We paused atop the Lyon Street staircase, where my friend pointed out U.S. senator Dianne Feinstein’s red brick mansion, purchased with her third husband, the big-shot investor Richard C. “Dick” Blum, in 2006. Just a few years before that, Blum’s company, Newbridge Capital, took a managing stake in a big bank in Shenzhen, the worldwide hub of electronics manufacturing, in time to cash in on the current tech boom.
