SFist has an opening for a motivated newshound with weekend availability, and a deep knowledge of the Bay Area.

SFist is hiring a new Contributing Editor who will primarily be covering weekend shifts to start, but availability on weekdays during business hours is also preferred.

Requirements: At least two years of professional writing experience, preferably in a blogging or journalism capacity; an understanding of what is newsworthy in the Bay Area and the skills to concisely deliver and/or report that news in a timely fashion; and local knowledge of the Bay Area, its politics, and its culture. We are seeking a candidate with an abundance of drive and piercing wit, a deep and abiding love for San Francisco, and the stamina to create three to four well-written and click-worthy posts per day on weekends, as well as occasional weekdays as needed by the editorial team.

Added Pluses: A bachelor's degree in English or journalism; understanding of copyediting practices and the AP Style Guide; a witty and original writing style; experience working for a daily website or newspaper in the Bay Area or elsewhere.

This is a freelance position and compensation will be based on experience.

To apply, please email CVs to tips@sfist.com.

Top image: Photo by Shen Pan

A Mumbai-based engineer who excelled in interviews reportedly held multiple Silicon Valley startup jobs at once, often disappearing after landing offers of up to $200K. Soham Parekh impressed on paper, but founders say most of his resume was fake.

As TechCrunch reports, Soham Parekh, who reportedly aced technical interviews and was offered salaries of up to $200,000, became the center of a startup-world cautionary tale last week when Playground AI founder Suhail Doshi posted a viral warning: “There’s a guy named Soham Parekh (in India) who works at 3–4 startups at the same time. He’s been preying on YC companies and more. Beware.”

PSA: there’s a guy named Soham Parekh (in India) who works at 3-4 startups at the same time. He’s been preying on YC companies and more. Beware.

I fired this guy in his first week and told him to stop lying / scamming people. He hasn’t stopped a year later. No more excuses.

— Suhail (@Suhail) July 2, 2025

As KRON4 reports, Doshi, who said he fired Parekh after just one week, called his resume “90% fake” and claimed he “made up constant lies,” including listing a master’s from Georgia Tech. The university told Fortune it has no record of his enrollment.

Probably 90% fake and most links are gone. pic.twitter.com/h9bnLc8Cwj

— Suhail (@Suhail) July 2, 2025

More than a dozen founders have since come forward with similar stories. At Antimetal, Parekh was reportedly the first engineering hire in 2022. “Really smart and likable,” said CEO Matt Parkhurst, but “we realized pretty quickly that he was working at multiple companies and let him go.”

Funnily enough, Soham was our first engineering hire in 2022

Really smart and likable; enjoyed working with him

We realized pretty quickly that he was working at multiple companies and let him go

I can’t imagine the amount of equity he’s left on the table https://t.co/vXGlHxF1QH

— Matt Parkhurst (@mprkhrst) July 2, 2025

At Create, Marcus Lowe said Parekh showed up once, pushed back his start date twice, and was eventually caught working for a competing startup while on Lowe’s payroll. When confronted, he ghosted.

As Fortune reports, Leaping AI co-founder Arkadiy Telegin nearly hired Parekh full time after a standout interview, offering $160K–$200K plus equity. “He really crushed my interview. I interviewed around 50 people in the prior two weeks before talking to him and he passed, by far, all of the people I interviewed,” he told Fortune. “He also was a very likeable person.”

Telegin went on to add that immediately upon being hired, Parekh started acting strangely and making excuses for why he wasn’t producing code, including drone strikes, floods, and electricity outages. He never signed a contract or sent an invoice.

In some cases, multiple Y Combinator startup founders realized after the fact they’d all been “dating the same guy,” as Telegin put it.  At least 10 companies hired and fired Parekh, and others say they rejected him after odd interview behavior or suspicious GitHub activity.

In a TBPN podcast interview, Parekh confirmed he had been working at several startups at once, sometimes up to 140 hours a week. “I’m not proud of what I’ve done,” he said. He cited financial hardship and claimed he genuinely cared about the mission of each company. Still, he admitted his actions took a toll and said, “That’s not something I endorse.”

