Tech:NYC Digest: January 11

Tech:NYC Digest: January 11

January 11, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Wednesday, January 11, 2023

In today’s digest, the number of new New Yorkers is growing again, your guide to NYC Must-See Week, and what a new tracker tells us about tech salaries in a downturn.

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  • A new study from location analytics startup Placer.ai found that Manhattan’s population has fully rebounded — and actually surpassed — pre-pandemic numbers, with a nearly 4% population hike from January 2018 to October 2022. (New York Post)

  • Pres. Biden today unveiled a new student loan payment proposal while the federal student loan forgiveness plan continues to make its way through the courts. (CBS News)

    • The total pause on repayments due to COVID is expected to be lifted when it expires at the end of June 2023.

  • Both Broadway Week and NYC Must-See Week are back! Dozens of Broadway shows and several cultural institutions are offering 2-for-1 tickets between now and Feb. 12. 

  • And one story we love: Bike New York is giving away bicycles refurbished by its Recycle-a-Bicycle shop to asylum seekers and other immigrants who have recently arrived in New York so they can more easily access jobs and social services as they try to settle in. (New York Times)

In other reading:

  • The NYC neighborhoods seeing a post-pandemic population boom (Time Out New York)

  • The Casino-Apartment-Ferris-Wheel-Hotel Proposal for Midtown East (Curbed)

  • Gjelina Is Already Manhattan’s Hottest Lunch (Grub Street)

Survey after survey affirms that compensation level has remained a top consideration for tech workers with a new job offer, and with the sector bracing for impacts of an industry downturn, employers are also watching closely for how pay scales could shift this year.

Tech salary tracker Comprehensive.io is the latest tool to emerge. The website was created by Roger Lee, the founder of layoffs.fyi, the popular website tracking jobs cuts at tech companies.

  • The new website aggregates job posts from over 700 tech companies, or about 53,000 postings, and extracts the salary ranges daily. 

The site relies heavily on the California and New York markets to compile its data, which makes sense: the two states were early adopters of the pay transparency laws now catching on across the country to make more of this data public. (Axios)

  • Earlier this month, California followed NYC in requiring employers to post salary ranges for open positions. Shortly after NYC’s law went into effect in November, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed similar legislation expanding the rule statewide later this year.

  • According to the website, almost 70% of NYC employers have compiled with the law, compared to 49% in California.

Our take: It’s a useful tool for HR teams trying to get a sense of what other tech companies are doing to define salary ranges, but the ranges it pulls in can vary widely, and absent a more uniform standard, monitoring real compensation shifts remains tricky.

In other reading:

  • Gen Z VCs’ founder used ChatGPT to write a new educational children’s book in two hours — to show why she thinks generative AI can be a major learning tool (Insider)

  • How Founders Should Approach the Coming Wave of M&A Deals (Crunchbase News)

  • Take this short quiz to determine what type of manager you are — and learn how to be a ‘macromanager’ (Fast Company)

  • Nest Genomics, a NYC-based provider of software for implementing genomic programs, raised $8.5 million in seed funding. B Capital led the round and was joined by YC, Casdin Capital, DCVC, Samsung Next, Maven Ventures, iAngels, Arkin Digital Health, LionBird, and other angels. (Businesswire)

  • Seek AI, a NYC-based data solutions company, raised $7.5 million in seed funding. Conviction Partners and Battery Ventures co-led the round. (TechCrunch)

  • Wisdo Health, a NYC-based peer support network for reducing loneliness, raised $5 million in Series A extension funding. Participating investors include Alive Israel Healthtech Fund, Bridge Builders Collaborative, and other angels. (FinSMEs)

Next View Ventures is accepting applications for its fourth accelerator program. Pre-seed and seed stage startup teams working building consumer and SaaS B2B companies are eligible for the three-month program. The accelerator runs on a hybrid mode with virtual programming and IRL kickoff and wrap-up events in NYC. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Learn more and apply here.URBAN-X is accepting applications for Cohort 12 of its accelerator program. The five-month program is focused on founders who have an MVP or advanced prototype and some initial traction on a business solving cities’ toughest challenges in areas such as: transit and mobility; food, waste, and water; and energy. Learn more and apply by Jan. 15 here.BX-XL, an early-stage startup accelerator program run by the Social Justice Fund and Visible Hands to support BIPOC founders, is accepting applications for its inaugural cohort. Selected founders will receive investments of up to $500,000, mentorship, company-building support, and more. Learn more and apply by Jan. 20 here.Interested in teaching the next generation of coders? Giant Machines is accepting applications for their Summer Teaching Fellows (formerly Upperline Code Fellows), as it pursues its mission of creating pathways to tech careers through computer science education. The program has partnerships with nonprofits like CSforAll, Break Through Tech, and SEO Scholars, along with Fortune 100 companies like Google and the sponsors of FinTech Focus. Apply by the Jan. 16 priority deadline here.The Transit Tech Lab is accepting applications for its 2023 challenges for the chance to pilot technology with some of New York’s leading public transit agencies, including the MTA, Port Authority, NJ TRANSIT, and NYC DOT. Solutions may include predictive models for maintenance or service disruption, tools to automate operations, talent sourcing and human resources innovation, and more. Learn more at the Jan. 19 info session here and apply by March 2 here.

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