Bloomberg’s Emily Chang on Solving Tech’s Diversity Problem

Spencer Rascoff

Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.

Bloomberg’s Emily Chang on Solving Tech’s Diversity Problem

Emily Chang is a best-selling author and host and executive producer of Bloomberg Technology. Earlier this year, she made waves with her book “Brotopia," an expose on how sexism became pervasive in Silicon Valley, despite its utopian ideals. Drawing on interviews with some of tech's biggest names, Emily shines a bright light on a big problem. In this episode, Emily joins Spencer at Zillow Group's San Francisco office to discuss her inspiration for the book, how the tech community got to this point and what we can do about it.


Press Play to hear the full conversation or check out the transcript below. You can also subscribe to Office Hours on Apple Podcasts and PodcastOne.

Spencer Rascoff: Good to see you all. I'm here with Emily Chang. Hello, Emily. Welcome.

Emily Chang: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Rascoff: I'm excited to have you here as a guest and turn the tables. You're usually interviewing me, and I now finally get to interview you.

Chang: It's payback time.

Rascoff: So, let's take a step back and talk about the writing journey of why you decided to write this book, when you started, and what that research and writing process was like, and then we'll jump into some of the themes and discoveries from it.

Chang: Yeah, so, I anchor a daily show on Bloomberg Television, and that's been going on for eight years now, and when we first launched the show, my focus was getting people like you to come on, which wasn't always so easy. Now I think we've gotten there, but you know, over time, I sort of started asking more questions of my guests. “Well, what are you doing about this?" I mean, the tech industry has such a grave inequality, but no one was talking about it. I mean, women hold 25 percent of technical jobs across the board. They account for seven to eight percent of venture investors, and companies that are run by women get just two percent of funding. This is an industry that calls itself a meritocracy, and I highly doubt that women have just two percent of good ideas.

Rascoff: And when you were starting to focus on this, though, the world was not talking about it. This was before Me Too, before Time's Up.

Chang: These questions were very politically incorrect and they made people uncomfortable, which is why I didn't feel like I could ask them initially. And when I did, people would give the sort of politically correct answer, and then they would get off the set and then they would spill it. And so I knew that there was so much more there. And then at the end of 2015, I was interviewing one particular investor, who I talk about in Chapter 5 — very prominent, very successful investor — and they had no women in their US business at the time. And I said, “What are you doing to hire women? What do you think your responsibility is?" And he said, “Oh, well we're looking very hard, and I think we're completely blind to gender, race, sexuality — but, what we're not prepared to do is to lower our standards." And this was on television. And I know some people think that, but they don't normally say it on television. And that was sort of my Time's Up moment. And let's put aside what he said. Maybe it was a flip comment. Let's judge them on their actions. In 44 years, this firm did not hire a single woman investor.

This is an industry that styles itself as a place where anyone can succeed and, you know, my — that it's a sort of modern utopia where anyone can change the world and anyone can make their own rules. I think that can be true if you're a man. But if you're a woman, it's incomparably harder.

Rascoff: Okay. It's depressing, but we're going to change all that, and actually the fact that we're even talking about this, which would have been almost unheard of two or three years ago, is a start. So as you — what surprised you most as you started researching this at companies? I mean, you uncovered some awful, awful things — Harvey Weinstein-type awful. Was that surprising to you or, I mean, what was the most surprising aspect of the research?

Chang: And by the way, the book is — you know, it can be a hard read, but there are bright spots, there are villains, but there are also heroes. And so it's not entirely all depressing, and there's also concrete takeaway —

Rascoff: And there's solutions. And we're going to talk about solutions, yeah.

Chang: And things you can do. But yes, I was surprised, and especially with the behavior on the venture capital side where, you know, deals are done in one-on-one meetings, in one-on-one spaces and just how many women were so often put in these very uncomfortable positions. You know, after Susan Fowler's blog post came out, I had 12 women engineers over at my home for dinner who worked at a range of companies, big and small — Google, a couple of them worked at Uber — and you know, they're telling me about getting invited to strip clubs and bondage clubs in the middle of the day, and they felt like they couldn't say no. Or they were put in this position of, “Well, do I go and be part of whatever work conversations happen or do I not go and then I'm excluded from those conversations?" You know, I do think those are the more extreme and egregious examples, and the even bigger problem is the sort of systemic discrimination that creeps into every space simply because women are so outnumbered in this industry. And so they are often the only woman in a room over and over and over again. And they describe it as having to do this sort of constant emotional labor that they don't get credit for, which is like an entire second job that men don't have to do.

Rascoff: What do you mean by emotional labor?

Chang: Well, it's sort of feeling like they have to prove themselves over and over again, that people are sort of doubting why they're there, you know, fighting against these microaggressions that, again, it's things that are difficult to pinpoint and call out and say, “Hey, I'm being mansplained." Like, that sounds kind of odd, but it sort of wears on them. And I think that is the bigger problem. I mean, this is an industry that has been so male-dominated for so long that it can be difficult to sort of break that up and start fresh

Rascoff: And one of the things I was surprised by in the book was it wasn't always this way. At the beginning of technology, it was a much more equitable world in tech. So, describe what you found during your research.

Chang: When you go back to the '40s and '50s, women actually played a huge role in the computing industry. Men were primarily the hardware makers, but women were pretty well-represented among software programmers. And they were programming computers for the military and programming computers for NASA, and it literally was “Hidden Figures" but industrywide. And then in the '60s and '70s, as the tech industry was starting to explode, they were so desperate for new programmers that they started doing these personality tests and aptitude tests to identify them. And the makers of these tests decided that good programmers “don't like people." Which makes a lot of sense, right? There's no research to support the idea that people who don't like people are better at this job than people who do, and generally, more men fit into that category, I will say. And this stereotype shut out more than half the population, and these tests were used for decades by companies as big as IBM.

