Catch Up With This Week's Startup News in Our Weekly Video Recap
Lots happened in the L.A. tech and startup community this week. In a rundown of the top headlines, Chief Host and Correspondent Kelly O'Grady takes you through the key stories :
- Media: Kevin Mayer Named CEO of TikTok, Orby TV Seeks to Capitalize on PayTV Frustrations
- Investing: United Dwelling Raises $10 Mil Series B, What It's Like Fundraising During a Pandemic
- Mobile E-Commerce Platform Tapcart Soars
- "dot.LA Dives In" Launches Featuring Miki Reynolds of Grid 110
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In mid-March, a majority of companies had to send their employees home and tell them to stay there indefinitely. Most business owners were abiding by what they hoped would be a short-term situation. Few could have imagined 10 months ago that at the beginning of 2021 they would still lack a bonafide game plan to get back up and running. In fact, the longer this pandemic has dragged on, the more it's become clear that the typical, pre-pandemic workplace is not something we'll see again for quite some time.
Reflecting on what the country looks like today, it's a real possibility that in the not-too-distant future L.A. sets not only the stage but also a new standard for what a health-conscious commute and a productive work life looks like as a model for apprehensive Americans.
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Commercial real estate brokers in crowded cities such as New York have heard from countless clients that the city's population density complicates matters materially. Even employers who hope to get back to the office as soon as possible are reluctant to return to buildings where they may deem it ill-advised to step into the lobby or to use the elevator to get to their desired floor. Safety comes first for everyone.<br/>
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Sprawling Los Angeles, however, offers a different landscape. <a href="https://www.squarefoot.com/ca/los-angeles/downtown-los-angeles/office-space" target="_blank">Downtown L.A.</a>, once abandoned by businesses in favor of other neighborhoods and nearby cities, has seen a documented boom in recent years. It's a proud home to law firms and financial companies, yet it's not by any means the only area that appeals to L.A. businesses — and that's a benefit. What makes L.A. so unique is how expansive it is. There are so many options for where to plant your flag. Being in the city center is not necessarily the best spot for most businesses. In fact, there's very much a floating 'center of town,' depending on where tomorrow's companies intend to establish themselves.
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For many decades, we've heard about how the so-called hub and spoke model - having one central headquarters in the heart of the city with smaller offshoot offices in the suburbs - would be the future of commercial real estate. Last spring, conversations began to bubble up again in that direction, though those realities haven't yet manifested. Companies ultimately want to keep their teams intact and together. In cities other than L.A., if that's your intent, you're stuck with the major downtown area, and paying a steep price for it since every other organization is looking at the same limited supply of offices. But, because L.A.'s culture and infrastructure is already spread out, there's no reason to hesitate to move your office headquarters elsewhere, where it makes most sense for your company, within L.A. County's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Los_Angeles_County,_California" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">88 cities</a>.
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Moving away from the urban center is not as much a concern for L.A.-based businesses. In fact, with the state of affairs on the ground right now, it's a major draw. The <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/biggest-hurdle-to-bringing-people-back-to-the-office-may-be-the-commute-11587992400" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">commute</a> is proven to be employees' greatest concern. A car-dependent culture such as L.A.'s doesn't require any rethinking or rejiggering of transportation to accommodate the same transit shift that is hitting other cities so severely.
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In recent years, big tech companies including Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook have made sizable real estate commitments to shift their focus and operations, thereby considerably reimagining their local presences. Despite the ongoing pandemic, these projects are chugging along, and the payoffs begin with thousands of new jobs being created in the coming years. Expect this trend to accelerate in the future. If it's good enough for those giant tech companies, others like them will take notice, and smaller companies will follow.
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For example, Hollywood is being transformed around streaming content, and it's all taking place within driving distance of the entertainment capital of the world. What's notable, though, is that these companies are deliberately choosing <a href="https://www.squarefoot.com/ca/los-angeles/culver-city/office-space" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">areas such as Culver City</a> to stake their claims. In such a city, they have the space to put down both traditional offices and fully built-out studios where they can shoot, produce, edit and release content. Although the technology and the thinking have evolved, Los Angeles remains at the epicenter of the global entertainment industry.
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That's what makes L.A. such an exciting place to be right now. With an industry in transition, it creates opportunity for others to reshape what comes next. While those types of seismic moves take time, they begin with the biggest players' real estate investments that are then quickly followed by the next crop of companies looking to find their slice of the growing pie.
