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Cydney Hayes

Cydney Hayes is a business and tech reporter for Gazetteer SF. She has previously written about tech, culture, music, and media for The Drift, Architectural Digest, Baltimore, Entertainment Weekly, and elsewhere. She also writes a Substack newsletter called OPENWORLD. Subscribe at openw0rld.substack.com.

Privacy rights advocates push back against data collection devices in Castro bars

Badlands management says they will continue to use Patronscan despite public outcry

June 18, 2026

‘AI’s not going to break your heart the way real life does’

Poet Shawn Smucker talks to Gazetteer SF about art, loneliness, and his viral poem, ‘Please Use AI’

June 16, 2026

Even Stanford grads are angry at the system

Plus, after being stuffed in lockers his whole life, Zuck was allowed to sit with the jocks at the pep rally

June 15, 2026

Why do these Castro gay bars have TSA-style face scanners?

A handful of neighborhood bars have installed facial recognition devices that collect and share customers’ names, addresses, genders, and indiscretions with each other

June 10, 2026

‘Nerdy escorts’ are selling intimacy-as-a-service to AI founders

Plus, in the tasteslop era, we’re keeping our eyes peeled for bad tech streetwear

June 8, 2026

A Stop AI activist is standing trial after blockading OpenAI HQ last year

Wynd Kaufmyn is prepared to serve time if it helps spread the group’s warnings about the dangers of artificial intelligence

June 1, 2026

Can you actually buy a house with Anthropic stock? Probably not

‘You can’t just say, I’ll sell my house for a thousand almonds, or, in this case, a thousand shares of OpenAI or Anthropic’

May 29, 2026

Aella wants to know how you’d defile a cow

Could you hack it in a house full of AI doomer rationalist influencers? I’m willing to try

May 28, 2026

From Sam Altman’s ‘fun’ hair to Elon Musk’s ‘twisting’ lips: How courtroom artists capture giants

Three trial veterans describe their approaches to depicting the rich and infamous during the Musk v. Altman trial

May 20, 2026

Jury sides with Altman in OpenAI case

Plus, the Standard gets tech help from journalism’s newest whiz kid

May 18, 2026