Beautiful Virgin Islands

Friday, May 09, 2025

9 tech companies that have ditched San Francisco offices in 2022 are a warning sign for cities to rethink their reliance on big firms

9 tech companies that have ditched San Francisco offices in 2022 are a warning sign for cities to rethink their reliance on big firms

The tech exodus from San Francisco should be a warning to other cities that rely on tech companies to fill downtown office space.
San Francisco's once bustling downtown has become a ghost town as companies have left their offices. The city's office-vacancy rate grew by more than 4 percentage points from November 2021 to November 2022, to about 19%, according to Commercial Observer.

The exodus also is a double-edged sword that threatens San Francisco's financial health. A New York Times report published this month highlighted that local businesses like Mixt, a health-food restaurant, have struggled to maintain their business because high-income workers are no longer flocking downtown for their morning coffee or lunch salad.

Mayor London Breed has estimated that falling commercial property values could contribute to a $728 million budget gap over the next two fiscal years, Bloomberg reported.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told Bloomberg that San Francisco needed "more diversity" in its economic and tax base, as well as more residential homes and cultural attractions downtown.

Meanwhile, layoffs have piled up at companies like Adobe, which reportedly laid off 100 employees from its marketing department in early December, and Airtable, which told TechCrunch on December 8 that it had cut 20% of its workforce. This suggests San Francisco's struggles with office vacancies may be far from over.

"The challenge in all of this is that we're kind of rebuilding to something that doesn't necessarily exist," Jeff Bellisario, the executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, told Bloomberg. "What does the new San Francisco look like? And I'm not sure we've totally figured that out yet."
Here's a roundup of major office moves in San Francisco from 2022 that indicate how dire the situation is:

Snap: Snap Inc., the company that owns Snapchat, terminated the lease on its 33,000-square-foot office in October. The company is going through a restructuring, which has included laying off more than 1,200 employees.

Twitter: People close to Twitter told The Times this month that Twitter had stopped paying rent at its headquarters at 1355 Market St. as the company, now run by Elon Musk, seeks to cut costs to improve its profitability. The paper also reported in late November that Twitter's staff dwindled from around 7,500 full-time employees to less than 3,700 since Musk took over in late October. 

Meta: The Silicon Valley Business Journal reported in early December that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, was planning to part with its more than 430,000-square-foot office space at 181 Fremont St. despite having eight years left on its lease. Meta leases more than 1.2 million square feet of office space in the San Francisco Bay Area, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors during its third-quarter earnings call that it planned to spend up to $3 billion over the next two years to reduce its total office footprint by buying out leases.

Block: The San Francisco Chronicle reported in June that Block, the payment-processing company owned by Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, did not plan to renew its lease at the end of the year for a 470,000-square-foot office in the Mid-Market neighborhood as the company embraced working from home.

Salesforce: The San Francisco Business Times reported in July that the software behemoth Salesforce was making more than 412,000 square feet of office space in its headquarters available to sublease as the company embraced a strategy it called "Success from anywhere. Careers everywhere."

Airbnb: In September, the short-term-rental giant offered to sublease more than 150,000 square feet of office space in its three-story building in San Francisco's SoMa District, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The company also put more than 300,000 square feet of office space up for sublease in nearby Santa Clara, another Bay Area office hub.

Lyft: The San Francisco Business Times reported in August that the ride-hailing firm Lyft planned to let go of 250,000 square feet of office space at its Berry Street headquarters over the next year, reducing the company's total space leased in the city by more than half.

PayPal: The local news outlet ABC7 reported in April that the digital payments processor PayPal planned to close its Market Street office on June 3, leaving PayPal with no footprint in the city.

