Dear reader, 

When I arrived in San Francisco in late 2018, the techlash was already in full swing. Public trust in US tech companies had been hammered by privacy violations and “fake news”. Company mottos such as Google’s “Don’t be evil” and Facebook’s “Move fast and break things” had started to sound like punchlines. 

Six years later, as I prepare to leave the city and sign off from the Lex column, San Francisco is in the grip of a new boom. SF start-ups including OpenAI and Anthropic are leading a global race in generative artificial intelligence. Tech valuations have multiplied. Look at Microsoft, the largest US company by valuation. Since 2018 its market cap has tripled to more than $3tn. Trust in tech may have declined but demand for its services and shares is at an all-time high.