7 City + Tech Stories for Monday, 11/30/20 🎙
Robot taxis, how is e-commerce changing cities, and Urban Tech Podcast details
Hey everyone - John, here. Welcome back to Urban Tech! 📩
The best place for people who are thinking about how tech and cities intersect. I want to extend a big welcome to the ~25 or so new subscribers joining us for their first edition. You'll be glad you did.
Some big things are going on at Urban Tech right now.
Since we last spoke, we are closer to 500 unique subscribers; please keep sharing Urban tech with your networks. Not only are we growing with an average open rate of ~51%, but we are also evolving our product with the addition of a podcast.
Yes, Urban Tech is venturing into the world of audio storytelling and officially launching a podcast!! 🎙 🎧 ⏯
You can expect the podcast to be an extension of the conversations and stories we explore in this newsletter. We will be piloting the podcast in December by releasing two trailers and some mini-episodes before we reach our regular weekly cadence in January.
I’ll share the first official trailer and live feed later this week. I may share the trailer in a Substack thread with a unique format that I’m considering for these kinds of UT product updates, but don’t worry about missing it — you’ll get an email with the details so just be on the lookout.
Before we dive in, a final note: check out the top stories from last Monday’s edition below. We will be tracking this trend moving forward in these editions.
Last Monday’s most popular stories
🥇 TechCrunch: Virtual HQs race to win over a remote-work-fatigued market
🥈 Gothamist: MTA Prepares Budget Cuts That Would Make Transit System "Unrecognizable"
🥉 Venturebeat: Canvas emerges from stealth with AI for drywall installation
7 Stories for Today
🌎 Newcomer: The Center of the Universe or It's Dead
💰 HousingWire: Compass eyes IPO in 2021
🚖 Forbes: Now An Amazon Company, Zoox Is Ready To Dial-Up Its Robotaxi Push
🛴 The Washington Post: E-scooters are getting computer vision to curb pedestrian collisions
🧗♀️Curbed: From Community Organizer to the Ultimate Insider
📦 The Washington Post: Amazon’s big holiday shopping advantage: An in-house shipping network swollen by pandemic-fueled growth
🚢 Marketplace: As e-commerce booms, U.S. ports face traffic jams
Newcomer: The Center of the Universe or It's Dead
I think about geography's relationship to innovation often. One question comes up for me a lot: where exactly is Silicon Valley? The evolution of newer tech markets like Austin and Seattle and the rise of new communication tools make it tricky to pin down. 📍
Longtime journalists and recent Substack newsletter founder Eric Newcomer raised the question in a new piece, and I think the answer from Product Hunt Founder Ryan Hoover captures it best:
Where is Silicon Valley? It's all on the internet. It's been on the internet, Silicon Valley isn't so much a place anymore. "It's on Twitter. It's on Product Hunt. It's on just different internet communities," Hoover says.
HousingWire: Compass eyes IPO in 2021
A torrid IPO stream continues with the latest rumor to drop, indicating Compass is working behind the scenes to prep for a public offering.
Compass, most recently valued at $6.4 billion, is working with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to underwrite the IPO, according to Bloomberg, which cited anonymous sources. "Like other real estate companies of late, SoftBank-backed Compass has benefited from low-interest rates and changing consumer behavior that's driven new home purchases across the country.
The sentiments from a lot of folks in tech seem to be that this pace will only continue into 2021:
The real story of 2020 is that it's just the preview for 2021, especially if there's a vaccine and the economy roars back," a tech IPO banker tells Axios. [source].
Forbes: Now An Amazon Company, Zoox Is Ready To Dial-Up Its Robotaxi Push
Forbes Reporter Alex Ohnsman takes a look at Amazon's biggest push into automation yet: Zoox. The company is pushing forward with the launch of driverless taxi service.
"...Our mission–a ground-up robotaxi, moving people, ride-hailing–is absolutely intact," CEO Aicha Evans tells Forbes. Next month "you will see the real vehicle. You will see it driving in autonomy, performing maneuvers. We're unveiling the curtain as to what Zoox is up to and how we're doing things."
For perspective, Amazon acquired Zoox for $1.3 billion. That's not that much more than the $1.2 billion Amazon paid to acquire RIng — a doorbell company.
Not to bash Ring, despite its issues with privacy concerns, I think the comparison shows how early we are in the driverless car market. The trillion-dollar opportunity Zoox speaks to doesn't seem that close, even if exciting moments and progress are happening.
Autonomous vehicles is not the only transportation sector that Amazon is staking grounds.
"Zoox's production plans are entirely separate from those of electric truckmaker Rivian, which Amazon has also invested in and ordered 100,000 delivery vehicles from."
