Most of the finance companies left for more tax friendly states. In the early 2000s, SF had two rush hours. One around 5:30am and another at the normal 8/9am. The 5:30 rush was all the finance people getting from Walnut Creek to SF to be there by the market open at 6:30am.

Finance pivoted away from commercial banking to VC and fintech and creative got gentrified.

You still have the TMT team from Goldman and the likes based in SF but you won’t see them the way you would in NYC.

Finance is much smaller (the Pacific Stock Exchange building is now a gym) but what has really suffered is the arts.

San Francisco used to be a bedroom community for Silicon Valley. The big commute was southbound in the morning and northbound in the evening. Now it's a bit more even.

SF got some tech when people flooded in from outside chasing .com $$$. They got off the plane and thought that of course the big city would be where it was. Even then, the hardcore technology was almost all in the valley; a lot of new companies were taking advantage of new technology but not developing much themselves. Took quite a while for that to change at all.

might be a mix of both honestly, I think finance consolidated alot more in New York

Most of the finance and legal firms are still there. Guess tech companies also need lawyers and investment bankers.

> huh did not realize how empty San Francisco was off tech itself until the mid 2010's almost

Classic "Silicon Valley" did not included San Francisco. SF was a city an hour north of Silicon Valley but never part of it.

I guess by now I'm an "old timer" Silicon Valley-ite (been around here from early-mid-90s), but I still have a cognitive dissonance when thinking SF is in any way part of Silicon Valley. But yes over the last decade+ it surely is.