Notes From the Epicenter: Que Sera, Sera
On a recent karaoke bar evening, a friend of mine got up to sing a song in honor of the many twists her life had taken in the past year: Que Sera, Sera. Whatever will be, will be. As I sipped my Kirin Lager, it occurred to me that this sentiment could describe the effects of a year (and more) of changing circumstances on my friend’s life, but also on the life of the Bay Area and everyone in it.
What a Difference a Year (and a Half) Makes
When I began writing for creativepro.com almost a year and a half ago (which is like five years in Internet time), the Web and San Francisco itself were very different places. For one thing they were a lot more crowded. Fresh young faces were pouring into the city from points east (and sometimes points west) bringing with them little more than talent, initiative, and a twinkle in their eye. Similarly, dot-coms of every stripe were pouring onto the Web, armed with little more than a business plan and some venture capital. And this was OK, because in the world of a year and a half ago, venture capital, initiative, and twinkling eyes went a long way.
The people on the Internet and in San Francisco a year and a half ago were also more optimistic. We were giddy about the Web and about living in the hotbed, the incubator, of a force that was changing the world. San Francisco had begun a whirlwind romance with the Web. We wanted to spend all our time with it, we thought it could do no wrong, we thought it was it. The one.
But, like many a love affair, the romance faded, and being giddy got more difficult as the Internet Age, well, aged. When the bubble burst, we were half expecting it. Things were just too good.
After the Affair Is Over
So San Francisco began to change all over again. The escalating rents began to stabilize, the job market tightened (though it seems workers have yet to trickle back into the service industry), and people began to tighten their purse strings. A recent “San Francisco Examiner” headline put it succinctly: PackingItIn.Com. Or, if you prefer, there’s the more eloquent sentiment expressed in recent TV spots for the “San Jose Mercury News“: “You used to be a 28-year-old millionaire. Now you’re just a 28-year-old. Life unfolds.”
Unfold it does. What happened? A number of things of course. There was the vast overvaluation of most Internet businesses (the kind of atmosphere where someone might pay $1 million for a domain name like business.com). There were the shoddy business plans of some (delivering 50-pound bags of dog food via the postal service is not cost effective). There was the financial mismanagement of others (such as the British fashion site boo.com, which spent most of its millions of venture capital without ever launching).
Then there was the overall reluctance of most Americans to spend their money on the Internet. That was hard to grasp for those of us living in the epicenter of it all.
Until the Next Epicenter
The Internet, of course, is not going away. But I am. With San Francisco back in the hands of the offline world, it’s time for me to bow out of my role as commentator on the digital world. Like many a dot-com, I’m closing up shop. I plan to turn off my computer for a little while and spend my days soaking up the calm that has come back to this city.
I’m going to sit back and watch San Francisco transform itself yet again. And, who knows? The next revolution may not be far off. The future’s not ours to see. Que sera, sera.
This article was last modified on January 8, 2023
This article was first published on May 21, 2001
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