The Washington Post: E-scooters are getting computer vision to curb pedestrian collisions
The use of innovative technology to decrease pedestrian injuries the type of innovation Urban Tech firmly supports.
This innovation is another example of the micromobility industry taking a more collaborative approach to operating in local communities than the adversarial themes that defined ridesharing’s global expansion.
Bird’s CEO also recently wrote a byline with useful insights on how scooter companies can be good stewards to their community.
If you’re interested in learning more about the crazy world of scooters and micromobolity, you should check out parts one and two of my conversation earlier this month with Ashwini Chabbra, who worked in the Bloomberg administration before joining Uber and Bird.
Curbed: From Community Organizer to the Ultimate Insider
Looking for a long urbanism read? Highly recommend David Freedlander's profile on the New York City power broker you've probably never heard of: Kathy Wylde.
"Wylde is the president of the Partnership for New York City, which bills itself as "a nonprofit organization whose members are the city's preeminent business leaders and employers of more than 1.5 million New Yorkers… A common refrain in the C-suites of the biggest banks when deciding whether to get involved in a civic cause, one former high-ranking finance official told me, is 'We better check with Kathy first.'"
A fun fact from the profile for my fellow urbanism nerds: Robert Caro quotes a young Wylde in his seminal biography on Robert Moses, "Power Broker".
When Robert Caro tramped through in the early 1970s to gather material for The Power Broker, he quoted her telling the story of how Robert Moses had ripped the neighborhood apart by tearing down the elevated train and replacing it with the Gowanus.
The City’s overall sentiment towards big business has also shifted, resulting in Wylde's influence declining in recent years:
It was easy during the Bloomberg years. Having a plutocrat in the city's highest office meant that Wylde and the business sector came to be seen as part of a quiet cabal running the show, and Wylde was a ready surrogate for much of the Bloomberg agenda…
The Washington Post: Amazon’s big holiday shopping advantage: An in-house shipping network swollen by pandemic-fueled growth
Even in average years, the holiday peak season is a massive period for logistics firms. Here's some great context from 2pml founder Web Smith explaining the evolution that's happened in light of COVID:
November and December should be winning months for independent retailers, small business owners, and brands. But if shipping channels are directly or indirectly impacted by the healthcare industry, smaller retailers should be prepared to move to the back of the line. There are exceptions. Amazon will spend $52 billion on warehousing and shipping, according to Digital Commerce 360 research. According to Bank of America's Global Research, Amazon is now in command of nearly 175 million square feet of warehousing with the ability to process, pack, and deliver over 50% of the goods that it sells.
One of the most significant legacies from the pandemic will be the expansion of tech companies' industrial footprints. It’s something I’m keeping close tabs on.
Meanwhile, as Amazon builds its empire, Instacart is arming other brands by allowing companies to plug into its network for deliveries.
Electronics retailer Best Buy and on-demand delivery platform Instacart announced a partnership on Tuesday that will see Instacart power same-day delivery of Best Buy in every state in the US, covering nearly every Best Buy location throughout the country.
It's reminiscent of how Shopify is arming smaller companies with its plug-and-play e-commerce platform. Although, real-world logistics are much more challenging to scale and to innovate consistently than digital logistics.
Marketplace: As e-commerce booms, U.S. ports face traffic jams
As e-commerce and logistics continue to rocket, our national infrastructure continues struggling to keep up:
“more e-commerce means more imports. And more imports have led to many of the country’s big ports being backed up, with container ships idling offshore as they wait to come into port to be unloaded. Now, the Federal Maritime Commission says it’s launching an investigation into the causes of that congestion.”
Let’s hope we get an infrastructure week, and the Biden administration recognizes we need to modernize our infrastructure. Not only because it’s in disrepair, but the current state is truly not capable of handling new strains created by the modern economy.
Several Interesting Tweets
Similar to a like or retweet on Twitter, inclusion in this section isn’t an endorsement of the author’s idea. Inclusion means Urban Tech found it interesting or thought-provoking.
Okay, I know that last one was biased, but that previous tweet led to many new folks joining our community in one day. I honestly love productivity apps and Roam is a great tool for all my UT research. If anyone in the UT community is a Roam power user and wants to share tips, please let me know.
Also, make sure you check Urban Tech's Music Edition — there are some great tunes on the playlist, and we break down urbanism themes included in them. I promise you'll find something you like on the playlist.
🎧 Here’s the playlist on Spotify.
🎧 Here’s the link to the full playlist on Apple Music
Please continue to share Urban Tech. It will make building out our content and the stories we tell not only easier — but better.
Talk to you Thursday
✌️JT