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While there are still challenges in the world of commercial real estate, the office is not dead. As with many other industries, commercial real estate will have to adapt and grow to the needs of businesses and entrepreneurs across all cities. But if you're trying to figure out what possibilities lie ahead, and how innovation can take place within existing infrastructure, look no further than Los Angeles.</p>
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As New Congress Takes Shape, Lawmakers Take Aim at Algorithms That Are 'at Odds with Democracy'
Jan 21 2021
Democratic lawmakers are calling on Facebook, Twitter and other social media to alter the powerful algorithms that fuel their site, saying that they led to the attack on the Capitol and intensify fringe political beliefs.
"The algorithms Facebook uses to maximize user engagement on its platform undermine our shared sense of objective reality, intensify fringe political beliefs, facilitate connections between extremist users, and, tragically, lead some of them to commit real-world physical violence, such as what we experienced firsthand on January 6th," wrote Silicon Valley Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and New Jersey Congressman Tom Malinowski in a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
<p>The two sent similar letters to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and the CEO of YouTube Susan Wojcicki and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. All were co-signed by dozens of congressmembers. </p>
<p>The attack on the Capitol has increased scrutiny of social media sites but officials will have difficulty drawing a line between speech that incites violence and muzzling political expression. Snap, Twitter, Facebook and other sites <a href="https://dot.la/trump-snapchat-2649782203.html" target="_self">took down President</a> Donald Trump's accounts in the days after a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol. Critics say the aggressive stance is too little, too late and <a href="https://dot.la/joe-biden-inauguration-misinformation-2650032814.html" target="_self">it hasn't stemmed the tide </a>as conspiracy theories and other extreme beliefs continue to proliferate. </p>
<p>"The algorithmic amplification and recommendation systems that platforms employ spread content that's evocative over what's true," Eshoo said in a statement. "The horrific damage to our democracy wrought on January 6th demonstrated how these social media platforms played a role in radicalizing and emboldening terrorists to attack our Capitol. These American companies must fundamentally rethink algorithmic systems that are at odds with democracy."</p>
<div id="81875" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="45f8ce57bef961c3d0e5bddef0991ee7"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1352390006116069380" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">@RepMalinowski and I led dozens of our colleagues in asking these companies to fundamentally rethink algorithmic sy… https://t.co/aHl7EWs6MB</div> — Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (@Rep. Anna G. Eshoo)<a href="https://twitter.com/RepAnnaEshoo/statuses/1352390006116069380">1611269878.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Eshoo sat on the powerful Communications & Technology subcommittee in the last Congressional session, during which <a href="https://dot.la/section-230-2649886967.html" target="_self">she and Malinowksi introduced legislation to amend Section 230.</a> The law governs the liability of internet intermediaries, including social media companies, for the content users publish on their platforms. The amendment would increase sites' liability for how their algorithms spread harmful or radicalizing content that leads to offline violence. She has said she will reintroduce it in this Congress.<br></p>
<p>See the full letters here: </p><ul class="ee-ul"></ul><ul class="ee-ul"><li><a href="https://malinowski.house.gov/sites/malinowski.house.gov/files/Letter%20to%20Facebook%20--%20Malinowski_Eshoo_final_0.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Letter</a> to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook </li><li><a href="https://malinowski.house.gov/sites/malinowski.house.gov/files/Letter%20to%20YouTube%20--%20Malinowski_Eshoo_final_0.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Letter</a> to Susan Wojcicki and Sundar Pichai, YouTube; Alphabet/Google </li><li><a href="https://malinowski.house.gov/sites/malinowski.house.gov/files/Letter%20to%20Twitter%20--%20Malinowski_Eshoo_final_0.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Letter</a> to Jack Dorsey, Twitter </li></ul>
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On this week's episode of Office Hours, you'll hear from Ynon Kreiz, the CEO of Mattel since 2018. Prior, he served on Mattel's Board. We discuss the Barbie movie in production, just one product that's leveraging the iconic brand's IP, what Mattel is doing towards achieving environmental sustainability and the priority Mattel places on DEI. Also, hear the answer to a burning UNO game question hotly-debated in my family.
<blockquote>"When it comes to physical play, this will never go away. Parents recognize the importance of physical play, especially when it comes to quality product and known trusted brands. And this is why the toy industry as a whole has been growing and is expected to continue to grow" -- Ynon Kreiz<br/><em></em></blockquote><p><strong>Ynon Kreiz</strong> is the CEO of Mattel. His career includes chairman and CEO of Maker Studios, acquired by Disney in 2014. At the Endermol Group, he was chair and CEO. He was a general partner at Balderton Capital (formerly Benchmark Capital Europe). At Fox Kids Europe, he served as chair and CEO. Before all of this, Kreiz co-founded Fox Kids Europe NV where he served as chairman and CEO.<br/></p>
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