[This episode is a live taping of a panel discussion at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle on September 29, done in conjunction with the GeekWire podcast].

For this BCB episode David and Sandeep moderate an all-star panel about how the rise of Big Tech has transformed not only the economies, but also the politics and the cultures, of San Francisco and Seattle, the nation’s two largest blue city knowledge economy bastions. Joining us on stage are: University of Washington historian Margaret O’Mara, the author of The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America, veteran San Francisco journalist Jonathan Weber, author of City on the Edge: Technology, Politics and the Battle for the Soul of San Francisco, and John Cook, co-founder and publisher of GeekWire, the Seattle-based technology news site.

In our conversation, we dig deeply into why the wealth Big Tech has generated has not consistently produced better functioning cities, and explore the dimensions of the divide between tech companies that see themselves as engines of prosperity, and progressive city governments struggling with housing costs, displacement, public safety, and rising inequality. Amazon’s expansion into central Seattle becomes a central topic of discussion, exemplifying the collision between tech growth and urban life. From humble origins, the company's enormous hiring and office footprint transformed neighborhoods and brought thousands of highly paid newcomers into a housing market that could not readily accommodate them, heightening political tensions and spurring a backlash. This closely parallels what happened in San Francisco as the tech boom spurred gentrification, resentment and a rising cost of living.

The panel describes a breakdown between companies that believe their job creation and economic contributions should be enough, and city governments demanding ever more tax revenues from these companies while struggling to deliver basic services or to provide a safe and welcoming environment for their workers. Cook emphasizes weak civic leadership; O’Mara highlights housing constraints and insufficient public investment; Weber stresses the limits of municipal government in addressing broader social problems.

We close by looking at how AI promises another economic boom, particularly in San Francisco, but also threatens layoffs, further disruptions and even deeper inequality. Our panelist argue that both cities need more housing, more effective municipal governance, and closer cooperation with business and tech leaders – alongside safe, lively public spaces and cultural opportunities that make them attractive to people beyond the tech industry.

OUTSIDE SOURCES:

"Jeff Bezos: Nerd of the Amazon," 60 Minutes, CBS (1999).

Jonathan Weber, City on the Edge: Technology, Politics and the Fight for the Soul of San Francisco, Simon & Shuster (2026).

Margaret O'Mara, The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America, Penguin Press (2019).

Nikole Hannah-Jones’ recent NYT Magazine essay – "In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?" – in which she offers her mea culpa for enrolling her daughter in poorly performing, mostly minority public schools in order to demonstrate her commitment to her systemic racial equity principles, has caused a huge stir online. The questions it raises – and to a significant degree, avoids answering – about how best to provide a high quality public education to children in a nation riven with racial and class divides, are at the heart of our latest episode.

Jack Despain Zhou, better known by his social media moniker Tracing Woodgrains, in February 2025 launched the Center for Educational Progress, a nonprofit think tank focused on advocating for excellence in public education. CEP’s Substack page not only published Sandeep’s recent piece about the decline of Seattle’s public schools, but also publishes a wide range of insightful thinking about how to refocus public education on excellence, which Jack defines as in tension with the pursuit of equity that has driven American education for the last half century.

We asked Jack to join us on BCB to talk in more detail about what excellence in public education actually entails, and why those concepts and approaches are so controversial. Jack contends, forcefully, that children enter schooling with different aptitudes and learn at different rates, and that any truly effective and excellent pedagogical effort needs to be built foundationally on that reality.

Over the conversation, we discuss why the push over the last decade plus in progressive jurisdictions to unravel advanced learning opportunities and “detrack” students has produced poor results for students across the learning spectrum. We then dig into Hannah-Jones’ essay: while Jack praises her candor in describing her daughter’s unhappy educational experience in low performing schools, he argues that her explanation puts too much emphasis on the impacts of structural segregation and too little on the schools’ instructional choices, like eliminating homework in middle school or adopting equity grading policies.

“You can teach people, and you should teach people, and it matters that education does, in fact, work to raise the absolute level of students,” Jack tells us. “That is what I think schools should focus on: not equalizing people, but how far can we push people?”

OUTSIDE SOURCES:

Tracing Woodgrains Substack page

Jack Despain Zhou, "Schools Should Pursue Excellence," Center for Educational Progress. Feb. 10, 2025.