Rascoff: Well, and there's still — you can argue they're not tests, necessarily, but they're still sort of used today in the way a lot of interviewing gets done.

Chang: Exactly, and so it — these tests basically solidified this sort of antisocial, mostly white male nerd stereotype that persists to this day, and then it got repeated in movies and popular culture. And, people sort of think, oh, you know, “Revenge of the Nerds," they created this stereotype, when in fact they were just repeating what they saw in the industry already. And so my argument is that the tech industry created its own pipeline problem. In 1984, women were earning 37 percent of computer science degrees. That has since plummeted to 18 percent where it's been flat for the last decade. And you see the same sort of trend with tech jobs.

Rascoff: And in medicine, for example, it's been quite the opposite.

Chang: It's been the opposite. And actually the implementation of Title IX in the '70s had the opposite effect in law and medicine, where women started charging into these fields and lowering the barriers to entry, but tech actually raised the barriers to entry. And you see the same sort of stereotypes and perception repeated to this day. Case in point, James Damore at Google, who wrote that viral memo where he argued that men are biologically more suited to this job than women, and he was just repeating the same sort of hostile, you know, mythical stereotype that those early programming tests perpetuated.

Rascoff: And yet I thought some of the responses to that were spot on where they talked about actually the importance of empathy, that what engineers are doing, what product people do, is they're trying to solve other people's problems. So, actually empathy is very important.

Chang: Absolutely. I mean, there's a great argument to be made that we need people who like people and care about people to be doing these jobs as well, but, you know, that overall we should have people of a variety of backgrounds building products that billions of people around the world are using. I mean, this is an industry — you guys are building the future. You're changing the way we live our lives, and so it makes zero sense for 95 percent of the decisions to be made by white men.

Rascoff: So, I think we can all agree that some of the things that you discuss here, whether it's the cuddle puddles (which is a term I'd never heard before I read your book and I never want to hear again) or, you know, VCs asking entrepreneurs to pitch them their business idea in a hot tub. I mean, these are obviously gross and inappropriate and disgusting.

Chang: I'm glad you think so.

Rascoff: But the more subtle forms of discrimination or things that impact employee engagement — let's discuss why diversity and inclusion is important. Like, what are the business outcomes that get changed if you have a more diverse set of people forming these decisions and building these products?

Chang: So, I fully believe that if we had, you know, more diverse teams create better products, make more money, are more innovative, and research proves that out. But just saying that can kind of fly over people's heads. So, I interviewed Ev Williams, for example, the founder of Twitter — co-founder of Twitter, and I asked him, “If you had more women on the early Twitter team, designing early Twitter, do you think online harassment and trolling would be such a problem?" And he was like, “You know what, I don't think it would be. We weren't thinking about that at all when we were building Twitter. We were thinking about all the wonderful and amazing things that could be done with it, not how it could be used to send death threats or how it could be used to send rape threats." And, you know, facial recognition technology is already a little bit sexist and a little bit racist and doesn't recognize women and people of color as easily as it does white men. And so I think, well, if women had had a seat at the table 10, 20, 30 years ago, maybe the internet would be a friendlier place, maybe video games would not be so violent, maybe porn wouldn't be so ubiquitous. And so I think there's an incredibly compelling business case here that this can impact product and product design, and you — you know, I know that you guys at Zillow are really focused on this and, you know, for the first time, you've added some pretty innovative information to your listings that has never been done before, right?

Rascoff: This is the Trulia LGBTQ protections. So, a round of applause, by the way, because this team built it.

[Applause]

Rascoff: Yeah, I mean, some other examples, I mean, Uber being built really without passenger or driver safety features, which now they're scrambling to roll out, I mean, probably if more women had been involved in the creation of Uber, perhaps it would have occurred to somebody that some of these people are going to do bad things to riders or to drivers.

Chang: I mean, it is astonishing that this is a company that's been around for almost a decade now and that only now are they thinking about these things. And actually it's so much harder when you are already at scale to go backwards and try to fix what is broken, which is why, you know, it's so much better if you start thinking about these things really early on, and then it's just easier as you go. And I hear from people so often, “Well, it's so hard; it takes so much time to find more diverse candidates." And you know, my answer is, “Well, this will save you time in the long run."

Rascoff: When we first launched Zillow almost 10 years ago, our idea was to turn on the lights and set all this real estate information free — what people paid for their home, what homes were worth, et cetera. And part of that information set is the owner of the home. And so it was very natural for us to consider putting the owner's name on every home, 100 million homes in America. And we were getting ready to do that. Lloyd Frank, our vice chairman, and I thought this was a terrific idea. This is “set information free." And Kristin Acker, who's SVP of product and also very involved here in this office at Trulia, she said, “That's a terrible idea. There are stalkers out there that are going to use Zillow to figure out where their ex-wife lives and bad things are going to happen. And the first time someone gets raped or killed because they were able to find that information out through our site, that's going to be a really awful day." And having — in that case, it was gender diversity in the room and just give that totally different perspective was really valuable, and it allowed us to, I think, make the right product decision.

Okay, let's talk solutions and then we're going to ask — I'm going to ask you some questions that some of our employees submitted through Slack. What can we do about all this? We as a company, we as a society, you know, what's the answer?

