Will Daniel Lurie Bring a New Tech Boom to San Francisco?
BY MITCHELL DURAN
edited by Jake Warren
Recently, over dinner with my mother, stepfather, my fianceé and her parents, the topic of Daniel Lurie came up. San Francisco’s newest mayor assumed office shortly after the New Year. As the Pacific roared in the background at my soon-to-be in-laws’ Sea Ranch home, I began wondering what to expect. Everyone agreed the city has seen better days, especially my fianceé’s parents, both long-time San Franciscans. One question refused to vacate my head even as empty bottles of Pinot Noir began to multiply. Will Lurie bring lasting humanitarian change to the city, or are we about to see more of the same?
Lurie, 47, is known for his sizable wealth. He is the son of Mimi Haas and stepson of Peter Haas who was the great-grandnephew of Levi Strauss, whose company market cap at the time of writing sits at nearly $7 billion. In 2021, Forbes estimated Mimi Haas’ net worth at $1.4 billion. Mr. Lurie however, with his $16 million Pacific Heights home, a reported 15.5 million-dollar residence in Malibu, and twenty-two separate investment entities (including $1 million in the San Francisco 49ers) is no slouch. He stands to inherit approximately 11% of Levi’s, valued at ~$700 million in 2024.
He is also founder and leader of the Tipping Point Community organization, aimed at eliminating the systemic barriers and racial inequities perpetuating poverty. Per their website: “Tipping Point has invested $440 million in more than 200 organizations helping Bay Area residents on a path out of poverty.” (tippingpoint.org) Their investments have reportedly aided over 90,000 people. I see how his accomplishments align with Lurie’s future policies. For instance, he plans to build 2,500 temporary housing units and 1,500 shelter beds within two years. Lurie’s “Fentanyl State of Emergency Ordinance” should ease multi-family house transfer tax and streamline the permit process for new construction.

This isn’t an attack—at least, not yet—but an objective fanning out of Lurie’s early exposure to wealth and philanthropy. He contributed $8.6 million of his own money to his mayoral campaign and ran the most expensive bid for mayor in San Francisco history. He fundraised an additional $16 million. With Tipping Point as an example, Lurie seems to have put his money toward good use, albeit with strings attached. Tipping Point’s largest corporate contributors include Goldman Sachs, Visa, JPMorgan Chase, the Charles & Helen Schwab Foundation, a cryptic “Anonymous (2)” and of course, Levi Strauss & Co.
By now I’m sure you’ve noticed, the increasingly kleptocratic, oligarchal trend in our federal government. I watched Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and Jeff Bezos stand beside Donald Trump at his second presidential inauguration. Like the Japanese proverb Musk ironically quoted, When the character of a person isn’t clear, look at their friends. I said to the table the night we were dinning, “Why was the public so eager to vote for another billionaire, with all their billionaire friends, into the highest position of power in the land?”
Last month, Lurie talked with CNBC about “bringing remote workers back, making the city safer, and diversifying business beyond tech.” A self-declared Centrist Democrat, Lurie believes voters went with him because they were looking for “common sense, change, and accountability.” Lurie strategically appealed to popular demand for a government that “works for the people.” He went on to discuss plans for an official State of Emergency regarding the fentanyl crisis. His ambitions manifested in a less effective, tentative ordinance. When CNBC anchor Kate Rogers asked how he’d handle remote workers who refuse a return to the office, Lurie faltered.
Regaining his footing, then mayor-elect Lurie name-dropped JPMorgan-Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, as well as the commissioner of the NBA, and other “leaders and supervisor-elects” as all being on the same page about “welcoming the world back to San Francisco.”
That was around when my alarm bells started ringing.
The microscope shifted to A.I. mastermind Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. Altman found himself appointed co-chair of Mayor Lurie’s transition team. Similarly, Twitter’s former Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal discovered his political ambitions as Lurie’s Chief of Housing and Economic Development. Lurie’s officiation of new and experienced tech moguls under one administration suggests Tech Boom: Wave 3 may be imminent. “He (Altman) wants to put down roots here in San Francisco,” said Lurie, “and we want to lean into being the home of AI.”
Do we? Lurie sure does. As reported by the IDC, Global A.I. spending will more than double to reach $632 billion by 2028. It tracks with Lurie’s investment-making history that he’s pouring the foundation for a Big Tech resurgence. It worked before. Why not try it again? The tech industry did boost job creation and pumped enormous sums of money into the Bay Area’s economy after all. It also inflated salaries across the tech sector, triggering polar swings in supply-and-demand for housing that led to all-out bidding wars, resulting in widespread, rampant gentrification and a ceaseless merry-go-round of soaring rents and limited space that dissolved many long-standing communities. But the recent past doesn’t appear to be on the mayor’s radar. According to Lurie, “San Francisco is open for business.”
Maybe I’m not giving Mayor Lurie the benefit of the doubt. He did get around to that “tech-lash,” believing the city needs “balance” and that “we went through a tough time. I worked closely with Salesforce during that time of backlash to make people understand that you have to be invested in the community.” What Lurie meant by “tough times” remains unclear. Maybe he was referring to Salesforce caving to pressure from investors and laying off hundreds of employees in 2023. It could also be a nod to Salesforce’s role in making San Francisco’s office vacancy rate highest in the nation. As of mid-2024, the city’s office towers sat 37% vacant. He wasn’t wrong in blaming Mark Benioff for effectively abandoning San Francisco.
I did however laugh out loud when Lurie advocated for bringing back “arts and culture” without mentioning any specific plan. Just like his failure to deliver any blueprints for forcibly converting obstinate office workers back to commute-based employment. Lurie regurgitated many of the same talking points in a post-inaugural sitdown with Jim Cramer. This time, he emphasized his decision to institute a City and County-wide hiring freeze, excepting law enforcement and public health. When pressed for specifics, he answered “[only the] least effective programs.” Cramer giggled as Lurie, more desperately than confidently, once again proclaimed San Francisco the most fantastic city on Earth. My laughter however was short-lived.
My anxiety about the mayor’s fondness for the likes of Jamie Dimon and others spiked when he mentioned Jonathan Gray, president and COO of Blackstone. Blackstone is the USA’s largest commercial landlord, infamous for overcharging rent and other fiascos including the Motel 6 data breach. It can’t be overstated how dirty this corporation is. Blackstone ended up paying $19.6 million for illegally sharing their guest lists with ICE without warrants.

Much of what Mayor Lurie has planned looks and sounds good on paper. It’s just the corporate and private equity that gives me pause. I hope everyone is tired of watching the nation and the world trend towards massive divides of wealth/asset inequality. If I were to take my stepfather’s advice and request a meeting with Lurie himself, I suppose I would ask him the following. Why are you compelled to connect with the world’s wealthiest, most powerful individuals, especially as our country devolves into oligarchy? I want his thoughts on how the highest-earning 20% of Americans increased their national wealth chunk to 71% by 2022. How does he feel, being part of the top 1% in control of the USA’s finances? If his plans pan out, can San Francisco residents expect tangible improvements, or simply more of the same mayoral neglect?
Or, as Welsh Labour politician and chief architect of Britain’s National Health Service Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) put it, “How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political power to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the twentieth century.”
If I’m lucky, I’ll have the opportunity to ask him both.