Tech:NYC Digest: June 14

Tech:NYC Digest: June 14

June 14, 2021 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes

Monday, June 14, 2021Happy Monday. To start off the week, early voting is underway, it’s decision time for your company’s return-to-office plans, and we want to see your NYC primary election brackets!Was this digest forwarded to you? Subscribe here.

It’s finally here: Early voting week in NYC! (New York Times) If you’re registered with a major party, you can now cast a ballot in the citywide primary races for mayor, comptroller, as well as for your borough president, local City Council member, and others. Early voting sites are open through Sunday, June 20.

If you want to vote early, a few things to keep in mind:

  • Your early voting site may be different from your Election Day voting site. Confirm your location and hours here, and also get a preview of what your ballot.

  • Remember that you’ll have the opportunity to rank up to five candidates in order of preference for most races. If you need a quick refresher on how ranked choice voting works, check out an explainer here.

  • NYC is also updating this map tool to display the wait times at each voting site (we’re hearing that most New Yorkers are walking right in with no wait whatsoever).

So far, about 32,000 New Yorkers have cast their vote at early voting sites, including several of the candidates themselves. (New York Daily News) 

  • Turnout has been a slow trickle so far — in last year’s presidential election, 193,000 New Yorkers had voted early in the same amount of time — but early voting has never been an option in a mayoral race in NYC until now, so we're in uncharted waters. (New York Magazine)

Every day, there seems to be another piece of news that has the potential to shuffle the leaders’ board, and fresh polling released this afternoon could provide more clarity. (POLITICO)  

But don’t expect a declared winner come Primary Day. There will be a lag to collect absentee and provisional ballots, and the ranked choice voting tabulation process will take more time too. Final results might not come until the middle of July. (THE CITY)

View Tech:NYC’s election guide here.One COVID Update: New York state’s vaccination coverage is now 69.9 percent, just shy of the 70 percent threshold when the governor will lift many of the final remaining restrictions. (NBC New York) If you haven’t gotten your dose, help us reopen faster and go get the shot. 

The office vs. remote debate is really heating up as more company executives acknowledge it’s time to share more concrete reopening plans with their employees. And that means they have to start picking sides:

  • Starting today, Goldman Sachs is requiring almost all of its employees to return to its New York headquarters, making it the first major workplace return since the pandemic began. (Bloomberg)

  • Others didn’t rush into the same timelines, but remain committed to a broad, office-based return: Citi won’t recall most of its staff to its headquarters in Tribeca until July, and IBM is joining the list of companies reopening for most staff right after Labor Day. (CNBC)

But others are revising plans they drafted earlier this year:

  • Amazon is updating its RTO plans, issuing new guidance for corporate employees that will allow for at least two days of remote work per week. (Axios)

  • Facebook has also expanded most of its employees’ ability to work remotely. Staff can seek permission to work from home full-time, while those who want to work in the office will be asked to come in at least half the time. (Wall Street Journal) Even Zuck himself plans to spend as much as half of the next year working remotely.

Why it matters: New office rules are the easy part; company culture and talent retention are the real challenge. The promise of a flexible work life is being used as an alluring recruitment tool, and for many tech employees, the pandemic has presented a singular opportunity to consider new work schedules, plot their next role, or pivot their careers altogether — and company leaders should take that into account.

  • A survey of employees at 45 of the largest companies in the US found that a whopping 64 percent would choose permanent WFH over a $30,000 raise if given the choice. (Axios)

  • Economists say a “great resignation” is also coming, with surveys showing anywhere from 25 to 40 percent of workers are thinking about quitting their current jobs. (Axios) 

Startups are facing the same questions, but with smaller teams and less real estate to worry about, answering them could look a little different.

  • ActionIQ founder and CEO Tasso Argyros took a very data-driven approach to determining its plans and landed on a “best of both worlds” approach that also designed some extra solutions, including two “seasons” every year where employees can work from anywhere 100 percent of the time for up to four weeks. Get more of their insights here.

Our takeaway: It’s decision time now — for both employers and workers. The next month of workplace policymaking could likely indicate the next ten years of American work culture.

In related reading:

  • Flush the taps, focus on air quality, and get creative about staff schedules: how to reopen offices safely (New York Times)

  • How is Returning to the Office Supposed to Work, Exactly? The Experts Respond to Reader Questions. (The Cut)

  • Remote Work’s Last Hurrah: 6 Spots to Make Your Summer Office (New York Times)

Last week, daily subway ridership averaged about 2.4 million. Weekday ridership has been consistently over two million for a while, but last week’s average is still almost 60 percent lower than the same time last year. With only 12 percent of Manhattan office employees back to in-person work, according to a recent survey, that’s not all too surprising. How often are you now taking the subway? (This is a recurring question, responses help Tech:NYC track trends over time.)

  • *|SURVEY: Daily|*

  • *|SURVEY: One or more times weekly|*

  • *|SURVEY: One or more times monthly|*

  • *|SURVEY: Sporadically|*

  • *|SURVEY: I haven't returned to the subway|*

  • ChartHop, a New York-based human resources analytics platform, raised $35 million in Series B funding. Andreessen Horowitz and Elad Gil led the round and were joined by Cowboy Ventures and SemperVirens. (TechCrunch)

  • ComplySci, a New York-based provider to regulatory and compliance solutions for the financial services sector, raised $120 million from K1 Investment Management. (PR Newswire)

  • Framework, a New York-based platform for wellness businesses to set up virtual communities, raised $3 million in seed funding. True Ventures led the round and was joined by Uprising, Clay Point Investors and Looking Glass. (Crunchbase News)

  • Boxed, a New York-based bulk-buying site for food and household items, agreed to go public at an implied $887 million equity valuation via Seven Oaks Acquisition (Nasdaq: SVOK). Boxed has raised from firms like Aeon, Hamilton Lane, Eniac Ventures, GGV Capital, DST Global, and FJ Labs. (Wall Street Journal)

  • June 16: Virtual: Functions.NYC: Algorithms and Government Decision-Making, with NYC Algorithms Management and Policy Officer Alex Foard and UrbanLogiq CEO Mark Masongsong. Hosted by Tech:NYC. Register here.

  • June 21 – 25: Virtual: Mobilize Women Week 2021, with Spotify Global Head of Equity and Impact Elizabeth Nieto, Microsoft Chief Accessibility Officer Jenny Lay-Flurrie, BetterUp Chief Product Officer Gabriella Rosen Kellerman, and others. Hosted by Ellevate Network. Register here.

  • June 22: How Salesforce Is Thinking About Real Estate and The Future of Work, with SVP of Global Workplace Services Michele Schneider. Hosted by Savills. Register here.

  • June 22: Virtual: The Future of the Office with New York tech HR leaders, including Vivvi Head of People Lauren Gill, CommonBond VP of People Keryn Koch, and Suzy Chief People Officer Anthony Onesto. Hosted by Tribeca Venture Partners. Register here.

As we move (are hurled?) into the final week of the primary race, dozens of great New Yorkers (including our own Julie Samuels!) are participating in a competitive game of

— think filling in your March Madness brackets, but for the NYC elections. There are good prizes at stake, so come

!

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