Chang: So, first of all, I think change needs to come from the top, and we need CEOs and investors to make this a priority. And so that's why I'm so glad that you invited me here, I'm so glad you're talking about this, I'm so glad you're willing to admit the mistakes. And there are people in the book who are willing to talk about the things that they did wrong, and that's so important. Like, we all have biases, right? Whether you're the CEO or a product designer, you know, we all come at problems based on our own life experience, no matter what that might be, and I think we just need to recognize that.

If you just focus on raising awareness about bias, however, it's not necessarily going to have a huge impact. If you give people tools to combat their bias, that can have a big impact. So, whether that is, you know, not even starting an interview process until you have two female candidates and two candidates of color, or diversifying your recruiting team, or structuring your interview process so you're asking everyone the same questions rather than doing this sort of free-form thing where you sort of tailor the questions to, you know, who they are and, you know, that can obviously lead to bias because if someone looks “the part," you're going to ask them different questions than if someone doesn't look the part.

It's not just about hiring, though. It's about retention and progression and creating a culture where everybody can thrive. And so women are twice as likely to leave tech as men, and they're leaving, you know, 12 years into their career, which could be at this huge inflection point where they've got some real experience and could sort of skyrocket up, but at the same time, you know, they're having this sort of moment of, “Well, am I really feeling valued here?" And there's this perception that women leave because they have families or they're leaning back in their careers, but actually they're going to jobs in other fields. And so, you know, we need to make sure that you're not losing the women that you have. And so that's about creating a culture where everyone can feel included and comfortable and a place where they can be themselves.

And so it's — you know, I talked about structuring the interview process, but structuring review and feedback systems. Slack is an example in the book. Their motto is work hard and go home. They're like, “We're trying to hire adults here, not just kids out of college," and they're very focused on making sure that people can sustain careers over a long life. This is a super competitive industry. You know, talent — it's a war for talent. And so you don't want people just hanging around for a year and a half, you want them for as long as you can have them. And so there are so many things that I think also individuals can do, and I think we all need to listen better, we need to be having these conversations. I know they might make people feel a little bit uncomfortable. I kind of think that's a good thing right now to raise awareness.

And you know, I'm so grateful for the women who have spoken up over the last year and the collective courage that they have summoned, but this this is not just on women. This is on all of us, men too, and so if you see someone — I mean, I think mentorship and advocacy is so important. I know that's really important to you guys here. But if you see someone being interrupted or you see someone not getting an opportunity, call that out. It can be a lot easier for you to do it as a bystander or a witness than for the victim to say, “Hey, I'm being mansplained. Can you stop that, please?" So I just think there's so much that, sort of, we all can do to help each other on this to get to a better place.

Rascoff: Where we started on this journey, we, at Zillow Group, when we started focusing more on this issue, which was probably three-ish years ago, it actually started with employee engagement. You know, the first thing we did was we said, “OK, we have — we're sadly underrepresented in terms of diversity, but we're not nowhere. Let's actually see how engaged different sets of employees are." And the results were eye-opening and not good. Non-whites were less engaged. They felt less connected to the company, they felt less welcome, and that was the eye-opening moment for me. It was like we spend all this time, effort and money trying to get the world's greatest people into this company. It is incumbent upon us, not to mention that it's the right thing to do, but in terms of business results, I want all of these people to be doing their best work, and if they don't feel connected to the company, we should fix that.

And we've made huge strides in that regard.

The other thing that your comments made me think of was the culture-fit issue. Because a lot of this happens — the tip of the spear is the interview and recruiting. And we try not to talk about culture fit. I think culture fit can be code for hire people that look like me and dress like me and act like me. And so we talk a lot about core-value fit and assessing a candidate to see, do they fit to our six core values, not is it a good culture fit.

Chang: I have a new term for you: culture addition. So looking — it's like you honor your culture, you like your culture, but you're looking for people who are going to add to your culture and expand your culture. You know, and I love the core value ideas as well. And I think writing those down and communicating them to employees is so important.

Rascoff: All right, so a couple questions that came from employees via our Slack channels. From Megan Hansen, who works for Trulia in content strategy, she writes, “Any advice on how we can change a work culture that sees moms as moms but not dads as dads? Specifically, it seems that the work of childcare still falls to working moms, such as needing to leave early for doctors' appointments and daycare pickup, potentially because it seems less likely that working dads are also seen as caretakers while in the workplace."

Chang: So, I do think that work needs to be shared at home more equally if we want work to be shared at work. That's not the reality today. I think that so many of the things that women want at work dads want too, and, you know, both moms and dads are parents. I think it can start with benefits and having equal maternity and paternity leave policies and actually encouraging the dads to take it, because there is — I mean, just like there's — I know that I've taken three maternity leaves. I know how hard it is as a woman to leave for that period of time. And you know, I think for dads, there's still this sort of social stigma against taking that time off, and so I think that that can be really important in sort of starting to change those kinds of cultural norms.

I think flexibility is really important in making sure that work after work is valued, and so I leave to pick up my kids because my boss, the editor in chief of Bloomberg, has said people should feel okay going home and picking up their kids. But I get back online, and I do my work, and I want that work to count. We all want sustainable lives, and so making work work for people of all kinds should be the focus.

Rascoff: From Natalie, an engineer at Trulia, she writes, “In your book, you write about Sheryl Sandberg's response to your email. In addition to having women in leadership roles paving the way for more women in leadership roles, what else do you think is critical to successfully increasing female representation in the workplace?"

Chang: When I was pregnant with my first child, this was now six years ago, and it was just when that article “Why Women Can't Have It All Still" came out. And I was like devastated. I was seven months pregnant, I was having all these sort of conflicting emotions, “How am I going to do this? Maybe it's impossible," and then that article came out and I cried myself to sleep that night. And the next day — and the article really took aim at Sheryl. And I'd never met Sheryl at that point, and I just emailed her out of the blue. And I said, “You know what, I just want to say thank you for putting yourself out there on these issues." She had done her TED Talk and I had re-watched it, and it actually made a difference to me.

