The boom has been good for Seto’s boss, Gary Bauer, who started his namesake transportation company in 1989 at age 18, driving friends in a used Cadillac. He charges as much as $20,000 a month for high-end coaches that have a tracking system so riders can check a smartphone application to see when they will arrive.

Bauer said that while he understands the frustration of higher living costs, buses aren’t the problem. They reduce freeway congestion and limit emissions, he said.

“People need to look at the whole big picture instead of just ‘poor me, I can’t afford to buy a house,’” Bauer said. “But I get it -- 95 percent of my staff doesn’t live in the city.”

Box Inc. Chief Executive officer Aaron Levie said his software company buses employees from San Francisco to Palo Alto because it’s an efficient form of transportation and “your alternative is to have 75 extra cars on the road.”

To help ease the tension, San Francisco recently struck a deal with companies including Google, Apple and Facebook, which will pay a fee to use public bus stops around the city.

Safe Option

“Apple is committed to providing safe and environmentally friendly commuting options that benefit our employees as well as the communities where they live,” said Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Apple. “We strongly support the new rules.”

Meghan Casserly, a spokeswoman for Google, declined to comment for this story, as did Tucker Bounds, a spokesman at Menlo Park-based Facebook.

Seto ends his morning shift at 10:45 a.m. He has a break until 3 p.m., when he hits the road again for his return routes, finishing up at 8 p.m.

Seto keeps to a tight budget and doesn’t take many vacations. His priority has been helping put his kids through college. His older son, now 24, works for digital-camera maker GoPro Inc., while the other, 19, is finishing a mechanical- engineering undergraduate program at San Jose State University.