š¦ Essential City + Tech Stories: 1.25.21
Data on if companies are leaving the Bay, Kids' screen time, and an interesting UBI proposal
Good morning! š
Welcome back to Urban Tech, the best corner of the web for thinking about the intersection of innovation and cities.
As we continue to grow our audience rapidly, Iām increasingly having exciting conversations with readers on content plans and some longer-term projects to take Urban Tech to the next level. The discussions are beyond helpful for future planning ā plus, you all are fascinating people.
In that vein, the button below is a link for booking a 1:1 meeting with me if youāre interested in chatting about cities, tech, or sharing your thoughts on how innovation is changing the lives of people living in cities,Ā good or bad.
Last Mondayās most popular stories:
š„ Government Technology: Curb-Management Pilots Smooth the Flow of Traffic, Deliveries
š„Recode: Walmartās e-commerce chief is leaving to build āa city of the futureā
š„ Axios: General Motors and FedEx join the race to electrify package delivery
Recent Urban Tech content to check out:
š Newsletter: Climate Promises in an Age of Colliding Crises (guest post by Micah Kotch)
š Podcast: The Calculus Behind Urban and Tech Politics
š Podcast: The Ways One Mobility Company is Trying to Break into NYC
Essential City + Tech Stories: 1.25.21
Initialized Capital: [DATA] Post-Pandemic Silicon Valley Isnāt A Place
Axios: Kids' screen time sees a big increase during pandemic
Techcrunch: Microsoft invests in [Autonomous Vehicle Company] Cruise in new $2 billion round
Initialized: [DATA] Post-Pandemic Silicon Valley Isnāt A Place
Initialized Capital Partner, and one of most thoughtful voices in tech,Ā Kim-Mai CutlerĀ tries to answer a topical question: āWhere are tech companies going to go once the pandemic subsides as vaccines reach more and more Americans?ā
She uses internal data from Initialized Capitalās portfolio, conducted through surveys and geographic composition analysis.
The piece was particularly noticeable because it leverages granular data to advance the very topical conversation ā instead of relying on more anecdotal evidence or micro./individuals example of firms leaving the Bay Area.Ā Essentially, it gets at a bigger picture, which we love at Urban Tech.
There are so many insights to glean from the piece, but here is one data point I found fascinating (go read the piece!):
Techcrunch: Microsoft invests in [Autonomous Vehicle Company] Cruise in new $2 billion round
From Kirsten Korosec at TechCrunch:
Cruise has raised $2 billion in a new equity round that has pushed its valuation up to $30 billion and delivered Microsoft as an investor and partner.
GM, Honda and other institutional investors have also put more capital into Cruise as the autonomous vehicle company inches closer to commercializing its technology.
While Microsoftās capital is important, the partnership might provide equal and longer-term value for Cruise, at least in the two companiesā views. Under the long-term strategic partnership, Cruise will use Azure, Microsoftās cloud and edge computing platform, for its yet-to-be launched autonomous vehicle ride-hailing service.
At a high-level, electrification and autonomy seem to be the two words that will surround the automotive sector for the next decade.Ā Iād argue though these were the major themes of the last decade in automotive.
The length of these trends to come to fruition shows how the time scale for innovation in transportation ā and urban tech more broadly ā is longer than the timescale for software innovation.
CityLab: Another New Spin on UBI: Pay Black Entrepreneurs
There are many compelling ideas and policy proposals at the local level that involve giving cash directly to individuals, aka universal basic income.
Brentin Mock atĀ CityLabĀ examined one of these proposals. It stuck out to me because of its intentionality in who the payments are going to, and the unique model for how the program is executed:
As dozens of cities roll out or contemplateĀ āguaranteed incomeā pilot projects to give residents money with no strings attached, a program in Oakland, California, is testing a similar model to help small businesses.
Runway, which calls itself a āfinancial innovation firm,ā originally helped Black women entrepreneurs mainly through small loans. But in 2020, Runway began gifting its business-owner clients ā which it calls its āfamilyā ā with a monthly $1,000 stipend, no strings attached. The Rapid Emergency Fund project is a pilot, which Runway is billing as a āuniversal basic incomeā experiment for Black business owners, to see if this kind of supplemental income could be curative for the racial wealth gap. It started in March when all non-essential businesses were ordered to close to stop the spread of Covid-19.
Axios: Kids' screen time sees a big increase during pandemic
Axiosā Reporters Sara Fischer and Margaret Harding McGill published a new piece on the rise š of kidā screen time:
When the coronavirus lockdowns started in March, kidstech firm SuperAwesome found that screen time was up 50%. Nearly a year later, that percentage hasn't budged, according to new figures from the firm.
Why it matters: For most parents, pre-pandemic expectations around screen time are no longer realistic. The concern now has shifted from the number of hours in front of screens to the quality of screen time.
By the numbers: Six out of 10 parents say that before the pandemic, their childrenās screen time topped out at three hours, according to data from Morning Consult. In August, seven out of 10 estimated their kids now spend at least four hours with screens.
While weāve all likely experienced aĀ massĀ acceleration in our daily screen time, Iām left wondering how this will impact childhood development long-term? Itās a challenging question and one we canāt even begin to understand for some time to come.
Protocol: Building a VC firm on content and community
Tomio Geron at Protocol wrote an awesome piece this week for his Protocol Pipeline series. The series provides an inside examination of venture capital and startups. Hereās what he had this week:
Jason Jacobs isn't just another VC who blogs. He built his venture firm MCJ Collective on top of an already-thriving content operation and community focused on climate tech.
Unlike with other firms, the content and community aren't an add-on or something just to help with bringing in deals (more on content marketing below). His firm is a "three-legged stool" of content, community and a rolling fund, done through AngelList. Each feeds off each other. And unlike with other firms, the content and community are not there to fuel the fund ā they're their own thingā¦
Several Interesting TweetsĀ
A final note for today: if youāre like me and virtually attending Micromobility World this week, I wanted to call attention to one panel that stuck out to me. It should be especially relevant for Urban Tech readers because of the topic, plus thereās an incredible lineup of mobility rockstars (and a few UT friends) discussing it.
Talk to you on Thursday,
āļøJT