Google Calendar está caído, no eres solo tú

Una moneda global

Facebook tiene algo seguro: el dinero de hoy no funciona para todos. Aquellos de nosotros que vivimos cómodamente en países desarrollados probablemente no veamos las dificultades que afectan a los trabajadores migrantes o los no bancarizados en el extranjero. Preocupados por los codiciosos prestamistas de día de pago y los servicios de remesas de alta tarifa, seleccionados por los atracadores y excluidos de los servicios financieros tradicionales, los pobres se empobrecen. Libra tiene el potencial de devolver más dinero de los padres que trabajan a sus familias y ayudar a las personas a retener el crédito, incluso si les roban sus posesiones físicas. Eso haría más para cumplir la misión de Facebook de hacer que el mundo se sienta más pequeño que todos los "Me gusta" de las noticias combinadas.

Si Facebook tiene éxito y las legiones de personas cobran dinero en efectivo por Libra, él y los otros miembros fundadores de la Asociación de Libra podrían obtener grandes dividendos sobre los intereses. Y si de repente se vuelve súper rápido para comprar cosas a través de Facebook usando Libra, las empresas aumentarán su gasto en publicidad allí. Pero si Libra es pirateada o no es confiable, podría costarle dinero a muchas personas de todo el mundo mientras las agrupa en las criptomonedas. Y al ofrecer una plataforma Libra abierta, los desarrolladores con sombra podrían crear aplicaciones que no solo capturan la información personal de las personas como Cambridge Analytica, sino también su efectivo digital.

Facebook acaba de intentar reinventar el dinero. El próximo año, veremos si la Asociación de Libra puede lograrlo. Me tomó 4000 palabras para explicar Libra, pero al menos ahora puedes decidirte si te da miedo el criptografía de Facebook.

Facebook finalmente ha revelado los detalles de su criptomoneda, Libra, que te permitirá comprar cosas o enviar dinero a personas con tarifas casi nulas. Puede comprar o retirar su Libra en línea o en puntos de intercambio locales, como tiendas de comestibles, y gastarlo utilizando aplicaciones de billetera de terceros interoperables o la billetera de Calibra de Facebook. 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Josh Constine es un periodista tecnológico que se especializa en el análisis profundo de productos sociales. Actualmente es un Editor-At-Large para TechCrunch y está disponible para charlas.

Anteriormente, Constine fue la principal escritora de Inside Facebook a través de su adquisición por parte de WebMediaBrands, cubriendo todo lo relacionado con la red social.

Constine se graduó de la Universidad de Stanford en 2009 con una maestría en cibersociología, examinando la influencia de la tecnología en la interacción social. Investigó el impacto de los controles de privacidad en la socialización de los niños, los ciclos de popularidad de los memes y lo que influye en la tasa de clics de los enlaces publicados en Twitter.

Constine también recibió una licenciatura con honores de la Universidad de Stanford en 2007, con especialización en psicología social y procesos interpersonales.

Josh Constine es un orador público experimentado y ha moderado más de 120 entrevistas en el escenario en 15 países con líderes que incluyen al CEO de Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, al informante Edward Snowden (a través de una videoconferencia en el escenario) y al senador estadounidense Cory Booker. Está disponible para moderar paneles y charlas informales, ofrecer conferencias y juzgar competiciones de hackathon y pitch.

Constine ha sido citada por The Wall Street Journal, CNN Money, The Atlantic, BBC World Magazine, Slate y más, y ha aparecido en televisión en Good Morning, America, The Today Show, China Central Television y Fox News. Constine está clasificada como la periodista tecnológica más citada # 1 en el prestigioso agregador de noticias Techmeme.

Entonces, ¿por qué me importa si el proveedor tiene que pagar tarifas de transacción a Visa? Eso no parece ser razón suficiente para que yo adopte una nueva moneda.

Esto puede reemplazar transacciones en efectivo o débito para muchas personas. Sin embargo, será una venta difícil para los clientes de tarjetas de crédito en los Estados Unidos. Las tarjetas de crédito tienen 4 beneficios sobre Libra.
n1) Capacidad para gastar ahora y pagar más tarde. Incluso sin intereses al pagar dentro de un mes.
n2) Capacidad para ganar dinero en efectivo o recompensas. Los comerciantes están pagando tarifas y recompensas, pero en los Estados Unidos rara vez cobran al cliente por esas tarifas.
n3) Las transacciones no son finales como lo son con efectivo, débito y Libra. El cliente puede impugnar cargos fraudulentos y hacer que las transacciones se reviertan
n4) Se aceptan tarjetas de crédito en casi todos los Estados Unidos.

Dicho esto, este parece ser el mejor intento de crear una moneda criptográfica estable hasta el momento. Esto puede ganar mucha tracción en países donde las personas no tienen acceso a monedas estables y para las personas que no tienen acceso a crédito.

Soy escéptico Si KYC es un requisito, ¿qué les impide censurar a las personas que no les gustan? Por ejemplo, si tienes un canal de historia en YouTube o algo así, y ellos deciden prohibirte por discurso de odio. Y de repente no puedes gastar más tu Libra.

Facebook es conocido por censurar contenido indeseable y recopilar cantidades obscenas de datos privados sobre sus usuarios (y no usuarios. La subsidiaria de Facebook, WhatsApp, anunció que demandaría a los usuarios por violar sus Términos de Uso, incluso si esa violación se produjo en una plataforma o en una plataforma diferente). -espacio.

No puedo imaginar que FaceBucks esté libre de esas preocupaciones.

Todavía no he leído el documento. Creo que Libra va a tener una dificultad significativa para mantener la estabilidad de la moneda a menos que las tarifas de gas sean altas para desincentivar el arbitraje o que existan reglas estrictas para el comercio.

“Mientras que los servicios de remesas explotadores como cobran un promedio del 7% para enviar dinero al exterior”
n ………………. ¿Periodismo? Vamos, avanza, ahora eres un adulto y eres capaz de hacerlo mejor que esto.

# Calibra será la aplicación de software espía más grande de la historia. $ LIBRA $ ZUCK

¿Por qué querría que #FACEBOOK pudiera realizar un seguimiento de todas sus transacciones y / o ahorros? En serio espero que la gente no sea tan tonta.

¡POR FAVOR LAS PERSONAS NO SEAN TANAS!

Hm ... ¿qué hay de enviar dinero a ultramar? Cuando viajas, necesitas hacer un cambio de moneda, pierdes un montón de dinero haciendo eso. 7% suena como una figura justa.

Compañías como TransferWise están reduciendo el costo de las transferencias internacionales y el acceso al dinero en el extranjero. No necesita monedas criptográficas para asumir la industria de las remesas. Solo necesita una empresa con menos gastos generales y más automatización para reducir los costos de transacción.

@Erik De Vries Transferwise lamentablemente sigue siendo realmente caro. Yo diría que debido a los requisitos reglamentarios impuestos a este tipo de empresas. A medida que se establezca la regulación, es probable que esta plataforma también se vuelva más costosa hasta que pueda ser verdaderamente descentralizada.

Josh Constine es un periodista tecnológico que se especializa en el análisis profundo de productos sociales. Actualmente es un Editor-At-Large para TechCrunch y está disponible para charlas.

Anteriormente, Constine fue la principal escritora de Inside Facebook a través de su adquisición por parte de WebMediaBrands, cubriendo todo lo relacionado con la red social.

Constine se graduó de la Universidad de Stanford en 2009 con una maestría en cibersociología, examinando la influencia de la tecnología en la interacción social. Investigó el impacto de los controles de privacidad en la socialización de los niños, los ciclos de popularidad de los memes y lo que influye en la tasa de clics de los enlaces publicados en Twitter.

Constine también recibió una licenciatura con honores de la Universidad de Stanford en 2007, con especialización en psicología social y procesos interpersonales.

Josh Constine es un orador público experimentado y ha moderado más de 120 entrevistas en el escenario en 15 países con líderes que incluyen al CEO de Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, al informante Edward Snowden (a través de una videoconferencia en el escenario) y al senador estadounidense Cory Booker. Está disponible para moderar paneles y charlas informales, ofrecer conferencias y juzgar competiciones de hackathon y pitch.

Constine ha sido citada por The Wall Street Journal, CNN Money, The Atlantic, BBC World Magazine, Slate y más, y ha aparecido en televisión en Good Morning, America, The Today Show, China Central Television y Fox News. Constine está clasificada como la periodista tecnológica más citada # 1 en el prestigioso agregador de noticias Techmeme.

The first time I showed the Palm phone to the TechCrunch staff, they were excited. At the very least, it was a unique take on the category, designed to be a second phone for those moments that didnu2019t require a larger, bulkier device.

But reality set in pretty quickly. The deviceu2019s capabilities were severely limited by a number of factors, including size. The biggest issue, however, was a Verizon exclusive that only let users purchase the device as a second handset tied to an existing account.

Back in April, the company announced that the 3.3-inch phone could be purchased as a standalone device u2014 albeit still through Verizon or US Mobile. Today, itu2019s expanding that, making the handset available unlocked, so it will work with AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and MetroPCS SIMs.

The phoneu2019s available u201cat onlyu201d $350. Thatu2019s cheap compared to many full-sized, mid-tier handsets, but cheapness is certainly a relative concept. It still seems like a lot for a second phone, and while itu2019s certainly adorable, Iu2019d strongly advise against anyone using it as a primary handset. Heck, itu2019s not even all that great as a standalone MP3 player.

If youu2019re still interested, you can pre-order it today u2014 and Palm will throw in a $30 leather case with neck and wrist lanyards. It starts shipping in six to eight weeks.

