Jonathan Weber, editor at large at Newcomer and author of City on the Edge, joins Eric Newcomer to trace the 30-year arc of how San Francisco became the center of the tech universe, and how the industry that once promised to change the world ended up changing politics instead. From the early commercial internet to the rise of OpenAI and Anthropic, Weber connects the dots between Silicon Valley's cultural roots and its dramatic political shift toward the right.
The conversation covers the dot-com boom and bust, the sharing economy's broken promises, why tech executives became dismissive of public concerns, how AI is accelerating the disconnect between the industry and everyday Americans, and what history tells us about where this all goes next.
City on the Edge is available now wherever books are sold.
Chapters:
00:00 Eric Schmidt Gets Booed
01:35 Meet Jonathan Weber
02:43 From Optimism to Cynicism
05:51 San Francisco Before Tech
08:59 The Web Brings Creatives In
14:15 When City Hall Noticed Tech
18:24 The Dot-Com Boom
24:28 The Crash and Media Backlash
33:27 Why Twitter Defined San Francisco
36:10 The Sharing Economy Wave
41:41 When Tech's Promises Broke Down
45:55 San Francisco's Faction Wars
53:27 How Silicon Valley Went Right
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