San Francisco, CA
One-on-one interview with Empire's Ghazi
Of all the business moguls in the Bay Area, one you may not have heard of is building an “Empire” right in front of our eyes.
Ghazi, a Palestinian American, has created one of the most powerful independent companies in the global music business. His studio, in the city’s South of Market neighborhood, is a dream for the modern-day version of a music industry pioneer.
Ghazi founded Empire in 2010.
“I could never even afford to rent a room in a studio like this when I was getting started,” he said. “To be able to house and protect and provide for so many artists here locally is kind of like a dream come true. People fly here from all over the world. We’ve had artists here from India, Japan, Nigeria, South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Palestine, Latin America.”
He is now a major player when it comes to San Francisco real estate. Two miles from the studio, he recently bought the historic One Montgomery building. Sold in 2019 before the pandemic for $82 million, Ghazi bought it for about $20 million. One Montgomery will be Empire’s new global headquarters.
In true Silicon Valley style, Empire disrupted the music industry, changing the way artists get paid by essentially giving them more of a cut and more of a say.
Empire artists include global superstars like Shaboozey, Nigerian artist Fireboy DLM, and Puerto Rican singer Jay Wheeler, along with the Bay Area’s P-Lo, LaRussell and Too $hort.
His father, a Palestinian refugee, brought the family to America for a better life. As a kid, Ghazi was curious, especially when it came to technology.
“I remember my parents they bought me a dual tape deck from the flea market,” he said. “I was fascinated by the fact that you could tape one tape to another, and I took it apart to see how it worked.”
At 18, the San Francisco State University graduate went to work in Silicon Valley, working at five or six different companies. He built computers and also worked at video and music streaming companies. A job at Sun Microsystems changed everything. Ghazi worked tech for then-CEO Scott McNeely.
“That job made me decide that I never wanted to work for anybody ever again because I worked in Scott’s department for two years and he never knew my name,” Ghazi said. “He was never rude or anything to me. He just never knew my name. I had an opportunity to take a position in another department or take a severance check and took the severance check and just never looked back.”
As a Palestinian American, Ghazi said his background has given him an undeniable drive to be excellent.
“You have a different thirst and admiration for life,” he said. “To some degree it also creates a sense of survivor’s guilt because you’re staring across the water and you’re looking at people that look like you, suffering in ways that are unimaginable and you look at children that look like your own children and you’re like, ‘These could be my kids, man.’”
“My way of looking at things is just to be excellent,” Ghazi continued. “Because when you’re excellent, people can’t deny your existence … your experiences can either jade you, make you into somebody sour, or you can say I’m never gonna be like that. I’m gonna provide, protect, and love the people that love and cherish me.”
Ghazi is reviving the music scene in San Francisco. Inside the SOMA studio, he’s rebuilt every room in what he calls Empire’s headquarters for creatives – five different studios, a podcast room, a gaming floor and a backyard “paradise” with a fountain.
When asked about his breakout moment, Ghazi said it was never one moment.
“I tell people it’s like a graph, right? More dots, clearer picture,” he said. “You asked me when we first were in the other room, you said, ‘How come you never interviewed me?’ I said, ‘You never asked.’ But I was never on your radar. You don’t get on people’s radar until you put enough dots on the graph. I’m not the kind of person that’s screaming at the top of my lungs, ‘Look at me.’ I’d rather my work speak for itself.”
Empire is hosting 415 Day on Tuesday, April 15, at Spark Social from 6 to 10 p.m. in San Francisco. It is a night to celebrate the city and its culture. All ages are welcome, and it’s free to attend. For more information, visit 415day.com.
San Francisco, CA
Retired San Francisco firefighter dies from lung cancer after Blue Shield denies treatment claims
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — The retired San Francisco firefighter at the center of a bitter insurance fight has lost his battle against cancer.
Ken Jones passed away Saturday, 14 months after being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.
PREVIOUS REPORT: City asked to intervene after SF firefighter’s stage 4 lung cancer treatment denied by Blue Shield
We first told you about Jones in January — when the 17-year veteran and supporters asked the City Commission for help.
The Fire Department’s insurance carrier, Blue Shield, denied coverage for some of his recommended treatments.
Ken Jones was 70 years old.
SF firefighters rally for retiree denied cancer treatment by Blue Shield as more come forward
“After we got some publicity, thank you, a Blue Shield physician reached out to Ken’s physician, and they worked out a different plan that Blue Shield would cover. It’s still an incomplete plan,” said Helen Horvath, Jones’ wife when ABC7 Eyewitness News spoke to her in January, 2026.
Since then, Jones’ story has led to an investigation into other cases, with the city’s mayor vowing to support firefighters.
According to San Francisco’s Health Service Board, about 5,000 city employees and retirees are insured by Blue Shield. Now, city leaders are asking anyone who has been denied cancer treatment to speak up.
Tony Stefani with the Cancer Prevention Foundation said firefighters with a cancer diagnosis have a 14% higher chance of dying than other cancer patients in the general population.
