LA Tech Updates: Spotify Misses Revenue Mark, Snap Releases Diversity Report, TikTok Jabs Facebook

Francesca Billington

Francesca Billington is a freelance reporter. Prior to that, she was a general assignment reporter for dot.LA and has also reported for KCRW, the Santa Monica Daily Press and local publications in New Jersey. She graduated from Princeton in 2019 with a degree in anthropology.

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Here are the latest updates on news affecting Los Angeles' startup and tech communities. Sign up for our newsletter and follow dot.LA on Twitter for more.

Today:

  • Spotify has more listeners, but ad revenue drops
  • 'We Must Do More': Snap Releases Dismal Diversity Report
  • TikTok CEO Promises More Transparency, Jabs Facebook for 'Copycat Product'

    TikTok CEO Promises More Transparency, Jabs Facebook for 'Copycat Product'

    LA Tech Updates: TikTok Says it Will Pay Creators — and Universal Music Group

    TikTok is promising more transparency.

    The Culver City-based social media platform will release its algorithms and content moderation policies, CEO Kevin Mayer wrote in an open letter Wednesday. Owned by China's ByteDance, the company has been facing pressure as speculation grows that its content is being shared with Beijing.

    "We accept this and embrace the challenge of giving peace of mind through greater transparency and accountability," Mayer wrote. "We believe it is essential to show users, advertisers, creators, and regulators that we are responsible and committed members of the American community that follows US laws."

    Earlier this month, the Trump administration said it was "looking at" banning the app over those concerns. Then last week, the House prohibited U.S. federal employees from downloading the app on government-issued devices.

    It's also notable that his letter was published the same day Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg as well as the CEOs of Twitter, Google and Apple testified before Congress on antitrust law. In the letter, Mayer takes a swipe at Zuckerberg for this upcoming Reels product.

    What you need to know:

    • Calling it the Transparency and Accountability Center, TikTok will let experts view the company's data practices and algorithms.
    • Investors of parent company ByteDance are now valuing the app at $50 billion — surpassing the projected 2020 revenue by 50 times. Some are pushing for ownership over the platform.
    • Mayer took jabs at the other tech giants in the letter:
      • "This puts us a step ahead of the industry, and we encourage others to follow suit."
      • "At TikTok we welcome competition. We think fair competition makes all of us better. To those who wish to launch competitive products, we say bring it on."
      • Then he hit Facebook's forthcoming Reels feature, calling it a "copycat product."

    'We Must Do More': Snap Releases Dismal Diversity Report

    Snap's Accelerator Program Expands with 'Yellow Collabs'

    While much of the tech world was fixated on a blockbuster congressional hearing of four executives from top tech companies, Snap Inc. quietly released its first report on diversity since the company was founded in 2011 and the numbers were dismal.

    Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap, which has faced allegations of a racist and sexist workplace, as recently as last month told employees he wouldn't release the numbers publicly. The company has good reason to try to bury the news.

    Blacks only represent 4.1% of Snap's U.S. workforce while Hispanic/Latinx makeup 6.8%, far below their numbers in the general population. At the top, 2.6% of leadership roles are held by Blacks while seven percent are held by Hispanic/Latinx. Women make up 32.9% of Snap's global workforce but only 16.1% of tech teams and just 6.7% of tech teams' leadership.

    "To date, our DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) outcomes simply have not been good enough," the company said in the report. "We must do more." Snap has set a goal of doubling the number of women in tech roles by 2023 and doubling the number of underrepresented minorities at the company by 2025.

    While its diversity numbers are low, Snap is not much worse than other tech giants, though most of those companies have released their numbers for years.

    Last month, Snap was forced to remove a Juneteenth filter that prompted users to smile in order to break a series of chains, and that was not the first time the company was criticized for an offensive filter.

    "We deeply apologize for the offensive Juneteenth Lens," the company said in a tweet.

    Snap outlined a number of steps to improve its numbers, including changes to recruiting, setting representation goals for underrepresented groups, and instituting a $70,000 minimum living wage for employees working at its Santa Monica headquarters.

    Spotify Has More Listeners, but Ad Revenue Drops

    Spotify Earnings: The Music Streaming War Is Heating Upfarm5.staticflickr.com

    Spotify's second quarter earnings, released today, show listening and podcast streaming up even as revenue missed the mark with the pandemic hurting ad sales.

    The Swedish music streaming service acknowledged slower business in April and May across emerging regions. Still, Spotify said its strength in North America offsets the setback, noting that it turned a corner in June.

    "We believe the improved momentum we saw in the back half of the quarter has continued into Q3 and we expect to hit our full year targets," the company told shareholders.

    What you need to know:

    • Ad revenue, which makes up less than 10% of total revenue, is down 21% from last year, a nod to dropping sales brought on by the pandemic.
    • The average revenue per Spotify Premium user (ARPU) is also down 9% as a fewer percentage of users pay the standard $9.99/month rate. More are opting in for family and student plans. Users in some countries also pay a lower price for subscriptions.
    • 13 million new monthly active members brings Spotify's total to an all-time high of 299 million. Plus, 8 million new subscribers brings the total of ad-free premium customers to 138 million.
    • Overall listening times have returned to pre-pandemic levels in all regions except Latin America.
    • More users are listening on at-home smart speakers and smart TVs.
    • In an effort to diversify Spotify content and move away from music, podcast options are expanding — including exclusive deals with big names like Joe Rogan, Kim Kardashian, DC Franchise, the Obamas and TikTok star Addison Rae.
    • Since the start of 2019, overall podcast listening has doubled since. One fifth of monthly active members are tuning in.

