I visited Tokyo for the first time this month, and was starstruck.

Car free streets, urban canopies, mixed use districts, underground markets, public transit.

To recover our downtown, we need to radically rethink our urban infrastructure. And it all starts with street design.🧵 1 / Car-free streets

So many streets throughout Tokyo were car-free. Pedestrian friendly streets drive foot traffic to small businesses, restaurants, and enable an environment of safety.

A year ago, SF stopped reliably paying its teachers.

A month ago, I decided to investigate why.

Today the @sfchronicle published what I found: 64 software bugs, a $15 million engineering mistake, and 10,410 support tickets that left 5000 staff unpaid. 🧵
sfchronicle.com/opinion/openfo… First, some history.

2019: SFUSD approved a $9.5M contract with a consultant Infosys to build a new payroll system

2021: Infosys missed their deadline, and got $7M more to finish the project

2022: The new payroll system went live, and 100s of teachers start missing paychecks.

Why can't SF build housing?

I spent the last couple months trying to answer this question for the @sfchronicle & @SFNext.

What I discovered: 87 permits, 1000 days of meetings, and $500,000 in fines.

This is how bureaucracy is killing housing. 🧵

sfchronicle.com/opinion/openfo… Some background. Most cities have two phases of housing development.

First is project approval - where you prepare forms to request permission to build.

Second is building permits - where you apply for permits to build.

The problem: SF does this completely different. (2/15)

9,800 homeless. 5,000 unsheltered.

$1,100,000,000 budget.

Homelessness is not a money problem. It's an ideas problem.

And there are ideas to solve it. (1/7)
bilalmahmood.medium.com/homelessness-i… Rockford, IL.

A city that struggled with chronic homelessness for 12 years.

In 2015 they took a different approach. They eliminated veteran homelessness in 15 months. And reached functional zero 2 years later.

How did they do it? (2/7)

Last week the media covered robberies at high end stores. Few covered the robberies in Chinatown.

Meet Rosita of Long Boat Jewelry. Her business has been in Chinatown for 38 years.

Her store was robbed and $250K worth of merchandise was stolen.

This is her story. (1/4) This was Rosita’s first robbery in decades. In 3 mins, $250K worth of merchandise was gone.

She had $100K in insurance coverage, but the fine print didn't cover robberies that occur at *night*.

Rosita's insurance company will not cover a cent of her losses. (2/4)

A noodle shop tried to open in San Francisco this year.

$50,000 to pay for the lease, cooking equipment, and furniture.

$3,600 per month to pay for rent plus utilities.

$100,000 in the hole. And it's still not open.

Why? First, an anonymous caller phoned into 311 and reported the noodle shop owners - Yoko and Clint Tan - were doing work without a permit.

Not true. They had simply disconnected a sink to work on a bathroom tile and light fixture.

An inspector ordered the work to stop.

San Francisco's forgotten epidemic. By the numbers.

613 projected overdose deaths this year.

57 deaths on average every month.

49 in 100,000 overdose death rate. 41%+ overdose deaths in District 6.

23% in the Tenderloin.

18% in SOMA.

As @Amplitude_HQ nears its IPO, it is the end of my startup journey which began with @clearbraininc five years ago.

And so I wanted to shared the many lessons I learned along the way, and the many people who helped me learn it.

The most consistent lesson: people > products. 1 / Surround yourself with good humans

The first couple months of a startup can be rough. Failure, rejection, stress.

What got me through it were my roommates. And their dog. And lots of pizza.

Thank you @thisisgrantlee, Sandy, and Bernie for the unconditional support.