Spiraling in San Francisco's Doom Loop

Where no one’s left to catch you if you fall.

- Elizabeth Weil

IN THE SPRING OF 2019, Marc Benioff surveyed his kingdom and it looked good. He stood on the top floor of the Salesforce Tower, the tallest building in San Francisco, named after his company, then the largest employer in San Francisco. You could see every part of the city and out across the bay. The UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and the Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland (to which Benioff had donated $250 million). The site of a 200-bed Navigation Center for the homeless (which Benioff had defended in the face of other rich—but less rich—San Franciscans who tried to fight it off). The city looked sun-kissed and thriving from this view: the elegant Golden Gate Bridge, Twin Peaks, the surreal green of the Marin Headlands.

“It’s cool up here, right?” said Benioff. “And the vibe. Are you getting the vibe, too? There’s, like, a vibe.”

There was indeed a vibe. That Friday afternoon, like every Friday afternoon in those days, Salesforce employees and their families promenaded on the top, or ohana, floor of the building—it means “extended family” in Hawaiian; appropriating Hawaiian culture was still considered corporate okay—drinking the free espresso drinks, marveling at the tremendous view.