Slack: Slack, a corporate-communications company, subleased more than 200,000 square feet of office space at 45 Fremont St. in February as it moved toward a digital-first working environment, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The report said the company still held a lease at 500 Howard St., near Salesforce's headquarters.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Historic Papal Conclave Set to Commence in Rome
Huge Copper, Gold, and Silver Discovery in Argentina and Chile — But the Profits Go Abroad
Prince Harry is pleading for reconciliation — but the royals are just as sick of his victimhood as everyone else
The Road to Freedom: She Protested Putin, Escaped House Arrest, and Survived a 2,800-Kilometer Journey
OpenAI's Flip-Flop: No Longer Going Commercial, Back to Nonprofit, After Musk Lawsuit and Backlash
“Trump Supporter” Aims to Bring a MAGA-Style Shift to Romania
First From China: Zhao Xintong Wins the Snooker World Championship
Nvidia Faces Billion-Dollar Losses – Warns: China Is on Its Way to Becoming an AI Superpower
Trump Rules Out Third Term, Names JD Vance and Marco Rubio as Potential Successors
Mexico Says ‘No’ to U.S. Troops: President Sheinbaum Rejects Trump’s Offer to Fight Cartels
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Storms the Map, Wrecking the Two-Party Monopoly
DOGE: Reimagining Government Operations with AI
Common Sense Returns to Britain's Legal System: UK Supreme Court Declares a Woman Is… a Woman
Beijing Says U.S. Is ‘Reaching Out’ for Tariff Talks Amid Soaring Trade Tensions
U.K. Court Rejects Prince Harry’s Final Appeal Over Police Security
Prince Harry’s Heartfelt Outburst Rocks the Royal Family
Trump Shares AI-Generated Image of Himself as… Pope, Prompting Outrage Reaction
Transgender Swimmer Secures Five Gold Medals at U.S. Masters Championship
Prince Harry: “I Want Reconciliation with My Family”
Germany's Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party has now been officially labeled “right-wing extremist” by the federal office for the so-called “protection of the constitution.”
Amazon Launches Satellite Internet Service Amidst Competition with SpaceX
Transformative Changes in Women's Wrestling: The Rise of WWE Superstars
The Rush to the White Gold: Global Investment Surge in Natural Hydrogen Exploration
This is a day in Spain without electricity and internet
Reform UK Surprises in British Elections, Challenging Traditional Two-Party System
180-Year-Old Christian University in South Carolina Announces Closure Due to Unmet $6 Million Fundraising Goal
Brazilian Woman Jailed for Fourteen Years for Writing “You Lost, Idiot” on Statue During Protest
Trump Administration Removes National Security Adviser Mike Waltz Amid Signal Chat Controversy
Dutch Politician Eva Vlaardingerbroek Receives Spyware Threat Alert from Apple
Paramount Board Considers Settlement in Trump’s $20 Billion Lawsuit Over "60 Minutes" Interview
U.S. Economy Shrink in Trump’s First Quarter as Tariff Policy Raises Questions
Deadline Looms for RTS Meter Replacement: Hundreds of Thousands at Risk of Heating Disruption
Sweden Grapples with Deadly Gun Violence: Suspect Arrested After Three Young Men Killed in Uppsala Hair Salon
Walz Reveals Why Harris Chose Him as Her Running Mate and Reflects on Democratic Losses
Spain Restores Power After Unprecedented Nationwide Blackout
Carney Secures Liberal Mandate in Canada’s Federal Election
Death Penalty Sought as Luigi Manion Pleads Not Guilty in CEO Murder Case
President Trump contacts Jeff Bezos after reports of Amazon considering listing tariff surcharges; company clarifies no such plan for main platform
Spain and Portugal Recover from Massive Blackout
Liverpool Clinches Record-Equalling 20th English League Title Under Arne Slot
Singapore Politicians Warn Against Foreign Interference in Election
Driver Ploughs into Vancouver Festival Crowd, Killing Nine
Depression, Fear of Defamation, and a Tragic End: New Details on Virginia Giuffre’s Suicide
“Sharia for UK, Allah Akbar!”
Massive Explosion at Iran's Bandar Abbas Port Linked to Suspicious Chemical Shipments
Incident Reflection: A Harsh Reality Check
Pakistani migrants to Danish man: “ “We have 5 children while you have 1 or 2. In 10 years, there will be more Pakistanis than Danes here.“
Clashes Erupt in London as Tensions Rise Between Indian and Pakistani Communities
Specialized anti-drone weapons deployed among security personnel Ahead of Papal Funeral
How do you fix this culture?
×