A wealth management dude from New York just spent four days in San Francisco and decided to opine about what he saw and heard here. No one seems to have told him where the actually good food and bars are, so he ended up doing a circa-2000 tour of places like Slanted Door, the Redwood Room, and Tunnel Top. And, unlike on the East Coast (according to him?), everybody who's part of this current, money-raking bubble loves to talk openly about all the money they're making, he says.
His name is Joshua Brown, and he has this self-promotional site called The Reformed Broker where he does such writing. He says:
At the bars and clubs, everyone openly talks about money. Some of the words and phrases I heard over and over again in all different locales were “vesting schedule”, “stock options”, “stock units”, “restricted shares”, “burn rate” and “we’re raising a new round”. These items are discussed freely, out in the open among friends and strangers alike and are often the icebreaker comments to strike up a conversation. It’s not at all an exaggeration to say that people have caught a sort of finance fever and it’s highly contagious. The tone is not exactly boastful, it’s more of a social signaling thing, as if to say “Hey, I’m in the game too, just like you.”
As for whether this is a ridiculous and unsustainable bubble we're in, tech-wise, he says that yes, "everyone" agrees that "These valuations are totally unsustainable but Uber deserves it. They’re 'the real thing' and 'maybe the next Amazon.'"
Great.
Now will someone please introduce him SFist's food section, or Eater, or something so that he can try spending some of his millions in a restaurant that's less than 15 years old?