Thread by @garrytan

I wonder if Internet conspiracy researchers ever do a deep dive and then realize “oh these people are actually pretty much trying to do good.”

If you’re tuning in now from some elaborate plot to ruin me—

Hi My Name is Garry Tan. I grew up in the SF Bay Area. I grew up food insecure at times, child of Chinese immigrants who struggled in a new and unfamiliar land.

We lived in apartments. I got my first job at the age of 14 by cold calling the Internet section since I taught myself how to make websites.

I used those earnings to help pay my parents down payment for our first home. It was the American Dream.

Tech has given me everything in my life. I am lucky. I have seen more than $100B of startups born, from the earliest moment.

I want that for everyone. I want us to have prosperity. Doesn’t matter where you come from or what you look like.

I have always been and likely will always be a Democrat.

San Francisco has stressed this mightily because we don’t have a functioning local government.

Many of you reading now are fighting battles in places that are possibly quite red. The nation is torn apart. I know this and feel that pain.

SF is not that battle. Here we see Asian grandmas in the streets being stabbed. Open drug use and dealing. No access to housing.

The public schools that let me study algebra in 7th grade are now inaccessible to public school children in San Francisco.

I needed to study Calculus by 12th grade to get into a strong engineering school. That’s what I needed. But public school kids don’t get that anymore.

I know many of you disagree. But this isn’t an elaborate plot. I am not an elected official. I’m just one person.

SF is in pain. We are looking for solutions. We are trying.

I have tried not to work on this. The easier thing is for me to focus on my work and family. I work with hundreds of startups that each have the chance to solve real problems. I don’t make money from any of my involvement in politics and don’t intend to at all.

If you read all of this and still think I am working on some insane and evil plot, know that isn’t what I’m trying to do. Best wishes to anyone who reads this.

Please be well and have a wonderful Halloween.