Daily digest: record S.F. budget approved, Super Micro stock jumps 20%. By Ted Andersen - Digital Editor, San Francisco Business Times Jul 22, 2026 Story highlights. * San Francisco approves record $16.9 billion budget. * Super Micro Computer shares jump 20% on margin forecast. * Brex expands to 200,000 square feet at 270 Brannan St. Happy Wednesday, Bay Area. * In international news, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned Chinese AI companies in a post on X on Wednesday that sanctions remain on the table after a White House official accused Moonshot of improperly training from Anthropic's Fable model - a possible, and ironic, intellectual property violation. * In commercial real estate, the Chronicle reports that fintech Brex has signed a lease to expand its presence at 270 Brannan St., taking the entire 200,000-square-foot building. * The nonprofit behind street cleaning and safety ambassadors in the Financial District is expanding its definition of downtown San Francisco, along with its budget. Reporter Alex Barreira has the story. * And finally, the San Francisco Business Times hosted its annual Business of Sports event at the Chase Center this morning. Take a peek at an interesting tidbit that came out of the panel discussions with the region's sports leaders. Here's the rest of what's making news at midweek. GET TO KNOW YOUR CITY Find Local Events Near You Connect with a community of local professionals. Supes unanimously approve city's largest budget ever. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously passed a $16.9 billion budget, the Chronicle reports, a move that closes a deficit of more than $640 million. The approval comes about a month after supervisors negotiated more than $28.5 million in funding restorations for social services. The deal preserved $1.3 billion in cash reserves, including $400 million set aside to guard against federal funding cuts. Tuesday's vote marks the first time in recent years that the budget passed with unanimous support from the board's 11 members. Silicon Valley server manufacturer rises on bolstered forecast. Shares of San Jose-based Super Micro Computer Inc. (Nasdaq: SMCI) jumped about 20% on Wednesday after the company announced that its gross margins in the fourth quarter will be around twice as high as previously forecast. The server company on Tuesday said it expects gross margins of 15% to 17%, up from its previous guidance for up 8.2% to 8.4% - an increase largely due to a favorable customer and product mix. Bay Area Air District updates public on water heater electrification. The Bay Area Air District on Tuesday presented the public with a retooled draft of its ban on gas-powered hot water heaters, delaying implementation and adding exemptions for those to whom it would create a hardship. The new rules, designed to curb emissions, were originally scheduled to start Jan. 1 as one of the most stringent regulations in the U.S. with the goal of phasing out gas water heaters and furnaces. However, the board instead has now directed staff to develop a proposal with potential flexibility measures and exemptions intended to address affordability concerns and installation challenges for residents and small businesses. A new draft released ahead of Tuesday's public meeting reflects new amendments that delay the implementation date from January 2027 to January 2028 and exempt low-income property owners and situations where electrical panel or physical space constraints make the transition to electric appliances especially expensive. Those amendments fall into three categories: Low-income property owners, properties without enough room or ventilation to install a compliant unit and electrical limitations such as panels below 100 amps. The Bay Area Air District will hold a final public where the amendments will be discussed in November. People on the move. San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman nominated Malea Chavez, Elizabeth Macdonald and Joel Koppel to be appointed to the San Francisco Planning Commission. Zions Bancorp., which operates California Bank & Trust in the Bay Area, has hired Mike Selfridge as executive vice president and head of wealth management. Read more. Funding watch. Glow, a Palo Alto- and Tel Aviv-based endpoint security company, raised $180 million at a $1.2 billion valuation. Read the full story. San Francisco-based Candid Health raised $120 million in Series D funding led by Sixth Street Growth and joined by Oak HC/FT, 8VC and Y Combinator. Gritt, an S.F.-based machines construction robotics company, raised $32 million in Series A and pre-seed funding. Obvious Ventures led the A and was joined by Union Square Ventures, Active Impact Investments, investors First Round Capital, Climactic, Congruent Ventures and VSC Ventures. Real Estate watch. The most expensive home to sell in Pacifica has changed hands for a handsome price point. See details and the photos. Final thought... San Francisco Giants President of Baseball Operations Buster Posey is playing hardball around this year's Aug. 3 trade deadline. Posey joined the "Murph and Markus" show on KNBR to share a foreboding message about potential moves with a losing record past midseason. "We're 41-55," Posey said. "We are going to have to look at all options moving forward." Take a good look at your favorite players in orange and black this year because there's a chance any one of them might not be on the team moving forward. | Rank | Prior Rank | Business name/Prior rank | | 1 | 1 | Apple Inc. | | 2 | 2 | Alphabet Inc. | | 3 | 4 | Nvidia Corp. | Deadline: Friday, December 18, 2026 Real Estate Deals of the Year The San Francisco Business Times and Silicon Valley Business Journal are now accepting entries for its annual Real Estate Deals of the Year Awards, which recognizes the most significant projects and transactions of 2026.

