🎧 7 City + Tech Stories for 12/14/20
Urban Tech Podcast Episode 1, Compass profile, Atlanta = official influencer capital
Good morning! Welcome to Urban Tech’s 35th edition. 🥳
Today’s issue features our normal curation of stories for starting the week, but we also added a special piece to today’s edition: a new podcast episode (see below).
As part of the launch phase for the UT Podcast, I recorded a mini-episode sharing my most significant thoughts coming out of last week’s Airbnb and DoorDash IPOs.
The new episode is live on all the major platforms (feed links below). You can listen to it right now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, in browser, or in the video below. 🎥
Podcast Feed Links for Subscribing
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music| Youtube | In Browser
Speaking of podcast content, make sure you subscribe because Thursday’s Urban Tech will feature a recent conversation with Dr.Anja Jamrozik, a cognitive scientist focused on design in physical and digital environments.
Anja's lens for design is truly unique. Through her cognitive science expertise, she shared fantastic insights into how design connects to human productivity and utility. Topic extremely relevant to our audience!
Alright, let's dive into the rest of today's stuff to know. 💥
Last Monday’s most popular stories:
🥇 The Information: Uber’s Image Maker Emerges as Key Power Player
🥈 WIRED: Apple's Covid Response Was Extremely Apple
🥉 CNBC: Hewlett Packard Enterprise is the latest tech company to leave Silicon Valley
7 City + Tech Stories to Read Monday, 12/14/20
🌟The New York Times: The New Influencer Capital of America
💵 CityLab: U.S. Renters Could Owe $70 Billion
💸 The New York Times: ‘This Is Insanity’: Start-Ups End Year in a Deal Frenzy
👩💻 The Wall Street Journal: Covid-19, Remote Work Make Austin a Magnet for New Jobs
🔄 The New York Times: The Places That Had the Biggest Swings Toward and Against Trump
🚘 In These Times: New York City Drivers Cooperative Aims to Smash Uber’s Exploitative Model
🏠 The Markup: How Compass Became the Bane of Real Estate
The New York Times: The New Influencer Capital of America
Taylor Lorenz of The New York Times explains how a new city is emerging as a creative capital for digital influencers: Atlanta.
The themes in the story most interesting to me were the tensions between Atlanta and Los Angeles competing for influencer talent and the economic rewards tied to creators.
Atlanta’s creators are noteworthy for the ways in which they defy prevailing ideas about the influencer economy. Like most people making content online, they’re hard working, focused and have a deep understanding of the internet. But they show none of the entitlement or attitude that has come to characterize the better-known TikTok stars of Los Angeles. There is drama — it’s the internet, after all — but also an overwhelming sense of community and camaraderie.
CityLab: U.S. Renters Could Owe $70 Billion
The state of affairs for renters continues to be bleak, not just in major metros like NYC or SF, but across the country.
Similar to the public transportation crisis, the crisis facing renters is a story of federal inaction.
Cities, renters, and the economy at large now stand to face an eviction crisis this winter:
By January, when the federal eviction moratorium expires, 11.4 million households in the U.S. might be more than three months behind in their rent, or $6,000 each….
…For individuals, the risk can’t be overstated. The economic crisis has pushed both renters and landlords to the brink, and aid is stalling as the pandemic is worsening. For millions of Americans, paying January’s rent might be an insurmountable challenge, to say nothing of making good on months of back rent.
To be evicted in the dead of winter in the middle of a pandemic has got to be terrifying for these renters…
The New York Times: ‘This Is Insanity’: Start-Ups End Year in a Deal Frenzy
When you step back and look at the whole picture for tech investments this year, it’s pretty startling. The impacts (low-interest rates, easy access to capital, demand etc.) are apparent, but I still find myself constantly wondering what’s happening right now in the markets to cause this surge.
