There’s no place quite like San Francisco, and a long-standing X trend has been capturing the idiosyncrasies of the place through some hilarious anecdotes.
“Overheard in SF” is a trend on X that is exactly what it sounds like: people report conversations they’ve overheard while in San Francisco in restaurants, cafes, and the odd startup accelerator. And while not all the anecdotes are necessarily true, they do present a snippet of what life is like in the beating heart of Silicon Valley.
The trend is at least a decade old. In 2016, former Techcrunch Editor Josh Constine had posted: Overheard in SF: “People will look back at Bitcoin the way we look back at Beanie Babies”.
In 2017, X user Anthony Pompliano had posted about what seemed like the zeitgeist of the time in the ZIRP era. “Overheard in SF coffee shops today: “We’re gonna be rich” “Java isn’t cool anymore” “We’ll raise $25M after this round” “This coffee sucks”” he had said.
Another post from 2017 captured the growing popularity of Tinder. “Overheard in SF: “I was only looking at Tinder for the UX patterns,” an X user had said.
The overheard bits kept getting more interesting. “overheard in saison restaurant, sf: âgood sex is like growth for an early stage start-up, it can hide a lot of problemsâ,” a user posted.
There was some self-referential stuff too. “overheard in sf: âthe longer i follow him on twitter, the less i want to have sex with himâ” a user posted.
By 2023, AI was the dominant talking theme in SF, and the overheard bits changed accordingly. “Overheard in SF: “singularity with Chinese characteristics”” posted Nat Friedman.
“Overheard in SF: “a few years from now the LLMs will be telling humans to think step-by-step”,” said another user.
There were references to just how much wealth San Francisco can generate for some of its inhabitants. “”I’ve had more planes than girlfriends” – overheard in SF,” a user posted.
The format became so popular that in 2025, people were making jokes about it. “Overheard in sf: âI think that guys listening to our conversationâ,” a user posted.
But that didn’t stop X — the overheard in SF trend only became more popular. The last year has seen many bangers. “overheard in sf: âthis party feels too nontechnicalâ,” a user said.
“overheard in sf: âmy ideal guy is technical but looks nontechnical,â said another.
“overheard in sf: âweâre waiting to have kids until post-AGI,” said another user. Interestingly, Meta’s AI Chief Alexandr Wang had said something similar a year ago.
And recent posts have been capturing the AI boom pretty well. “overheard in SF: “my seed round is bigger than her new boyfriend’s series B”,” said a user.
And “Overheard in SF: “is he old money or new money? like saas rich or AI rich?”,” said another.
And if the trend continues, these little snippets will likely keep covering the history of the city of San Francisco for many years to come.