Won't You Be His Neighbor?
Bloomberg Businessweek|April 12, 2021
Mayor Francis Suarez goes on a charm offensive to lure techies—and Elon Musk—to Miami
By Amanda Kolson Hurley and Rodney Jefferson
Won't You Be His Neighbor?

The viral moment that turned Francis Suarez, the mayor of Miami, into a tech recruiter happened on Dec. 4, shortly before 9 p.m. Miami time. On Twitter, Delian Asparouhov, a Founders Fund venture capitalist, had mused: “ok guys hear me out, what if we move silicon valley to miami”?

“How can I help?” Suarez responded.

His tweet started bounding across the internet. Suarez printed T-shirts with the phrase, in Miami Vice pink and blue. A venture capitalist with Miami ties, Shervin Pishevar, papered a billboard with the mayor’s face and a pitch— “Thinking about moving to Miami? DM me.”—on the Bay Area stretch of U.S. Highway 101. Suarez even started a YouTube talk show, Cafecito Talk, where he interviews Miami boosters and would-be migrants. (Cafecito is a Spanish word for coffee.)

Given that he’s become Miami’s most visible hype man—tweeting with Elon Musk at 3 a.m. about boring a tunnel under the Miami River—you’d never guess he has a relatively powerless job. Suarez, 43, doesn’t personally control a budget or a major workforce and dedicates significant time to his side gig as a real estate lawyer. That’s a relatively common arrangement in South Florida, where the tiered government structure generally means that the county mayor reigns supreme. And in Miami, a city manager, not the mayor, directs day-to-day municipal operations. Yet Suarez has slipped into so many buzzy narratives in the past year that his fame has become a power unto itself.

This story is from the April 12, 2021 edition of Bloomberg Businessweek.

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This story is from the April 12, 2021 edition of Bloomberg Businessweek.

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