And she wrote right back, like in 15 seconds, and said, “Congratulations! Is this your first?" And I was like, “Yes," and wrote this sort of very overzealous response. And then she said “Here's my cell phone. Let me know if you ever want advice." And I was, again, shocked. And of course I didn't just call her cell phone. I found out who her assistant was, I figured — and I got time in her calendar in three weeks, and she called me on the dot. And I got a half-hour of uninterrupted time with her one-on-one — this is before “Lean In" — where she kind of gave me a little pep talk and was like, “You can do this. You will do this, and you need to do this. Like, you're going to keep working."

And I think that that sort of advice and mentorship is really, really important. But I've also had to seek it out, and so I ask those questions. And you know, there's so much that, sort of, we all can do to help other people that we see in these situations, and that really made a huge difference for me.

Rascoff: Question from a Trulia analyst, Ini Li asks, “How much do you believe in a person's ability to evolve some of their views?"

Chang: I think that it's — I believe in us, and I'm really optimistic. I mean, despite the title, I think that the smartest people in the world who are taking us to Mars and building self-driving cars and connecting the world, whether you're, you know, all the way up to the top, I think people — we're smart people. I think we can change, and I think part of it is the ignorance has gone on for too long. But at this point, we can — I've written 300 pages about it. We've been talking about it now for a year, like ignorance can only be willful. Like, we know this is a problem. And so I think people can change, and I think the business case makes a lot of sense, but it's only when the numbers really change that a real culture shift is going to happen. So, if you have 10 men around a dinner table, you swap out one man for a woman, the conversation might change a little bit. But if it's half and half, it's a completely different conversation. And that's when you will see the results. And, unfortunately, we just don't have a lot of great examples where, you know, places are 50-50 and you can see the results. But I do think it's going to take that sort of true number shift that will lead to a true culture shift where views will actually change.

Rascoff: I mean, you see this with other social movements, right? Whether it's the civil rights movement or America's acceptance of LGBTQ. I mean, there have been radical changes in just 30 years. And some of that is demographic and generational, but a lot of that is individual people changing their attitudes on these topics.

Chang: Becoming woke, if you will.

Rascoff: And I think we're seeing it in a very short period of time here because society has been so jarred by some of these scandals that it's — I mean, it's going to happen — hopefully at least people's attitudes will change faster. Now, it'll probably take decades for more equality to come into the workplace in terms of representation, but attitudes I think are changing.

All right, from an anonymous person, “Is there anything you didn't include in “Brotopia" that, in retrospect, you wish you had? And is there anything you wish you'd left out?"

Chang: I had a very high bar for what was going to be in print. And when you're taking on someone's career and life, you know, I don't take that lightly, and so everything was, like, fully vetted by multiple lawyers, and Bloomberg luckily was very, very supportive and very supportive of good journalism in general. I mean, I'm just — it was 500 pages and I had to cut it down to 300, so I'm more — I think about all the babies that are, like, lying on the floor that I could not include.

Rascoff: Anything you included you regret?

Chang: No. I mean, I have an opportunity — we're coming out with a paperback in March, so I'm going to update it, I'm going to add another chapter, and I'm really excited to talk about sort of the impact that the book has had and the reaction, you know, good and bad. And I mean, for me, the reaction has been what I've seen as mostly positive, and I have been so encouraged by invitations to speak at tech companies, which I honestly did not expect. So you know, I've spoken at Amazon and Microsoft and LinkedIn and Google and places where they could have easily said, you know, “No, thank you. Your book is called 'Brotopia.'" You were one of the first to ask.

Rascoff: Well, but I saw you at a tech conference right when the book had come out, and there was so much heat, let's call it, and I said, “Are you persona non grata, like, at most of these companies, or are you still able to get people to come to your — do your show?" And it was too early to tell, I think, was the —

Chang: Yeah. I think there's a few people who won't be coming on, but you know what, no good change comes without some people feeling a little bit uncomfortable. And honestly, the vast majority of people, I think, are glad that I did it and probably respect me more for putting my voice behind this and, you know, I think some of the people who maybe aren't so happy, hopefully in the long run they understand.

Rascoff: All right, last question. What are the simple, easy, day-to-day things that we can do at work with our teams and at the company to improve equity and inclusion in our workplaces?

Chang: I mentioned listening. I think that's important. And also asking. I think we don't ask each other enough, “How are you doing?" And some people don't want to talk about their personal lives at work, and that's OK, but some people do. Sheryl Sandberg talks about this bringing your whole self to work thing, and it speaks to exactly what you said earlier, that if you don't feel like you can be yourself, you can't be your best self at work.

You know, I had someone who works at a startup tell me, “You know, I was talking to one of my employees, and I found out that both her parents passed away when she was really young." He's like, “I didn't even know. I felt so horrible that I didn't know that that's where she had come from." And those are the things that maybe we should know each other — know about each other.

You know, I think in general we do need to see more examples of female leadership, and maybe that means taking a chance on someone and training them for that role. We see people like Sheryl Sandberg and Marissa Meyer, and we think it can only be that way or that way. Those are the two versions of female success. And the problem is we don't have a lot of other examples, but women — you know, there are all kinds of male bosses, right? And there are all kinds of female bosses as well, we just don't see it enough. And you know, to the point you can't be what you can't see. Like, we can't be what we can't see.