The first time I showed the Palm phone to the TechCrunch staff, they were excited. At the very least, it was a unique take on the category, designed to be a second phone for those moments that didnu2019t require a larger, bulkier device. But reality set in pretty quickly. The deviceu2019s capabilities were severely limited […] n","protected":false},"author":699688,"featured_media":1732288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"outcome":"","status":"","crunchbase_tag":0,"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"jetpack_publicize_message":"Palmu2019s tiny phone is available unlocked at $350 https://tcrn.ch/2IQznKt by @bheater"},"categories":[449223024,449557028],"tags":[1515,38616],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_event":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/CMB_50021.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"shortlink":"https://tcrn.ch/2IQznKt","rapidData":{"pt":"","pct":""},"featured":false,"subtitle":"","fundingRound":false,"seoTitle":"","seoDescription":"","premiumContent":false,"premiumCutoffPercent":1,"tc_cb_mapping":[{"slug":"palm","cb_name":"Palm","cb_slug":"palm-organization","cb_link":"https://crunchbase.com/organization/palm"}],"associatedEvent":null,"event":null,"authors":[699688],"hideFeaturedImage":false,"relatedArticles":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1845252"}],"collection":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/types/post"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1845252/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1845265,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1845252/revisions/1845265"}],"authors":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/tc/v1/users/699688"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"count":2,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=1845252&order=asc&tc_hierarchical=flat"}],"https://techcrunch.com/edit":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1845252&action=edit"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/tc/v1/users/699688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media/1732288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media?parent=1845252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?post=1845252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tags?post=1845252"},{"taxonomy":"_tc_cb_tag_taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/crunchbase_tag?post=1845252"},{"taxonomy":"tc_stories_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tc_stories_tax?post=1845252"},{"taxonomy":"tc_event","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tc_event?post=1845252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https://api.w.org/{rel}","templated":true}]},"_embedded":{"authors":[{"id":699688"name":"BrianHeater""url":"""description":"""link":"https://techcrunchcom/author/brian-heater/""slug":"brian-heater""avatar_urls":{"24":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/eb77d830ad404e16ee7a4c7000b5f49d?s=24&d=identicon&r=g""48":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/eb77d830ad404e16ee7a4c7000b5f49d?s=48&d=identicon&r=g""96":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/eb77d830ad404e16ee7a4c7000b5f49d?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"}"links":{"twitter":"https://twittercom/bheater""linkedin":"http://wwwlinkedincom/pub/brian-heater/1/a92/94""crunchbase":"https://wwwcrunchbasecom/person/brian-heater"}"position":"HardwareEditor""cbDescription":"[{"id":699688"name":"BrianHeater""url":"""description":"""link":"https://techcrunchcom/author/brian-heater/""slug":"brian-heater""avatar_urls":{"24":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/eb77d830ad404e16ee7a4c7000b5f49d?s=24&d=identicon&r=g""48":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/eb77d830ad404e16ee7a4c7000b5f49d?s=48&d=identicon&r=g""96":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/eb77d830ad404e16ee7a4c7000b5f49d?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"}"links":{"twitter":"https://twittercom/bheater""linkedin":"http://wwwlinkedincom/pub/brian-heater/1/a92/94""crunchbase":"https://wwwcrunchbasecom/person/brian-heater"}"position":"HardwareEditor""cbDescription":"

Brian Heater is the Hardware Editor at TechCrunch. He worked for a number of leading tech publications, including Engadget, PCMag, Laptop, and Tech Times, where he served as the Managing Editor. His writing has appeared in Spin, Wired, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, The Onion, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly, The Daily Beast and various other publications. He hosts the weekly Boing Boing interview podcast RiYL, has appeared as a regular NPR contributor and shares his Queens apartment with a rabbit named Lucy.

So explain this to a dummy…

How can you use it as a second phone when the carriers won’t sell you two valid/live SIM cards that both point to the same phone number?

Gracias

There is a companion article on The Verge that states you would need to swap the sim phone to phone. sounds like a lot more trouble than it’s worth. I just wish someone would come out with a quality small phone such as the Samsung Mini that is no longer available.

Brian Heater is the Hardware Editor at TechCrunch. He worked for a number of leading tech publications, including Engadget, PCMag, Laptop, and Tech Times, where he served as the Managing Editor. His writing has appeared in Spin, Wired, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, The Onion, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly, The Daily Beast and various other publications. He hosts the weekly Boing Boing interview podcast RiYL, has appeared as a regular NPR contributor and shares his Queens apartment with a rabbit named Lucy.

Three years ago, I met with a founder who had raised a massive seed round at a valuation that was at least five times the market rate. I asked what firm made the investment.

She said it was not a traditional venture firm, but rather au00a0inversionista estratégico that not only had no ties to her space but also had no prior investment experience. The strategic investor, she said, was looking to u201cget their hands dirtyu201d and u201cget in on the ground floor.u201d

Over the next 2 years, I kept a close eye on the founder. Although she had enough capital to pivot her business focus multiple times, she seemed to be at odds, serving the needs of her strategic investor and her customer base.

Ultimately, when the business needed more capital to survive, the strategic investor didnu2019t agree with the founderu2019s focus, opted not to prop it up, and the business had to shut down.

Sadly, this is not an uncommon story as examples abound of strategic investors influencing startup direction and management decisions to the point of harm for the startup. Corporate strategics, not to be confused with dedicated funds focused on financial returns like a traditional venture investor like Google Ventures,u00a0often care less about return on investment, and more about a startupu2019s focus, and sector specificity. If corporate imperatives change, the strategicu00a0may cease to be the right partneru00a0or could push the startup inu00a0a challenging direction.

And yet, fortunately, as the disruptive power of technology is being unleashed on nearly every major industry, strategic investors are now getting smarter, both in terms of howu00a0they investu00a0and how they partner with entrepreneurs.

From making strong acquisitive plays (i.e.u00a0GMu2019s purchase of Cruise Automationu00a0oru00a0Toyotau2019s early-stage investment in Uber) to buildingu00a0dedicated funds, to executing commercial agreements in tandem with capital investment, strategics are getting savvier, and by extension, becoming better partners.u00a0 In some instances, they may be the best partner.

Negotiating a term sheet with a strategic investor necessitates a different set of considerations. Namely: the preference for a strategic to facilitate commercial milestones for the startup, a cautious approach to avoid the u201cover-valuationu201d trap, an acute focus on information rights, and the limitation of non-compete provisions.

Three years ago, I met with a founder who had raised a massive seed round at a valuation that was at least five times the market rate. I asked what firm made the investment…

Vector concept illustration

Silicon Valley is entering a new phase in its quest for diversity and inclusion in the technology industry. Some advocates call this part u201cthe end of the beginning,u201d Code2040 CEO Karla Monterroso tells TechCrunch.

At first, advocates were focused on calling out the lack of diversity at tech conferences, pressuring companies to release diversity data and debunking the pipeline problem. Then the focus shifted to hiring heads of diversity and implementing unconscious bias training (more on this in our ‘Diversity and inclusion playbook‘, but itu2019s worth pointing out those things are on their own are not productive).

u201cWeu2019re past the window dressing stage and now itu2019s time to talk about accountability, consequences, promotions and retention,u201d she says. u201cAnd what it means to prioritize things to make sure the industry is not inhospitable.u201d

While the diversity and inclusion movement has made some gains in the last few years, it has still suffered severe setbacks. On one hand, tech employees are recognizing their immense power when they speak up and organize. On the other hand, those accused of sexual harassment and misconduct are too often facing too few consequences. Meanwhile, people of color and women still receive too little venture funding, and tech companies are inching along at a glacial pace toward diverse representation and inclusion.

u201cI would characterize where we are now as a leap forward over the last 10 years and several steps sideways and a few steps backward,u201d Freada Kapor Klein, co-founder at Kapor Capital and the Kapor Center for Social Impact, tells TechCrunch. u201c[…] Any point you can make in a positive direction, there’s a countervailing negative. And similarly, any time you can raise a criticism, somebody can point to something hopeful.u201d

Plenty has been written about the problems regarding diversity and inclusion in the tech industry. Despite all sincere efforts to fix these D&I issues, it will never ultimately be fixed because the tech industry is a reflection of our society and all of its issues pertaining to race, gender, class, ability, age and sexual orientation.

That fact, however, does not mean there is no hope to be had. The future of the tech industry lies in the hands of everyday tech employees, new startup founders and investors with a fresh pair of eyes. And what’s become painfully clear is that commitment from the top is not optional.

But to get to the light at the end of the tunnel, the industry needs to come to terms with how it got to where it is today, the ineffectiveness of one-off initiatives like hiring a head of D&I and implementing a standalone unconscious bias training, and what it will take to get where it needs to go.u00a0

The old (white) boys club

Silicon Valley is a predominantly white, male industry that is notoriously bad at welcoming and celebrating people from diverse backgrounds. This old boys club has put people of color and women at a disadvantage since the earliest days of the industry, and it continues to do so.

The current movement for diversity and inclusion started more than 10 years ago. At the time, there was talk about the lack of gender representation at tech conferences and the old boys club.

In his 2007 essay, u201cThe Old Boys Club is for Losers,u201d Anil Dash, current Glitch CEO and then-co-founder of ThinkUp, the first analytics tool for social media, describes how those who defend the status quo of the white male in tech are defending a culture of failure. He argues: “Those who are reaching out to include all members of their community, who are seeking out new ideas and voices, are not only winning, theyu2019re the only ones who will continue to win. You may succeed in defending the boys-only nature of your treehouse. But youu2019ll be dooming yourselves to irrelevance.”

In 2019, many people would welcome Dashu2019s take. But 2007 mainstream techies had a different understanding of diversity — so different that Dash was convinced hitting publish meant the end of his time in the tech industry, he tells TechCrunch.

u201cI was lucky enough to have a platform and then a profile to be able to say something,u201d Dash says. u201cI was also convinced that was the end of my career. I was like, u2018well, the hell with this, Iu2019m done. Iu2019m leaving San Francisco so I might as well burn some bridges.u2019 Itu2019s funny now, because I think a lot of people would say thereu2019s an old boys club in Silicon Valley. And itu2019s very exclusionary, and these are things weu2019ve got to tackle.u201d

Dash says he remembers exactly where he was sitting when he hit publish on the post. Thatu2019s because he thought no one would let him back into the industry.

u201cFortunately, that has turned out to not be the case,u201d Dash says. u201cThe Overton window has shifted a little bit in a way that is interesting and meaningful. At the same time, the problem hasnu2019t shifted. The difference is that we can talk about the problem, but that doesnu2019t mean weu2019re fixing the problem.u201d

Ellen Pao, co-founder at Project Include who was thrust into the spotlight during her lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer, agrees. In 2012, Pao filed a lawsuit against her then-employer alleging gender discrimination and workplace retaliation. In 2015, a jury denied Paou2019s claims of discrimination.

u201cWhen I sued, people called me outright crazy and treated me like a liar,u201d Pao tells TechCrunch. u201cApparently that was the first time people were really hearing about it in a public light and they couldnu2019t process it. Today, so many people have told their stories and so many people have called attention to the problem that people are admitting itu2019s a problem.u201d

Whatu2019s different today is that the attitudes have changed from u201cletu2019s ignore it to letu2019s do something about it,u201d she says.

BOSTON, MA – DECEMBER 10: Entrepreneur, investor, writer Ellen Pao speaks on stage during Massachusetts Conference For Women at Boston Convention & Exhibition Center on December 10, 2015 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Marla Aufmuth/Getty Images for Massachusetts Conference for Women)

u201cThe problem is not that much has really been done about it,u201d Pao says. u201cCompanies are treating it as a PR crisis and strategy. Itu2019s not an operational imperative to them so you donu2019t see much change. You see the constant problems coming up again and again.u201d

Pao points to Uber, which eventually ousted its co-founder Travis Kalanick as CEO following damning allegations from engineer Susan Fowler regarding sexual harassment at the company. Pao thinks the company really hasnu2019t changed that much despite having a new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, in place.

u201cItu2019s not the same horrible problems, but you still donu2019t see a lot of diversity,u201d she says.

