As a young boy I won a few dollars in 1972 when Riva Ridge won the Kentucky Derby. I had overheard someone say he was going to win, and I guess that made an impression on me.

In an interview with the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle Gonzalez described his father as a salesman who initially started out selling "cigarettes from the back of his car in south Texas" in the late 1950s or early 1960s and later started an import/export business selling medical and dental supplies. He worked on immigration issues at the East Palo Alto Community Law Project pending death penalty cases at the California Appellate Project and "gender discrimination and religious clause issues" as a research assistant to the Dean of the School constitutional law scholar Paul Brest. Gonzalez refused to meet with Brown during his first two years on the Board of Supervisors saying he did so to avoid being subject to Brown's influence rather than as a matter of disrespect.

In 2003 Gonzalez ran for mayor of San Francisco but lost in a close race to Democrat Gavin Newsom. Matthew Edward Gonzalez (born June 4 1965) is an American politician lawyer and activist prominent in San Francisco politics. Gonzalez currently maintains two blogs The Matt Gonzalez Reader and As It Ought to Be.