Welcome to If Then, the show about how technology is changing our lives and our future.

I'm A Broklazer.

And I'm Kim, Mike Cutler.

Hey, everyone.

Welcome to If Then.

We're coming to you from Slate and Future Tense, a partnership between Slate, Arizona State University, and New America. We are recording this on the afternoon of Tuesday, May 21st. First of all, I'd like to introduce my co-host this week, Kim Mykeletler. Kim Mai is a partner at Initialized Capital, an early-stage venture firm. She's a former full-time journalist at TechCrunch as well. Kim Mai, thanks for co-hosting.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. On today's show, we're going to talk all about

California, one of my absolute favorite topics. First, we're going to discuss California

housing policy. A major legislative push that would have spurred more apartment construction

in the state was just shelved until next year. Meanwhile, in the Bay Area, the homeless

population is growing rapidly. In San Francisco, a recent federal street count tallied a 17%

increase in homeless residents from 2017 to 2019. In Alameda County, where we are recording today

in Oakland, California, the homeless population rose 43%. We're lucky to have Kim Mai with us to talk about our housing nightmare on today's show.

And then we're talking about fire. We're joined by Faith Kearns of the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources and Lizzie Johnson, a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle, who has done

some really incredible work over the last two years documenting wildfires throughout the state

of California. And she's currently working on a book about the aftermath of the campfire.

And this was the deadliest fire in California history that destroyed the town of paradise last

year. We will learn about how fire victims are doing now and what preparations are being made for yet another fire season, which started earlier this month. And as always, we'll end with Don't Close My Tabs, some of the best things we saw on the web this week. That's all coming up on If Then. So today's show is all about California, where I have only, I've only been here for six years.

How long have you been in California, Kim?

I've been in California for most of my life. I mean, I have lived outside of the state, but I

have a long, long history here. My grandfather first came to the Bay Area in the 1950s.

Oh, wow.

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