And then thereu2019s Tesla, which Pao calls a u201ctrash fire.u201d

Last year, black Tesla factory workers described a culture of racism and discrimination at the electric car makeru2019s factory in Fremont, Calif.

u201cI think thereu2019s still a ton of work to do,u201d Pao says. u201cThe change in attitude and the fact that people are actually responding to people sharing their experiences is a huge change, but itu2019s far from sufficient.u201d

Lip service

When Google released the industryu2019s first diversity report in 2014, it kickstarted a diversity and inclusion strategy rooted very little in action. Today, many people refer to that phenomena as lip service, which is when people talk the talk but donu2019t walk the walk.

In 2014, Google reported it was 61.3 percent white and 69.4 percent male. Fast forward to today, and Google is 54.4 percent white and 68.4 percent male. The numbers have barely moved over the years. Looking at both FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google) and A-PLUS (Airbnb, Pinterest, Lyft, Uber and Slack) companies today, tech employees are still predominantly white and Asian.

At Facebook, there has been little change to its employee demographics in terms of the proportion that underrepresented minorities make up of the entire employee population. But Facebook Chief Diversity Officer Maxine Williams points out that there has been quite a lot of change within individual groups. For example, Williams tells TechCrunch that Facebook has increased the number of black women by 25x and black men by 10x over the last five years.

u201cThere has been a lot of change,u201d Williams says. u201cHas there been as much as we want? No. And I certainly think we have the issue of when we started focusing on D&I in a very deliberate way. The company was already nine years old with thousands of people working here. The biggest takeaway is that the later you start, the harder it is.u201d

Thatu2019s the general state of the tech industry as a whole. While there has been some improvement in representation at these tech companies, there has not been nearly enough.

u201cI do think diversity reports hold them a little bit accountable,u201d Pao says. u201cIt looks bad if they go backward. I do think itu2019s important because they should be looking at all of these numbers internally. But itu2019s unfortunate that they really look to the press to guide their strategy and attention.u201d

Where these numbers need to be, according to Pao, is at 13 percent for black employee representation and 17 percent for Latinx representation in order to reflect the demographics of the U.S. population.

In her work with startups via Project Include, Pao advises them to set 10-10-5-45 targets. The first two are to aim for 10 percent black and 10 percent Latinx employees. From there, those targets should increase to 13 percent and 17 percent.

u201cNo one is close to that,u201d Pao says. u201cThere isnu2019t a startup thatu2019s actually where it should be. All of them are problematic.u201d

Discounting Apple and Amazon (both declined to comment for this story) — due to the fact that their numbers are inflated because of their respective retail and warehouse employee populations — the company closest to achieving full representation of black and Latinx employees is Lyft. Lyft is 9 percent Latinx and 10.2 percent black, according to its 2018 diversity numbers.

And since gender is non-binary, at least 5% of a companyu2019s workforce should identify as such and the remaining 45% should identify as female, according to Pao.

But one diversity scandal after another proves a couple of things. One is that thereu2019s still not enough representation. The second is that there are still structural issues in place that create non-inclusive work environments and can fuel imposter syndrome. These structural issues entail things like an inconsistent performance review process, unclear and arbitrary paths to promotion, an ambiguous process for reporting bad behavior and secret conversations known as backchanneling. These private backchannels can create exclusive environments that prevent open, productive conversations.u00a0

This is where inclusion efforts — ideally with the buy-in from the CEO — can help. Without true inclusion, any diversity progress made will not last.

u201cWeu2019re never going to make any progress by adding talent from diverse backgrounds if we donu2019t fix the inclusion and culture issues,u201d Kapor Klein says.

Some companies have implemented unconscious bias training, but this initiative alone does not make statistically significant differences, either in reducing the incidence of bias or unfairness or increasing retention, Kapor Klein says.

DETROIT, MI – MAY 05: Lotus 1-2-3 Developer/honoree Mitchell Kapor and wife Founder of the Center for Social Impact and Partner at Kapor Capital/honoree Freada Kapor Klein speak at the 17th Annual Ford Freedom Awards at Max Fischer Music Center on May 5, 2015 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Monica Morgan/WireImage)

u201cThere is increasing serious research pointing out that unconscious bias training, especially as a one-off, is not only ineffective, it can be counterproductive,u201d she says. u201cWhat happens is people say, u2018Ok, I checked that box. I went to one hour of unconscious bias training so that must undo the 29 years Iu2019ve lived on this planet getting biased input every day.u2019 I think we have to look at not just whatu2019s ineffective but what actually either promotes backlash or is indeed counterproductive.u201d

This is where heads of diversity and inclusion are theoretically supposed to come in. Unfortunately, they are not always set up to succeed within organizations and can end up becoming companies’ instruments for lip service.

u201cI donu2019t know that anyone [a head of D&I] has done it in an impactful way where this person reports into the CEO and has the authority to stop other executives from making really bad decisions related to diversity and inclusion,u201d Pao says. u201cMost of them are under the head of HR or people or under legal. Theyu2019re not empowered and they donu2019t have the team or the authority and thereu2019s no metric that they can push people toward and hold people accountable to. Theyu2019re in this weird role where a lot of it is external facing.u201d

Take Google, for example. The company is on its third head of diversity since 2016 and has some of the more outspoken employees who are fed up with Googleu2019s culture.

u201cLetu2019s just call it like it is,u201d Leslie Miley, a former engineering manager at Twitter, Google and Apple, tells TechCrunch. u201cGoogle canu2019t keep a D&I person.u201d

In April, Googleu2019s chief diversity officer, Danielle Brown, left the company to join payroll and benefits startup Gusto. Google brought Brown on board following Nancy Leeu2019s exit from the company in 2016. At the time, it was understood that Lee was retiring but has since joined electric scooter startup Lime as its chief human resources officer. Lee, however, tells TechCrunch she was not sure if her retirement would be permanent or not.

u201cItu2019s a thankless job,u201d Miley says. u201cI think at most companies itu2019s thankless. Danielle Brown is a really good example of this. Youu2019re criticized by people for not doing enough, criticized by people for trying to do too much. There will always be a fight for resources, accountability. And when youu2019re at the intersection of gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation, that makes a lot of people fundamentally uncomfortable. And it just wears on you.u201d

Another issue with this role is that it too often reports to the human resources department, rather than directly to the CEO. With human resources, Miley says, that role is about limiting the liability of the company. So if thatu2019s the department to which a head of diversity and inclusion reports, itu2019s hard to effect change that is in service of employees.

Lee, who is now in a human resources role, says the effectiveness of a diversity lead who reports to HR depends on the relationship HR has to the rest of the executive team.

u201cBut if you have a company that is particularly lacking in diversity, then maybe there does need to be a D&I person who reports directly to the CEO,u201d she says.

Monica Poindexter, the newly appointed head of inclusion and diversity at Lyft, reports to Lyftu2019s VP of Talent and Inclusion but says there is a strong commitment from Lyft co-founders John Zimmer and Logan Green. While sheu2019s confident in Lyftu2019s approach to diversity and inclusion, as well as some other companies’ individual approaches, she takes issue with the fact that everyone is trying to attack the problem from a multitude of different ways.

u201cIf there was an opportunity to align on one or two tech industry-wide initiatives as it relates to XYZ, then we could have a collective impact,u201d she tells TechCrunch, u201cThe one thing could be around if we need to evolve the tech interview process and assessing our hiring processes to understand when and how we can improve the opportunities in creating greater pathways for diverse populations.u201d

Over the years, groups of diversity and inclusion leaders have formed but they havenu2019t stuck around.

u201cQuite honestly, there is a lot of change in these roles,u201d she says. u201cThere might be some momentum at one point but it also depends on how much support that one head of D&I has. The idea of getting them all together — thatu2019s been done — but if weu2019re really going to influence this, it should be the heads of the tech companies that get together to talk about some of these challenges.u201d

Candice Morgan, head of inclusion and diversity at Pinterest, has one of the longest stints at any tech company’s diversity and inclusion department. She’s been there since January 2016, “which in tech years, but also D&I years, is a long amount of time,” she tells TechCrunch.

“In the last three years, there have been some major changes in the industry more broadly and in our approach,” she says.

2016 was the first time Pinterest set public hiring goals and was very focused on recruiting, Morgan says. The following year, Pinterest focused a lot more energy around inclusion, and hired an inclusion specialist, increased the amount of employee resource groups and started looking at managers based on employee engagement scores.

“We identified managers that were exceptionally inclusive,” Morgan says. “On the other side, we looked at managers getting average scores around inclusion. We asked ourselves what these inclusive managers were doing differently. They displayed a huge growth mindset, they were more likely to be humble and talk about mistakes and saw failure as opportunities to grow.”

From there, Pinterest built an inclusive management handbook and training based on its learnings. And Pinterest integrated its unconscious bias training into its orientation in 2017.

Despite the common idea that diversity and inclusion leaders have little agency, Morgan seems to have a bit more sway than some of her peers. Morgan attributes that to the relationships she’s built during the amount of time she’s been at Pinterest. In January, for example, Pinterest unveiled more inclusive beauty searches on its platform. Como Pinterest stated at the time, the product feature was a result of a collaboration between the company’s technical and D&I teams working together.

“Every single one of us is doing this work,” Morgan says. “We are gaining influence in a number of ways, we’re constantly coaching leaders and so when you start to build those relationships with them, you’re very much a business partner and you can influence them. With the skin tone work, it started as something on the side that we needed to socialize a number of times.”

This year, Morgan says she’s been especially focused on microaggressions, subtle behaviors that can lead to people feeling excluded. They can be anything from commenting on a black person’s hair to using gendered language. Another example, which former Uber engineer Susan Fowler Rigetti pointed to in her damning post about Uber, is only offering company swag in men’s sizes.

As part of Morgan’s work, she’s identifying the “behaviors we can intercept to create micro-affirmations.” Micro-affirmations are small, inclusive behaviors that offer encouragement and validation to others.

“I taught a class with my inclusion program specialist focused on microaggressions and raising awareness around subtle behaviors and how they make people feel,” she says. “There is a tendency for companies or individuals to pat themselves on the back, but what happens there are more subtle ways people can feel excluded or included. Iu2019ve been spending a lot of time creating these roundtables where we put our leaders together.”

For example, she’s had discussions with Pinterest’s head of engineering and underrepresented engineers to discuss what does belonging look like on the engineering team. Every senior engineer, she says, has gone through one of those sessions.