I interviewed seven young girls, teenage girls, at the end of the book who've all learned how to code, and they're so excited to do their part to change the world, but they already have an idea of what they're up against. And, you know, they're in women in tech groups on Facebook, and they read the news and, you know, one of them said to me, “I mean, I heard that Travis was, like, meditating in the lactation room at Uber. What is that about?" And so, yeah, I was surprised. I'm like, “Wow, you guys know your stuff." So they can't be what they can't see.

Rascoff: Some things that I think we've done and can continue to do: Mentor people of all types. Do a great job in interviewing and recruiting. Focus on employee engagement so that everybody feels connected to the company, to the mission, they feel welcome. I'll say the obvious thing, which shouldn't have to be said, but just treat each other kindly and respectfully. Don't make inappropriate comments. Don't do illegal and dumb things. I mean, it's crazy that we say it, but apparently it needs to be said, so don't do that. And, gosh, there's so many more things. I really think the employee engagement is important here.

Also, actually, I think we need to do a better job at this company, and at all companies, of convincing white males why this is important. I'll just be direct and I'll say white males in that case, that there are a lot of people who probably think, “Oh, this doesn't affect me," or, “It's not my problem," or, “I didn't cause this." And I agree — I didn't cause it — but I do think it affects me, and I think it's important that white males understand why it's important to the company, why it's important to our colleagues and our peers, and how they can be part of the solution, even if maybe they weren't part of the problem. So, those are just a couple of my thoughts.

Emily, thank you for turning on the lights on this important issue, and thank you for being here.

Chang: Thank you for having me. Thank you all.

The post Bloomberg's Emily Chang on Solving Tech's Diversity Problem appeared first on Office Hours.

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LA Tech Week: Final Days • Coco’s bots, Anduril’s helmet AI, Impulse’s moon freight

🔦 Spotlight

Happy Friday Los Angeles,

Founders are closing out Tech Week, robots are getting a new research brain, space logistics are taking shape, and defense tech just moved mission command into a helmet.

Anduril’s EagleEye: mission command, heads up

Image Source: Anduril

Anduril introduced EagleEye, a helmet mounted system that puts maps, comms, sensor fusion, and on device AI directly in a warfighter’s line of sight, integrated with the Lattice stack. The goal is simple: less time looking down at a tablet and more decisions made at the edge.

Impulse Space: a practical path to lunar deliveries

Image Source: Impulse Space

Impulse outlined a two piece ride to the Moon. Its Helios stage ferries an Impulse built lander to lunar orbit in about a week, the lander detaches, then descends to the surface without in-space refueling. The company says each mission could carry about three tons and that starting in 2028 it could run two missions per year for roughly six tons total, filling the gap between today’s small CLPS deliveries and future heavy landers.

Coco Robotics: new lab, new chief AI scientist

Image Source: Coco Robotics

Coco named UCLA’s Bolei Zhou chief AI scientist and is launching a physical AI research lab to turn years of curbside driving data into faster, more autonomous sidewalk deliveries. Expect quicker iteration from data collection to local models on the bots.

LA Tech Week: last three days

We are down to the final few days of LA Tech Week 2025. If you are still slotting meetings or panels, use the rundowns to plan your route:

Friday's Event Lineup

Saturday’s Event Lineup

Sunday’s Event Lineup

Scroll for the most recent LA venture deals, funds, and acquisitions.

🤝 Venture Deals

      LA Companies

      • Second Nature, an AI role-play training platform for sales and service teams, raised $22M Series B led by Sienna VC with participation from Bright Pixel, StageOne Ventures, Cardumen, Signals VC, and Zoom (also a customer). The company will use the funding to expand operations and advance its platform, which generates AI-driven practice scenarios and feedback for enterprise clients like Oracle, Zoom, Adobe, Teleperformance, and Check Point. - learn more
      • Pelage Pharmaceuticals, a Los Angeles–based biotech developing regenerative treatments for hair loss, raised a $120M Series B co-led by ARCH Venture Partners and GV. Participants include Main Street Advisors, alongside Visionary Ventures and YK Bioventures; proceeds advance PP405, a topical small molecule that reactivates dormant hair-follicle stem cells, toward Phase 3 in 2026 following positive Phase 2a data. - learn more
      • Launchpad, an AI-first robotics company for factory automation, raised an $11M Series A to speed product development and meet demand across the U.S., U.K., and Europe. The round was co-led by Lavrock Ventures and Squadra Ventures, with participation from Ericsson Ventures, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Cox Exponential, and the Scottish National Investment Bank; it follows $2.5M in grant funding from Scottish Enterprise. - learn more
      • Mythical Games raised a Series D round, with a strategic investment from Eightco Holdings alongside ARK Invest and the World Foundation. The partnership focuses on human verification and digital identity in gaming, tapping Worldchain/Worldcoin’s Proof-of-Human infrastructure. The transaction is expected to close the week of October 20. - learn more
      • Electric Entertainment, the L.A. studio behind “Leverage,” “The Librarians,” and “The Ark,” secured a $20M investment from Content Partners Capital. The funding follows CPC’s launch of an investment arm in April 2024 and is aimed at supporting Electric’s growth across production and distribution. - learn more
      • Everyset raised $9M to launch Background Payroll, a SAG-AFTRA approved platform that automates timecards and payroll for background performers, including overtime, penalties, and premiums. The round was led by Crosslink Capital and Haven Ventures, and the company says studios such as Netflix, CBS, Apple TV, Sony, and Amazon already use its tools as it expands into fully integrated background payroll. - learn more
      • TORL Biotherapeutics raised $96M in Series C funding to advance TORL-1-23, its Claudin-6 targeted antibody-drug conjugate, through a pivotal Phase 2 study in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer and into a confirmatory Phase 3 program. The company also reported that updated Phase 1 data for TORL-1-23 will be presented at ESMO 2025, bringing total funding since its 2019 founding to more than $450 million. - learn more
      • The Plug, a plant-based liver health brand, raised $5M in a venture round of equity and debt to fuel marketing and retail expansion after rolling out its Pill Jar in June and entering all Total Wine & More locations nationwide in September. The company is keeping the round open for additional strategic investors and says it recently hit its first profitable month, is pursuing a partnership with a $500 million nutrition telehealth company, and is targeting a 40% boost to gross margins through a new operational milestone. - learn more

