SF100: The SF Standard's new power list
With an introduction by me:
https://sfstandard.com/sf-100/
The Standard’s Highly Subjective, Nearly Definitive, Surely Divisive List of Who Holds Power, Influence, and Attention in San Francisco in 2025
By Adam Lashinsky
The numbers jump off the page of a recent municipal financial presentation: 48 people and $11 million. These figures represent the total size and annual budget, respectively, of the office of the mayor of San Francisco. In a city whose 34,000-plus employees operate on a budget of more than $16 billion a year, the elected leader of the city leads a Lilliputian staff operating on a relative shoestring. As a 2024 SPUR report noted, the mayor’s office “is one of the smallest city departments and is less than half the size of the Board of Supervisors.”
Therein lies a deft metaphor for power in San Francisco: Some things that look big (like City Hall) may be small; some things that look small (like records-request savant Hazel Williams) may be big.
The SF100 — The Standard’s first-ever list of the most influential, powerful, and culturally relevant people in San Francisco — is our attempt to measure the dimensions of power in the city. Our reporters and editors spent months digging into the deep pockets of this cultural center. There are, of course, many familiar names and organizations on this list, but there are also some surprises. While whittling down the 100, our team argued, negotiated, and compromised. But we tried our best to answer the classic question: “Who’s in charge here?”
Turns out, it’s not so easy to say.
Take the political realm. Yes, our new Mayor Daniel Lurie has real influence, particularly in the form of a bully pulpit that can be used to command the attention of citizens and bureaucrats alike. Yet the mayor shares power with a dizzying array of some 126 commissions and related advisory boards, some with real authority and others that are duplicative or personal fiefs that waste the time of those trying to solve real problems.
The corporate world is a similar story. San Francisco once was home to globe-spanning powerhouses like Chevron (decamped to Texas) and Bank of America (now in North Carolina). Today, even the last remaining old-school San Francisco bank, Wells Fargo, is giving up its iconic downtown headquarters. But even as these corporate powers have departed, new ones have arrived. Salesforce remains a force, despite its civic-minded CEO, Marc Benioff, seemingly abandoning his liberal ways and spending much of his time in Hawaii. New AI companies, like Anthropic and OpenAI, are taking over huge swaths of real estate and hiring a generation of programmers.
Twin clichés about San Francisco that have the benefit of being true are that it always bounces back from its setbacks and that it leads the world in innovation. The people on this list are all engaged in acts of creative regeneration, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Bit by bit, company by company, initiative by initiative, they are crafting the next San Francisco. It won’t be a straight line. But it will be a powerful thing to behold.
Dig into the list here.