Parekh recently announced on X that he’s now working exclusively at Darwin Studios, but both he and the CEO deleted the posts shortly after. In a statement to TechCrunch, Darwin’s founder called Parekh “an incredibly talented engineer” and said the team believed in his ability to help bring products to market.

BREAKING 🚨 Soham Parekh has officially joined Darwin Studios as founding engineer, a AI video company based in California.

Darwin video remixing harnesses real-time generative models across text, audio, image, and video.

Their product, Wayve I, allows anyone to upload a video… https://t.co/OcGssRLK24 pic.twitter.com/ixji8CKEx3

— Prashant (@Prashant_1722) July 3, 2025

Some see Parekh as a symptom of overemployment in remote tech culture. Others call him a scammer who’s burned founders, wasted time, and undermined trust in hiring. One developer tallied at least 10 confirmed jobs, eight rejected offers, and “likely many, many more.”

Whether Parekh’s next move is redemption or rebrand remains to be seen.

Image: RachaStock/Getty Images

Are you something of a self-knighted travel agent, one who’s also particularly gifted at long division? Do you, too, possess buckets of athleticism? Can you both bake and ice a (vegan) cake with ease? If you've nodded to all the above, then this Menlo Park-based nanny gig might just be right for you.

SFGate reported on an almost unbelievable job posting on Google's job search platform (via The Calendar Group) yesterday, calling it the "most ridiculous, most Silicon Valley job listing." The droning request, still online, is for a "manager/cook/nanny" in Menlo Park, boasting an hourly rate of around $40.

By the looks of it, neither Marry Poppins nor Supernanny themselves would be fit for the role. To spare you from reading 1,000-word posting in all its eye-rolling tedium, here are a few golden nuggets:

"Assist 10-year old’s with light homework in long division, subtraction and writing. Play math games with them."

"Conduct research into domestic and global vacation options based on criteria, populate information into a simple Excel spreadsheet, recommend and book vacations, track vacation expenses in Excel including track vacation home deposits getting returned."

"Track and administer allowance, clothing budgets, household expenses, etc."

"Conduct research into vegan recipes and make modifications to regular recipes. Able to learn about using alternatives to milk and butter."

"Can throw balls and play simple basketball, volleyball, soccer, and football with 10-year old’s (learn if not already familiar). Can do calisthenics with kids (sit-ups, lunges, squats, pushups) and generally play and rough house with kids."

"Lead, supervise and support members of the household staff who have varying degrees of education, experience, and maturity."

"[The nanny must have] room in [their] heart to love the kids and the mom; has a high capacity to be loved deeply by them."

The last request leaves us with an unshakable amount of Stockholm syndrome. Per the posting, the mother is also a CEO and needs to relax on weekends — and, by the sound of it, pass along her offspring to someone else.

(Spoiler alert: The author of the viral posting recently spoke with Ruth Graham of Slate regarding her request — a job listing The Guardian questioned as to whether or not it was “the most demanding ad for a nanny ever.” "Our society is broken," the unnamed mother says. "Here it is January, and I’m having to spend hours of my time, like late at night, trying to figure out summer camp and get them signed up for sports and all that." She's also a single parent, who, rightly so, believes that if her domicile was a two-parent household, there might not be a need for such an all-encompassing nanny.)

As expected, Twitter had (and has been having) a heyday over it. Read some of our favorite commentaries and insights, below.

Image: Pexels

Occasionally, Craigslist offers us a naked glimpse into the world we live in now and the insufferable private lives of its inhabitants, much as it offers us a window into the horrors of SF rental properties. Today this comes via a job posting that went up around 1 a.m. this morning for a personal assistant in South Park that basically sounds like indentured servitude and psychological torture for $25-$30 an hour, depending on your tolerance of either of the above.

The posting comes from a 30-something couple who describe themselves as executives who have crazy work lives these days "which means that we don't have time to maintain our personal lives." What that amounts to (and I'm going to assume the poster is female for reasons you'll understand) is that this couple has resorted to eating "unhealthy take-out and processed foods," "personal social media accounts are neglected," they don't go on date nights because they don't have time to open an app and make a reservation, and vacations aren't taken because "there's no time to plan them." The dog needs walks and brushing. The dishes need washing. Also, "nail polish gets chipped and remains chipped, investment opportunities go un-researched," and "I buy fresh flowers but don't have time to trim daily and change the water."