One of my favorite thinkers on venture capital and investments, Erin Griffith, helped me understand things much better with her recent piece:
The boom is being driven not just by higher demand for digital products and services. Low interest rates are pushing investors to seek returns in ever-riskier assets. Venture firms have raised record levels of capital. A soaring stock market has enabled more I.P.O.s. Big tech companies are making bold acquisitions. Even Bitcoin has reached a new high.
That helped start-ups amass $36.5 billion in funding in the third quarter, up 30 percent from a year earlier, according to CB Insights, which tracks private financing. Start-ups have raised 223 “mega-rounds” of $100 million or higher so far this year, on a pace to surpass last year’s total, according to Pitchbook.
The average valuations for more mature start-ups also spiked to a high of $584 million, according to Pitchbook. And 81 I.P.O.s raised $28.5 billion in the third quarter, the busiest period for listings since 2000, according to Renaissance Capital.
The Wall Street Journal: Covid-19, Remote Work Make Austin a Magnet for New Jobs
Being from Texas made this one personally enjoyable to include. Still, it’s clear to pretty much everyone that Austin is having a moment right now that’s worth paying attention to, even if you’re not from Texas.
Texas’ capital is attracting more corporate jobs and remote workers than ever before, lured by lower costs and lower taxes. Business relocations to Austin announced this year are expected to create nearly 10,000 jobs. That is the city’s highest figure on record for a single year, according to the Austin Chamber of Commerce, and is helping offset the hit from Covid-19 to the city’s tourist-dependent restaurants, bars and music venues.
While I’m planning to look at several growing metros in 2021, Austin, Miami, and Phoenix/Tempe are three at the top of my list to deep dive and explore for UT.
These cities seem like they will play pretty essential roles in the evolution of tech!
I have some ideas on what the content will look like that I’ll share in the coming months, but those are three regions I’m highly interested in focusing on next year.
So if there are any investors, founders, operators, gov folks, or citizens from these metros who want to chat, please let me know!
The button below, or email, is the best way to let me know if you want to talk for the newsletter or podcast.
The New York Times: The Places That Had the Biggest Swings Toward and Against Trump
As time continues to pass, the picture becomes clearer of the places and demographics that drove Biden's win in November.
There are many significant data points in this piece from the Upshot team, but the below stat is the money shot.
A political shift in growing, diversifying metropolitan areas in crucial swing states seem to be the most significant reason Biden won the election.
In These Times: New York City Drivers Cooperative Aims to Smash Uber’s Exploitative Model
I spend a lot of time thinking about the gig economy’s impact on workers and labor.
This new cooperative in New York is one I’m interested in following as it’s another effort for workers and labor looking to get a seat at the table and get more long-term equity:
The Drivers Cooperative (TDC), which aims to realize a long-held dream of socially conscious New Yorkers in a hurry: a ridesharing app that you can feel good about. When it rolls out to the public early next year, TDC will become New York City’s first worker-owned ridesharing platform — owned by the drivers themselves, rather than by big investors and executives. Its founders’ brazen idea is that TDC can actually gain a competitive advantage over Uber and Lyft — saving money and funneling those savings back to drivers — by doing away with the most exploitative practices of that dominant duopoly.
The Markup: How Compass Became the Bane of Real Estate
Tech-powered real estate brokerage Compass is one of the most prominent players in residential real estate, and it’s only growing in scale as home sales continue to rise at a quick pace.
In 2018, the firm, flush with SoftBank funding, launched a massive acquisition campaign in cities across the country, poaching agents with the goal of grabbing 20% of 20 markets by 2020.
This piece by Patrick Sisson deep dives into Compass while also contextualizing tech’s impact on real estate historically.
Over the past 50 years, the two biggest factors upending real estate have been our increasing cultural obsession with it — and the internet.
Here’s context for how the company has done since the start of Summer:
…Compass hadn’t just recovered, it was posting record-breaking monthly revenue every month from June to October. In June, July, and August, agents netted 50% more revenue than the same period last year. Since April, it has brought on 3,500 more agents to meet demand.
Several Interesting Tweets
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Talk to you on Thursday,
✌️JT