One out of every 11,600 people in San Francisco is a billionaire

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If you want to run into a celebrity, you go to Hollywood. If you want to run into a billionaire, you should move to San Francisco.

There are more American billionaires than ever before, according to a new study, and Silicon Valley is their home turf. One out of every 11,600 people in San Francisco is a billionaire. That makes San Francisco, globally ranked fourth in number of billionaires, the city with the most billionaires per capita — by far.

That’s according to the annual census of billionaires by Wealth-X, which tracks the 10-figured.

Billionaires have had a rough year. The American left has cast them as corporate villains whose exorbitant wealth reflects a system that no longer works. They have become political piñatas, and not just the billionaire in the White House. A growing number of billionaires have even become critics of capitalism, saying it must be reformed in order to be saved.

In some circles in San Francisco, it’s hard not to personally encounter a billionaire who is doing pretty okay. In second place is New York City, which has merely one billionaire for every 81,000 people.

Statistics like that throw into sharp relief the challenge for Silicon Valley and its leaders in 2019: They are stereotyped, and perhaps not unfairly, as out of touch with the people whose lives they affect around the world. If you’re a billionaire who dines with other billionaires, skis with other billionaires, and raises your family alongside other billionaires, then maybe your work decisions are based on a narrow understanding of the world outside of San Francisco.

Those statistics should also tell you a lot about San Francisco, which, until very recently, has barely grown in total size since 1950. So the denominator has stayed static at a time of enormous wealth creation.

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