new town, San Francisco. And if the backlash is any indication, it's safe to say Peter Shih missed the mark.

In the post, titled "10 Things I Hate About You: San Francisco Edition," Shih, who was last year accepted to the prestigious start-up accelerator Y Combinator, listed his gripes with the city, peppering in healthy doses of misogyny, homophobia and a general disregard for socioeconomic inequality. ...

3. Weather
I hate how the weather here is like a woman who is constantly PMSing. I hate how I can’t tell the difference between August and February. I hate how I have to turn on the heater in the middle of summer. I hate having to always carry a jacket because of the 20 degree swings between day and night....

6. Homeless People
San Francisco has some of the craziest homeless people I have ever seen in my life. Stop giving them money, you know they just buy alcohol and drugs with it right? Next time just hand them a handle of vodka and a pack of cigarettes, it'll save everyone some trouble. I'm seriously tempted to start fucking with people and pay for homeless guys to ride the Powell street cable cars in the middle of the day, that ought to get the city's attention.

[SomethingFishy]

46. The guy in your link is not the same guy in the OP..

Not sure what is going on here. It sure didn't seem like any "satire" I have ever read...

[KamaAina]

52. That's the point. Peter Shih is ANOTHER techie who moved to SF

who trashed his adopted city online. And that was NOT satire!

[HughBeaumont]

3. You're just viewing America after it's been ravaged by Republicans, stupid.

Saint Ronnie defunded mental institutions.
Free Market Laissez-fail offers no jobs, no opportunities and no hope.
College costs as much as a second mortgage does.

Bed, lie in it, and all that . . . . .

[The Second Stone]

4. I'd rather he write that on his Facebook page

It's his opinion and he is entitled to it and to write it and publish it. And we are better for it because it says quite a bit about who he is and we should all know when dealing with this guy just how heartless he is.

[SomethingFishy]

8. He did... That's where they found it..

There is a link to his FB page in the article at the link. I think someone wanted to see his page get slammed with comments

[The Second Stone]

17. We deserve the problem of the insane poor in the US as we

don't give them any medical care. Every other developed nation provides treatment for the mentally ill at cost to the government. We just ignore them and pretend they did something to deserve their condition. Christian nation my ass.

[maxsolomon]

40. Who is this "we"?

no, we don't "deserve" it. at least the residents of america's cities don't deserve to bear the brunt of the impact while the GOP-voting suburbs ship their cast-offs to us because we offer a modicum of public services.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

6. Is he wrong?

My girlfriend has been assaulted twice by SF's roaming psychopaths. The only other place on earth that even comes close is Vancouver.

[Blue_Tires]

9. Yeah, he's wrong...First-world problems of the wealthy and all that...

The mere fact that they exist is an inconvenience to HIM, and neither his mind nor his heart are wide enough to question "Why are they here, and what can be done to make life better for them?"

[Xithras]

19. Most people who haven't been to SF recently don't get that.

I was in Chinatown a few weekends ago and saw a guy shitting on the sidewalk. Right in the middle of it. With the biggest grin you've ever seen across his face. The fascinating part wasn't that he did it, but that NOBODY around him paid any attention...it is so "normal" to see that sort of thing that nobody even cares anymore. He shit, and he walked away, and the shopkeeper walked out and hosed it into the gutter, and then everybody went on about their business without a second thought. That's todays reality in SF.

There are homeless people and people with mental problems in every city across America, large and small, but San Francisco's are in a category all of their own when it comes to shrugging off the social norms that define society. I love SF dearly, and lived in the city for some time, but its social problems have grown MUCH worse over the past 20 years, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in fixing them. The gentrification of many of its neighborhoods certainly isn't helping things either.

[Nictuku]

20. I work in SF near Civic Center - and I do not feel safe, even in broad daylight

The crime problem here is horrible. I used to like to read while I took a walk around the area during lunch time, but now that I read from a Kindle app on my smart phone, I can't do that.

Why? Everyone in the area knows that you really should not walk with a smart phone, unless you want to be assaulted for it. Especially in the area I work (near Civic Center)

There is an extremely high rate of smartphone theft here. There seems to be a large number of drug addicts (I think there is a methadone clinic nearby), there seems to be a large number of mentally disturbed people, there seems to be a large number of homeless people, and then, I have heard that this is also a drop-off area for criminals who are let out of jail.

Oh, and then there is what was in the news recently that other states (Nevada), are sending their homeless, mentally unstable, and criminals to our city.

