Tech:NYC Digest: March 14

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Monday, March 14, 2022 

Happy 𝜋 Day (take a guess on which pie Instacart says is New Yorkers’ favorite). In today’s digest, remembering those we’ve lost to COVID-19, NYC Dept. of Health publishes booster shot data, and the head of remote work enters the C-suite.

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By the numbers:  

• New positive cases statewide: 902

  • New positive cases, NYC: 381

• NYC Positivity Rate: 1.0 percent (no change)

• NYC Hospitalizations: 356

• Statewide Vaccine Progress: 

  • New Yorkers with at least one dose: 89.3 percent

  • New Yorkers who are fully vaccinated: 75.9 percent

In today’s latest:

• Two years ago today, NYC recorded its first confirmed death from COVID-19. Several city buildings will be lit amber this evening in remembrance, and here’s a powerful read on why it’s important New York memorialize those we’ve lost.

• The NYC Dept. of Health has begun publishing data on booster shots, and just 36 percent of NYC residents have received one. (New York Daily News) You can see the booster rate for your zip code here. 

• The NYPD is rolling out its new five-person neighborhood safety teams beginning today,  focused on removing guns from the streets. (Gothamist)

• Over the weekend, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla stated he believes fourth doses will be necessary to fend off another wave of the coronavirus. (Axios) Fourth shots are already authorized for certain immunocompromised people (see those guidelines here), and Bourla said booster doses could become an annual occurrence, much like the flu shot.

• The so-called Deltacron variant, a new hybrid of the Delta and Omicron variants, appears to have been present in the US since January following its identification by a California lab. (Fortune) The recombinant is still extremely rare and isn’t believed to be more transmissible. 

In other reading:

• As TikTok Once Coined It, “Goldman Hour” Is Back (New York Magazine)

• The 2,731-Person Project to Build New York City in Minecraft (New York Magazine)

• Manhattan’s Chinese Street Signs Are Disappearing (New York Times)

Remote work went from being a rarity to table stakes during the pandemic. But as more attention swings back to office life, we can’t forget that the vast majority of tech workers will expect some level of remote flexibility in the future — meaning companies should ensure a great remote employee experience is sustained.

Enter a head of remote work, a dedicated role quickly catching on as companies move towards hybrid work. Gusto, a cloud-based HR management provider with offices in NYC and other US cities, is the latest company looking to make this hire.

Danielle Mastrangel Brown, Gusto’s chief people officer, told Protocol it was hiring a Head of Remote Experience because, without one, there would be a major learning curve in moving forward with a hybrid work model.

• “Gusties,” as its employees are called, can opt into one of three working styles: traditional in-person, fully remote, or a “flex” model that identifies one to two days a week set by their department to work from the office. Brown says most employees fall into the last two categories.

Not all companies need a head of remote work, but all companies need someone to advocate for the well-being of their virtual workforces. Brown recommends looking at these new employee work models (in-person, hybrid, and fully remote) as personas and compare across them:

• “Do we see differences in people's engagement, in people's satisfaction with Gusto, in their relationships with their manager? Are remote employees just as likely as their peers to stay at Gusto? Are they just as likely to get promoted?”

But Brown cautions that those personas aren’t fixed, and employees should be able to shift to whatever working style suits them best. “I think what helps everybody feel better is saying, ‘Look, your life might change.’” To remain flexible, Gusto is adding more change request windows so employees can revalidate their work choices with their managers more regularly.

In other RTO updates:

• Lyft is ditching its mandatory hybrid work plans. The company had previously planned to begin requiring some mandatory in-office time next January, but last week told its employees that almost all of them can choose to permanently work from the office, from home, or “any combination of the two.” (Protocol)

• Meta, the parent company of Facebook, told employees on Friday that it was cutting back or eliminating free services like laundry and dry cleaning as it prepares for its hybrid work plans. (New York Times)

In other reading:

• Forcing your employees to unplug for a week is harder (and easier) than it looks (Protocol)

• In a post-pandemic world, will working from home be a boon for business travel? (The Points Guy)

• Want to engage your remote team? Turn that corporate presentation into 'The Tonight Show.' (Protocol)

• Behavidence, a NYC-based developer of AI tools to monitor psychiatric and neurological disorders, raised $4.3 million in seed funding. Welltech Ventures led the round and was joined by Arc Impact and Longevity Ventures. (FinSMEs)

• Justpoint, a NYC-based AI platform for connecting plaintiffs to attorneys, raised $6.9 million in seed funding. Divergent Capital and Charge Ventures co-led the round and were joined by Crossbeam Venture Partners, Honeystone Ventures, Interplay.vc, Weekend Fund, and a group of individual investors. (Newswire)

• Mojo, a NYC-based sports stock market app for athlete fans, raised $75 million in Series A funding. Thrive Capital led the round and was joined by Marc Lore, Alex Rodriguez, and Tiger Global. (TechCrunch)

• March 14: Virtual: The Future of Women and Work (and Why It’s Different Than You Think), with Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani and author Liz Plank. Hosted by 92Y. Register here.

• March 17: Virtual: Caregiving: the new DEI lens for your family benefits strategy, with DocuSign senior director of global benefits Ellen Meza and Maven VP of People Karsten Vagner. Hosted by Maven. Register here.

• March 21: Virtual: #newtovc: Developing Your Fund Thesis, with Union Square Ventures partner Brad Burnham and Brooklyn Bridge Ventures founder Charlie O’Donnell. Hosted by Brooklyn Bridge Ventures. Register here.

• March 31: Virtual: The Future of NYC: Charting an Equitable Recovery for All, with Federal Reserve Bank of New York president and CEO John C. Williams, BlocPower founder and CEO Donnel Baird, Regional Plan Association president and CEO Tom Wright, and more. Hosted by the New York Fed. Register here.

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