Tech:NYC Digest: September 28

Tech:NYC Digest: September 28

September 28, 2021 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

In today’s digest, NYC sets a new vax mandate deadline for teachers, Governors Island opens 365 days a year, and Firstbase CEO Chris Herd thinks we need to radically reimagine remote work.Was this digest forwarded to you? Subscribe here.

By the numbers:

  • New positive cases statewide:  4,114 (+110) 

    • New positive cases, NYC:  1,178

  • Statewide Fatalities: 31 (+7)

  • NYC Positivity Rate: 1.7 percent (no change)

  • Statewide Vaccine Progress:

    • Percentage of adults (18+) with at least one dose: 83.8 percent

    • Percentage of total population with at least one dose: 71.0 percent

Today’s latest: 

  • A temporary block on the vaccine mandate for NYC public school teachers and staff was lifted by a federal appeals court, setting a new deadline for this Friday for them to receive at least one dose of the vaccine. (Gothamist)

  • Pfizer has submitted data to the FDA showing its coronavirus vaccine is safe and effective in children ages 5 to 11. A formal request to allow a pediatric dose of their vaccine to be administered will be submitted in the coming weeks. (New York Times)

  • Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order to address potential health care worker shortages as the state's hospital vaccine mandate went into effect overnight on Monday. The order expands the available health care workforce and allows additional workers to administer COVID-19 testing and vaccinations. (CNN)

    • New York hospitals have begun firing or suspending health care workers for defying a state order to get the COVID-19 vaccine, and resulting staff shortages prompted some hospitals to postpone elective surgeries or curtail services. (Reuters)

  • A new study has shown that fear over the Delta variant — not cash, prizes, or other incentives — are the main reason vaccine hesitant people decided to get vaccinated. (New York Times)

    • However, the survey indicated that nearly three-quarters of unvaccinated Americans view boosters very differently, saying the need for them shows that the vaccines are not working.

  • Governors Island will now be open year-round, effective immediately. (Gothamist) The island was previously open every year from May to October, but New Yorkers can now take trips to the island via the NYC Ferry 365 days a year.

In other reading:

  • How Covid Misinformation Created a Run on Animal Medicine (New York Times)

  • Why you’re not getting a Delta-specific booster yet (Vox)

  • Could This COVID Wave Reverse the Recovery? Here’s What to Watch (New York Times)

Very few tech workers would disagree that the pandemic has provided a more flexible approach to when and where work happens, but some, such as technology entrepreneur Chris Herd, think something more radical needs to be done.

Herd, the founder and CEO of Firstbase, is based in NYC but runs a fully-distributed company. In a conversation with The New Yorker, he proposes that remote-first strategy:

  • Relevant teams gather less frequently — say, once a month — in varying locations that suit the work being done. Because these meetings are relatively infrequent, there’s no need for employees to live in the same region, significantly increasing the pool of potential hires.

  • He also imagines a future where specialized resorts with professional on-site facilitators will arise in locations conducive to brainstorming or strategy formation. 

This style of work — featuring decreased overhead and increased access to talent — will inevitably replace the office model completely, a process Herd says is already underway.

  • Startups stand to benefit the most — they build their organization style and work cultures from scratch, increasingly with minimal or no physical space element. Older and larger companies, on the other hand, have more entrenched office-dependent norms to backtrack, making it potentially harder to transition work models to keep pace with the wants and needs of today’s talent.

Georgetown University computer science professor (and scholar of distributed systems theories) Cal Newport thinks it’s important to approach Herd’s vision with healthy skepticism:

  • “The need to jet to locations each month to meet with your worldwide team seems to introduce its own burdens. There are also clear and long-understood advantages to gathering pools of similarly skilled talent in the same city as a catalyst for innovation. And the capital infusion into technology companies in recent years is so astronomical that staffing overhead can hardly be identified as a critical factor in predicting corporate survival.”

In other reading:

  • The hottest new perk in tech: A week off for burnout recovery (Protocol)

  • Burned Out and Restless From the Pandemic, Women Redefine Their Career Ambitions (Wall Street Journal)

  • Covid and remote work changed the workplace. Now let's change the work week — to 4 days. (NBC News)

  • Bubblehouse, a New York City-based NFT marketplace, raised $4 million in pre-seed funding. Third Kind VC led the round and was joined by investors including SV Angel, Watertower Ventures, and Soma Capital. (GlobeNewswire)

  • Builders Patch, a New York City-based construction financing startup, raised $2.3 million in seed funding. The Urban Innovation Fund led the round.

  • EdSights, a New York-based student retention services, raised $5 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Album VC and joined by Lakehouse, Good Friends, Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig, and GSV Ventures’ Deborah Quazzo. (TechCrunch)

  • Stellar Health, a point-of-care workflow tool for healthcare providers, raised $60 million in Series B funding. General Atlantic led, and was joined by Point72 Ventures and Primary Venture Partners. (Insider)

  • TailorMed Medical, a New York City-based healthcare fintech, raised an additional $5 million. Investors included BrightEdge, OSF Ventures, and the Citi Impact Fund.

  • September 29: Virtual: The Future of Small Business, with Etsy CEO Josh Silverman and Ethel’s Banking Co. founder Jill Bommarito. Hosted by the Washington Post. Register here.

  • September 30: Virtual: What the vaccine mandate means for your company, with Nixon Peabody LLP partner Rachel Conn, Engage PEO general counsel Sadiqa Banks-Holsey, and others. Hosted by Protocol. Register here.

  • September 30: Virtual: Female Founder Office Hours, for 1:1 meetings with early-stage female founders and Tribeca Ventures Partners’ investment team. Register here.

  • October 6: Virtual: What It’s Like to Exit: Getting Bought, with former Chartbeat and Scroll CEO and Betaworks CEO John Borthwick. Hosted by Betaworks. Register here.

  • October 6: Virtual: The Future of New York City, with Brooklyn Borough President (and Democratic nominee for Mayor) Eric Adams. Hosted by Savills. Register here.

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