And then there is the filth. The subway entrances smell like urine. There are people living on the street who use the subway entrances for their latrine. Hoodlums (I have a hard time not laughing as they struggle to keep their pants from falling down around their ankles... what is up with that style of wearing your pants? I dare not laugh though....) Hoodlums walking around with guns. Years ago I was here at night time and I was scared... I mean really scared for my safety. I don't do after-work social gettogethers any more.

I don't blame the homeless though. I mean, human beings do need to defecate. Why are there no public bathrooms? Why do we not have enough shelters? In a civilized country, this is inexcusable.

I hate that I have become somewhat desensitized to this misery I see daily, but after working here for 15 years, seeing what seems like a 3rd world country every day.... I guess one does become desensitized.

So the problems that that guy was talking about, do exist. But he blames them, and I blame our society for allowing it to get this bad.

Don't like the smell of urine? Build public restrooms. Oh.. that will require more taxes. (Can't have it both ways)

[lostincalifornia]

29. When you say subway, are you talking about Bart? I have not had the experience or felt threatened

In the civic center, even with my smart phone. Exaggeration much?

[Jesus Malverde]

39. The area around market and seventh to sixth can be very dangerous..

Last edited Wed Dec 11, 2013, 05:53 PM - Edit history (1)

I don't think it's an exaggeration.

[Gormy Cuss]

48. BART and MUNI underground streetcars share station entries along Market, so it's irrelevant.

Some of the stairwells and areas before the pay zone do smell like urine. I've noticed it for years. Not surprising given how many people are living on the street in that neighborhood. As for feeling threatened, I don't have a problem walking through that area during the day/early evening.

However, smartphone theft is a growing crime not just in SF but in other cities. Here's a mapping for a six month period (the giant icons make it look scarier than it is, but still most smartphone thefts during that period were clustered heavily around Market.)

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Smartphone-thefts-in-San-Francisco-mapped-out_id42891

[Nictuku]

49. Yes I mean BART

I arrive in the city at 5:30 a.m. and have a little walk to where I work. And your olfactory senses must not be working very well if you don't think it smells like urine. As a woman, walking in the dark in that area, I do not feel safe. Further down towards the financial district is no problem, but at Civic Center, going towards mission... it is sketchy, and yes, I am fearful. I have been attacked twice in my lifetime, perhaps my 'feelings' are a bit more on edge than you, what can I say.

We get a weekly police report of police incidents in the area, and week after week are reports of iPhones being stolen, often with the victim being assaulted. So I haven't tested out the theory personally, I think that would be folly. Go for it if you like. I'd rather not tempt fate.

[FarCenter]

53. In the early '70s one did not go more than a block or two southwest of Union Square.

South of Market was pretty much off limits.

[upaloopa]

34. Hoodlums? They are just young Black guys dressing in a style of their

peers. I spent all day last Saturday walking around Union Square and the Wharf and did not see what you see.
I think we are looking through different paradigms. I see Black teens with pants worn different then we do and you see hoodlums..

[Nictuku]

50. Ummm

Union Square? Where Macy's and all the rich fancy hotels are? The Warf, where the tourists go? I'm talking about 6th and Mission. Different worlds.

[Nictuku]

54. I think you misunderstood my comment

There are lots of people of all kinds of races in San Francisco. It is one of the reasons I love the city, for its rich diversity.

I certainly don't consider people hoodlums just because they are black because of the kind of clothing they wear. I'm sorry you took that from what I said.

It has more to do with a certain an attitude, a threatening way they carry themselves and interacting with people. There are most certainly white hoodlums, hispanic hoodlums, asian hoodlums. I don't know why you brought race into the conversation. I didn't.

I go by my gut feeling on this and just try to avoid certain situations, and I don't use my iPhone while walking out there. It is just asking for trouble in that neighborhood.

My comment about the style of wearing pants that hangs down to your knees just makes me laugh when I see them struggling to keep the pants from falling down while they are ... pushing a bike for instance.

But you won't find me laughing out loud at them. My inner-voice conversation however is quite active.

I've seen guys wearing this style of pants where I didn't feel threatened at all. So no, the style of clothing does not equal hoodlum.

I still think it is ridiculous. You loose the use of one of your hands (because you have to constantly hold your pants up, or tighten the belt that is around your thighs so tight that it impairs your ability to walk).

[upaloopa]

32. Yes he is wrong. Just spent the weekend there walked 11 miles

Didn't see the first person being abused. Also I was amazed at all the women walking alone there. Seems they feel safe enough.
You must be thinking of somewhere else.

