Source: The New York Times
San Francisco's startup culture has literalized the commodification of intimacy—dating has become another funnel to optimize, with founders applying product frameworks (conversion rates, A/B testing language) and hiring five-figure-per-month coaches to systematize attraction. Venture-backed thinking now colonizes personal life as operational reality, not metaphor, collapsing the distinction between scaling a business and building a relationship. The New York Times found this noteworthy enough to report, a signal that the Bay Area's behavioral norms have grown sufficiently algorithmic to read as dystopian to outsiders.