Tech:NYC Digest: March 1

Tech:NYC Digest: March 1

March 01, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Tuesday, March 1, 2022 

Can you believe it’s already March? In today’s digest, New York marks two years of COVID, Pres. Biden prepares his first State of the Union, and what top industry leaders are saying about the “Great Resignation.”

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By the numbers:  

  • New positive cases statewide: 1,284 

    • New positive cases, NYC: 423

  • NYC Positivity Rate: 1.3 percent (no change)

  • NYC Hospitalizations: 647 (-10)

  • Statewide Vaccine Progress: 

    • Percentage of all New Yorkers with at least one dose: 89.0 percent 

    • Percentage of all New Yorkers who are fully vaccinated: 75.5 percent  

In today’s latest:

  • Today marks the two-year anniversary since New York confirmed its first case of COVID-19. (Patch New York)

  • According to a large set of data collected by New York health officials, the Pfizer vaccine is much less effective in preventing infection in children ages five to 11 compared to older adolescents or adults. (New York Times)

  • The MTA’s fare capping pilot program began this week. (New York Daily News) During the four-month pilot, riders who use the OMNY contactless payment system to purchase 12 single-ride fares in a week using the same form of payment will automatically be upgraded to the equivalent unlimited weekly MetroCard.

  • The Taystee Lab building in West Harlem is now officially complete. Gov. Hochul minted the 350,000-square-foot LEED-certified building as “a home for innovative companies developing the next generation of life science research and technology.” (Patch New York)

  • Pres. Biden will deliver his first State of the Union address tonight. Here’s a good explainer on what to expect. Tune in at 9pm ET here.

In other reading:

  • NYC is Rolling Back Pandemic Restrictions. Is It Too Soon? (New York Times)

  • What the new UN climate report predicts for NYC (Gothamist)

  • How NYC Restaurants Are Preparing for the End of the Vaccine Mandate (Eater NY)

We’ve all seen the countless headlines about how the pandemic has made hiring in tech harder than ever. But has the industry settled on an answer for exactly why it feels so hard right now?

  • GV executive talent partner Rhys Hughes said organizations have to truly understand that “this is a candidate’s market” and “the experience of hiring is no longer an HR function. It’s now becoming a C-suite function.”

  • Lacework CEO Jay Parikh, however, thinks the hiring landscape has always been tough, and now it’s “just a different ‘difficult.’”

With workplaces more hybrid and talent more geographically distributed, candidates have a lot more options, and tech workers are reevaluating how everything from money to mission fits into their work preferences.

  • ServiceNow senior director of performance and talent management Meagan Gregorczyk said having time to walk the kids to the bus stop in the morning is a far more attractive perk than a ping pong table or kombucha at the office.

More thoughts like this are all compiled in Protocol’s newly-released manual, “The Great Resignation,” a collection of resources on recruiting and retention in the new world of work. The manual includes insights on:

In other reading:

  • Millions of baby boomers have left the workplace since 2020. Are they coming back? (Washington Post)

  • Ask a tech worker: How often do you see your boss? (Protocol)

  • A Little-Noticed Reason Workers Quit: Too Little Work (Wall Street Journal)

  • Antenna, a New York City-based video streaming measurement startup, raised $10m in Series A funding. Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments led the round and was joined by Grit Capital, Hyper, Imagination Capital, SK Ventures, Waverley Capital, UTA Ventures, and Raine Ventures. (Deadline)

  • Nayya Health, a New York-based personalization platform for health benefits, raised $55m in Series C funding. Iconiq led the round and was joined by Transformation Capital, Felicis Ventures, and SemperVirens. (Newswire)

  • Sourcemap, a New York-based supply chain due diligence software provider, raised $10 million in Series A funding. Energize Ventures led the round and was joined by E14 Fund. (CSRWire)

  • 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 and virtual: 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, Metalbale founding members Austin Robey, and Polaris CTO Anjana Rajan. Hosted by Betaworks Studios. Register here.

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