      LA Venture Funds

        • Clocktower Technology Ventures participated in MGT’s $21.6M Series B, an oversubscribed round led by Mubadala Capital with Tacora Capital and existing backers also joining. The AI-native commercial P&C neo-insurer for small businesses will use the capital to accelerate R&D, deepen vertical AI capabilities, and expand its E&S initiatives nationwide. - learn more
        • M13 participated in Daylight’s $75M financing, which combines $15M in equity led by Framework Ventures with a $60M project facility led by Turtle Hill Capital. Daylight is building a decentralized energy network that turns homes into mini power plants via a subscription model and crypto-enabled incentives, aiming to lower costs and dispatch battery power back to the grid. - learn more
        • Presight Capital co-led Peptilogics’ $78M Series B2, with Beyond Ventures participating, to fund a Phase 2/3 pivotal trial of zaloganan (PLG0206) for prosthetic joint infections. The raise brings Peptilogics’ total equity financing to about $120M and positions the company to begin the pivotal program in late 2025, pending approvals. - learn more
        • Patron participated in Ego AI’s $6.7M seed round to help the YC-backed startup launch human-like AI characters for games via its new character.world engine. The round also included Y Combinator, Accel, and Boost VC, and the capital will support research on Ego’s proprietary model, which combines small language models with reinforcement learning, plus partnerships in Singapore to scale compute and development. - learn more
        • Untapped Ventures participated in Woz’s $6M seed round, joining Cervin Ventures (lead), Y Combinator, Burst Capital, MGV, and the Lacob family. The funding will help Woz scale its platform that blends agentic AI with expert human oversight to deliver production-ready mobile apps for enterprises. - learn more
        • Perseverance Capital participated in Kailera Therapeutics’ $600M Series B, which was led by Bain Capital Private Equity. The funding advances KAI-9531, an injectable dual GLP-1/GIP agonist, into global Phase 3 trials by year end and supports a broader pipeline of oral and injectable obesity therapies. - learn more
        • March Capital participated in Lila Sciences’ $350M Series A, which lifts the company’s total funding to $550M. The capital will scale Lila’s AI Science Factories and commercialize its “scientific superintelligence” platform for partners across materials, energy, and biopharma. - learn more
        • Mucker Capital participated in Pear Suite’s $7.6M Series A, which was co-led by Rock Health Capital and Nexxus Holdings. The L.A. based company equips community health workers with an AI-powered platform and provider network, and it will use the funding to expand product development, grow its network, and support new Medicaid and Medicare health plan contracts. Other investors include Enable Ventures, The SCAN Foundation, Acumen America, Impact Engine, and the California Health Care Foundation. - learn more
        • Upfront Ventures participated in Renew’s $12M Series A, which was led by Haymaker Ventures with Goldcrest Capital and several Renew customers also investing. Renew’s AI-powered resident retention platform helps apartment operators automate renewals and prevent fraud, and the company says the new funding will scale the product and launch what it calls the industry’s first Resident Referral Network. - learn more
        • Acre Venture Partners co-led Ascribe Bio’s oversubscribed $12M Series A with Corteva to scale its natural crop protection platform and launch Phytalix, a broad spectrum “biofungicide without compromise.” The funding advances Ascribe’s small molecule technology derived from the soil microbiome toward commercial rollout, with participation from Syngenta Group Ventures, Trailhead Capital, Silver Blue, Cultivation Capital, and others. - learn more
        • Alexandria Venture Investments participated in Tr1X’s $50M financing, announced alongside FDA clearance of the IND for TRX319, an allogeneic CAR-Tr1 Treg cell therapy for progressive multiple sclerosis. The funding extends Tr1X’s runway into 2027 and supports a Phase 1/2a dose-escalation trial slated to start in early 2026, while the company continues its TRX103 studies in Crohn’s disease and other indications. - learn more
        • LFX Venture Partners participated in FleetWorks’ $17M funding, which supports the launch and expansion of its “always-on” AI dispatcher for the U.S. trucking industry. The round was led by First Round Capital with participation from Y Combinator and Saga Ventures, and the company says the capital will go toward hiring, commercial rollout, and product development. FleetWorks’ platform automates freight matching between carriers and brokers to speed up bookings and reduce manual calls, emails, and texts. - learn more
        • Clocktower Technology Ventures participated in Yendo’s $50M Series B. The fintech behind a vehicle-secured credit card will use the funding to expand its AI credit platform toward an inclusive digital bank that taps “trapped” consumer equity, aiming to unlock up to $4 trillion from assets like cars and homes for underserved borrowers. - learn more
        • Alpha Edison participated in TransCrypts’ $15M seed round. The company builds a blockchain-based verified-credentials platform to fight AI-driven fraud and plans to expand beyond employment verification into health and education records. - learn more
        • Alexandria Venture Investments participated in Nilo Therapeutics’ $101M Series A, which launched the company to develop medicines that modulate neural circuits to restore immune balance in disease. The round was led by The Column Group, DCVC Bio, and Lux Capital; Nilo also appointed Kim Seth, Ph.D., as CEO and plans to build out New York labs and advance preclinical programs. - learn more
        • Chapter One participated in Glue’s $20M Series A. Glue builds an “agentic team chat” platform that embeds MCP-powered AI directly in workplace messaging, with 35 in-app integrations and support for thousands more via custom MCP servers. The funding will help expand product development and infrastructure as Glue pushes this model to more teams. - learn more
        • StillMark participated in Meanwhile’s $82M raise, backing the Bermuda-regulated bitcoin life insurer as it expands bitcoin-denominated savings, retirement, and life insurance products for individuals and institutions. The round was co-led by Bain Capital Crypto and Haun Ventures with participation from Apollo, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, and Pantera Capital, and brings Meanwhile’s 2025 funding to $122 million after an earlier $40 million Series A. - learn more
        • Blue Bear Capital co-led Energy Robotics’ $13.5M Series A with Climate Investment. The Darmstadt-based company provides AI software that lets robots and drones autonomously inspect critical infrastructure, and it will use the funding to scale deployments across energy, chemical, industrial, and utility sites. Customers already include majors like Shell, BP, BASF, Merck, and E.ON, and the company reports more than one million inspections completed to date. - learn more
        • B Capital participated in EvenUp’s $150M Series E, which values the AI legal-tech company at over $2 billion. EvenUp builds AI tools for personal-injury law firms and plans to use the new capital to scale its platform and product suite; the round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with investors including REV (LexisNexis) and others. - learn more
        • WndrCo participated in Zingage’s $12.5M seed round to build an AI care-delivery platform for home-based healthcare. Zingage is rolling out “Operator,” which automates scheduling, staffing, billing, and compliance for home care agencies, and “Perform,” which boosts caregiver retention, with the new capital supporting product expansion and go-to-market. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners with additional investors including TQ Ventures and South Park Commons. - learn more
        • Alexandria Venture Investments participated in AeroRx Therapeutics’ $21M Series A, which was led by Avalon BioVentures with Correlation Ventures also investing. The funding advances AERO-007, a first-in-class nebulized LABA/LAMA for COPD, into late-stage clinical development aimed at patients who struggle with handheld inhalers. - learn more
        • Alexandria Venture Investments participated in Affinia Therapeutics’ $40M Series C, alongside lead investor NEA and new investor Eli Lilly, to advance its AAV gene therapy pipeline. Proceeds will fund an IND submission in Q4 2025 and initial clinical work for AFTX-201 in BAG3 dilated cardiomyopathy, with a Phase 1/2 trial targeted for Q1 2026. - learn more
        • Clocktower Ventures participated in Vycarb’s $5M seed round, which was led by Twynam with participation from MOL Switch, Hatch Blue, Idemitsu, and SGInnovate. The Brooklyn startup develops sensor-driven, water-based carbon capture and storage systems that convert CO₂ into stable bicarbonate, with the new funding aimed at scaling deployments at industrial sites. - learn more

