Here's how I voted on *everything*

(a voting guide)

This week, we’re talking:

• If you’re voting for Trump for the sake of $$, hear me out… 💰⚖️

• Peep my ballot 👀🗳

• How many continents are there on earth? Turns out, that’s up for debate 🌍🗺

• New photos show my beloved SF as it hasn’t been seen before 🌉

• U.S. military just made its first confirmed OpenAI purchase — what could go wrong? 🪖🤖

My Take — Up and Down Ballot:

I usually use this newsletter to talk about entrepreneurship, ethical tech, privacy, venture capitalists — sometimes even rap battles. When it came to writing something for this week, I couldn’t think of anything that met the moment — or the weight — of what’s about to go down. 

So let’s look this thing dead in the eye. I’m going to tell you exactly how I voted. On everything.

Local politics matter immensely, but this year, everything hinges on the top of the ticket. I have a lot of Republican friends who are thinking of voting for Trump. Maybe you’re one of them. Please hear me out.

Politicians like Trump exploit self-interest within business, gradually drawing corporate support through a mix of incentives and intimidation. Companies often support such leaders to protect their interests or gain competitive advantages, overlooking how small moral compromises can accumulate into significant complicity in undemocratic behavior. The short-term gains businesses might achieve are ultimately outweighed by the long-term damage authoritarianism can do, particularly to the economic and political stability that business relies on. Historical examples, such as German corporations aligning with the Nazi regime, serve as stark reminders of the consequences when businesses become enablers of authoritarian regimes

I voted for Harris-Walz because I believe Trump will do everything he’s telling us he’s going to do — including disbanding and dismantling our fundamental democratic institutions. I believe he will use the machinery of government to take revenge on his opponents. This time around there will be no Kelly/Mattis/Milley/etc to appeal to whatever better or saner angels he might have.

This election is a "first principles" decision. Unlike typical elections where voters balance policy preferences, the stakes in this election involve protecting democracy’s very foundations. Business leaders need to consider the broader societal impact of their choices: voting for stability and the rule of law must take precedence over specific policy goals. 

With any luck, we can all argue about tax policy in 2028. In the meantime, get out and vote — and feel free to use my ballot (below) as a guide.

Peep My Ballot 👀🗳

NATIONAL:

PRESIDENT: Kamala Harris

SENATOR: Adam Schiff

CALIFORNIA:

STATE SENATE, DISTRICT 11: Scott Wiener

STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 17: Matt Haney

PROP 2, School Facilities Bond: ✅ 👍🏽

PROP 3, Marriage Equality: ✅ 👍🏽

PROP 4, Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, Drought Preparedness, and Clean Air Bonds: ✅ 👍🏽

PROP 5, Local Bonds for Affordable Housing/Public Infrastructure: ✅ 👍🏽

PROP 6, End Slavery: ✅ 👍🏽

PROP 32, Raise Minimum Wage: ✅ 👍🏽

PROP 33, Repeal State Regs on Rent Control: ❌👎🏽

PROP 34, Restricts Spending by Health Care Providers Meeting Specified Criteria: ✅ 👍🏽

PROP 35, Provides Permanent Funding for Medi-Cal Health Services: ✅ 👍🏽

PROP 36, Allows Felony Charges and Increases Sentences for Certain Drug and Theft Crimes: ✅ 👍🏽

SAN FRANCISCO:

MAYOR: Mark Farrell, Ahsha Safai, London Breed (ranked choice, in that order) 

I think some people are going to be surprised that Mark Lurie is ranked nowhere on my ballot. Frankly, I would’ve been surprised by this outcome too when he first threw his hat in the ring. Lurie had a golden opportunity to engage and lead the debate that I and others worked to cultivate on kitchen table issues like public safety and good governance; instead, he has chosen to spend tons of cash on criticizing his opponents, untruthful advertising, and making exaggerated claims about his opponents’ records. Other underhanded campaign antics like leaking private conversations to embarrass donors have sent a sour message to people who have offered considerable support to Lurie’s own initiatives. Even Mayor Breed’s campaign has described Lurie’s wave of attack ads as “carpet bombing”—reckless overkill with a high chance of collateral damage. While Lurie entered the race vowing to unseat Mayor London Breed, Lurie’s attacks have focused almost exclusively on Mark Farrell. Research shows that running negative messaging campaigns has questionable efficacy and tends to polarize people. Lurie had the opportunity to use Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) to show he can form alliances. Instead, he has taken a clenched-fist, all-or-nothing approach, which has saddened me and others who believed Lurie to be principled and willing to build bridges. Instead, he went low by allowing his campaign to run deceitful ads about his opponents. 

