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Google and Apple Are Opening New Offices In West LA
Amrita Khalid
Amrita Khalid is a tech journalist based in Los Angeles, and has written for Quartz, The Daily Dot, Engadget, Inc. Magazine and number of other publications. She got her start in Washington, D.C., covering Congress for CQ-Roll Call. You can send tips or pitches to amrita@dot.la or reach out to her on Twitter at @askhalid.
Even though Los Angeles’ office market faces an uncertain future due to the slowing economy, signs seem to suggest that West L.A. could weather the storm.
For starters, Apple and Google still plan to open new offices in the area — even as much of Big Tech is scaling back their physical footprints nationwide. Earlier this month, Apple's plans to build 536,000 square feet of office space and production space went before the Culver City Planning Commission. The Culver Crossings campus is expected to break ground in early 2023, with an anticipated move-in date of 2026.
“The West L.A. office market is very different from the rest of the county in that it has an abundance of very cool, architecturally distinct real estate that is very attractive to the creatives”,” wrote CBRE’s Vice Chairman Jeffrey Pion in an email. “While many of the tech companies are downsizing in other parts of the country, we are not yet certain how much of that anticipated downsizing will occur in this market but believe the long term outlook for West Los Angeles is very good.”
In addition, a Google spokesperson confirmed to dot.LA that Google has leased the former Westside Pavilion shopping complex in West L.A. and plans to move in sometime in 2023. The company has yet to decide which job functions or divisions will be located in the new West L.A. campus. And Amazon signed a deal to rent a 200,000-square-foot space at the Water Garden this summer as part of a greater Southern California expansion, even as it halted plans to build other offices nationwide.
Nonetheless, the state of L.A.’s office space market remains uncertain as companies also scramble to cut costs due to the slowing economy. J.P. Morgan Asset Management this week put up its 1.4 million square foot Santa Monica office campus for sale — which includes tenants like Amazon and Sony Inc., reported the Commercial Observer.
Still, according to a third-quarter report from CBRE, West L.A.’s office vacancy rate is at 14.5% — roughly four points lower than the average in Greater Los Angeles. “[...] Several tech, media, and entertainment companies leased space this quarter, emphasizing the prevalence of entertainment and technology in Los Angeles and West L.A.,” wrote the authors of the report.
This is all to say that after two years of remote work and hybrid offices, 2022 could be ushering in a vibe shift as more companies reverted to traditional in-office work environments. Nearly 50% of company leaders said they were planning to require workers to return to the office full-time in the next year, according to a Microsoft survey from March. While a sluggish economy has forced some companies to make cuts to their workforce and close offices — many also appear to be staying put or even expanding their corporate real estate portfolios.
The potential shift to in-office work could be further bolstered by the current economic downturn, according to Matthew E. Kahn, Provost Professor of Economics at USC. In an email to dot.LA, Kahn wrote, “During a tech recession, management has the upper-hand in determining the real pay of workers and ordering workers to work on-site — 5 days a week — is a type of pay cut.”
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Amrita Khalid
Amrita Khalid is a tech journalist based in Los Angeles, and has written for Quartz, The Daily Dot, Engadget, Inc. Magazine and number of other publications. She got her start in Washington, D.C., covering Congress for CQ-Roll Call. You can send tips or pitches to amrita@dot.la or reach out to her on Twitter at @askhalid.
https://twitter.com/askhalid
Billed As Rivals, Health Care Payments Startups Peachy and Walnut Join Forces
06:00 AM | January 24, 2022
Photo courtesy of Peachy
When Lex Oiler, co-founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based health care payments startup Peachy, first met for coffee with Roshan Patel, her counterpart at New York-based Walnut, she says she tried to break the ice by asking, “So—mergers and acquisitions?”
The quip came from the fact that many venture capital investors viewed the two startups as competitors, according to the founders, since both are tackling the complex web of health care payments. Walnut allows patients to pay large medical bills in manageable installments, while Peachy streamlines payment collection while also helping patients maintain and improve their credit scores.
But what may have started as a lighthearted joke turned out to be a serious business proposition. After hashing out the details over months and bringing their teams together via a shared Slack channel, the companies unveiled a partnership earlier this month that will give customers the ability to use Walnut’s financing options when paying a bill through Peachy.
“Health care is so broad—no one company is just going to fix health care and be done with it,” Patel told dot.LA. “Peachy and Walnut basically solve two different parts of the tech stack, and we thought combining actually creates a much more compelling solution for both patients and health care providers.”
Walnut CEO Roshan Patel.
Courtesy of Walnut
Both startups were informed by their founders’ trying experiences with health care payments. Patel, whose parents ran a pharmacy, witnessed their struggle to negotiate paying off an unexpected $5,000 medical bill after his sister got into a car accident. Oiler spent a year chasing a forgotten $144 medical bill that negatively impacted her credit report and made it difficult for her to get approved for a home loan.
“If you harm someone's financial health, you harm their mental health [and] their physical health is impacted,” Oiler said. “Here we are 15 years later and my family, me included, we're still afraid to go to the doctor when something's wrong. Even though I have health insurance, that doesn't really mean anything.”
