Tech:NYC Digest: October 24

Tech:NYC Digest: October 24

October 24, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

Monday, October 24, 2022

A Happy Diwali to all who celebrate (and even if you don’t, we suggest supporting South Asian shops with a big order of mithai anyway).

In today’s digest, a unified plan for subway safety, the debate kicking off the final stretch of the governor’s race, and what the 40-hour work week means in the era of hybrid work.

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  • A new plan by Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams will increase the presence of police officers in the transit system. The state has pledged to help the city pay for an additional 1,200 overtime shifts per day for police officers to patrol the subway, along with continuing to install cameras inside train cars. (New York Daily News)

  • Diwali, a holiday known as the "Festival of Lights" celebrated primarily by South Asian and Caribbean communities, will become an official school holiday in NYC beginning next year. (NBC News)

  • With virtually all city-mandated COVID restrictions lifted, public health experts expect a rise in winter COVID cases to collide with flu season, causing a “twindemic” — or even a “tripledemic,” with a third pathogen, respiratory syncytial virus, or R.S.V., also in the mix. (New York Times)

    • COVID rates are back above 10% in several parts of Manhattan. Here’s the latest city data by ZIP code. 

  • After months of back and forth, the first (and likely only) debate between Gov. Hochul and her opponent Rep. Lee Zeldin before the general election will be televised tomorrow at 7pm. (Gothamist)

  • Relatedly: today is the last day to request an absentee ballot online or by mail for the Nov. 8 general election. (Yes, risk of contracting or spreading COVID-19 remains a qualification to vote by absentee ballot). Learn more here.

In other reading:

  • The Bivalent Shot Might Lay You Out (The Atlantic)

  • Did the Pandemic Change Your Personality? Possibly. (New York Times)

  • Long Live the Streetery: One new form, 18 distinctive variations (Grub Street)

Today marks the 84th anniversary of the Fair Labor Standards Act, a federal law that first codified the 40-hour work week. But the pandemic has proven one of those once-in-a-century events that forces us to ask: what does a “full-time” work week even mean anymore?

Needless to say, the work trends we’ve been tracking over the last three years have come a long way — and are beyond the wildest imaginations — of the original negotiators of the 1938 law:

Employees’ working habits are changing, but they’re insisting their companies change with them. (Axios)

  • Employees with flexible schedules reported 29% higher productivity and 53% greater focus than those with defined hours, according to the latest research from Slack’s Future Forum.

  • Various types of workers, including parents, who make up about a third of the US workforce, have been able to increase their productivity because of “work-whenever” policies.

  • Location is also important (although not quite as much as time). The productivity of workers who had some flexibility in where they worked increased by 4%.

Some executives suspect a correlation between increased flexibility and “quiet quitting” — but employees feel differently. (Axios)

  • A recent Microsoft Work Trends report found that 85% of leaders don't feel confident that their employees are working hard from home.

  • However, 81% of workers say they're putting in as much effort, if not more, as they were six months ago, according to a survey from the Conference Board.

  • But it can be difficult to simply complete your baseline level of the job. "People are having to work harder just to get the work done," Robin Erickson, vice president of human capital at the Conference Board, told Axios.

What it means: The resulting balancing act — still being calibrated in many workplaces — has resulted in what the Wall Street Journal calls an “extraordinary clash” between the desires of employers and employees. 

Our take: Pay, flexibility, and commuting times may very well become the bargaining chips for a new grand agreement, almost a century later, that defines the workplace for at least the next several decades.

In other reading:

  • The Middle Managers Are Not Alright (Bloomberg)

  • Glassdoor lets job seekers filter companies by D&I scores (HR Dive)

  • Emoji divide the workplace (Axios)

  • Bags, a NYC-based loan marketplace focused on underrepresented businesses, raised $3 million in seed funding. Slauson & Co. led the round and was joined by Connecticut Innovations and the Schultz Family Foundation. (Newswire)

  • Banyan, a NYC-based network for SKU data, raised $40 million in Series A funding. Fin Capital and M13 co-led the round and were joined by FIS Impact Ventures and TTV Capital. (TechCrunch)

  • OTONOMI, a Brooklyn-based parametric cargo insurance platform, raised $3.4 million in seed funding. ATX Ventures led the round and was joined by GSR Ventures, Greenlight Re Innovations, Punja Global Ventures, Altari Ventures, SoundBoard Venture Fund, Blackhorn Ventures, Bering Waters Ventures, REFASHIOND Ventures, and other angels. (Newswire)

  • Seam Social Labs, a NYC-based survey and polling software focused on disinvested communities, raised $1.6 million in seed funding. New Age Capital led the round and was joined by New Media Ventures, the Techstars Fund, and others. (Seam Social Labs)

  • October 25: In-person: Your First Venture Round: Advice & Insights for Founders, with BBG Ventures managing partner Susan Lyne, Brooklyn Bridge Ventures partner Charlie O’Donnell, and m]x[v Capital partner Mark Ghermezian. Hosted by Stacklist. Register here.

  • October 27: Virtual: It’s not privacy vs. security anymore, with GitHub deputy chief security officer Jacob DePriest, Rocket Companies CISO Chris Burrows. Hosted by Protocol. Register here.

  • October 27: Virtual: Innovation is Everywhere: Tokyo and New York, with NYCEDC vice president Daria Siegel, Startup Genome CEO FJ Gauthier, NTT DOCOMO Ventures investment director Yuichi Kimura, and others. Hosted by NYCEDC and Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Register here.

  • October 27: In-person: AWS Startup Crowds NYC with Vetty CTO Bejoy John, Branch Insurance CTO Joe Emison, Michael Guarino Plural founder, Teleskope CEO Lizzy Nammour, Inspired Capital investor Claire Pan, and more. Hosted by AWS Startups. Register here.

  • November 2: Virtual: Crypto Fundraising Crash Course for Nonprofits, with givepact co-founders Alicia Maule and Steven Aguiar. Register here.

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