[Throd]

35. No. You can't deny that there are a lot of aggressive winos on Market.

[BlueJazz]

7. I know what he talks about as I've walked down Market street many a-time.

I was bothered and hassled also but took it as a sad reality of the lack of services for the down-trodden.
I admit being slightly pissed off some mornings by having someone right in my face...but again...shit happens...live with and try to change it for the better.

[elehhhhna]

18. Seems thayt a combo of social services and law enforcement

could improve this situation.

Bu the former's been gutted and the latter is playing armyguy. Oh well.

[CurtEastPoint]

10. He did put it on his FB page and he's getting ravaged there. I love it.

Entitled prick.

https://www.facebook.com/Gopman

[jsr]

13. The poor are clearly trash to him.

[closeupready]

11. What a loaded word, "degenerate". I have no idea if he's Jewish,

but gawd - is he so stupid he doesn't think before he spouts his verbal diarrhea?

[lostincalifornia]

31. What does Jewish have to do with it? Do you have a problem with Jews

[closeupready]

33. I think this is the first time I've ever made an obvious point

here on DU which went over someone's head completely.

I am referring to the notion of Jews as 'degenerate' which was a hallmark of Adolf Hitler's persecution of Western Jewry and, more saliently, their art, which he referred to as, yes, 'degenerate' - for example, Gustave Klimt's work:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z4DMeKVPTI0/UWBnnwnAykI/AAAAAAAAADg/ojcBDdOf5mA/s1600/Portrait+of+Adele+Bloch-Bauer+by+Gustav+Klimt.jpg

For reference, read "The Rape of Europa".

On edit, on the other hand, maybe now enough time has passed since the Holocaust that only old people like me are sensitive to such loaded language, and the way anti-semites seek to discredit Judaism by associating it with negative characteristics.

[ljm2002]

12. He just removed the post...

...I submitted my comment and was told the post I was replying to had been deleted.

[hatrack]

14. Isn't that yoga pants company looking for a new CEO?

I think this guy would fit right in!

[Jesus Malverde]

15. and today....

Last night, I made inappropriate comments about San Francisco and its less fortunate citizens on Market st. I'm really sorry for my comments. I trivialized the plight of those struggling to get by and I shouldn't have. I hope this thread can help start an open discussion on what changes we can make to fix these serious problems. Again, I am deeply sorry.

https://www.facebook.com/Gopman

Living up to your name GOP-man

[jsr]

16. I can smell the sincerity

[KurtNYC]

22. "In actuality..." the comment he is sort of apologizing for is more about him than SF

His phony spin-this-into-a-positive line asks the REST of US to discuss "what changes WE can make."

Seems like he doesn't include himself or have any ideas to offer for the discussion he now proposes and that brings to mind something said many times in San Francisco: 'If you're not part of the solution then you are part of the problem.'

[csziggy]

21. His name is GOPman? How appropriate.... n/t

[Pretzel_Warrior]

23. Try running the gauntlet on Market from Powell

past the Orpheum theater to the city government buildings. It is not for the faint of heart during the day. We stayed in a botique hotel one block off of Market down there. Location is central and the hotel was nice...but I've never seen such a large gathering of strung out and drunk homeless quite like it, and I've spent a fair amount of time in NYC, Seattle, Portland, and San Diego that have many homeless.

And these people were mouthy and aggressive to people walking by them.

[Jesus Malverde]

25. This area is a large open air drug market, there is a mix of homeless and out of town drug dealers.

There is also a huge thieves market that for years has been outside Carls at civic center and un plaza. This is where all the junky shoplifters, bike thieves and burglars go sell their loot. There will be 50 or so "fences" standing around buying this loot. It's like a scene out of hollywood. The police IGNORE it.

There are a huge narcotics businesses that every month makes millions on the streets. The police fill up the jails with junkies, and street dealers. Meanwhile the trade and corruption is ongoing.

[taught_me_patience]

24. There is a real problem in SF

and many citizens are frustrated. We pay very high taxes in California and expect better care for the homeless. Where is our tax money going? Why are these people not being helped?

[MrScorpio]

26. I hope that he never comes to Detroit

He'll never ever be able to wash the "stink" off.

Fuck that guy.

[lostincalifornia]

27. He is full of shit. My suggestion to him get lost

[Starry Messenger]

28. Sounds like someone needs his taxes raised.

[upaloopa]

30. I just spent last weekend in downtown San Fran

and this guy is full of shit unless he considers all of us lower class misfits.
There are a few homeless guys sitting on the sidewalk asking for money but they never bothered me except for the fact that it made me sad that we have homeless in our country.
The shopping in downtown SF caters to mostly 20 and 30 something's and they are everywhere. It is not at all like this guy says it is.
And another thing. I saw signs everywhere asking you to care about others and to love and give. I have never seen anything like that in any other city.