What a great VP Sales does in their first week. Watch for it. One of the most controversial things I've said over the years on SaaStr is: You know within 30 days if you hired a VP right. Especially a VP of Sales. Not at 90 days. Not at 6 months. By day 30, the split is visible. And if you're not paying attention, you'll miss it. Just about every founder and CEO that has been through it agrees with this. A lot of executives challenge it. But it's just as true today in the Age of AI. Maybe even more so. As there just isn't enough time to scale slowly, or hope someone that is scaling slowly... will eventually get there. Great VP of Sales, first week: - brings 2-4 great sales execs in ASAP. often week 1 - identifies top existing talent, does what it takes to keep them - begins to move out underperformers - jumps into all critical deals Mediocre VP of Sales, first month: - has no one to bring... - Jason | SaaStr.Ai | Lemkin (@jasonlk) June 30, 2026 Great VP of Sales: first week. 1. Brings 2-4 great sales execs in ASAP. This is not a maybe. This is not a plan to hire. This is day one through day five. The great VP has already been building their network. They have 3-4 people they've worked with before who know them, who know they can close, and who are ready to move. * Ron Gabrisko joined Databricks as CRO when it was under $1M ARR and immediately brought in salespeople he knew from Cloudera and IBM. His core philosophy: "When you have strong leaders, they bring in their own networks and attract other great talent. That's been a huge part of our early success." Databricks scaled from sub-$1M to over $3B under his leadership. * Matt Plank, who was employee #5 at Rippling, built out the early sales team by focusing on network hires first: "Your first few hires will typically be from your network." He scaled Rippling to over $1B ARR. * Ashley Kelly joined Brex at $2M ARR and immediately brought in three experienced SDRs from her previous company. The network hire is not a nice-to-have. It's the job. If they don't have this network, they are not a great VP. Ever single great sales leader I've ever worked with, and this includes stretch ones, ones that want to be a VP Sales... is cultivating their network. They're constantly making sure the top 2-5 sales execs they know are ready to join their next thing, and they're constantly recruiting one way or another. Constantly. It's the job. Just don't hire anyone for a leadership role that doesn't have a few excellent sales execs to come with them. Trust me. And talk to them (the ones that will join) to confirm it. 2. Identifies top existing talent. Does what it takes to keep them. Week one they're doing 1-on-1s. Not group meetings. Not all-hands listening tours. One on one with everyone, if the team is small. With all your top performers if it's larger. They're asking: What are you doing that works? What's your close rate? What's your deal size? Why are you still here? What would make you leave? The top performers get direct attention from day one. Not later. Not after the process is built. Now. The message is clear: the best people get the best leader's time. Ron Gabrisko's core lesson from scaling Databricks: "Talent beats everything. Culture beats everything. If I could go back, I'd tell myself to invest even more aggressively early on." This means retention conversations with your top reps happen in week one. They make retention offers to these people. Not because it's nice. Because losing your top rep means losing 20-30% of pipeline and breaking morale for everyone else. 3. Begins to move out underperformers. Bad sales reps don't get better. They get slower. They take pipeline from people who can close it. They make the whole team accept mediocrity. The great VP starts this conversation in week one or two. Not cruelly. But fast. "I'm seeing X. Here's what I need to see. If this doesn't change in the next 30 days, we're going to make a change." No second chances. No process that will fix them. No hoping they turn it around. By day 30, 1-2 people are gone or have exit plans. 