Page 108 - Esquire - USA (Winter 2020)

primary goals is to establish a “secondary mil- past remain: trash-strewn lots, human shit all the time. She moved to the Bay Area after
itary community” for fellow vets. “You hear staining the sidewalks. When darkness came, a stint doing security work for celebrities in
from the employees sometimes, ‘I feel useful the Samsung equipment was moved inside, Hollywood, where she discovered that the
again,’” Szott says. “That’s no small thing.” and Gonzalez and his colleagues’ mission trouble often came from the client’s entou-
One of Surefox’s medics thinks the com- changed to protecting the building and the rage, not from the client. Thankfully, Silicon
pany benefits in Silicon Valley from modern products therein. Each night, they established Valley does not see a lot of entourages.
veterans’ work with foreign militaries. “We a hard perimeter of posted guards and sent out Jasper appreciates that Big Tech Firm’s
all learned, at young ages, how to deal with rovers to patrol what lay beyond. During those gym doesn’t have the same tired meat-
different cultures and different people,” he long, dark hours, Gonzalez had too much time market vibe that plagues most gyms, though
says. “It’s all about picking up those differ- to think, too much time to consider the un- there are other challenges. She’s learned not
ences quickly and being adaptable to them.” known. It was just like rooftop security at a to max out on the bench press during busy
A late-afternoon conversation with Big combat outpost. times so as to avoid the gawks of Big Tech
Tech Firm employees at a bar near campus One night, while his mind drifted, Gon- Firm’s male employees. And she’s trained
also conjures some parallels to my experi- zalez heard a rumbling in the darkness. He herself not to laugh at the LARPers. (That is,
ences with COIN. The employees tell me called out, asking who was there. No reply live-action role-players—think Dungeons &
they’re grateful for security firms like Sure- came, but the sound came closer. He called Dragons but in real life, with costumed par-
fox. But: Why do they get to determine where out again. Still no reply. The sound came ticipants sparring.)
the line is in situations? The employees want even closer. He braced his body and reached Her colleagues aren’t always so restrained.
them present but not conspicuous, active but for his flashlight. A figure emerged from the One recalls discovering an armory of foam
not overbearing. Which was a complaint many shadows. It wasn’t an IED emplacer or an in- swords and shields. He and his buddy gave
an Iraqi citizen expressed to my scout platoon surgent strapped with a suicide vest. It was up on lifting weights and instead reenacted
in 2008. And like many of those Iraqis—and a homeless guy pushing a grocery cart. He Braveheart. Another Surefox colleague swears
like Big Tech Firm itself—these employees went up to Gonzalez and asked for a cigarette. he once walked in on a Big Tech Firm employee
stress anonymity. (Even with that, our conver- Gonzalez chuckled to himself and obliged. casting a magic spell on a punching bag.
sation stays innocuous, barely surface level.) “There’s a lot of prosperity here,” Jasper says
It’s impressive, all this security. Professional. THE GREATEST concentration of wealth diplomatically. “But we worked hard to get
Elite. Nevertheless, I can’t help but think: The in human history may well be in present-day here, too. They”—the clients—“thrive in the
local elementary school remains a soft tar- Silicon Valley. Its per capita GDP outpaces digital world. We thrive in the physical world.”
get. So does the retirement community. And most countries’. Even so, the benefits of
that Catholic church off the highway with the trickle-down exceptionalism seem spotty. ASPER WORKS ON one of Sure-
yoga studio across from it. There are men and Housing costs in San Francisco continue to fox’s executive-protection teams,
women in Silicon Valley who wield the power soar, forcing out families who’ve lived there J tasked with guarding, transporting,
to change the national conversation about gun for generations and keeping out all but the and guiding Silicon Valley bigwigs around the
violence. Who better to disrupt the status quo? wealthiest newcomers. Most of Surefox’s clock. The EPTs are smaller than the cam-
All this money, all this influence—how could employees live not in the city but in the com- pus teams. The more senior the executive, the
they not? Yet the techno-utopians haven’t munities that ring Silicon Valley like a horse- more qualified those protecting them. Men
worked to better protect their community; shoe: Hayward, Foster City, Santa Cruz. Their and women with backgrounds in special ops,
they’ve worked to better protect themselves. long commutes mean that sometimes it’s eas- SWAT, the CIA, and the U.S. Marshals Ser-
That’s their choice. Still, it’s a choice most ier to work out at the campus gym than at the vice find second careers doing similar work
of us don’t get to make. Crunch in their hometown. for C-suite tech execs.
Jessica Jasper, thirty-four, a brown belt in EPTs travel as much as the executives they
T HIS PAST SPRING, Eric Gon- Brazilian jujitsu who’s won a world title and protect, which is to say often. Much of their
a Pan Am title, goes to Big Tech Firm’s gym
zalez, thirty-one, spent one month
work is done in advance of an executive’s trip,
possible pickup and drop-off points, check
Salesforce Tower, San Fran- You strike up a conversation when EPT members go on dry runs to scout
cisco’s tallest building, to as you rack your brain, traffic patterns, and establish various emer-
protect smartphones. Sam- trying to recall the training gency exits and safe havens.
you received for handling a
sung was promoting its lat-
suicide threat.
est models, and to drum up
excitement, it set up product
displays on the sidewalk.
During the day, Gonzalez
was charged with keeping
the peace between the Sam-
sung hawkers and the overea-
ger passersby hoping to score
extra swag or even another
phone. At night, though—
that’s when Gonzalez was
most reminded of Iraq.
Salesforce Tower is built
over a former landfill in one
of San Francisco’s fastest-
gentrifying neighborhoods.
Remnants of the area’s seedy