Having a diversity and inclusion leader can surely be effective, and can be most effective if that leader has the ability to effect change and interface with senior leaders — preferably, the CEO. But only two D&I initiatives, Kapor Klein says, can make a difference as standalone. Thatu2019s setting specific diversity goals and giving a differential bonus for employee referrals of diverse talent.

u201cWhatu2019s fascinating to me is that those two initiatives require CEO support and also very sophisticated senior management support because both of those initiatives encounter backlash,u201d she says.

And for either one of those to be effective, there has to be an enlightened senior management team that understands the nuance and can push back when the CTO or a VP of engineering or anyone else says, u2018Wait a second, thatu2019s quote, unquote, reverse discrimination or thatu2019s unfair,u2019 or however they push that. So to be able to talk about what it means to create a level playing field requires a CEO who has some degree of sophistication and understands the nuance of the issue.u201d

The data says that u201cno matter how many bells and whistles you put into place, there is no substitute for an unequivocal commitment from the top,u201d she says. u201cWhoever is around that table needs to have a diversity lens when any business issue is being talked about.”

If five key initiatives are in place,u00a0however, there can be a significant change, she says. That brings Kapor Klein to her comprehensive approach, which she first outlined more than 10 years ago in u201cGiving Notice.u201d

Investing in diverse folks

Another contributor to this overall lack of diversity in tech is the lack of funding that goes to underrepresented founders. Last year, female founders brought in just 2.2 percent of U.S. venture capital dollars. And it surely doesnu2019t help that less than 10 percent of decision-makers at VC firms in the U.S. are women.

u201cI want to also share that itu2019s not just a lack of funding, itu2019s that women are treated differently,u201d Women Who Tech founder Allyson Kapin tells TechCrunch.

Kapin points to a survey that Women Who Tech conducted a couple of years ago that found, of the 44 percent of women who reported harassment, 77 percent of them said they experienced sexual harassment as founders. And 65 percent of those sexually harassed reported being propositioned for sex in exchange for funding, Kapin says.

“There is not an even leveled playing field,u201d Kapin says. u201cYou can have incredible traction, but women-led startups face barriers in terms of how critiqued they are and now you bring in a whole other level of sexism, sexual harassment and grossly propositioning women for sex in exchange for funding.u201d

Unfortunately, itu2019s an even starker picture for black female founders. While the number of black women who have received more than $1 million in investment is growing, the number is still small. In 2015, there were 12 black women who had raised more than $1 million in funding, according to digitalundividedu2019s new ProjectDiane report. In 2017, there were 34.

Still, the median amount of funding raised by black women is $0. Thatu2019s because the majority of startups founded by black women receive no money. Of the black women who raised less than $1 million in funding, the average raised amount is $42,000. In total, according to digitalundivided, black women have raised just .0006 percent of all tech venture funding since 2009.

u201cThe founders are leaving VC behind,u201d Backstage Capital Founding Partner Arlan Hamilton tells TechCrunch. u201cThey tried, they asked, they asked nicely and VCs are not biting. I have a little bit more fuel in me to keep beating this drum of institutional investors and LPs, but itu2019s very soon going to be leaving them behind at the station, and theyu2019re going to look up and ask, u2018Why wasnu2019t I in this deal?u2019 And the same way I was yelling at people four years ago saying black people make companies, the same thing is going to happen here. Iu2019m over them.u201d
n

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – SEPTEMBER 05: Backstage Capital Founder and Managing Partner Arlan Hamilton speaks onstage during Day 1 of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 at Moscone Center on September 5, 2018 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch)

Backstage Capital, which is designed to exclusively invest in black founders, closed its first $5 million fund toward the end of 2016. Hamilton is in the process of closing a second $36 million fund to continue investing in people of color, despite false reports that she had given up.

u201cThere was never a point ever that we stopped raising for the fund,u201d Hamilton tells TechCrunch. u201cThere was never a point where we thought about stopping. We are in the middle of raising for the fund. Itu2019s taking longer than we hope. The story is why does it take so long to raise a drop in the bucket of a fund. Why are people dropping out? Why are people not stepping up?u201d

Since its inception, Backstage Capital has invested in more than 60 startups led by underrepresented founders. What initially drove her was the fact that u201cthere were people being overlooked for ridiculous reasons and that oversight was an opportunity.u201d

u201cIt couldnu2019t stay that way without something breaking, and something has broken,u201d she says. u201cIt has broken in a good way — breaking good. You see it almost every day thereu2019s some other announcement about a black or brown founder or LGBT person defying odds.u201d

Hamilton points to success stories like Jewel Burks, who sold her company Partpic a Amazonas, and Morgan DeBaun, whose media company Blavity is objectively killing it.

u201cThis is the proof in the pudding that makes me know today that my instincts are right and what Iu2019m saying comes true,u201d Hamilton says. u201cIf you saw what happened the last few years, you have to believe thereu2019s something Iu2019m saying today that will come true.u201d

Within Backstage Capitalu2019s portfolio, Hamilton says weu2019ll see founders in the next 18 months announce revenue u201cout of this worldu201d and raise significant rounds. Thereu2019s a lot that is very promising to her, despite the lack of support from institutional investors.

There are very few black and Latinx investors, with only 2 percent of investment team members at VC firms identifying as black and just 1 percent identifying as Latinx, according to the National Venture Capital Association.

But there are some other funds cropping up that are run by black women and women of color, Hamilton says. Thereu2019s also Lo Toney, formerly of GV, who recently raised $35 million to fund diverse investors via Plexo Capital.

Still, the industry needs more than just a handful of people making a point to fund folks from diverse backgrounds.

u201cI donu2019t think institutional [VC] will get their act together fast enough,u201d Hamilton says.

Thereu2019s also an inherent economic privilege that plays into this. The racial wealth gap is vast and it surely impacts some potential founders of color to pursue startups. The median white family in the U.S. has 41 times the amount of wealth than the median black family and 22 times more wealth than the median Latinx family, according to the Institute for Policy Studies.

While white founders may have the support of their wealthy parents or grandparents during the early days, people of color donu2019t always have that to fall back on. There is some hope, however, with presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Last week, Warren called out venture capital for failing diverse founders and unveiled a plan to support founders of color.u00a0

This plan would provide cash to founders of color who don’t have access to the generations of wealth to which their white counterparts have.

One step forward, two steps back

While some progress has been made, it’s undeniable that the industry has taken some steps back. People have become better versed in whatu2019s going on and are more willing to speak up. Additionally, there has been some demographic representation progress made.

u201cWhile those changes are happening very slowly, we do see progress being made in some organizations along both gender, race and ethnicity lines,u201d Paradigm CEO Joelle Emerson says.

u201cI think another is a sort of nuance being added to the conversation,” Emerson says. “Iu2019ve seen a lot more companies set clear goals around the parts of the employee lifecycle rather than looking year over year. Instead, theyu2019re asking more granular questions around compensation, hiring, promotions and employee sentiment.u201d

Emerson, who has worked with tech companies like Slack and Pinterest over the last few years around diversity and inclusion, says this wasnu2019t happening four years ago. Companies, she says, were not comparing employee experiences around engagement, belonging, voice and access to resources.

Instead, u201cthey were thinking about the end of the day message about who is here and not looking at how people get there. They werenu2019t looking at what they were doing internally.u201d

u201cThe third piece is a more nuanced conversation about what diversity and inclusion even means,u201d Emerson says. u201cThere are conversations about the populations we should be talking about, and intersectionality, age, disability and economic status. Thereu2019s just a more robust conversation even being had. A lot of that is driven by employee activism.u201d

Photo by AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews

Whatu2019s driving that employee activism are the steps being taken in the wrong direction. When 20,000 Google employees walked out in November, they were protesting the company paying $105 million to two executives accused of sexual harassment. They also made five key asks, but Google has only followed through on one.

In February, Google ended forced arbitration for its employees as it relates to any case of discrimination. While technically a win, it didnu2019t apply to the temporary contractors Google employs. Meanwhile, Google did not meet the other four demands, which entailed committing to end pay and opportunity inequity, disclosing a sexual harassment transparency report, implementing a process for people to anonymously report sexual misconduct and elevating the chief diversity officer to report to the CEO.

t

Since then, however, things have only gotten worse. Google employees were forced to organize yet again in May, when employees staged a sit-in to protest the alleged retaliation toward employees at the hands of managers.

In May, two Google employees accused the company of retaliating against them for organizing the walkout. Meredith Whittaker, the lead of Googleu2019s Open Research and one of the organizers of the walkout, said her role was u201cchanged dramatically.u201d Fellow walkout organizer Claire Stapleton said her manager told her she would be demoted and lose half of her reports.

At the time, a Google spokesperson said:

u201cWe prohibit retaliation in the workplace and publicly share our very clear policy. To make sure that no complaint raised goes unheard at Google, we give employees multiple channels to report concerns, including anonymously, and investigate all allegations of retaliation.u201d

Since then, Googlers have demanded Alphabet CEO Larry Page step in and force Google to meet the demands of its employees.

Miley, however, is not surprised little has changed at Google. Roughly 20 percent of employees walked out, but Miley thinks it wouldu2019ve been more impactful if 50 to 60 percent of employees walked out.

u201cI support the walkout and the aims of the walkout,u201d Miley says. u201cI support the issues they put out there and the demands they made. I think they went about it wrong.u201d

Miley is referring to the fact that the organizers were public about their intent to walk out.

u201cIf it were me, I just wouldu2019ve walked out and then came back with demands,u201d he says. u201cPeople want to believe that Google wants to do the right thing. No, Google is a company. Companies know how to limit the powers of employees.u201d

Googleu2019s not the only company that has faced inner turmoil following reports of harassment. Employees at Riot Games similarly walked out over harassment issues in May.

The thing with harassment, unfortunately, is that even if the accused admit to wrongdoing, they have a way of bouncing back. And sometimes they get paid millions of dollars on their way out. It all relates back to the old boys club.

Many of the people in this old boys club tend to face few consequences for their bad behavior, Pao says. Dave McClure stepped back at 500 Startups following sexual misconduct allegations, cual he later admitted to. Hoy, McClure is reportedly raising money for a new fund. McClure declined to comment for this story.

u201cWeu2019re allowing all of these people back into the community who have been problematic, or we allow them to stay,u201d Pao says. u201cThey donu2019t even have to leave and come back.u201d

Then thereu2019s former SoFi CEO Mike Cagney, who was ousted from the company following a sex scandal, and went on to found another company and raise $50 million for it last year. Earlier this year, Cagney raised another $65 million.

u201cDespite the hashtag Me Too in Hollywood, and then its reverberations in venture capital, and in tech, we have seen a remarkable rebound effect for harassers,u201d Kapor Klein says. u201cHarassers land on their feet much more easily than the people who accuse them. And thatu2019s a big problem.u201d

Kapor Klein also pointed to investors Chris Sacca, Steve Jurvetson and Justin Caldbeck.

u201cYou can name white guy after white guy,u201d she says.

