Billionaire who wants to change SF has put reported $336M into city

Michael Moritz got obscenely rich as an investor in the Bay Area’s tech industry. Now, he’s been putting that money into a push to change San Francisco — to the tune of $336 million over three years, according to a new report.

The eye-popping sum for “social and political causes” was reported in a Bloomberg Businessweek profile of the 69-year old billionaire that published Wednesday. Moritz made his name and fortune providing early backing to tech companies like Google and Paypal as a partner at the venture firm Sequoia Capital, which he left in July after nearly 40 years. Now, he’s spending mightily to reshape the city he’s long called home — while occasionally hitting San Francisco with intense criticism.

Moritz funds Crankstart, a massive grant-giving foundation based in the city, as well as the local media outlet the San Francisco Standard. He backs SF Parent Action, which pushed a 2022 recall of members of the city’s school board, and also helps fund the political advocacy group TogetherSF Action, which is known for the jokey fentanyl ads that popped up around SoMa and the Tenderloin in May. 

“I know people will always question our agenda, and that’s their right, but all we are trying to do is make San Francisco better for everyone,” Moritz told Bloomberg. 

Moritz’s political spending with TogetherSF Action — much like an effort he’s involved in to build a new city in Solano County — has ruffled some feathers in the Bay Area. But most of the reported $336 million total seems to have gone through Crankstart, according to the foundation’s public statements about its spending. The foundation gives grants to education, homelessness and immigration charities in San Francisco, as well as other areas.

On the foundation’s website, Crankstart says it gave $200 million in grants in 2022, “with 60 percent going to nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay Area.” In 2021, per a public disclosure filing, Crankstart’s local donations included almost $1.5 million for the Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco, over $3 million for housing and racial equity nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners and $5 million for the environmental charity Earthjustice. 

In early 2021, per Vox, Crankstart quietly funded Hear/Say Media, a nonprofit digital media startup run by TogetherSF’s co-founders. But after drawing questions from media observers about the outlet’s backers, Hear/Say announced it was spinning out as a for-profit entity with $10 million in seed money from Moritz and his wife Harriet Heyman. The outlet then changed its name to The San Francisco Standard.

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