Tech:NYC Digest: November 19

Tech:NYC Digest: November 19

November 19, 2021 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Friday, November 19, 2021

In today’s digest, FDA and CDC approve boosters for all adults, NYC employment rate gets biggest bump, and what your office holiday party might look like this year.

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  • New York hit a new milestone: 80 percent of adult New Yorkers statewide are now fully vaccinated. That number is slightly higher in NYC, where 80.6 percent of adults are fully vaccinated.

  • Both the FDA and CDC today authorized booster shots of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for everyone 18 and older. (New York Times)

    • With the push for booster shots, a debate is quickly emerging around whether the definition of "fully vaccinated" should be changed to include the additional dose of the vaccine. (Axios)

    • Here’s what the approvals mean for New York.

  • A new report from the city comptroller’s office found that not only are people who left returning to New York, but more people have moved to the city in 2021 than in 2019. (Curbed) 

    • The largest per-capita net gains by neighborhood have been in Chelsea/Midtown, Murray Hill/Gramercy, Battery Park City/Greenwich Village, and Chinatown/Lower East Side.

  • NYC gained 83,500 jobs in October, the largest boost since the early months of the recovery — twice the rate of the nation as a whole. While the city’s unemployment rate is still much higher than the national rate at 9.4 percent, unemployment has now declined for nine consecutive months. (THE CITY)

In other reading:

  • New York City Is Building a Wall of Oysters to Fend Off Floods (Bloomberg)

  • Families Are Reuniting for Their First Post-Vax Thanksgiving. Here’s Some Advice. (New York Times)

  • We’re Having A Holiday Gathering. Are We Nuts? Take this pandemic quiz to learn how to lower the risk. (New York Times)

  • Kathy Hochul’s Got Seven Months (New York Magazine)

Many companies are preparing for a second year of creative holiday parties and otherwise celebrating the end of the year while their teams remain largely WFH.

Salesforce is encouraging managers to plan something in-person by the end of the year: Chief People Officer Brent Hyder said in a company blog post there’s been “too much focus on return-to-office dates” planned for the new year. (Protocol)

  • Outside of any permanent hybrid work norms teams will set for themselves, they can decide what sort of in-person meetup makes the most sense — it could be a strategy session, a workshop, or a holiday party, for example.

  • Hyder says having in-person get-togethers “fundamentally improves team dynamics after months of not seeing each other.”

  • The company will also recommend teams convene in-person for end-of-quarter celebrations, volunteer days, and other team-building events moving forward.

More companies are planning in-person gatherings as a way to begin the gradual shift to office reopening dates slated for early 2022.

  • HR startup Hibob’s workforce is split 50-50 between NYC and other remote locations, and it’s flying in its remote staff so the full US team can participate in an in-person Q4 fundraising celebration. (HR Dive)

  • Others are, instead of hosting their whole teams indoors at the office, planning a night out for everyone to get together at an outdoor venue in the city.

Still, others are opting for virtual events again this year, but hope to make them less stale and more engaging.

  • For example, Cameo for Business has been a popular way for companies to invite celebrities and other high-profile names to drop in to virtual holiday parties.

In other reading:

  • The Best Work-From-Home-or-Office Gadgets: Boring but Useful Gifts for Hybrid Life (Wall Street Journal)

  • Do you actually like your job? Try the 15-5 method to find out ​​(CNBC)

  • 35 Gifts for Every Type of Employee (The Cut)

  • Anyword, a New York City-based marketing copy generator, raised $21 million in new funding. Innovation Endeavors led the round and was joined by Lead Capital and Gandyr Ventures. (VentureBeat)

  • Comet, a New York City-based machine learning ops startup, raised $50 million in Series B funding. OpenView Venture Partners led the round and was joined by insiders Scale Venture Partners, Trilogy Equity Partners, and Two Sigma Ventures. (TechCrunch)

  • nTopology, a New York City-based provider of generative design software, raised $65 million in Series D funding. Tiger Global led the round and was joined by Oldslip Group, as well as insiders Root Ventures, Canaan Partners, Haystack, and Insight Partners. (TechCrunch)

  • Owkin, a New York City and Paris-based provider of AI models to medical researchers, raised $180 million in new equity funding. Sanofi led the round. (Reuters)

  • SageSpot, a New York City-based social platform for creators, raised $3 million in seed funding. Khosla Ventures led the round and was joined by individual investors. (MarTech)

  • November 30: Virtual: #notapitch: Unofficial Feedback on Your Idea/Prototype from a VC, with Brooklyn Bridge Ventures partner Charlie O’Donnell. Register here.

  • December 7: Virtual: 2022 Predictions in Tech: The Roaring 20s, with Tribeca Venture Partners partner Brian Hirsch, Eniac Ventures partner Hadley Harris, 645 Ventures partner Nnamdi Okike, and Work-Bench partner Jessica Lin. Hosted by Tribeca Venture Partners and Fenwick. Register here.

  • December 9: Virtual: Building in the Open, with Cockroach Labs CEO Spencer Kimball, Solo.io CEO Idit Levine, Timescale CEO Ajay Kulkarni, and others. Hosted by Work-Bench. Register here.

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