SF Blackout Hits 110,000, Exposing a High-Tech Economy's Old-School Problem

The Bottom Line

Power is back on for about 110,000 customers in San Francisco following a significant outage. But while the lights are on, the incident casts a long shadow over the reliability of the infrastructure powering the world's most valuable tech economy, raising critical questions for businesses about operational risk.

Utility giant Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) has restored service after an outage impacted approximately 110,000 homes and businesses in the city, according to a Reuters report. The company stated it is investigating the cause of the disruption.

It’s an outage that goes beyond simple inconvenience. In a city where multi-billion dollar companies and remote tech talent depend on constant connectivity, downtime isn't just lost time—it's lost revenue. Every moment the power is out means stalled code deployments, frozen e-commerce transactions, and silenced trading desks. The direct cost to the city's GDP from even a brief outage can run into the millions.

This isn't an isolated incident. PG&E's track record, including its bankruptcy linked to wildfires sparked by its equipment, has long been a concern for residents and businesses. This latest blackout serves as a stark reminder that Silicon Valley's cutting-edge digital world is built on an aging and sometimes fragile physical foundation.