Jurvetson and Caldbeck declined to comment for this story. Sacca did not respond to TechCrunchu2019s request for comment.

A question thatu2019s come up in light of these sexual harassment allegations and eventual comebacks of harassers pertains to whether people can change and redeem themselves. The biggest question is if these people should be allowed to stay in the tech industry or be forever blacklisted.

u201cWell, I do believe people can change,u201d Kapor Klein says. u201cBut I donu2019t think people change in six to 18 months. I am unaware that any terms were written into any of their new contracts, which I would insist on.u201d

Whatu2019s become clear over the last year is that workers are no longer willing to be silent. Many have recognized the power they wield as employees of companies that depend on them for a healthy bottom line. Moving forward, however, itu2019s going to take more organizing to effect real change, Miley says.

u201cI donu2019t think changeu2019 happens unless you have that type of organizational structure and support and firepower to beat back the outsized influence of essentially very few people,u201d he says. u201cI think itu2019s going to take employees unionizing because it is very clear that the people benefiting from the systems are not going to change them.u201d

The light at the end of the tunnel

Larger tech companies are in too deep, but thereu2019s some hope to be had with startups. Once a company hits a certain number of employees, itu2019s hard to make meaningful change. But if you start from day one, thereu2019s a good chance you can do it right.

Project Include, founded by Pao, Kapor Klein, Baker, Tracy Chou and others, works with a few companies at a time around fostering diversity in an inclusive, comprehensive and accountable way.

u201cIf there are enough of them who are more progressive and become successful, that could change the nature of tech,u201d Pao says.

Project Include, a nonprofit organization, is a resource for people to implement change around diversity and inclusion in the tech industry. The project is focused on small to mid-stage startups, meaning anywhere from 25 to 1,000 employees.

u201cThrough Project Include, weu2019ve seen some startups that are really trying to change and I do think this new generation of startups have several CEOs who are committed to making their companies inclusive,u201d Pao says. u201cI see them really thinking about the future and seeing that the world is changing and seeing that the workforce is very different, and if they focus on white male employees theyu2019ll lose the other three-fourths of the workforce. I think they understand itu2019s not sustainable and will put them at a huge disadvantage.u201d

Pao says she feels reassured by the likes of Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz and Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson who clearly want to change and treat diversity and inclusion as an imperative.

u201cItu2019s reassuring to see theyu2019re committed to putting time and energy into it and if they are open-minded and have an inclusive culture, you can see from the numbers that they are doing better,u201d Pao says. u201cYou can see change is happening, and people starting from scratch can change.u201d

Weu2019re also approaching a period of time when the U.S. will no longer be a majority white country.

u201cThe march of demographics is unstoppable,u201d Kapor Klein says.

By the year 2044, the U.S. will become a majority-minority nation, with white people making up less than 50 percent of the nationu2019s population, according to the U.S. Census.

The impending demographic shift plus critical mass make a diverse workforce inevitable.

u201cCritical mass, which has been a concept around for a long time in social science, has some real legitimacy,u201d Kapor Klein says. u201cAnd weu2019ve all felt it. Weu2019ve all felt the fear of speaking up if we’re an only in the room. And we all understand that when there are enough of us, whoever the ‘us’ might be, that it gives much more freedom to speak up.u201d

Critical mass, depending on who you talk to, can range between ten to 30 percent. In the tech industry, that would mean an industry that is 30 percent diverse in order for the adoption of diversity and inclusion to become self-sustaining.

u201cOnce you get to critical mass, whether itu2019s on the team in a division, but especially in a company or in an ecosystem, then you very rapidly shift in culture,u201d Kapor Klein says. u201cSo I’m hoping that we are on this long, sometimes hopeful, sometimes hopeless march. But it is a steady march toward critical mass.u201d

The urgent tasks at hand

Until we reach critical mass, there are some urgent tasks at hand. These entail:

n
• Implementing clear diversity representation and inclusion goals, and a comprehensive approach to achieve them
n
• Investing more money in folks of color and female founders
n
• For workers, continuing to organize and speak out against tech employers
n
• Cross-company executive collaborationu00a0
n

Itu2019s a pretty straightforward list, but one that will take intent, organization and work to tackle.

u201cI think we may have hit the limits of easy wins and everything else now is hard,u201d Miley says. u201cAnd itu2019s hard because itu2019s not which program you can sponsor, itu2019s not having an apprenticeship program, and itu2019s not increasing the types of people in your pipeline. Itu2019s the hard work of transforming your workforce to understand the value people bring to the table is not necessarily your path. You sit and go through what people say in Blind about people lowering the bar, people wanting to maintain the culture. They hold onto it like theyu2019re constipated. I donu2019t get it.u201d

*This story has been updated to clarify a working definition of diversity, which includes race, gender, sexuality, age, ability (mental and physical), class and more.

Silicon Valley is entering a new phase in its quest for diversity and inclusion in the technology industry. Some advocates call this part u201cthe end of the beginning,u201d Code2040 CEO Karla Monterroso tells TechCrunch. At first, advocates were focused on calling out the lack of diversity at tech conferences, pressuring companies to release diversity data […] n","protected":false},"author":9528656,"featured_media":1840924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"outcome":"","status":"","crunchbase_tag":0,"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"jetpack_publicize_message":"The future of diversity and inclusion in tech https://tcrn.ch/2ZrKLmA by @meganrosedickey"},"categories":[35027640,17396],"tags":[291,47458,81819,81,449557070],"crunchbase_tag":[576603209],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_event":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/diversity-cycle.png","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"shortlink":"https://tcrn.ch/2ZrKLmA","rapidData":{"pt":"","pct":""},"featured":true,"subtitle":"Where the industry needs to go from 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

Megan Rose Dickey is a senior reporter at TechCrunch focused on diversity, inclusion and social justice. She also covers the on-demand economy, artificial intelligence and transportation.

She previously spent two years at Business Insider covering tech startups focused on the shared economy, IoT and music industry.

She graduated from the University of Southern California in 2011 with a degree in Broadcast and Digital Journalism.

PGP fingerprint for email is:u00a02FA7 6E54 4652 781A B365 BE2E FBD7 9C5F 3DAE 56BD

I have no doubt that Megan Rose Dickey has great intentions, but I have serious doubts about her strategies and their effectiveness.

I can’t see how she ever intends to get past gender and race herself when she is so wholly focused on making them the most important qualities we should value view in a person. Even if we did implement her employment quotas, at what point does she intend to stop these quotas? Is it when the education system is improved for people of low-socioeconomic demographics? Because otherwise, the quotas would have to go on forever.

She enjoys deliberately misleading the reader into furthering her agenda with lines like:

“Unfortunately, itu2019s an even starker picture for black female founders. While the number of black women who have received more than $1 million in investment is growing, the number is still small.”

“In total, according to digitalundivided, black women have raised just .0006 percent of all tech venture funding since 2009.”

– this number doesn’t show institutional racism/sexism as she would have you believe. She never appears to look at other major factors such as the amount of people from this demographic who have actually attempted to acquire funding for their tech start-up or at the foundations of any disparity with a detailed look at the education system, neither of which help her argument.

I imagine that people must praise Megan Rose Dickey on a regular basis with her articles on inclusion, and why wouldn’t you praise her? I mean, you must be a racist or a sexist if you don’t…right? I’ve got a feeling there are a lot of people who are around Megan Rose Dickey who seriously doubt the effectiveness of her arguments and ideas for overcoming sexism/racism in the workplace but are too afraid to disagree with her.

So even in the 90’s, these employers were under-employing white people–right? Seems like this is more of an “over-hiring” Asians issue.

Here are some problems–It’s not a given that skin color diversity really will affect business results and outputs–that gives far much too much credit to melatonin and genetics, don’t you think?

Another: What is “enough?” What is the goal–pure numerical distributional equality? And why are Ms. Pao’s numbers much more than arbitrary?

Another: What is “enough?” What is the goal–pure numerical distributional equality? How to handle multi-racial people?

If we get to 75% women, and 25% men, will that make things better? How? Is that “fair?” And why stop with “non-binary” gender? Why not go further, to each of the 32, 74, or even more granular representation? Race also really is non-categorical, isn’t it?

Often activists and authors mention “structural” issues as a root-cause. What are these structures? Rules? Laws? Or do they really mean tacit, inferred, subcultural suspicions? The things pointed out in the article are not nefarious “keep them folks out” structural things. They’re well-developed processes with good reasons, and they’re not race-specific. There’s nothing “structural” to point to, I assure you.

This article repeatedly uses the discriminatory phrase “old boy’s club”. Also I cannot see any old people in the photograph accompanying this article. For shame. You will only be taken seriously when you insist on targets for people in each 10-year age group – 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, 80-89 etc – to match the age profile of the US. And for all jobs, including hitech jobs, not just low-paid token jobs or managerial.

Megan Rose Dickey is a senior reporter at TechCrunch focused on diversity, inclusion and social justice. She also covers the on-demand economy, artificial intelligence and transportation.

She previously spent two years at Business Insider covering tech startups focused on the shared economy, IoT and music industry.

She graduated from the University of Southern California in 2011 with a degree in Broadcast and Digital Journalism.

PGP fingerprint for email is:u00a02FA7 6E54 4652 781A B365 BE2E FBD7 9C5F 3DAE 56BD

A number of incumbent banks are known to be developing new digital-first products in a bid to keep the new wave of challenger banks at bay and now it appears that the latest to make that move is J.P. Morgan.

According to sources, the investment bank has begun recruiting for a secretive skunkworks project within London’s booming fintech industry. Very few details are known about what exactly J.P. Morgan plans to build, although TechCrunch understands the bank is busy hiring high level developers with full-stack and cloud-based dev skills for the new project, along with other personnel.

One source tells me that interested candidates are being asked to sign an NDA, and that the project is still in its formative stages. They say the plan is to essentially build a startup within a corporation that will be run independently and entirely separately from J.P. Morgan’s existing technology and businesses. The bank is only hiring for permanent positions rather than contractors in order to keep it “secret,” another source tells me. J.P. Morgan declined to comment.

Meanwhile, for the few people I’ve spoken to who have heard about the project there’s speculation that J.P. Morgan is developing a competitor to “Marcus,” the digital bank launched by Goldman Sachs that focuses on savings and offers a competitive interest rate. That would also put it up against challenger banks such as Atom, Tandem and savings marketplace Raisin.

However, one source tells me they’ve heard that J.P. Morgan’s skunkworks project could in fact be a much more ambitious cloud-based banking platform on which numerous products can be launched. That would be more akin to a core banking SaaS platform or “AWS for Banking,” along the lines of Starling’s core banking product or Germany’s solarisBank or London’s 11:FS Foundry.

