Will surf's other city be forever changed?
Santa Cruz is a fantastic town, one of California’s greatest, with a surf history as storied as any. I think it was two Hawaiian princes who first brought surfing to the cold kelp and the locals took to it with gusto. Many years later we have Steamer Lane, O’Neill, Pleasure Point, The Big Dipper, Maverick (kind of) and methamphetamine. Surfing would be a dull penny without Santa Cruz.
But guess what? Things may be changing for it has been revealed that Amazon, the biggest company in the world, has opened a secret office in Surf’s Other City and let’s read about it in CNBC:
Santa Cruz, located 75 miles south of San Francisco, is a popular surf town best known for its nice weather and beachfront amusement park.
But soon we may start associating the city more closely with one of the largest tech companies in the world: Amazon.
According to the Silicon Valley Business Journal, Amazon has been quietly growing its presence in Santa Cruz over the past two years, now employing over 100 people in a 40,000 square feet office space.
It’s unclear what exactly the team there is working on or why Amazon has picked Santa Cruz as an office location. But the report says the office has a group of engineers working on the Alexa voice technology and could possibly expand up to 200 people.
I would way rather have a meth problem then an Alexa problem but what about you? Are you a fan of voice activated robot help? Or, like me, do you prefer methamphetamine? If the nerds take over and Santa Cruz becomes like Venice Beach and Venice-adjacent then… well… then it will be a very sad day indeed.
Real quick… do you use any voice activated robot help like Siri or Alexa or anything? I never have but should I?
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That explains why I can’t paddle out without a crew of 200 fuckwits at my local break. Silicon Valley fucked Santa Cruz over. Crowds of OBLIVIOUS kooks. Surf rage and or/abandonment is high with local crew. DUH!
I feel this story needs more Ratboy
Who abused meth more; these jokes or the locals themselves?
Santa Cruz! The surfers found it, the baristas improved it, the geeks bought it and the robots exterminated it.
Santa Cruz is an affordable-ish (relatively speaking) town less than an hour from Silicon Valley. It’s beyond fucked. On the other hand, the coffee there is so much better than it was like 10 years ago. So there’s that I guess.
Yeah but then you have to be around all those hipsters. Yuck!
Let’s be clear, Silicon Valley Nerds started with 38th and Cowells but have expanded well beyond already. Beach adjacent neighborhoods and most surf breaks are done. The rest is only a matter of time – turns out its harder to turn trailer parks into multi-million dollar mansions. But it’s coming.
I’ve done crank in SC. Never Alexa.
Hate to break it to you, but Santa Cruz is so 1990’s. The Santa Cruz we know and love is long gone .
RIP
Get ready Kelly all those tweakers are gonna move to the affordable community of leemore.
Santa Cruz resident: “Alexa, find me some meth.”
Alexa: “Alright, walk outside.”
Santa Cruz resident: “Alexa, you getting smart with me?”
Alexa: “Alright, walk outside and pick up the bindle you dropped on your door-step
last night smarty-pants.”
Santa Cruz resident: “Fuck me.”
Alexa: “Alright, finding Laird.”
“Siri, what’s a highline wrap?”
…
“Alexa, play Take Every Wave.”
This is terrible. They have escaped the valley.
perimeter breach!
Just wait until Amazon drones start delivering Mochachino’s to the lineup.
Or Meth.