[Jesus Malverde]

37. It depends were you go.

Some areas like the sixth street corridor are not places to go. Check this out. Local gadfly Stanley Robert's goes down there. Videoing for a show called people behaving badly.

He comes across a van driver nodding out having consumed some of the opiates he has chopped up on his console in the car. While roberts films him. The junky in the van gets robbed, by some passerby. All during the middle of the day, in the middle of the city, while some news guy roams around with a camera. This is an easy walk from the main tourist shopping areas.

Some places in SF can be very dangerous.

[upaloopa]

43. Well I didn't travel much outside of Union Square and the Wharf

Typical tourist I am

[Jesus Malverde]

44. That you had a good time and impression is great.

This is a great place, if you ignore some of the craziness.

[Jesus Malverde]

36. I was walking about a block from my house.

As I was walking, I noticed this bike. It was cool cause it had an electric hub and I was checking it out.

Suddenly I noticed this foul smell.

With shock and then horror, I realized there was a man squatting next to me eliminating his waste onto the sidewalk. A serpentine extrusion was coiling up next to my feet, a putrid mass, soon to strike a distracted pedestrian.

I assumed he was a junkie or drunk who couldn't make another block and half to a HUGE park, or it's public restroom built for $531,219 dollars. I kept walking and didn't say anything.

When the foul stench of his waste left my nose, I gave thanks it wasn't outside my house and kept walking.

[maxsolomon]

38. Up in Seattle we call this "Street Disorder"

And it was a big issue in our Mayoral campaign, helping to unseat McGinn. Not that he was at fault.

Ours is concentrated on one block, 3rd Ave. betwixt Pike and Pine, AKA "The Blade", right in the middle of the shopping district. And then there's basically a permanent homeless encampment in Courthouse Park at 3rd and Yesler.

Nothing's likely to happen to your middle class self in these places, but it is certainly intimidating to be in an open air drug market filled with stumbling addicts, or to feel comfortable using a city park when you are panhandled by schizophrenics. And the problem is growing in Seattle - I am asked for spare change probably twice per block during lunchtime.

However, our "disordered" places are nothing compared to the Tenderloin in SF, or the East End in Vancouver. I've never seen poverty qualitatively like that anywhere else in the world. So Internet Douchebag has something of a point.

What to do? Even small efforts are troubled. Seattle installed self-cleaning toilets a decade ago, and they were quickly utilized by the homeless for injecting drugs and sexual assignations. The city removed them. Now there are 2 places in all of downtown Seattle the homeless can use the restroom during the day: Pike Place Market and the Public Library. And nowhere at night. So they use doorways and vestibules. Or shrubberies.

It's going to take money to reduce this problem, and the one thing the GOP exists to do is stop money from being spent on social issues. Its fine to ship the homeless to Seattle, but then? Cities can go fuck themselves.

[Jesus Malverde]

41. Down in SF we don't have a term for it.

It's considered normal and doesn't lend itself to be named.

Years ago a SF politician got his butt wooped implementing something called the matrix program. Since then politicians have been reluctant to deal with it and people make millions off the various vices.

At one point the city had a system in place where the gangs running brothels paid the politicians through an intermediary.

This all came to light when a gang member and the well connected attorney, bag man were assassinated on the same night.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Slain-Lawyer-Tied-to-Tenderloin-Gangsters-Grand-2810544.php

It's likely those roles have since been filled.

[Lint Head]

42. What an arrogant piece of shit.

[fujiyama]

47. Waaahhhh. What a pear-clutching idiot.

What did this dipshit and others expect when they moved into the city and raised the rents, making the city completely un-affordable for anyone making under six figures?

Why doesn't this guy just move back to one of those absolutely dull and charmless Silicon Valley suburbs? Or are all of these "degenerates" just supposed to hike away from the city when the rents are hiked?

But it's a lot easier to rant and bitch about these people than actually look for a constructive approach to solving what is clearly a housing crisis in the Bay Area (and much of CA for that matter).

[Rex]

51. Well guess what? You will be visited by 4 ghosts and kewl shit like that!!!

Let the chains of the poor shackle you down into the cold depths of poverty! Or something! Tiny Tim wants his crutch back, asshole!

[woolldog]

55. He's right though. nt

[Egalitarian Thug]

56. Thank you so much for putting this up. We need to be reminded from time to time

which DUers are where on the spectrum. You got no less than 5 people who I wouldn't walk across the street to spit on if they were on fire, to out themselves.