A number of incumbent banks are known to be developing new digital-first products in a bid to keep the new wave of challenger banks at bay and now it appears that the latest to make that move is J.P. Morgan. According to sources, the investment bank has begun recruiting for a secretive skunkworks project within […] n","protected":false},"author":1180458,"featured_media":1845416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"outcome":"","status":"","crunchbase_tag":0,"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"jetpack_publicize_message":"Sources: J.P. Morgan working on a secretive digital banking project based out of London https://tcrn.ch/2IoqdFN by @sohear"},"categories":[449557100,17396],"tags":[],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_event":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Jp_morgan_building.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"shortlink":"https://tcrn.ch/2IoqdFN","rapidData":{"pt":"","pct":""},"featured":false,"subtitle":"","fundingRound":false,"seoTitle":"","seoDescription":"","premiumContent":false,"premiumCutoffPercent":1,"tc_cb_mapping":[],"associatedEvent":null,"event":null,"authors":[1180458],"hideFeaturedImage":false,"relatedArticles":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1845202"}],"collection":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/types/post"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1845202/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1845514,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1845202/revisions/1845514"}],"authors":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/tc/v1/users/1180458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"count":0,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=1845202&order=asc&tc_hierarchical=flat"}],"https://techcrunch.com/edit":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1845202&action=edit"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/tc/v1/users/1180458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media/1845416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media?parent=1845202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?post=1845202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tags?post=1845202"},{"taxonomy":"_tc_cb_tag_taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/crunchbase_tag?post=1845202"},{"taxonomy":"tc_stories_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tc_stories_tax?post=1845202"},{"taxonomy":"tc_event","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tc_event?post=1845202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https://api.w.org/{rel}","templated":true}]},"_embedded":{"authors":[{"id":1180458"name":"SteveO'Hear""url":"""description":"""link":"https://techcrunchcom/author/steve-o-hear/""slug":"steve-o-hear""avatar_urls":{"24":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/95b8a6df6d265cf57a4d89ee4856ea98?s=24&d=identicon&r=g""48":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/95b8a6df6d265cf57a4d89ee4856ea98?s=48&d=identicon&r=g""96":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/95b8a6df6d265cf57a4d89ee4856ea98?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"}"links":{"homepage":"http://wwwohearnet""twitter":"https://twittercom/sohear""linkedin":"http://wwwlinkedincom/in/ohear""crunchbase":"https://wwwcrunchbasecom/person/steve-ohear"}"position":"Writer""cbDescription":"[{"id":1180458"name":"SteveO'Hear""url":"""description":"""link":"https://techcrunchcom/author/steve-o-hear/""slug":"steve-o-hear""avatar_urls":{"24":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/95b8a6df6d265cf57a4d89ee4856ea98?s=24&d=identicon&r=g""48":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/95b8a6df6d265cf57a4d89ee4856ea98?s=48&d=identicon&r=g""96":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/95b8a6df6d265cf57a4d89ee4856ea98?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"}"links":{"homepage":"http://wwwohearnet""twitter":"https://twittercom/sohear""linkedin":"http://wwwlinkedincom/in/ohear""crunchbase":"https://wwwcrunchbasecom/person/steve-ohear"}"position":"Writer""cbDescription":"

Steve O'Hear is best known as a technology journalist, currently at TechCrunch where he focuses on European startups, companies and products.

He first joined TechCrunch in November 2009 as Contributing Editor for TechCrunch Europe, where he worked alongside Editor Mike Butcher to help build TechCrunch's coverage in Europe.

In June 2011, Steve took a break from journalism to co-found the London and Prague-based startup Beepl. In his role as CEO, he helped the company raise its first VC round, along with seeing the Question & Answer site through development, private alpha and a high profile public launch. In November 2012, Beepl was acquired by Brand Embassy.

Along with TechCrunch, Steve has written for numerous publications, including ZDNet (where he wrote the well-respected blog 'The Social Web'), The Guardian, Macworld, TES, Last100 and ReadWriteWeb. He also wrote and directed the critically acclaimed Silicon Valley documentary 'In Search of the Valley', which was released in September 2006.

In 2002, Steve was made a fellow of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. He's also one half of ProtoBake Labs, an 'ideas incubator' he co-founded with Pete Harris.

Disclaimer: Steve owns a small amount of cryptocurrency, and doesn't generally write about crypto currencies. If and when he does, he will always disclose any potential conflict of interest.

Steve O'Hear is best known as a technology journalist, currently at TechCrunch where he focuses on European startups, companies and products.

He first joined TechCrunch in November 2009 as Contributing Editor for TechCrunch Europe, where he worked alongside Editor Mike Butcher to help build TechCrunch's coverage in Europe.

In June 2011, Steve took a break from journalism to co-found the London and Prague-based startup Beepl. In his role as CEO, he helped the company raise its first VC round, along with seeing the Question & Answer site through development, private alpha and a high profile public launch. In November 2012, Beepl was acquired by Brand Embassy.

Along with TechCrunch, Steve has written for numerous publications, including ZDNet (where he wrote the well-respected blog 'The Social Web'), The Guardian, Macworld, TES, Last100 and ReadWriteWeb. He also wrote and directed the critically acclaimed Silicon Valley documentary 'In Search of the Valley', which was released in September 2006.

In 2002, Steve was made a fellow of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. He's also one half of ProtoBake Labs, an 'ideas incubator' he co-founded with Pete Harris.

Disclaimer: Steve owns a small amount of cryptocurrency, and doesn't generally write about crypto currencies. If and when he does, he will always disclose any potential conflict of interest.

Startup founders don’t typically launch a company as a get-rich-quick scheme. Most know that it will be a long, hard slog if they are to succeed. There will be lean years where the money is tight, and where they may personally struggle to pay their bills. They do it because they believe in the mission and they want to build a successful company, where, if all goes well, they could end up with a healthy amount of money.

But it takes a lot of hard work, long hours, tough times and a bit of luck to find your way through to a successful outcome, however you choose to define that. Early on every dollar you give yourself is money that’s not going into the business, and while you don’t want to starve yourself, neither do you want to run out of money, and those early dollars are especially valuable.

While the ultimate goal is a successful exit, not everyone gets there, and it begs the question, how much is fair to take out in the form of salary, especially in the early years when money is tight, and at what point is it reasonable to sell a bit of equity to take some money out of the business and live a more comfortable life. There are no hard and fast answers.

Removing financial obstacles

Startup founders don’t typically launch a company as a get-rich-quick scheme. Most know that it will be a long, hard slog if they are to succeed. There will be lean years where the money is tight, and where they may personally struggle to pay their bills. They do it because they believe in the mission […] n","protected":false},"author":521068,"featured_media":1843909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"outcome":"","status":"","crunchbase_tag":0,"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[576602978,449162627,17396,35394854],"tags":[935707,449555225,1163985,576674110,576674108,576674109,576674107],"crunchbase_tag":[326875218],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_event":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/GettyImages-934873218.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"shortlink":"https://tcrn.ch/2MOKJUm","rapidData":{"pt":"","pct":""},"featured":false,"subtitle":"","fundingRound":false,"seoTitle":"","seoDescription":"","premiumContent":true,"premiumCutoffPercent":0.11,"tc_cb_mapping":[{"slug":"boldstart-ventures","cb_name":"Boldstart Ventures","cb_slug":"boldstart-ventures-organization","cb_link":"https://crunchbase.com/organization/boldstart-ventures"},{"slug":"crv","cb_name":"CRV","cb_slug":"crvvc-organization","cb_link":"https://crunchbase.com/organization/crvvc"},{"slug":"battery-ventures","cb_name":"Battery Ventures","cb_slug":"battery-ventures-organization","cb_link":"https://crunchbase.com/organization/battery-ventures"},{"slug":"ed-sim","cb_name":"Ed Sim","cb_slug":"ed-sim-person","cb_link":"https://crunchbase.com/person/ed-sim"},{"slug":"murat-bicer","cb_name":"Murat Bicer","cb_slug":"murat-bicer-person","cb_link":"https://crunchbase.com/person/murat-bicer"},{"slug":"dharmesh-thakker","cb_name":"Dharmesh Thakker","cb_slug":"dharmesh-thakker-person","cb_link":"https://crunchbase.com/person/dharmesh-thakker"}],"associatedEvent":null,"event":null,"authors":[983141],"hideFeaturedImage":false,"relatedArticles":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1843853"}],"collection":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/types/post"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1843853/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1844907,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1843853/revisions/1844907"}],"authors":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/guest-authors/ronjourn"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"count":0,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=1843853&order=asc&tc_hierarchical=flat"}],"https://techcrunch.com/edit":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1843853&action=edit"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/tc/v1/users/521068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media/1843909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media?parent=1843853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?post=1843853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tags?post=1843853"},{"taxonomy":"_tc_cb_tag_taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/crunchbase_tag?post=1843853"},{"taxonomy":"tc_stories_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tc_stories_tax?post=1843853"},{"taxonomy":"tc_event","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tc_event?post=1843853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https://api.w.org/{rel}","templated":true}]},"_embedded":{"authors":[{"id":983141"name":"RonMiller""link":"https://techcrunchcom/author/ronjourn/""description":"""slug":"ronjourn""links":{"homepage":"https://techcrunchcom/author/ron-miller/""twitter":"http://twittercom/ron_miller""linkedin":"http://wwwlinkedincom/in/ronsmiller""crunchbase":"https://wwwcrunchbasecom/person/ron-miller"}"position":"Contributor""cbDescription":"[{"id":983141"name":"RonMiller""link":"https://techcrunchcom/author/ronjourn/""description":"""slug":"ronjourn""links":{"homepage":"https://techcrunchcom/author/ron-miller/""twitter":"http://twittercom/ron_miller""linkedin":"http://wwwlinkedincom/in/ronsmiller""crunchbase":"https://wwwcrunchbasecom/person/ron-miller"}"position":"Contributor""cbDescription":"

Ron Miller has been writing about the enterprise at TechCrunch since 2014.

Previously, he was a long-time Contributing Editor at EContent Magazine. Past regular gigs included CITEworld, DaniWeb, TechTarget, Internet Evolution and FierceContentManagement.

Disclosures:

Ron is currently corporate blogger for Intronis where he writes once weekly on IT issues. He has contributed to various corporate blogs in the past including Ness, Novell and the IBM Mid-market Blogger Program.

Ron Miller has been writing about the enterprise at TechCrunch since 2014.

Previously, he was a long-time Contributing Editor at EContent Magazine. Past regular gigs included CITEworld, DaniWeb, TechTarget, Internet Evolution and FierceContentManagement.

Disclosures:

Ron is currently corporate blogger for Intronis where he writes once weekly on IT issues. He has contributed to various corporate blogs in the past including Ness, Novell and the IBM Mid-market Blogger Program.