[Update: The couple appears very real, they've responded to various media inquiries, and now they admit they're actually "40-something."]

Basically their lives are utter hell, and they need someone with a litany of characteristics, sensibilities, and abilities to do their errands, clip their toenails, post to their Instagram, and attend to their every whim so that they can sit on their laptops and work work work, and hopefully go to dinner sometimes.

Now, while it's a given that the job of personal assistant — especially in Hollywood! — takes a certain kind of person with a great deal of patience, a subservient streak, and a high threshold for abuse, the requirements for this job, and the description of the ideal candidate — which is really an unvarnished look into this one person's manic psyche — is pretty special:

You aren't dramatic or tightly wound, however, you're also not lazy or sloth-like (nothing against sloths). You're level-headed and your friends think you have great judgment. You're down to earth, not cocky, humble, and always willing to admit when you're wrong. You aren't too stubborn to apologize. You don't get defensive and deflect. You own your mistakes and see them as opportunities to improve. You have confidence in yourself and although you are very empathetic, you rarely get overwhelmed by your emotions. You aren't dramatic and you aren't having regular melt-downs. You're warm, welcoming, and always down for a good time. You take pride in your work quality (no matter what it is -- big or small) and believe everything you create is a reflection of you and your character/abilities so you want it to be good. You notice inefficiencies and tend to find ways to save time, streamline, or automate where you can. You're observant and detail-oriented. You always know where your keys are or where your wallet is because you make it a point to place them in the same place. You have a great memory and rarely have to say "Oh, I forgot." You believe that there's a place for everything and everything should be in its place. You're naturally organized and clean. You don't like messiness. You feel compelled to straighten items if they're crooked. Aesthetics, design, and beauty in life are things that you notice and appreciate. It genuinely makes you happy to help others and make others smile. You find it rewarding to do things for others. (If you don't feel this way, you will either hate this role or it will be awkward for us because you won't seem happy.) Your friends think that you're the one in your group who has their act together the most in terms of being responsible, responsive, and risk-averse. You take pride in working smart vs. working hard. You do things well AND you do it as quickly as possible. You consistently strive for both quality and speed. You like to laugh and your friends think you can be funny. You smile and/or laugh when you tell a joke or say something humorous (dry senses of humor need not apply)! You care about visual presentation and delivery of your words. You enjoy making things look nice. You enjoy making things smell nice. You have a kind heart and try to not be selfish. You are generous with your attention and love. You are a strong communicator and can tell an engaging story. If something needs to get done, you find a way. You're very comfortable with technology and devices. You use your smartphone all the time. You use your laptop all the time. Google is your best friend. You take pride in how you look -- whatever that "look" or style may be for you. At the same time, you also want to be practical and functional (e.g., you're "bohemian chic" but avoid the giant wedges that will prevent you from hustling around town, you're "cool hipster" but don't wear the super tight jeans that won't leave you room in your pockets to hold my dog's potty bags, you're totally "minimalistic modern" but avoid the white on white look so you're not afraid to get dirty when cooking, etc.)

And that's not all!! The commitment is basically seven days a week, with on-call required 24-7 for "urgent" matters. And you're required to swim into the ocean if the dog ever swims out too far, to fetch him. You also had better enjoy giving mani-pedis, have a good sense of style, watch Game of Thrones, work out regularly when you're not tending to this couple's every need, and not drink more than FIVE DRINKS PER WEEK. It doesn't even pay as well as this $175K/yr gig that a rich Noe Valley couple was offering last year.