That’s not leadership. It is churlish, petty politics. I have no patience for it with other candidates, I’ll make no exceptions for my friends.

BOARD OF EDUCATION: Parag Gupta, Jaime Huling, John Jersin, Supryia Ray

DA: Brooke Jenkins

SHERIFF: Paul Miyamoto

CITY ATTORNEY: David Chiu

TREASURER: José Cisneros

PROP A School Improvement & Safety Bond: ✅ 👍🏽

PROP B Healthcare, Streets & Shelters Bond: ✅ 👍🏽

PROP C Inspector General: ❌👎🏽

Corruption is bad. The authors of Prop C are hoping you’ll agree with that premise and ignore the fine print. Don’t. The proposed position would create more bureaucracy and give wild (and unchecked) power to an unelected individual. Bad news. 

PROP D City Commission Reform: ✅ 👍🏽

SF has 130 commissions, which is mostly political pork for sycophants that encumber the city with useless convocations and self-perpetuating bureaucracy in the service of nothing but panels, hearings, and useless expenditure of taxpayer dollars. 

PROP E Fake Commission Reform: ❌👎🏽

Prop E is a watered-down, milquetoast version of Prop D. It would delay reforms that we need *now.*

PROP F Deferred Retirement for SF Police: ✅ 👍🏽

PROP G Budget lock-in for certain housing subsidies: ❌👎🏽

PROP H Expand retirement benefits for firefighters: ✅ 👍🏽

PROP I Nurses Retirement Credit: ✅ 👍🏽

PROP J Student Success Fund Accountability: ✅ 👍🏽

PROP K Permanently close part of Great Highway: ✅ 👍🏽

PROP L Tax riders of Uber, Lyft, and Waymo: ❌👎🏽

PROP M Cut small business taxes, other businesses tax reforms: ✅ 👍🏽

San Francisco’s tax code is outdated and out-of-step with the world. Proposition M modernizes it, easing the burden on small businesses while ensuring remote companies pay their fair share. By eliminating taxes for businesses under $5 million and reducing permitting costs, Prop M helps over 2,500 local businesses while revitalizing downtown, promoting fair taxation based on economic impact, and positioning San Francisco for sustainable growth and innovation.

PROP N First responder student loan forgiveness program: ✅ 👍🏽

PROP O Reproductive Freedom: ✅ 👍🏽

Around the Web:

How Many Continents Are There? You May Not Like the Answers via NYTimes 🌍🗺

The dispute arises in part because there are really two types of continents: Those recognized by cultures around the world, and those recognized by geologists. Cultures can define a continent any way they want, while geologists have to use a definition. And geological research in recent years has made defining continental boundaries less simple than it might have once seemed as researchers find evidence of unexpected continental material.

Newly unearthed photos show a rare look inside a bygone era of San Francisco nightlife via SFGate 🌉

U.S. Military Makes First Confirmed OpenAI Purchase for War-Fighting Forces via The Intercept

Since OpenAI quietly deleted the portion of its terms of service that prohibited military work in January, the company has steadily ingratiated itself with the U.S. national security establishment, which is eager to integrate impressive but frequently inaccurate tools like ChatGPT. In June, OpenAI added to its board the Trump-appointed former head of the National Security Agency, Paul Nakasone; the company’s current head of national security partnerships is Katrina Mulligan, a Pentagon alum who previously worked in “Special Operations and Irregular Warfare,” according to her LinkedIn profile. 🪖🤖