Something strange is happening in the world of cryptocurrencies. To the investor, the speculator, or the casual observer, the industry is in the midst of the “crypto winter” marked by dwindling public interest and stagnant prices after last year’s massive plunges.

But to the engineer or the founder, it is an industry which has never been so feverish; a sector erupting and overflowing with new initiatives, new developments, and new technologies. What follows is a brief, oversimplified summary of what I view as the most important current initiatives.

Outsiders ask, quite reasonably: will anyone outside of a tiny minority ever really care? But “ever” is a long time, and blockchainers are still fairly flush with funding from the boom, and u2014 more importantly u2014 armed with two of the most potent weapons known to humankind: technical brilliance and true belief.

Something strange is happening in the world of cryptocurrencies. To the investor, the speculator, or the casual observer, the industry is in the midst of the “crypto winter” marked by dwindling public interest and stagnant prices after last year’s massive plunges. But to the engineer or the founder, it is an industry which has never […] n","protected":false},"author":18174465,"featured_media":1803384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"outcome":"","status":"","crunchbase_tag":0,"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"jetpack_publicize_message":"The most important developments in Crypto 2.0 https://tcrn.ch/2Ua7WmB"},"categories":[576602837,576601119,14911,576603525,17396],"tags":[36507086,64575263,262,576596953,277387,8590,359155,25473327,4269,3169,3280351,115532617,610,637,1417,576601068],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_event":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/GettyImages-898298440.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"shortlink":"https://tcrn.ch/2Ua7WmB","rapidData":{"pt":"","pct":""},"featured":false,"subtitle":"From digital nomads to blockchain, what will it take for an internet 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Network","cb_slug":"lightning-network-organization","cb_link":"https://crunchbase.com/organization/lightning-network"},{"slug":"microsoft","cb_name":"Microsoft","cb_slug":"microsoft-organization","cb_link":"https://crunchbase.com/organization/microsoft"}],"associatedEvent":null,"event":null,"authors":[18174465],"hideFeaturedImage":false,"relatedArticles":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1801095"}],"collection":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/types/post"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1801095/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1803365,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1801095/revisions/1803365"}],"authors":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/tc/v1/users/18174465"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"count":0,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=1801095&order=asc&tc_hierarchical=flat"}],"https://techcrunch.com/edit":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1801095&action=edit"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/tc/v1/users/18174465"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media/1803384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media?parent=1801095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?post=1801095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tags?post=1801095"},{"taxonomy":"_tc_cb_tag_taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/crunchbase_tag?post=1801095"},{"taxonomy":"tc_stories_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tc_stories_tax?post=1801095"},{"taxonomy":"tc_event","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tc_event?post=1801095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https://api.w.org/{rel}","templated":true}]},"_embedded":{"authors":[{"id":18174465"name":"JonEvans""url":"http://rezendicom/""description":"JonEvansistheCTOoftheengineeringconsultancyHappyFunCorp;theaward-winningauthorofsixnovelsonegraphicnovelandabookoftravelwriting;andTechCrunch'sweekendcolumnistsince2010""link":"https://techcrunchcom/author/jon-evans/""slug":"jon-evans""avatar_urls":{"24":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/df4f08903b7a5c3d7078165edcf5bcf7?s=24&d=identicon&r=g""48":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/df4f08903b7a5c3d7078165edcf5bcf7?s=48&d=identicon&r=g""96":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/df4f08903b7a5c3d7078165edcf5bcf7?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"}"links":{"homepage":"http://rezendicom""facebook":"http://wwwfacebookcom/rezendi""twitter":"http://twittercom/rezendi""linkedin":"http://wwwlinkedincom/in/rezendi""crunchbase":"https://wwwcrunchbasecom/person/jon-evans"}"position":"Columnist""cbDescription":"[{"id":18174465"name":"JonEvans""url":"http://rezendicom/""description":"JonEvansistheCTOoftheengineeringconsultancyHappyFunCorp;theaward-winningauthorofsixnovelsonegraphicnovelandabookoftravelwriting;andTechCrunch'sweekendcolumnistsince2010""link":"https://techcrunchcom/author/jon-evans/""slug":"jon-evans""avatar_urls":{"24":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/df4f08903b7a5c3d7078165edcf5bcf7?s=24&d=identicon&r=g""48":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/df4f08903b7a5c3d7078165edcf5bcf7?s=48&d=identicon&r=g""96":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/df4f08903b7a5c3d7078165edcf5bcf7?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"}"links":{"homepage":"http://rezendicom""facebook":"http://wwwfacebookcom/rezendi""twitter":"http://twittercom/rezendi""linkedin":"http://wwwlinkedincom/in/rezendi""crunchbase":"https://wwwcrunchbasecom/person/jon-evans"}"position":"Columnist""cbDescription":"

Jon Evans is a novelist, journalist, and software engineer. His novels have been published around the world, translated into several languages, and praised by The Times, The Economist, and the Washington Post. His journalism has appeared in Wired, Reader's Digest, The Guardian, The Globe & Mail, and The Times of India, and he writes a weekly column for TechCrunch. Jon also has a degree in electrical engineering and a decade of experience as a software developer, building everything from smartphone apps to billion-dollar asset-allocation services.

Jon Evans is a novelist, journalist, and software engineer. His novels have been published around the world, translated into several languages, and praised by The Times, The Economist, and the Washington Post. His journalism has appeared in Wired, Reader's Digest, The Guardian, The Globe & Mail, and The Times of India, and he writes a weekly column for TechCrunch. Jon also has a degree in electrical engineering and a decade of experience as a software developer, building everything from smartphone apps to billion-dollar asset-allocation services.

Andrey Suslov via Getty Images

Getting an H-1B skilled-worker visa is like winning the lottery u2014 literalmente: With the number of new visas issued each year capped at 85,000, most of this year’s over 200,000 applicants face disappointment. But if youu2019re already working in the United States, then youu2019ve already won the H-1B lottery, and that makes you a hot commodity.

With H-1Bs in short supply, successful companies frequently poach skilled workers. Everyone knows the tech sector thrives on this free exchange of people and ideas, so if another employer needs your skills, why not start working for them?

Well, not so fast. H-1B holders can work only for the company that originally sponsored their visa application. So if you want to change employers, youu2019ll need to u201ctransferu201d your H-1B.

That process used to be relatively straightforward but not in the Trump era. (Boundless recently underwent this process with an employee, so we understand the pain.) The denial rate for initial H-1B applications spiked over five-fold to 32 percent just in the first quarter of fiscal 2019, up from 6 percent in 2015. Crucially, the Trump administration is targeting u201ccontinuingu201d H-1B applications used by existing employees to either renew their H-1B or switch it to a new employer. Even tech giants like Amazon are now seeing double-digit rejection rates.

The bottom line: The days of getting an H-1B transfer quickly rubber-stamped are long gone, and that makes it vital to do whatever you can to keep the odds in your favor. The stakes are high u2014 if things go south, you could lose your right to live and work in the United States. Hereu2019s what H-1B holders need to know about the right u2014 and wrong u2014 ways to set about switching employers:

Donu2019t take your transfer for granted.

First, understand that an H-1B u201ctransferu201d is actually a brand new visa application, not a simple handover of your existing H-1B visa from one employer to another u2014 thereu2019s no such thing.

Getting an H-1B skilled-worker visa is like winning the lottery u2014 literally: With the number of new visas issued each year capped at 85,000, most of this year’s over 200,000 applicants face disappointment. But if youu2019re already working in the United States, then youu2019ve already won the H-1B lottery, and that makes you a hot commodity.

A number of promising women’s health tech companies have popped up in the last few years, from fertility apps to ovulation bracelets — even Apple has jumped into the subject with the addition of period tracking built into the latest edition of the watch. But there hasn’t been much in the way of innovación in women’s sexual health for decades.

In-vitro fertilization (IVF) is now a 40-year-old invention and even the top pharmaceutical companies have spent a pittance on research and development. Subjects like polycystic ovarian syndrome, endometriosis and menopause have taken a backseat to other, more fatal concerns. Fertility is itself oftentimes a mysterious black box as well, though a full 10% of the female population in the United States has difficulty getting or staying pregnant.

That’s all starting to change as startups are now bringing in millions in venture capital to gather and treat women’s health. While it’s early days (no unicorns just yet) interest in the subject has been jumping steadily higher each year.

To shine a better light on the importance of tech’s role in spurring more innovation for women’s fertility, we asked five VCs passionate about the space for their investment strategies, including Sarah Cone (Social Impact Capital), Vanessa Larco (NEA), Anu Duggal (Female Founders Fund), Jess Lee (Sequoia) and Nancy Brown (Oak HC/FT).

Sarah Cone, Social Impact Capital

Sarah Cone, Social Impact Capital

Weu2019re interested in companies that create large data sets in womenu2019s health and fertility, enabling personalized medicine, clinical trial virtualization, better patient outcomes, and the application of modern AI/ML techniques to generate hypotheses that discover new targets and molecules.