REQUIREMENTS: ----------------------

* Written and spoken English language FLUENCY
* Able to maintain strict confidentiality
* No smokers (cigarettes, marijuana, other)
* No heavy drinkers (max of 5 drinks per week)
* No drug users
* No past criminal record
* Must love dogs and animals
* Valid drivers license (car will be provided if necessary for work) with experience driving in SF
* Experience with GSuite, MSOffice, Adobe Suite
* Experience with MacOS and iOS (computer and phone will be provided)
* Touch typing 60+ WPM
* Prior experience as dog owner
* No injuries or physical constraints that would impede your ability to rearrange furniture, lift a 40 lb dog up several flights of stairs, carry heavy grocery bags or luggage, etc.
* Able to swim well in the ocean (dog likes swimming; you may need to get him when he goes out too far)
* Able to protect a dog from being attacked by another dog
* Willing and happy to clean up occasional dog vomit and/or diarrhea

BONUS POINTS:
----------------------

* Multilingual
* Experience as a personal/executive assistant
* Experience with a high-maintenance dog (long haired, allergies, etc.)
* Experience with long hair in general (you have long hair and know how to brush tangled hair without causing pain)
* You are a great cook and know how to make both rich, savory vs. lean, healthy meals
* Enjoy giving manicures/pedicures
* Well-traveled
* Experience in high-end/luxury retail or hospitality industry
* Good eye for design and style
* Prior experience reviewing and negotiating contracts
* Prior experience with home redesign, remodel, contractor management
* Physically strong
* Lift weights and/or tone as exercise
* Practiced in self defense or fighting styles (you can protect someone who is in danger)
* You like fashion
* You watch GoT and/or Silicon Valley
* Former or current aquarium owner (know how to set up a tank and create an ecosystem)

And (Jesus Christ), they ask as part of the application process that you write an email describing how you're both perfect for the job and imperfect, and "record and attach a 5 min video of you answering ALL of the following: What did you like about this posting? Confirm if this posting applies to you 100% (including personality description, qualifications, schedule, responsibilities, etc.)... Can you cook us delicious food? What else should we know about you?" and more.

Are these the worst people in San Francisco? Should we take this as an example of what New San Francisco hath wrought on this city where once upon a time the joke was "San Francisco is where young people go to retire"?

I'm going to say no, because a) I'm sure there's someone worse, and b) perhaps this job posting came out of the mind of an extremely stressed, overworked person who believes in the magic of fictional servants like Mary Poppins and Pepper Potts, and who really just needs a Xanax and a bottle of wine before she hurts someone.

Know anybody with absolutely zero pride or self-worth who really, really needs a job? Bonus points if they have no life of their own and are willing to perform sexual favors for one or the other half of this couple when the other is too busy sending emails.

Related: Extremely Fancy Noe Valley Rich People Seek $175K Pantry Organizer

No, it's not just their employees' inflated sense of ego — everyone does really want to work at Bay Area tech companies. Or so says a new LinkedIn report, which notes that jobs at Google, Apple, and Salesforce as some of the most sought after in both the nation and the world. At least for those job hunters who use LinkenIn, anyway.

The business-networking site looked at three key pieces of data from its users. First, applications — both how many people applied to open positions posted on LinkedIn and how many viewed posted job descriptions were taken into consideration. Next, the company looked at various forms of engagement — how many non-employees tried to connect with employees, and so on. Lastly, the report took into consideration retention. In other words, once someone is actually hired, how long did they remain at the company?

With this information in mind (after whittling out companies with under 500 employees), LinkedIn created a list of the 40 companies they believe to be "the best in the world at attracting and keeping top talent."

The number one globally? Why that would be Cupertino-based Apple. Coming in second is San Francisco's Salesforce, followed by Facebook. The rest of the top ten, in order, are Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Uber, Unilever, Coca-Cola, and Johnson & Johnson. The list of the full 40 is available on LinkedIn's site.

LinkedIn itself does not appear in the top 40, although they have an excuse as the company intentionally excluded themselves from consideration. Microsoft, which now owns LinkenIn, did make it into the top 10, however since "LinkedIn had no ties to Microsoft during the data-gathering period," the reports authors observe, "we opted to allow Microsoft to remain on the list this year."

That people want to work at such name-brand companies as Apple, Google, and Facebook is hardly a surprise, however it is perhaps interesting that so many of the desirable jobs are in tech — specifically in the Bay Area. As if we didn't already know, the Bay Area appears to be hot right now.

Let's not let it go to our heads.

Related: Facebook Employees Actually Hate Commuting, Beg For SF Office

"How are your lightsaber skills?" asked a Facebook friend in a recent post complete with the above picture. "We're looking for Jedi of all sorts at Google... with open roles in UI/UX Design, Account Management, and Marketing!"