        LA Exits

        • Empaxis Data Management was acquired by Communify, which is integrating Empaxis’ custodial and accounting data connections and operations expertise into its financial AI platform. The aim is to remove fragmented data so wealth and asset managers can deploy MIND AI apps like Client Stories and Portfolio Stories more quickly with cleaner, unified data. Communify also cites pre-integrations with over 175 market-data vendors to speed rollouts. - learn more
        • TrueCar is being acquired by founder-led Fair Holdings (Scott Painter) in an all-cash deal at $2.55/share (~$227M), with Painter set to return as CEO. A 30-day go-shop runs through Nov. 13, 2025; largest holder Caledonia supports the acquisition, which is expected to close Q4 2025 or early 2026 pending approvals. - learn more
        • Kate Somerville Skincare was acquired by Rare Beauty Brands, as Unilever moves to divest the prestige label it has owned for a decade. The deal includes the skincare and body-care lines as well as the brand’s Melrose Place clinic in Los Angeles; terms weren’t disclosed and closing is expected in Q4 2025 pending approvals. - learn more
        • 3GC Group was acquired by Pandoblox, combining 3GC’s enterprise IT operations and cybersecurity services with Pandoblox’s Themis AI data platform to form a unified, AI-ready data and IT operations offering for mid-market companies. The deal aims to solve fragmented data and IT workflows so growing businesses can get enterprise-grade intelligence, security, and support through a single partner. - learn more
        • The Free Press was acquired by Paramount, and co-founder Bari Weiss will become editor in chief of CBS News as part of the deal. Paramount says the move pairs CBS News’ scale with The Free Press’ voice, with Weiss reporting to CEO David Ellison and working to “modernize” the brand. - learn more

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              LA Tech Week 2025: Sunday’s Event Lineup

              Here's the Sunday, October 19th lineup for LA Tech Week 2025, organized by location so you can easily explore events that fit your goals and schedule. Dive in and see what’s happening near you!

              ARTS DISTRICT

              3:00 PM

              BEL AIR

              3:00 PM – 7:00 PM

              BURBANK

              6:30 PM – 9:30 PM

              CULVER CITY

              9:00 AM – 5:00 PM

              4:30 PM – 7:30 PM

              INGLEWOOD

              10:00 AM – 2:00 PM

              • Spinovation: The Future Is Femme, The Future is Frequency: See Details Here
                Sonder Impact, Black Women Spin, Sip & Sonder

              KOREATOWN

              12:00 PM – 3:00 PM

              MARINA DEL REY

              12:00 PM

              • Sunday Tech Brunch
                Sawubona

              MID CITY

              9:00 AM – 11:00 AM

              • Women in Cleantech Hike and Network: See Details Here
                Women in Cleantech and Sustainability

              SANTA MONICA

              9:00 AM

              10:00 AM

              3:45 PM

              4:00 PM – 7:30 PM

              • OFF THE HOOK Santa Monica Seafood Festival: See Details Here
                Spin PR Group, City of Santa Monica, Tech St.

