The AI boom in San Francisco is pushing the cost of living so high that even tech workers pulling six-figure salaries can barely keep up. According to the New York Times, a recruiter earning $180,000 a year and her partner, a software engineer making $185,000, spent three months searching for an apartment under $5,000 a month. They came up empty. The engineer eventually moved to Lake Tahoe. She still lives with roommates for $1,650.
The potential IPOs of OpenAI and Anthropic, each valued at close to a trillion dollars, could concentrate even more wealth among a small group of employees and drive San Francisco prices higher still. Average rent in the city already sits at $3,827. The median home price has hit $1.7 million. Vacancy rates in hot neighborhoods like Marina District and Pacific Heights have dropped from 13 percent in 2020 to about 3 percent.
Venture capitalist Deedy Das of Menlo Ventures recently described a new AI elite of roughly 10,000 people worth more than $20 million each. OpenAI alone reportedly created 75 multimillionaires last fall, each receiving around $30 million.
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