Reader: I was unqualified for the positions.

By now we've all seen such fanciful descriptors attached to jobs that might involve little to no use of "The Force." Especially in the tech sector, but elsewhere too, creative job titles like "Database Ninja" and "Systems Guru" have proliferated since at least 2012, when the Wall Street Journal noted that 469 job listings included the term "Jedi."

The appeal is obvious. Difficult jobs to describe, positions with vague responsibilities, or perhaps novel occupations all get inscrutable but exciting titles. It's just good marketing. Per a quick search of some listings, one finds that the company Avenue Code is seeking a "Java Jedi," which the listing clarifies is a "Service Platform Sr. Software Engineer." Yelp's Eat 24 is after a "Sales Executive / Quota Slayer." That doesn't involve LARPing as you might expect. Instead, they write, "If you look at cold calling and challenging sales goals the way Chuck Norris looks at a room full of ninja assassins, then we want you."

Nelson, a San Francisco-based residential and commercial properties firm, wants an "Excel Wizard" in their Administrative Assistant/Office Manager. And, a la the Subway "Sandwich Artist," San Francisco's Crêpe la Vie has a current listing for a "Crepe Jedi" who will do kitchen help.

High profile positions often come with their own particularly ridiculous names, such as David "Shingy" Shing, AOL's so-called Digital Prophet, who is seemingly paid for his Delphic, schizophrenic ramblings. That position and others like it were recently lampooned on HBO's Silicon Valley when a character was appointed to be a software company's "Head Dreamer."

Of course, there's also been a backlash to such hiring tactics. "You are not a 'ninja' or a 'rock star.'" writes deals website Sosh. "You’re merely an exemplary software engineer." That listing is for a "Geek of All Trades." In the same vein, the job search company Indeed writes that "buzzword" job titles are on the decline. They speculate that the reason is simple. It's better to place the "wizard" or "Vulcan" descriptor in the listing itself rather than in the job title for the purposes of searchability.

After all, who is Googling any and all "evangelist" positions? If you are, may The Force be with you.

Who says there are no non-tech jobs available in San Francisco? I can think of at least six businesses in San Francisco that are actively recruiting employees, and the greatest technical skill you need to work at any of them is an ability to dance in heels.

As The College Fix reports, San Francisco "gentlemen's clubs" (a self-description, not mine) the Garden of Eden, the Condor, Roaring '20s, Centerfolds, Little Darlings and Hungry I are presently advertising in the print version of UC Berkeley's Daily Californian newspaper in an effort to beef up their staff.

All of those clubs (in fact, all the strip clubs in SF) are owned by Seattle-based Déjà Vu Entertainment, a company that reportedly owns and operates as many as 67 adult entertainment venues across the country.

“Are you fun, flirty and a little adventurous?" asks the ad that was viewed by as much as 92% of the UC Berkeley student body. "Then we are interested in meeting you! You don’t need experience. Make your own schedule. Great money to be made - in CASH."

Then, just in case you were thinking OK, maybe they weren't really targeting UC Berkeley students, the kicker: "Professional management teams are in place at these SF locations to help you achieve your financial goals while in school.”

The ad (you can view it, albeit blurrily, in full here) ran in last Friday's issue of the Daily Cal. Though the paper serves the UC Berkeley community, its position differs from many other school newspapers, as it's actually been independently run by students since 1971. While it receives some financial support from the school, like many other print publications they have faced persistent funding issues, and are reliant on donations and advertising to stay in business.

So we know the Daily Cal got what they needed from the ad (that is, money), but a week later, has it panned out for the strip clubs? Did they get the influx of co-eds they were hoping for?

A call to Roger Forbes, who regularly speaks on behalf of those and other clubs (you might recognize that name! He's also the guy who evicted the Lusty Lady and almost evicted Tosca. Oh, and you might want to read this Chron report on him from 1997, it's great) has not been returned at publication time to answer those questions.

