How Anyone Can Reform Their City's Politics - Sachin Agarwal and Steven Bacio of GrowSF

This was a fun one! As I say in the intro, I found Steven and Sachin incredibly inspiring. It’s not every day that you meet people willing to quit their jobs to go all-in on improving their city’s politics.

We originally met after I tweeted out an essay I wrote referencing GrowSF as a model for reforming California politics. Since then we’ve gotten to meet each other, and this conversation with them was a great chance to understand how GrowSF started, how they approach city politics, and how other people can try to duplicate their success.

The full video is below, check out my twitter or youtube for shorter highlight clips throughout the week!

00:00 - The Birth of GrowSF
03:10 - Quitting to All in on GrowSF
07:37 - Political Landscape and Opportunities
10:25 - The Gift of Perfect Opponents
12:12 - Data-driven Pragmatic Idealism
14:12 - Relying on Data and Building Trust
19:41 - Building a Talent Pipeline for Future Leaders
23:28 - How Has Your View of Politics Shifted?
29:30 - Common Sense Politics, Abundance, and a Long-Term Movement
35:54 - Visions for the Future of California
39:58 - Taking Action: Starting Your Own Movement

For an overview of their tremendous success in the city, check out their 2024 impact report!