              6:00 PM

              7:00 PM

              • Pritam: A Musical Legend - Live in Concert: See Details Here
                American South Asian Network

              7:00 PM

              • Building AI workflow editor in React with Workflow Builder SDK: See Details Here
                Workflow Builder

              7:00 PM

              8:00 PM

              • Unlock Apple's Corporate Advantage for your Startup!: See Details Here
                iStore by St. Moritz

              TOPANGA CANYON

              3:00 PM

              • Dreamore Hike and Picnic: LA Tech Week: *Invite Only*
                Dreamore

              VENICE

              10:00 AM – 12:00 PM

              • Coffee, Walk, and Schmooze: See Details Here
                JFE (Jews For Entrepreneurship) Network

              VIRTUAL (LA)

              10:00 AM

              • Level Up with LinkedIn: A Student’s Guide to Networking & Opportunities (Virtual Event): See Details Here
                FIMAC

              10:00 AM

              WEST ADAMS

              1:00 PM – 3:00 PM

              For updates or more event information, visit the official Tech Week calendar.

              Enjoy LA Tech Week 2025!

              Download the dot.LA App


              LA Tech Week 2025: Saturday’s Event Lineup

              Here's the Saturday, October 18th lineup for LA Tech Week 2025, organized by location so you can easily explore events that fit your goals and schedule. Dive in and see what’s happening near you!

              BEVERLY HILLS

              2:00 PM

              CENTURY CITY

              7:00 PM – 10:00 PM

              CULVER CITY

              9:00 AM – 5:00 PM

              10:00 AM – 11:30 AM

              1:00 PM

              DTLA

              7:00 PM

              • {MiniMax x Nakid x SkyPortalx}: TECH/MOTION/MUSIC/ART: See Details Here
                MiniMax (Hailuo AI)

              10:00 PM – 2:00 AM

              EL SEGUNDO

              10:00 AM

              • Venture on the Green: *Invite Only*
                BLCK VC

              4:00 PM

              INGLEWOOD

              7:00 PM

              • Valar Atomics, Durin and Discipulus Ventures - Night With A Nuclear Reactor: See Details Here
                Valar Atomics, Durin, Discipulus Ventures

              MARINA DEL REY

              8:30 AM

              12:00 PM – 3:00 PM

              5:00 PM

              • LOST iN Sunset Sail: Navigating the Tides of the Creator Economy & Media: See Details Here
                LOST iN

              PASADENA

              9:00 AM

              PLAYA VISTA

              2:00 PM – 4:00 PM

              SANTA MONICA

              7:00 AM

              9:00 AM

              • Pedal & Network: Tech Cyclists @ LA Tech Week 🚵: See Details Here
                Instafill.ai

              9:30 AM

              • Getty Center Guided Tour & (Optional) Photography Scavenger Hunt: See Details Here
                NEW MOON Impact Productions

              10:30 AM – 11:30 AM

              11:00 AM – 2:15 PM

              12:00 PM – 5:00 PM

              1:00 PM – 5:00 PM

              1:30 PM

              • Self-Defense in Court and the Streets: See Details Here
                Santa Monica Striking, Luri Inc.

              2:00 PM

              • SMARTUP 500: THE FIRST AT TECH WEEK LA - Launching the world’s first Startup Ranking: See Details Here
                Smart Times

              2:00 PM

              • NLPs (No Lame Panels) The Creator X Founder Rooftop Party: See Details Here
                Startup Village, Sanctuary

              3:00 PM – 4:00 PM

              4:00 PM – 6:30 PM

              • Just Do It?: Helping Founders Perform Like Olympians: See Details Here
                Elite Psychology Group

              5:00 PM

              6:00 PM

              6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

              6:00 PM

              6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

              • The Future of Hospitality: Poetry, Provenance & Passports: See Details Here
                Villa Kitchen, Airble, We Speak Dance, Techstars San Francisco

              7:00 PM

              • 🚀 Investor x Founder Open Mic Pitches: See Details Here
                Feathr, Los Angeles Fun Events

              7:00 PM

              • Life is a Pitch - LA Edition: *Invite Only*
                DeepMyst

              TOPANGA CANYON

              5:00 PM – 8:30 PM

              • Walk&Jam: Use AI to make art while hiking Topanga Canyon: See Details Here
                Formhaus llc, Wonderland Immersive Design

              TORRANCE

              1:00 PM – 4:00 PM

              • Crunches & Conversations Presented by The Differentials and KIS Training Studios: See Details Here
                The Differentials, KIS Training Studios

              VENICE

              1:00 PM – 4:30 PM

              • Beyond the Language Barrier: Exploring AI's Next Frontier: See Details Here
                Medusa AI

              VENICE BEACH

              8:00 AM – 12:00 PM

              • SŨRFED Club @ Venice Beach: Founders, Creators, Investors share the waves: See Details Here
                SŨRFED Club, Go Vitamins

              WEST ADAMS

              9:30 AM – 10:45 AM

              • Funders Shaping Democracy, AI & Media: See Details Here
                New Media Ventures, New Rising Ventures

              WEST HOLLYWOOD

              4:00 PM

              6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

              9:30 PM

              • Vibe Check Comedy Show, Tech Week Edition! @ Hollywood Improv: See Details Here
                Vibe Check Comedy

              For updates or more event information, visit the official Tech Week calendar.

              Enjoy LA Tech Week 2025!

              Download the dot.LA App


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