4. Jumps into all critical deals. Doesn't wait to get "a lay of the land" They spend the first two weeks in deal reviews, and in actual deals. Not strategy sessions. Not CRM reviews. Actual deals. The ones stuck. The ones that should have closed. The ones where something is broken. They're asking: Why is this deal here? Who's the buyer? Have SaaStr Inc. talked to them? What's the objection? Is there a competitive threat? How much revenue is this? Is your rep actually trying? They're not running the deals. They're learning the problems and helping deals close their first week, often their first day. They're seeing which reps know what they're doing and which ones are winging it. They're identifying the patterns. By end of week two, they know what's broken in your sales process. Mediocre VP of Sales: first month. 1. Has no one to bring with them. They show up with no network. No one who will move with them. So they immediately start recruiting, which means they're building a plan instead of executing. They spend weeks 1-2 writing a hiring plan. A sales process. A CRM framework. A training program. They're trying to fix what's broken through systems instead of people. If this is your VP, you've already made the hire wrong. 2. Top talent begins to leave. Your A player is watching. They see that the new VP doesn't know anyone. Doesn't have gravity. Is focused on meetings instead of deals. They get a call from a recruiter on Wednesday and take a coffee on Friday. Your top revenue driver sees a founder at a competitor who moves faster. By week two, she's seriously looking. Your third-best person hasn't heard from the new VP at all. They're wondering if they matter anymore. By day 21, you've lost one person or are about to. If you ask them why, they say "I'm just looking for something new" or "The opportunity came up." What they're actually saying is: I don't trust this hire. 3. Tries hard to keep everyone, including low performers. The mediocre VP focuses on retention because that's what you asked for. "Jason left, we need to keep people happy." So they build retention plans. They promise more coaching. Better commission plans. More training. They try to make the process so good that people don't leave. But they're not fixing the real problem: underperformers are still here. Pipeline is still stuck. They're still building process instead of executing. So people who could win somewhere else stay just long enough to see that nothing is changing, then leave anyway. And people who are costing you money stay forever because there's no accountability. By day 30, your team is the same size but demoralized. Your bad performers have permission to stay. Your good performers are checking out. 4. Works mainly on process. Week 1: Sales process documentation. Week 2: CRM cleanup and reporting. Week 3: New comp plan proposal. Week 4: Training schedule. Nothing about this is wrong. It's just not the job of a VP of Sales in their first month. The job is: fix what's actually broken, move the right people into place, and get the organization moving. Process is the thing you build after your team actually believes in you. Process without trust is just meetings. What you'll actually see. By day 30, if you're paying attention: Great VP scenario: * 2-3 new people in the door * 2-3 underperformers either gone or have 30-day exit plans * Your top performers have had real conversations about why they're staying * 1-2 critical deals have moved or are close to moving * Your sales team believes this person knows what they're doing Mediocre VP scenario: * No new people hired yet, but lots of job reqs posted * Your top person either left or is actively looking * Everyone is still here, including the people who can't close * You have a new sales process doc and a meeting schedule * Your sales team is wondering who this person is and what they're trying to do The great VP can even make you uncomfortable. They move fast. They make hard decisions. They do things without consensus. They are confident by the end of Week 1 at least in 2-3 things that truly will move the needle, and they can tell you exactly why., The mediocre VP makes you feel heard. They listen. They build lots and lots of plans. They're professional. They often are pretty darn good at selling up. They do a lot of listening tours to start. Your board and investors may even love them. By month two, you'll know which one you hired. You'll even know at the end of Week 1 if you really listen and watch. The hard part is: most founders hire the mediocre one because they seem competent in the interview, and often have the best LinkedIn. The great one often seems reckless.