Two-year-old Walnut—which raised $3.6 million in seed funding last year from the likes of Silicon Valley-based Gradient Ventures and New York-based Supernode Ventures—works with individuals and health care providers alike to help patients manage large bills in smaller increments, with no fees and financing options starting at 0% interest. Peachy, which was also founded in 2020, works closely with providers to make the process of paying a bill as seamless as possible; its platform sends patients bills and payment reminders via text and email, while also allowing them to pay on their phones. The L.A. startup has onboarded nearly a dozen providers to date while in beta testing.
The partnership is one of several in the works for Peachy, which will be announcing more in the coming months designed to address gaps in what Oiler considers a segregated and outmoded health care system. The founder—a self-described anti-capitalist and Medicare-for-all proponent—says she isn’t interested in competing with others when it comes to health care, and is going so far as to refuse funding from insurance companies.
Peachy raised $1.9 million in seed funding in early 2021 led by investors Village Global, City Light Capital and Alumni Ventures, with $110,000 of that amount raised through crowdfunding. When the startup was fishing for more funding last summer, Oiler says she turned down two term sheets worth $2 million apiece due to fundamental disagreements over how the company should be run, and instead opted to collect some $800,000 instead. Peachy plans on fundraising again this spring.
“You put venture funding behind something, and all of a sudden it turns into a numbers game,” according to Oiler. “ I think that we have been really lucky at bringing on investors who trust me and my co-founder [Peachy CTO PJ Santoro] to make very smart, educated decisions based on what's best for the patient.”
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Keerthi Vedantam
Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.
https://twitter.com/KeerthiVedantam
keerthi@dot.la
Here's How To Get a Digital License Plate In California
03:49 PM | October 14, 2022
Photo by Clayton Cardinalli on Unsplash
Thanks to a new bill passed on October 5, California drivers now have the choice to chuck their traditional metal license plates and replace them with digital ones.
The plates are referred to as “Rplate” and were developed by Sacramento-based Reviver. A news release on Reviver’s website that accompanied the bill’s passage states that there are “two device options enabling vehicle owners to connect their vehicle with a suite of services including in-app registration renewal, visual personalization, vehicle location services and security features such as easily reporting a vehicle as stolen.”
Reviver Auto Current and Future CapabilitiesFrom Youtube
There are wired (connected to and powered by a vehicle’s electrical system) and battery-powered options, and drivers can choose to pay for their plates monthly or annually. Four-year agreements for battery-powered plates begin at $19.95 a month or $215.40 yearly. Commercial vehicles will pay $275.40 each year for wired plates. A two-year agreement for wired plates costs $24.95 per month. Drivers can choose to install their plates, but on its website, Reviver offers professional installation for $150.
A pilot digital plate program was launched in 2018, and according to the Los Angeles Times, there were 175,000 participants. The new bill ensures all 27 million California drivers can elect to get a digital plate of their own.
California is the third state after Arizona and Michigan to offer digital plates to all drivers, while Texas currently only provides the digital option for commercial vehicles. In July 2022, Deseret News reported that Colorado might also offer the option. They have several advantages over the classic metal plates as well—as the L.A. Times notes, digital plates will streamline registration renewals and reduce time spent at the DMV. They also have light and dark modes, according to Reviver’s website. Thanks to an accompanying app, they act as additional vehicle security, alerting drivers to unexpected vehicle movements and providing a method to report stolen vehicles.
As part of the new digital plate program, Reviver touts its products’ connectivity, stating that in addition to Bluetooth capabilities, digital plates have “national 5G network connectivity and stability.” But don’t worry—the same plates purportedly protect owner privacy with cloud support and encrypted software updates.
5 Reasons to avoid the digital license plate | Ride TechFrom Youtube
After the Rplate pilot program was announced four years ago, some raised questions about just how good an idea digital plates might be. Reviver and others who support switching to digital emphasize personalization, efficient DMV operations and connectivity. However, a 2018 post published by Sophos’s Naked Security blog pointed out that “the plates could be as susceptible to hacking as other wireless and IoT technologies,” noting that everyday “objects – things like kettles, TVs, and baby monitors – are getting connected to the internet with elementary security flaws still in place.”
To that end, a May 2018 syndicated New York Times news service article about digital plates quoted the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which warned that such a device could be a “‘honeypot of data,’ recording the drivers’ trips to the grocery store, or to a protest, or to an abortion clinic.”
For now, Rplates are another option in addition to old-fashioned metal, and many are likely to opt out due to cost alone. If you decide to go the digital route, however, it helps if you know what you could be getting yourself into.
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Steve Huff
Steve Huff is an Editor and Reporter at dot.LA. Steve was previously managing editor for The Metaverse Post and before that deputy digital editor for Maxim magazine. He has written for Inside Hook, Observer and New York Mag. Steve is the author of two official tie-ins books for AMC’s hit “Breaking Bad” prequel, “Better Call Saul.” He’s also a classically-trained tenor and has performed with opera companies and orchestras all over the Eastern U.S. He lives in the greater Boston metro area with his wife, educator Dr. Dana Huff.
steve@dot.la
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