[The College Fix]

It shouldn't shock anyone that the reality of working for Google is not nearly as swell as what some of us might imagine it to be — it is, after all, a job at a company, with all the mundane meetings and lame middle managers of any company. But now there's a Quora thread with thoughts from a bunch of current and former Googlers about why it sucks.

First off: Pretty much everyone is over-qualified for what they do. They've got people with advanced degrees doing crap like manually removing flagged content from YouTube and providing tech support for ad products. This leads to a lot of boredom, and under-achievement, apparently, amongst people who are used to being over-stimulated overachievers.

I used to joke with my colleagues that Larry & Sergey go out on their yachts - tie them together, sit back on the same recliners you'll find on their jumbo jet, each on his own yacht/set of yachts, smoke cigars, and put up pictures of Googlers with little snippets like "was a GM at muti-national telecomm company, got a Harvard MBA and is now answering Orkut tickets." and then they would erupt in laughter and clink their cigars & Scotch together in celebration. This, of course, is highly unlikely given neither of them would ever smoke a cigar or drink Scotch. Remainder is plausible.

I also felt like the "too many bright people" issue caused a problem. When everyone is stack ranked against each other, someone has to be on the bottom or in the bottom half. For many bright people who had always been at the top in whatever venture they attempted, occasionally getting stack ranked at the bottom was a painful experience.

Still, though, not everyone is awesome, and there are some dark politics as there are in any large company.

Unfortunately, in spite of the common belief, I think the average level of Google engineers is mediocre. With a lot of arrogance, too... In the last team I found myself in such a sea of lies, like K in Kafka's "The Castle", that I was totally lost... sighed and went ahead interviewing... they hit me first though; I was, and probably still am in their blacklist. Politics is my weak point of course.

Many share offices, and cubes, despite there being plenty of space for non-office uses.

If you have to work in one of the four main campus buildings, you will most likely be extremely cramped. It's not uncommon to see 3-4 employees in a single cube, or several managers sharing an office. With all the open areas for food, games, TV, tech talks, etc, it can be surprisingly hard to find a quiet, private place to think.

And it kind of sounds like a hellish version of summer camp.

The worst part of working for Google is the people. In order to get in to work at Google you have to be the kind of person who "whoops" when your CEO comes in the conference room. And screams with excitement when they announce "We've introduced...searching by pictures!!!" as a new product. You need to think it's cool to be a "Newgler". Yes, the old guard in Google like to call themselves Googlers, and when you first join you are a "New Googler" or "Newgler" as they like to call you. And they think this is cool when they tell you that...You have to work with people who tell you that on your first day and get excited about it, in another life they'd work at camp. They tell you that there is no "Management" when there clearly is.

Also, it makes people fat.

I put on 18 kilos while working at Google. But they also provided access to great gym within the office. One of my colleagues lost 20-30 kilos while I was there. But with so much food around, it was hard to resist and soon I realized that I was eating whenever I was bored or thinking.

There, don't you feel better about your dumb job now?

[Quora via SFGate]

As gentrification finger-pointing reaches a fever pitch in the Bay Area, the Wall Street Journal has found a new culprit: real estate investors who are pumping money in spots like West Oakland in a not-at-all-altruistic effort to jack up home prices. These days, it's not enough to buy a house and fix it up: investors are playing the long game by fixing up sidewalks, repaving streets, landscaping and giving makeovers to Oakland neighborhoods in an effort to raise home values and cash in on their property portfolios.

The Wall Street Journal reports that in 2012, the absentee buyers were responsible for 30.5% of Oakland's housing purchases, and another 33.6% of houses purchased were bought with cash, a sign that investors are buying up property and hoping to ride a wave of gentrification that carries more white and Asian homeowners to the area. One study found that between 2007 and 2011, 42% of the 10,508 foreclosed homes were acquired by investors.

What does that mean for Oakland's longtime residents? For now, some are happy with the improvements. Koonal Parmar purchased his home in Oakland in 2004. "This neighborhood has turned around 180 degrees," he told the WSJ. "The people who were living here for 30 years were just letting the neighborhood rot." Trendy restaurants are one sign the tides are changing, but it's not all happy tidings for residents. Jo Anne Stamps lives in a house that's been in the family for 40 years:

She said the new renters who have come in over the past few years keep to themselves and don't participate in neighborhood traditions like the annual block party. "When mom moved in, people were more friendly," Ms. Stamps said. "Everybody knew everybody. It made me feel safer."