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    NASA’s JPL Receives Billions to Begin Understanding Our Solar System

    Samson Amore

    Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

    NASA’s JPL Receives Billions to Begin Understanding Our Solar System
    Evan Xie

    NASA’s footprint in California is growing as the agency prepares for Congress to approve its proposed 2024 budget.

    The overall NASA budget swelled 6% from the prior year, JPL deputy director Larry James told dot.LA. He added he sees that as a continuation of the last two presidential administrations’ focus on modernizing and bolstering the nation’s space program.

    The money goes largely to existing NASA centers in California, including the Pasadena-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory run with Caltech, Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley and Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base.

    California remains a hotspot for NASA space activity and investment. In 2021, the agency estimated its economic output impact on the region to be around $15.2 billion. That was far more than its closest competing states, including Texas ($9.3 billion) and Maryland (roughly $8 billion). That same year, NASA reported it employed over 66,000 people in California.

    “In general, Congress has been very supportive” of the JPL and NASA’s missions, James said. “It’s generally bipartisan [and] supported by both sides of the aisle. In the last few years in general NASA has been able to have increased budgets.”

    There are 41 current missions run by JPL and CalTech, and another 16 scheduled for the future. James added the new budget is “an incredible support for all the missions we want to do.”

    The public-private partnership between NASA and local space companies continues to evolve, and the increased budget could be a boon for LA-based developers. Numerous contractors for NASA (including CalTech, which runs the JPL), Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX and Northrop Grumman all stand to gain new contracts once the budget is finalized, partly because NASA simply needs the private industry’s help to achieve all its goals.

    James said that there was only one JPL mission that wasn’t funded – a mission to send an orbital satellite to survey the surface and interior of Venus, called VERITAS.

    NASA Employment and Output ImpactEvan Xie

    The Moon and Mars

    Much of the money earmarked in the proposed 2024 budget is for crewed missions. Overall, NASA’s asking for $8 billion from Congress to fund lunar exploration missions. As part of this, the majority is earmarked for the upcoming Artemis mission, which aims to land a woman and person of color on the Moon’s south pole.

    While there’s a number of high-profile missions the JPL is working on that are focused on Mars, including Mars Sample Return project (which received $949 million in this proposed budget) and Ingenuity helicopter and Perseverance rover, JPL also received significant funding to study the Earth’s climate and behavior.

    JPL also got funding for several projects to map our universe. One is the SphereX Near Earth Objects surveyor mission, the goal of which is to use telescopes to “map the entire universe,” James said, adding that the mission was fully funded.

    International Space Station

    NASA’s also asking for more money to maintain the International Space Station (ISS), which houses a number of projects dedicated to better understanding the Earth’s climate and behavior.

    The agency requested roughly $1.3 billion to maintain the ISS. It also is increasing its investment in space flight support, in-space transportation and commercial development of low-earth orbit (LEO). “The ISS is an incredible platform for us,” James said.

    James added there are multiple missions outside or on board the ISS now taking data, including EMIT, which launched in July 2022. The EMIT mission studies arid dust sources on the planet using spectroscopy. It uses that data to remodel how mineral dust movement in North and South America might affect the Earth’s temperature changes.

    Another ISS mission JPL launched is called ECOSTRESS. The mission sent a thermal radiometer onto the space station in June 2018 to monitor how plants lose water through their leaves, with the goal of figuring out how the terrestrial biosphere reacts to changes in water availability. James said the plan is to “tell you the kind of foliage health around the globe” from space.

    One other ISS project is called Cold Atom Lab. It is “an incredible fundamental physics machine,” James said, that’s run by “three Nobel Prize winners as principal investigators on the Space Station.” Cold Atom Lab is a physics experiment geared toward figuring out how quantum phenomena behave in space by cooling atoms with lasers to just below absolute zero degrees.

    In the long term, James was optimistic NASA’s imaging projects could lead to more dramatic discoveries. Surveying the makeup of planets’ atmospheres is a project “in the astrophysics domain we’re very excited about,” James said. He added that this imaging could lead to information about life on other planets, or, at the very least, an understanding of why they’re no longer habitable.

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    samsonamore@dot.la

    Three Wishes Cereal Co-Founder Margaret Wishingrad on ‘The Power of No’

    Decerry Donato

    Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

    Three Wishes Cereal Co-Founder Margaret Wishingrad on ‘The Power of No’
    Provided by BHE

    On this episode of Behind Her Empire, Three Wishes founder and CEO Margaret Wishingrad talks about creating brand awareness and shares the key component to running a successful business.

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    If Angelenos Don’t Seize the Curb, They Risk Losing Sidewalk Dining

    Maylin Tu
    Maylin Tu is a freelance writer who lives in L.A. She writes about scooters, bikes and micro-mobility. Find her hovering by the cheese at your next local tech mixer.
    Connie Llanos, Jordan Justus and Gene Oh
    Justin Janes, Vizeos Media

    Three years ago, Los Angeles went into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, cities like L.A. are struggling to hold on to pandemic-era transportation and infrastructure changes, like sidewalk dining and slow streets, while managing escalating demand for curb space from rideshare and delivery.

    At Curbivore, a conference dedicated to “commerce at the curb” held earlier this month in downtown Los Angeles, the topic was “Grading on a Curb: The State of our Streets & Cities in 2023,” a panel moderated by Drew Grant, editorial director for dot.LA.

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