For years, a mysterious company has been buying farmland on the outskirts of Silicon Valley, eventually putting together a plot twice the size of San Francisco.

At every step, those behind the company kept their plans for the land shrouded in secrecy. Conor Dougherty, an economics reporter at The Times, figured out what they were up to.

Guest: Conor Dougherty, an economics reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• land-solano-county.html">Tech industry investors spent roughly $900 million buying land to build a dream city in a rural part of the Bay Area.
• In Solano County, Calif., a who’s who of tech money is trying to build a city from the ground up. But some of the locals whose families have been there for generations california-forever-solano.html">don’t want to sell the land.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.