“Current statistics tell us that 65% of the men and women in our profession are going to contract some form of cancer in their lifetime. Some of them will be fatal,” Stefani said.
In a Statement Blue Shield said, in part: “For Medicare members, health plans must follow medical policy established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).”
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Few things are more valuable in the Bay Area than real estate. In San Francisco, the median house price is now over $2 million. Last month, at least seven houses in the city sold for $1 million over the asking price, and buyers regularly offer to pay in cash or waive contingencies to stay competitive. Yet there is one thing that remains even more valuable than a house, and possibly more valuable than money itself: stock in Anthropic or OpenAI.
Last week, 160 Noe Street, an Edwardian home in San Francisco’s desirable Duboce Triangle neighborhood, was listed for sale at $2.9 million—or the equivalent amount in Anthropic or OpenAI shares, as based on those companies’ current valuations. Rachel Swann, the listing agent, says she was inspired to set these unusual terms after meeting several Anthropic employees at an open house for a different property. “These people have a lot of paper wealth, but they don’t always have the liquidity to do things they want,” Swann says. Some of these employees were expecting to come into as much as $50 million from their Anthropic shares, and wondered if they could use that as leverage to buy a house, according to Swann. “This kept coming up over and over again.”
Swann’s listing is unconventional, but not singular. In April, an investment banker named Storm Duncan offered to exchange his Mill Valley home and an adjacent parcel of land for Anthropic shares. And in May, Vijay Chattha, who owns an agency that does PR for tech companies, listed his Healdsburg home for $2.5 million, or $2 million in Anthropic stock. “I want to sell my house, and I want to invest in Anthropic,” Chattha says. “Why not combine the two?
Chattha’s house—a three bed, three bath with a pool and a bocce court in a part of Sonoma County that abuts some of the region’s most famous wineries—also comes with coveted short-term rental status, allowing the owner to list it on platforms like Airbnb. Only a handful of properties in Healdsburg come with that status, and only about a dozen come up for sale in a given year.
Chattha is offering a $500,000 discount to Anthropic employees because he believes the value of Anthropic shares will grow faster than any other investment, and his vacation home in wine country is the best bargaining chip he has to try to access them. “If you look at Anthropic’s growth last year, it’s insane,” he says, noting the $380 billion valuation the company claimed in February. “Now they’re raising at $965 billion. That’s three X in like three months.” He added that he was open to exchanging the house for shares in Anthropic, but not OpenAI, because he prefers using Anthropic’s products.
The real estate listings come at a time when investors are salivating at the record-high valuations of Anthropic and OpenAI, and even those considered wealthy by Bay Area standards are feeling FOMO about the affluence that could come from these companies’ debuts on the stock market. (On Monday, Anthropic submitted paperwork for its initial public offering; OpenAI is also reportedly preparing to file in the coming months.) Despite the unprecedented valuations of these companies, many people believe their stock prices will only go up, and that anyone who gets a piece now could win the jackpot.
People are clamoring to buy equity in OpenAI and Anthropic on the secondary market, leading to a frenzy of transactions that may or may not be legitimate. As a result, Anthropic updated its policy around “unauthorized Anthropic stock sales” this spring, which notes that “if someone purports to sell Anthropic shares without proper board approval, that transaction is invalid.” A spokesperson for Anthropic pointed back to this policy when asked about the possibility of exchanging company shares for real estate.
Welcome to our running tally of Election Night results. Or, as this is California, well beyond tonight, as results continue to trickle in.
The first batch of results should arrive at 8:45 p.m., with three more to follow tonight. The Department of Elections has the breakdown.
San Francisco is voting in three special elections, for District 2 and District 4 supervisors and for a Board of Education member. Both supervisor races are referendums on housing, especially District 2, while the main backdrop of the D4 race is all the hot feelings around the fate of the Sunset Dunes Park (nee Great Highway).
The winners of all three special races will have to compete again in November for their seats.
Keeping it local, SF is also voting on four ballot measures. Prop A is for a bond to pay for an emergency water-system. B is for term limits. C and D are dueling measures related to the “overpaid CEO” tax. (Links go to our reporting on each race or issue; or click here for our Election 2026 page.)
Vote local, think national: Which two candidates will advance to the November election to replace Nancy Pelosi?
Statewide races include the primaries for governor, education superintendent, lieutenant governor, and much more.
Polls close soon. If you haven’t voted yet, find your polling station here.
Tuesday, June 2, 5:40 p.m.
Two and a half hours until our polls close. Before we go down the local rabbit hole, a reminder that other states have primary action today: New Jersey, Iowa, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Montana.
Why does it take so long to get results in California? CalMatters has you covered on that story. We shouldn’t expect a call tonight on the governor’s race.
The last big election was November 5, 2024. (Remember?) Ten days later, there were still races to call in San Francisco.
So if you’re waiting for the pundits (and maybe even us) to tell you What It All Means, you might have to wait a while.
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