San Francisco 2.0

Brown: 2,500 years ago,

a Greek poet named Heraclitus said

no man steps into the same river twice.

And one might even say

no one visits San Francisco twice

because it's changing.

Pelosi: Do you think it's changing for the better?

- You know, that's like saying,

"Is getting older for the better?"

It's inevitable.

[intro to Village People's "San Francisco"]

Pelosi: This is San Francisco,

the golden gate to America.

This paradise, born of the gold rush,

is my hometown.

It's the place where

all my childhood memories still live.

But you don't have to be from here

to know that San Francisco is a pretty special place,

and not just because of its unique beauty

but because of its long tradition

of embracing nonconformity.

Pelosi: San Francisco

has always attracted special people--

mavericks and bohemians--

and it's always had a rebellious streak.

In the 1920s,

it even passed its own laws against Prohibition.

In the 1950s, it was home to the beat generation

of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Ferlinghetti.

In the 1960s, of course,

it gave birth to the hippies and flower power.

And in the '70s,

it was the champion of the gay rights movement.

And it's that sort of freedom and spirit of antimaterialism

that we think of when we think of San Francisco.

But now...

Pelosi: Now people are saying

that that San Francisco that we know and cherish

may be doomed.

- It's the end of the world!

It's the end of the world!

Pelosi: No, it's not the earthquakes,

but it is tearing the city apart.

This is an invasion--

the IT invasion.

- Where do they come from? - I don't know.

Pelosi: It's the techies.

male announcer: They come from another world,

bringing a new dimension in terror.

Pelosi: And they're coming from everywhere.

- You're in danger! Flee!

Pelosi: And it may be too late to stop them.

Can't you see?

They're here already!

You're next!

Pelosi: Good old San Francisco,

the counterculture capital of the world,

is in the middle of a pretty drastic makeover.

Like many great cities around the world,

San Francisco's being forced to reinvent itself.

Everywhere you look, you see cranes

building luxury high-rise apartments.

And in neighborhoods all over town,

the shells of the old houses

are hiding new expanded and retrofitted palaces.

These are the homes for a new generation

who've been transforming this town into a power city.

But as the march of progress pushes forward,

the question is,

will some be left behind?

San Francisco is now

the world's leading tech paradise.

Thousands of tech firms call this place home,

but many of the locals

accuse the new generation flocking to the city

of being oblivious to the culture they're displacing.

San Francisco 2.0 is full of tech bros,

hipsters,

yoga yuppies,

$6 cupcakes,

organic juice shops,

and freshly minted millionaires

who all work for these new Silicon start-ups.

And where do all these start-up companies come from?

Well, many of them come out of incubators.

Like nursery greenhouses or mushroom basements,

tech incubators are trying to grow start-ups

in buildings all over town.

Hertzog: An incubator is a term

for any kind of program or space

which accepts start-up companies and helps them--

helps facilitate their growth.

We've got about 75 different companies

working in this one space.

And they apply to us.

It's an invitation-only space.

So the entire space is a shared workspace.

Rather than work in isolation,

the teams can pool together resources,

make as many serendipitous opportunities

possible that we can.

Pelosi: How did you end up in San Francisco?

Hertzog: Okay, so one of the reasons why I moved here

and why people are sort of flocking here--

and the way I kind of think about it,

it's almost like a digital gold rush.

I kept reading company after company being acquired,

and at the end of the news article, it would say,

"San Francisco, California, San Francisco, California."

So after reading about ten of those,

you essentially say, "Okay, something's going on here.

"Something's happening here,

and I got to get myself there to see it for myself."

And I bought a one-way plane ticket out.

And the first week, I managed to become

the first employee at Runway Incubator.

Pelosi: The new media

is literally pushing out old media.

Yahoo has taken over three full floors

of the "Chronicle" building--

the town's largest daily newspaper since 1865.

So what's it like to be young

working here in San Francisco?

Fortet: First of all,

there's no old people and kids in San Francisco,

especially in the center.

That shifts your mind.

That means that you're in a-- like, in a young bubble,

and this young bubble is a place

where everyone is doing something,

and everyone is doing something extraordinary.

It's like everything-- every action I take every day

can be improved through an app

or through a new service or experience,

and everyone in San Francisco is trying to think about that.

I sit in a chair; how can I improve that experience?

I order a pizza; how can I improve that experience?

I order a soda; how I improve that experience?

Pelosi: In the new digital gold rush,

the shining lure is workplace perks.

The tech companies have engaged

in something like a perk war,

with each firm having its own array

of happy-making enticements to bring

the best and the brightest into their fold.

Mattingly: San Francisco, Silicon Valley

is really changing work environments

around the world for the rest to follow.

Pelosi: How come everything in Silicon Valley

feels like my five-year-old's fantasy?

Mattingly: It is. Because it is.

Pelosi: Don't you have jobs to do?

What are you doing playing with Legos?

Mattingly: We have a games room,

a massage room here.

Around the corner, we have a music room.

Houston: We've always had a jam room of some sort.

Our first office had drums in the corner.

Looked kind of like that.

Pelosi: And it's not just food and toys.

- If you need something for your computer--

Pelosi: Need a new component or software for your computer?

Need your badge.

Pelosi: Just push a button.

There you go.

Pelosi: It's free.

Mattingly: Everything here is free.

It's part of the deal, part of the benefits deal,

from food to drinks to gyms to everything you see here.

And everything is provided to make your work-life balance

good and enjoyable.

Pelosi: What do you see when you look around the room?

Mattingly: Just happy people.

Loving--love being-- working here.

Just happy people.

This is the future, without a doubt.

It's the future, and then some.

Sahu: San Francisco is gonna be the place

that'll save America

and eventually the world,

because we would create the next jobs,

and we would create the next way people are more productive

than where they are right now.

And San Francisco presently

is the richest place in the world,

bar none.

And--and--and we have about 1/4 of the world's

construction right now happening in this city.

Pelosi: No way.

Sahu: What we are seeing here is the early stages

of the phenomenon that we have seen

all the way from the Roman Empire,

where we would become the center of the world.

Pelosi: A steady stream of young people

with Facebook and Twitter dreams

continue to swarm into this center of the world,

hoping to get planted in an incubator

and, with a little bit of luck,

might end up like this guy--