SF Smells (dot com)

I'm writing this on Monday September 29 2025. I just got home from a circuit of meetings, biking around town.

I believe San Francisco is the most beautiful city in the world. I just moved back last month after living in South America and Asia since 2020.

Today I had the pleasure of introducing my roommate Phu to a dear old friend who happened to be part of our introduction chain. My friend and his roommate have run startups that raised tens of millions from folks like YC and Kleiner Perkins. They've created many jobs. More than anything else, they are kind, fun, thoughtful, generous people. This was the kind of lunch we moved here for.

Phu is originally from Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City, in Vietnam. He is talented enough that he could have found his way to Tokyo or NYC or Shanghai or Singapore. He tried South Bay but ultimately came to SF.

His journey was not easy. His family is not wealthy, they make around $400/mo. He fights enormous disadvantages being an "outsider" in both America and tech, having a heavy accent and coming from a country where he earned less than $1.90 per hour as a wage in good conditions. More on his incredible story another time.

People say SF is getting better, but I'm frustrated and disappointed with my bike ride today. More generally, the city I'm introducing Phu to as his new home. In some ways it's worse than Vietnam. We walked through the Tenderloin at night a few days back. He was shocked and scared. We increased our pace past twitching folks and various noises. Anyone who has walked SF knows what I'm talking about.

I especially can't stand the smells I've been encountering. It rained last night, the pavement was wet. How is it that so much urine and garbage vomit managed to pollute the public air downtown since then? On my entire bike ride, I saw only one lone sweeper slowly & manually putting some leaves in a dustbin near City Hall.

When I lived in Madrid, it was awesome to watch the cleaning crews come out every night to power wash the streets around Puerta del Sol. The cleaners there had serious equipment and worked together in teams. It was necessary sometimes given the club scene and discarded beer bottles strewn around. And that country doesn't have its shit together nearly to the level of Japan or Singapore. Is this really so hard to allocate budget towards in America?

Apparently so. When I worked at Scale AI in the old Folsom St office near Costco, one of our team leads quit and told me on a walk around the building it was in part because "I'm used to the South Bay and tired of stepping in shit on the way out the door." This was in 2019. Oh, SOMA.

I'm trying not to be a crazy idealist here. I don't need flowers and rainbows and perfumed orange blossom scents like Sevilla throughout the entire city. I just want certain parks and main thoroughfares to be free of stale and offensive odors!

I know smelling good is too much to ask, so how about neutral? Just not smelling bad. It's one of our five precious senses; it's an easy sniff test. Achieving this outcome would necessarily entail solving some visual and tactile issues as well...

Aromatherapy seems a bit mystical to me, but I'm reasonably concrete about the public health and wellbeing benefits that would come with fresher non-pee-smelling air. I can't even fathom the productivity uplift for the city's best and brightest having their coffee walk meetings without interruptions to plug their noses.

Cleanliness shouldn't be limited to Salesforce Park. And such a step-improvement to the vibes...is surely priceless.

I know the robots are coming, but tbh I cannot wait. And we can start super small. How about just Market St between the Ferry Building and Van Ness? Just two miles. Hell, shorten it, even just to Kearny.

As things haven't meaningfully improved in my 6 years of experience, I fully expect to fight this battle slowly and without success for at least a decade. Change is never easy, and people have to care in large numbers to move the needle.

But hopefully this idea can be a focal point and my little quest can be a rallying cry for an even more beautiful SF overall. I'm excited to spend the next decade in this city. Join me using the link below. Share this blog post far and wide. Thanks in advance for your support.

==> SFSMELLS.COM

==> SFSMELLS.COM