A number of promising women’s health tech companies have popped up in the last few years, from fertility apps to ovulation bracelets — even Apple has jumped into the subject with the addition of period tracking built into the latest edition of the watch. But there hasn’t been much in the way of innovation in […] n","protected":false},"author":4917400,"featured_media":1836935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"outcome":"","status":"","crunchbase_tag":0,"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"jetpack_publicize_message":"What top VCs look for in women’s fertility startups https://tcrn.ch/2I6Znlp"},"categories":[449557102,1772,576596927,337,446313605,20429,17396],"tags":[449547332,291,12374,10406,406669,35350,304713875,449553379,1460,91372,576599593,7383,326792,576608420,479814,449557049,202,449551602],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_event":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/GettyImages-623680490.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"shortlink":"https://tcrn.ch/2I6Znlp","rapidData":{"pt":"","pct":""},"featured":true,"subtitle":"Investors are starting to pour millions into women's health tech. Does your startup have what it takes to get their attention?","fundingRound":false,"seoTitle":"","seoDescription":"","premiumContent":true,"premiumCutoffPercent":0.23,"tc_cb_mapping":[{"slug":"female-founders-fund","cb_name":"Female Founders Fund","cb_slug":"female-founders-fund-organization","cb_link":"https://crunchbase.com/organization/female-founders-fund"},{"slug":"apple","cb_name":"Apple","cb_slug":"apple-organization","cb_link":"https://crunchbase.com/organization/apple"},{"slug":"abbvie","cb_name":"AbbVie","cb_slug":"abbvie-organization","cb_link":"https://crunchbase.com/organization/abbvie"}],"associatedEvent":null,"event":null,"authors":[4917400],"hideFeaturedImage":false,"relatedArticles":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1836879"}],"collection":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/types/post"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1836879/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1840886,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1836879/revisions/1840886"}],"authors":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/tc/v1/users/4917400"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"count":0,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=1836879&order=asc&tc_hierarchical=flat"}],"https://techcrunch.com/edit":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1836879&action=edit"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/tc/v1/users/4917400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media/1836935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media?parent=1836879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?post=1836879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tags?post=1836879"},{"taxonomy":"_tc_cb_tag_taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/crunchbase_tag?post=1836879"},{"taxonomy":"tc_stories_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tc_stories_tax?post=1836879"},{"taxonomy":"tc_event","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tc_event?post=1836879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https://api.w.org/{rel}","templated":true}]},"_embedded":{"authors":[{"id":4917400"name":"SarahBuhr""url":"""description":"""link":"https://techcrunchcom/author/sarah-buhr/""slug":"sarah-buhr""avatar_urls":{"24":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/fd29b49402f568221dff899bf12b7c14?s=24&d=identicon&r=g""48":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/fd29b49402f568221dff899bf12b7c14?s=48&d=identicon&r=g""96":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/fd29b49402f568221dff899bf12b7c14?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"}"links":{"homepage":"http://wwwaboutme/sarahbuhr""facebook":"http://wwwfacebookcom/sarahbuhr""twitter":"http://twittercom/sarahbuhr""linkedin":"http://wwwlinkedincom/in/sarahjanebuhr""crunchbase":"https://wwwcrunchbasecom/person/sarah-buhr"}"position":"Reporter""cbDescription":"[{"id":4917400"name":"SarahBuhr""url":"""description":"""link":"https://techcrunchcom/author/sarah-buhr/""slug":"sarah-buhr""avatar_urls":{"24":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/fd29b49402f568221dff899bf12b7c14?s=24&d=identicon&r=g""48":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/fd29b49402f568221dff899bf12b7c14?s=48&d=identicon&r=g""96":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/fd29b49402f568221dff899bf12b7c14?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"}"links":{"homepage":"http://wwwaboutme/sarahbuhr""facebook":"http://wwwfacebookcom/sarahbuhr""twitter":"http://twittercom/sarahbuhr""linkedin":"http://wwwlinkedincom/in/sarahjanebuhr""crunchbase":"https://wwwcrunchbasecom/person/sarah-buhr"}"position":"Reporter""cbDescription":"

I write about the wild new frontier of biotechnology (3D printed organs, one drop blood tests, or hamburgers grown in a lab? I'm your gal), also a bit of politics, gender and diversity and sometimes they put me on camera at TechCrunch so send your fun gadgets and gizmos my way.

I write about the wild new frontier of biotechnology (3D printed organs, one drop blood tests, or hamburgers grown in a lab? I'm your gal), also a bit of politics, gender and diversity and sometimes they put me on camera at TechCrunch so send your fun gadgets and gizmos my way.

Beautiful women working out in gym together

Buying a car is painful. Dealerships are the worst, and the options are endless. The rise of the Internet produced powerful tools for shoppers, but in the end, most buyers still have to trudge down to a car lot.

For this series of articles, TechCrunch spoke with several founders and investors attempting to rethink car buying. It’s clear these startups are the underdog in this fight. Most consumers buy cars the same way as their grandparents did and for good reason. Dealerships nationwide fought for years to enact laws and regulations that protect their businesses.

Several young companies are attempting to put the dealership online. Companies like Carvana, Shift, Vroom and Joydrive are putting the entire car buying process online, allowing customers to buy, trade-in and even test drive vehicles without talking to a salesman in an oversized golf pullover.

In the next part of this series, weu2019ll look at companies like Fair that are moving consumers away from purchasing and into short-term leases. Even automakers are trying something new. Tesla sells directly to consumers while Volvo, BMW, Mercedes and others are launching subscription options to give owners even more flexibility.

The three new dealerships

Several companies are building online car dealerships. Shoppers find and buy a vehicle solely through these sites, and often, the cars are delivered to the buyer. These online dealerships even take trade-ins.

Three services dominate this space, and they were all founded in 2013. Carvana, Shift, and Vroom hit the market at the same time but have experienced different paths. One thing is clear though: it takes hundreds of millions of venture capital money to build an online dealership.

Emily Melton, co-founder and managing partner, Threshold Ventures (formally known as DFJ Ventures), points to consumeru2019s changing expectations and an optimized process across all kinds of vehicles. She co-led Shiftu2019s Series A in 2014.

Buying a car is painful. Dealerships are the worst, and the options are endless. The rise of the Internet produced powerful tools for shoppers, but in the end, most buyers still have to trudge down to a car lot. For this series of articles, TechCrunch spoke with several founders and investors attempting to rethink car […] 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Matt is a Managing Editor at TechCrunch.

He started at TechCrunch as a freelance writer in 2008 and moved up the ranks to become the Managing Editor in early 2017. Born and raised in the heart of the automotive world, he has a special place in his heart for mobility startups and gadgets.

At TechCrunch he manages the editorial side of the company's events including TechCrunch Disrupt, TechCrunch Sessions and the company's various worldwide events. Previously he was a freelance writer at Engadget and EngadgetHD where he hosted podcasts until he was removed from that role after saying a swear word. He's very sorry and promises it won't happen again.

His passions include emails, run-on sentences and following through with action items developed during a conference call. And woodwork.

Matt is a Managing Editor at TechCrunch.

He started at TechCrunch as a freelance writer in 2008 and moved up the ranks to become the Managing Editor in early 2017. Born and raised in the heart of the automotive world, he has a special place in his heart for mobility startups and gadgets.

At TechCrunch he manages the editorial side of the company's events including TechCrunch Disrupt, TechCrunch Sessions and the company's various worldwide events. Previously he was a freelance writer at Engadget and EngadgetHD where he hosted podcasts until he was removed from that role after saying a swear word. He's very sorry and promises it won't happen again.

His passions include emails, run-on sentences and following through with action items developed during a conference call. And woodwork.

Snow day. All meetings are canceled until further notice. Google Calendar has been hit with what appear to be some pretty widespread issues. The company has confirmed service interruptions via its G Suite Status Dashboard, noting, “We’re investigating reports of an issue with Google Calendar. We will provide more information shortly. The affected users are unable to access Google Calendar.”

I’m in that boot, as are multiple other TechCrunch staff members. It does appear at the moment that other Google services are unaffected by the issue. We reached out to Google for more information, but they simply redirected us to the above status. No further information on what’s going on or whether Taco Tuesday is canceled.

More info as it’s available. Until then, we’ll be happily avoiding all meetings for the time being.

Snow day. All meetings are canceled until further notice. Google Calendar has been hit with what appear to be some pretty widespread issues. The company has confirmed service interruptions via its G Suite Status Dashboard, noting, “We’re investigating reports of an issue with Google Calendar. We will provide more information shortly. The affected users are […] n","protected":false},"author":699688,"featured_media":1845552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"outcome":"","status":"","crunchbase_tag":0,"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"jetpack_publicize_message":"Google Calendar is down, itu2019s not just you https://tcrn.ch/2RmhOWl by @bheater"},"categories":[449557102],"tags":[81,134522],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_event":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/IMG_4364.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"shortlink":"https://tcrn.ch/2RmhOWl","rapidData":{"pt":"","pct":""},"featured":false,"subtitle":"","fundingRound":false,"seoTitle":"","seoDescription":"","premiumContent":false,"premiumCutoffPercent":1,"tc_cb_mapping":[{"slug":"google","cb_name":"Google","cb_slug":"google-organization","cb_link":"https://crunchbase.com/organization/google"}],"associatedEvent":null,"event":null,"authors":[699688],"hideFeaturedImage":false,"relatedArticles":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1845551"}],"collection":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/types/post"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1845551/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1845554,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1845551/revisions/1845554"}],"authors":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/tc/v1/users/699688"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"count":1,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=1845551&order=asc&tc_hierarchical=flat"}],"https://techcrunch.com/edit":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1845551&action=edit"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/tc/v1/users/699688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media/1845552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media?parent=1845551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?post=1845551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tags?post=1845551"},{"taxonomy":"_tc_cb_tag_taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/crunchbase_tag?post=1845551"},{"taxonomy":"tc_stories_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tc_stories_tax?post=1845551"},{"taxonomy":"tc_event","embeddable":true,"href":"https://techcrunch.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tc_event?post=1845551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https://api.w.org/{rel}","templated":true}]},"_embedded":{"authors":[{"id":699688"name":"BrianHeater""url":"""description":"""link":"https://techcrunchcom/author/brian-heater/""slug":"brian-heater""avatar_urls":{"24":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/eb77d830ad404e16ee7a4c7000b5f49d?s=24&d=identicon&r=g""48":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/eb77d830ad404e16ee7a4c7000b5f49d?s=48&d=identicon&r=g""96":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/eb77d830ad404e16ee7a4c7000b5f49d?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"}"links":{"twitter":"https://twittercom/bheater""linkedin":"http://wwwlinkedincom/pub/brian-heater/1/a92/94""crunchbase":"https://wwwcrunchbasecom/person/brian-heater"}"position":"HardwareEditor""cbDescription":"[{"id":699688"name":"BrianHeater""url":"""description":"""link":"https://techcrunchcom/author/brian-heater/""slug":"brian-heater""avatar_urls":{"24":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/eb77d830ad404e16ee7a4c7000b5f49d?s=24&d=identicon&r=g""48":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/eb77d830ad404e16ee7a4c7000b5f49d?s=48&d=identicon&r=g""96":"https://securegravatarcom/avatar/eb77d830ad404e16ee7a4c7000b5f49d?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"}"links":{"twitter":"https://twittercom/bheater""linkedin":"http://wwwlinkedincom/pub/brian-heater/1/a92/94""crunchbase":"https://wwwcrunchbasecom/person/brian-heater"}"position":"HardwareEditor""cbDescription":"

Brian Heater is the Hardware Editor at TechCrunch. He worked for a number of leading tech publications, including Engadget, PCMag, Laptop, and Tech Times, where he served as the Managing Editor. His writing has appeared in Spin, Wired, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, The Onion, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly, The Daily Beast and various other publications. He hosts the weekly Boing Boing interview podcast RiYL, has appeared as a regular NPR contributor and shares his Queens apartment with a rabbit named Lucy.

The app on my iPhone is still working?

Brian Heater is the Hardware Editor at TechCrunch. He worked for a number of leading tech publications, including Engadget, PCMag, Laptop, and Tech Times, where he served as the Managing Editor. His writing has appeared in Spin, Wired, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, The Onion, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly, The Daily Beast and various other publications. He hosts the weekly Boing Boing interview podcast RiYL, has appeared as a regular NPR contributor and shares his Queens apartment with a rabbit named Lucy.