The Bold Italic (yes, of A Beginner's Guide to Oakland) thinks youth in tech might be the answer, and they've got a call out for #YouthTechOakland, a discussion and fundraiser tomorrow that will focus on getting more minority students access to the tech workforce in the Bay Area (if you're in tech and want to get involved, do so here). But the complex issue of gentrification in Oakland is not likely to get resolved by slow-moving community programs (although they can't hurt!). At the rate real estate investors are going, it's probably too late to prevent a tip in the balance that will see West Oakland play out as the next bastion of gentrification.

[The Bold Italic]
[WSJ]

Governor Jerry Brown signed a new measure into law on Wednesday, one that makes California the first state to raise its minimum wage to the $10 mark. Noted as the first minimum-wage hike in five years, the increase will to benefit 2.4 million workers in the state who now earn between $8.00 and $10 per hour.

"A higher minimum wage will mean much needed money in the pockets of millions of workers in the state, and that’s good news for businesses throughout California that will benefit from increased consumer spending," said Gary Gerber, founder and CEO of Sun Light & Power in Berkeley, with 75 employees. "It's encouraging to see the state legislature and the Governor pursue smart policy that will boost economic growth."

Maryland, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Minnesota are proposing plans to follow the Golden State's historic increase in minimum wage.

"California is setting the bar for the rest of the states by being the first to raise its minimum wage to double-digits," said Paul Sonn, a Program Director at the National Employment Law Project. With new job growth tiled towards low-paying fields, California is leading the way in tackling this problem by boosting pay for millions of its lowest paid workers."

Although California's minimum wage jump is estimated to produce more than $3.3 billion in new economic growth, not everyone is pleased. As LAist noted back in September, the California Chamber of Commerce slammed the bill "a job killer."

"This is an unprecedented wage hike," Jot Condie, President of the California Restaurant Association, told the L.A. Times, predicting that California's 87,000 restaurants will make up for the increase by pruning both new hires and employees' hours.

The S.F. Department of Public Health released a map that shows just how many full-time minimum wage jobs you'd need to rent a 2BR in San Francisco at fair market rates (FMR). The numbers aren't pretty and certainly not conducive to a city once known as a sanctuary for those trying to escape the horrors of Whatever, Iowa. Or worse.

"In the Mission, for example, it would take 5.5 jobs to pay the current market rate for an apartment," notes Tim Redmond. The numbers get more depressing in Civic Center, SoMa, and North Beach, just to name a few noted neighborhoods.

Check out the interactive map here and hover over any given neighborhood to see the gap between the income needed to rent a two bedroom apartment and the median income of residents in that area.

[Tim's SF]

Previously: New S.F. Rental Price Map Soaked In The Blood Of Low-Income Renters

Formerly (and excruciatingly) titled jOBS, Ashton Kutcher's latest film, all about noted Apple CEO and cofounder, Steve Jobs, will premier August 16th. As the trailer shows, the film (reconfigured as Jobs) covers Steve's rise, fall, temper tantrums, firings, love of sweater vests, tech savvy, inarguable genius, smooth shirtlessness, comeback, and more.

Just months after Disney acquired Presidio-based Lucasfilm for $4 billion, the entertainment behemoth has reportedly closed down LucasArts and laid off its entire staff from its offices in San Francisco and Singapore, with the exception of a small team to handle game licensing. The division of Lucasfilm has been creating video games for over 30 years, and was working on development of two new games, Star Wars: First Assault and Star Wars 1313, which have now been cancelled. Disney has declined to specify how many employees were dismissed today.

According to a Death Star LucasArts statement, DIsney is super appreciative and proud of the people whose creative work they've just flushed down the toilet (though the games they were putting out as of late certainly weren't the best):

"After evaluating our position in the games market, we've decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company's risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games. As a result of this change, we've had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles."

In other Disney news, 'Finding Dory', starring Ellen Degeneres' voice, is apparently not an April Fool's joke.

[Kotaku]
[Mashable]