Tech:NYC Digest: February 24

Tech:NYC Digest: February 24

February 24, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

Thursday, February 24, 2022 

In today’s digest, Mayor Adams prepares to phase out city COVID mandates, tech companies revamp annual pay and performance reviews, and Jason Myles Clark sits down for the latest Crain’s Asked & Answered series.

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By the numbers:  

  • New positive cases statewide: 2,704

    • New positive cases, NYC: 1,106

  • NYC Positivity Rate: 1.3 percent (no change)

  • NYC Hospitalizations: 821 (-80)

  • Statewide Vaccine Progress: 

    • Percentage of all New Yorkers with least one dose: 88.8 percent

    • Percentage of all New Yorkers who are fully vaccinated: 75.4 percent 

Today’s latest: 

  • Gov. Hochul, Mayor Adams, and several other New York officials today spoke out against the invasion of Ukraine beginning late last night. Mayor Adams voiced his support for NYC’s Ukrainian community, the largest in the country. (New York Daily News) 

  • Mayor Eric Adams said yesterday that NYC’s indoor mask and vaccine mandates will be responsibly phased out in the coming weeks, though no specific timeline has been announced. (amNY)

    • Former COVID-19 advisor Dr. Jay Varma said it’s too soon to begin thinking about removing those mandates, citing fluctuating immunity levels and the threat of future variants. (New York Daily News) 

    • Meanwhile, Broadway shows will still require audience members to be fully vaccinated and wear masks through at least April 30. (amNY)

  • A more infectious Omicron subvariant has surged to account for more than a third of recent global COVID-19 cases, adding to the debate about whether countries are ready for full reopening. (Wall Street Journal)

  • The New York City Marathon will return to full capacity with 50,000 runners this year after the race was canceled in 2020 and limited last fall due to the coronavirus. (NBC New York) 

In other reading:

  • Why We Might Not Need Annual COVID Shots (The Atlantic)

  • No place to go: The city’s public restrooms are scarce and dirty, posing a health and public safety quandary (Crain’s New York)

  • Eric Adams is Making Fun or Your Pajamas (Curbed)

Asked & Answered: Our Executive Director, Jason Myles Clark, sat down with Crain’s New York Business to share his thoughts on how we’re working to expand access to NYC’s tech industry. Read the conversation here.

As tech companies continue to compete for talent, one strategy they’re using is less of a new perk and more of an update to a long-existing one: annual pay reviews.

Companies are abandoning the practice of offering annual raises in favor of more regular pay reviews, writes the Wall Street Journal.

  • AI startup TigerGraph moved to biannual pay reviews last year. The company tripled its headcount in 2021 and employee salaries have risen about 12 percent in the past 12 months.

  • Software maker Aha! Labs, which typically conducts annual reviews on an employee’s hire-date anniversary, recently surprised its 100 employees with across-the-board 10 percent raises. The company has also begun issuing annual profit-sharing checks to employees twice a year so they can see the results of their work sooner.

Executives almost universally say they’re implementing these changes in response to the tight labor market for tech workers. Any way tech companies can gain an advantage over their competitors can help:

  • Despite the fact that employers added 6.7 million positions last year, job vacancies and turnover in the US are approaching record highs. 

  • Federal data indicates wages rose 5.7 percent in January from a year ago, roughly double the average growth before the pandemic.

Raises are one tool executives can offer, but employees may still demand more:

  • More than half of respondents in the latest survey from consulting firm Mercer said they didn’t expect to complete additional compensation reviews due to inflation.

  • Payscale’s 2022 Compensation Best Practices Report found 44 percent of companies plan to raise worker pay by more than three percent, but last month the annual inflation rate hit 7.5 percent. (Fortune)

What it means: Companies will have to reconsider incentives and employee perks. Beyond salary reviews, individual benefits like one-time bonuses, additional vacation days, or flexible work options will be the extra perks that will attract new talent — or retain existing talent — beyond the pandemic.

In other reading:

  • Say Hello Again to the Office, Fingers Crossed (New York Times)

  • Ditch the branded vest? How companies are gifting now (Protocol)

  • How casual is too casual on Slack? (Protocol)

  • Canela Media, a New York City-based digital media company, raised $32 million in Series A funding. Acrew Capital and Angeles Investors co-led the round and were joined by Link Ventures, TEGNA Ventures, and Samsung NEXT, as well as insiders BBG Ventures, Mighty Capital, Reinventure Capital, Portfolia's Rising America Fund, Alumni Ventures, Powerhouse Capital, and BMO. (Forbes)

  • GLO Pharma, a New York City-based beauty biotech startup, raised $30 million in new funding. Participating investors included Lightspeed Venture Partners, First Round Capital, and the company's founder and chairman, Scott Glenn. (Newswire)

  • Savvy, a New York City-based wealth management automation software company, raised $7.3M in seed funding. Index Ventures and Thrive Capital co-led the round and were joined by founders of ICONIQ, Plaid, Instacart, Figma, Opendoor, Flexport, Newfront, EPIQ, Jordan Park, A* Capital, Box Group, Operator Partners, and GFC. (Businesswire)

  • Stable Insurance, a New York City-based insurtech startup for rideshare and careshare vehicle owners, raised $3.3 million in seed funding. MLTPLY and Brooklyn Bridge Ventures co-led the round. (Businesswire)

  • Timescale, a New York City-based creator of database TimescaleDB, raised $110 million in Series C funding at a valuation over $1 billion. Tiger Global led the round and was joined by Benchmark, New Enterprise Associates, Redpoint Ventures, Icon Ventures, and Two Sigma Ventures. (FinSMEs)

  • March 3: Virtual: Recruiting and retaining talent in the new world of work, with Slack SVP Brian Elliott, Cisco VP of talent acquisition Zohra Yafai, and others. Hosted by Protocol. Register here.

  • March 3: Virtual: Mock Term Sheet Negotiation, with CARMERA CEO Ro Gupta, Allegory managing partner Ed Walters, Goodwin partner Heather Miles, and others. Hosted by NYU Data Future Lab. Register here.

  • March 5 – 6: In-person: NYC School of Data 2022, with Council Member Gale Brewer, Cornell Tech Urban Tech Hub director Michael Samuelian, and others. Hosted by BetaNYC with the NYC Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics. Register here.

  • March 7: Virtual: March Fundraising Workshop, with On Deck Fractional COO Eric Friedman. Hosted by Silicon Valley Bank. Register here.

  • March 9: Virtual: Beyond Decentralization: Designing for Equity, Democracy, and Human Rights in Web3, with Reach Capital partner Jomayra Herrera, Metalabel founding members Austin Robey, and Polaris CTO Anjana Rajan. Hosted by Betaworks Studios. Register here.

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