Maybe it’s time to wrap this bad boy up 
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I’ve been here since 1998 - and it feels like the innovations come out the busts. I was here when the likes of pets.com went belly up after the first dot.com wave (lost my job in that bust myself and then to work in non-profits -silly me!). The rich people still have plenty of money to invest in the next great thing to make them even more money. It’s rumored that it will be AI (to be followed by quantum computing)…but time will reveal all.
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I still know people with garages full of pets.com merch and materials. Ahhhhh, the good old days. But yes, I agree with you. Lots of capital and people willing to come up with new ways to spend it. Time will tell!
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Agree on the next big thing and yes it will most likely be around AI for the foreseeable future. But, that’s not going to be pulling people back into SF. Google and Meta have some of the worlds best AI/ML research groups in The world and they continue to have back to office issues.
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This proposal was passed by the city Planning Commission today, and I’m optimistic about the difference it may make. Definitely the right move to loosen up restrictions on what can and can’t be permitted downtown.
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And hopefully even less need for car rentals or use of public transportation and greater availability of robotaxis Waymo barreling ahead with bigger robotaxi coverage in San Francisco and Phoenix - The Verge
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My DD has been using Waymo daily for the past few months. It’s great and free for now. It saved her a lot of money that she would normally spend on Lyft. It doesn’t go to downtown for now but she rarely goes to downtown anyway
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We rode it from the Alcatraz ticket place to lunch somewhere within that radius (apologies I can’t recall where).
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Did not read the subsequent posts, but want to point out that one major difference is the climate. I doubt anyone living in SF has had to shovel their driveway - ever.
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This year some did!! ( well not in SF proper) and well, maybe it didn’t require a shovel, but
They made snowmen! California winter storm: Day 2 of rare Bay Area snowstorm has residents of all ages awestruck | abc7news.com
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There is a giant and thriving biotech and pharma hub in South SF. Downtowns, like downtown SF, with their high rises,
are not very suitable for lab buildings. One hazmat spill can clear out a lot of offices!
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And that made national news. Does every snowflake in Boston make national news? 
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Also to quote Mark Twain, “the coldest winter I ever spent…”.
When we first arrived in the Bay Area in the late 1990s, the city was the place for fun and tourists, tech was all in the valley. I can see that returning, but without the fun and tourists.
Mark Twain really didn’t say that. I pulled the link to that up for when it got mentioned 
Mark Twain on Coldest Winter | Snopes.com Mark Twain Archives - Anchor Brewing Blog
Regardless, the climate in SF itself is really not “highly desirable” compared to the rest of the Bay Area (or most of California).
There are lots of nice places to live and do things in the Bay Area, so it’s quite possible that the city itself could continue to deteriorate while more suburban areas remain desirable.
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The microclimates are fascinating in SF. Not necessarily a bad thing.
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When I was a kid growing up in SF and we experienced the “great snowstorm of 1976,” my little brother and I excitedly ran into the backyard in anticipation of building a snowman. It was a very sad and small snowman. 
We did get something closer to real snow high in the East Bay hills this February! Generally speaking, snow is for visiting in Tahoe, after which you get to drive home to a clear driveway.
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If you can get home some of those drives out of Tahoe were pretty foreboding these past few winters !
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That’s exactly what I was alluding to in my post up above. 
Poor, oft-misquoted, Mark Twain:
March 2011 snowman (but it’s more hail than snow):
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