Sporting a goatee beard and baseball cap, Adam Bendell stands on a corner of hip Potrero Hill and motions down San Francisco’s 20th Street on a day California’s deadly forest fires are keeping most people indoors or wearing face masks.
“This is very unusual. Normally you can easily see across San Francisco Bay,” says the 57-year-old local resident, adding that the new Salesforce HQ, which normally dominates surrounding buildings, is “invisible from here today”.
The deserted street seems a weirdly apposite vantage point to be discussing his Toniic Institute’s desire to bring impact investing to China, where air pollution makes face masks a daily sight in some cities.