Guest Column: This Month Marks the Start of the Greatest Workplace Experiment in History

Owen Fileti
Owen Fileti is Managing Director of HelloOffice, a technology-powered commercial real estate brokerage.
Guest Column: This Month Marks the Start of the Greatest Workplace Experiment in History

The impact of coronavirus on every business across the world is enormous and undeniable. Companies everywhere are re-evaluating their workload and workforce – at potentially extreme costs. Working remotely works right now because everyone has been forced to do it, but is it here to stay and is it for everyone?


The pace of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. is accelerating at an alarming rate. With no vaccine or cure anticipated for many months, the immediate reality for every company should be to re-evaluate their workplace strategy right now, not just for the short-term but also for the medium and long-term.

This month marks the start to the greatest workplace experiment in history.

While we will all come out stronger, workplace strategies are being tested, changed and reimagined right now. What was our day-to-day is no longer the norm. Most companies haven't had time to establish a normal workflow yet. Corporate leaders are rapidly adopting new protocols and procedures for basic tasks as well as re-working the paths to completing critical projects that were previously accomplished with a full, on-site workforce. How do you protect your staff and mitigate health risks while operating your business effectively under these circumstances? Most companies are working from home right now, but is it sustainable?

Owen Fileti is Managing Director of HelloOffice, a technology-powered commercial real estate brokerage.

There is no clear one-size-fits-all strategy for every company managing the current chaos. From startups to Fortune 100 companies, immediate adjustments to workplace strategies will depend upon multiple factors: leadership, type of industry, geographic location, employee size, current office layout, work style, workflow, client service practices, transportation patterns of employees, HR policies, health status of the team and the number of COVID-19 cases in the local area. One certainty is that the companies that can adapt the fastest will increase their likelihood of surviving, thriving and emerging stronger when all the craziness subsides.

Communication, technology, and connectivity are crucial to productive remote work as well as the ability to service clients and engage employees. When you remove everything from inner office collaborations, face-to-face spontaneous interactions, random distractions, and long distance commutes, will performance increase? How will companies measure productivity in this new environment? One lesson companies are quickly learning is that they must leverage technology more effectively to optimize remote work.

At some point, business will go back to usual.

After 9/11, companies eventually resumed work though our lives changed in significant and permanent ways. Some industries, such as travel and airlines, were forever changed. But they did bounce back, just like they will do after the 'curve flattens.' The harsh reality is that some businesses might not be able to weather the economic impact of this unexpected turbulence. Businesses must leverage technology more effectively and become smarter on new workforce ideation and strategy quickly.

The good news is that many companies are investing in the technology needed, but even those best suited for remote work face challenges implementing so much change so quickly.

Owen Fileti is Managing Director of HelloOffice, a technology-powered commercial real estate brokerage.

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Here’s How LA’s Tech Scene Is Reacting to the SVB Collapse

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.

Here’s How LA’s Tech Scene Is Reacting to the SVB Collapse

The collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) has left many in sheer panic, including the tech industry, which relies on the bank’s financing.

Since the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) has taken control of the bank’s deposits, nearly half of those U.S. venture-backed tech companies pulled deposits out of the bank.

The uncertainty of the situation left the majority of people with unanswered questions, so they took their concerns and thoughts to Twitter.

Here's how SoCal is reacting to the news:
















The SoCal Companies Affected By the Fall of Silicon Valley Bank

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.

The SoCal Companies Affected By the Fall of Silicon Valley Bank
An event held by SVB Private, an arm of Silicon Valley Bank, in March. (Cameron Rice)

The shockwaves fromSilicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) unexpected shutdown are rattling the tech industry writ large. In Southern California, SVB invested in several local tech companies through its SVB Capital venture arm.

Though the bank’s VC arm won’t be able to conduct future investments, founders that do have money tied up with the company in the form of debt will have to pay back the eventual new owner of SVB, and potentially would be opening themselves up to new loan terms.

With this in mind, let’s look at the Southern California tech firms that still have money tied up with SVB, and how that might affect their operations as the floundering bank searches for a bailout.

Suiteness

Walnut-based Suitness makes an app for people to book adjoining hotel rooms or suites. It took debt financing from SVB and paid it off last year, founder Kyle Killion said.

But, Killion said he almost wished they had been a bit less financially responsible: “We could have gotten an even better deal if we had waited” to pay off the SVB debt, he told me. “If we had waited the debt would be sold off to another bank at a discount and we would need to pay them [and] that new bank’s cost-basis would be lower because of the discount.”

In addition to SVB, Suiteness has also taken funding from Y Combinator and counts OpenAI founder Sam Altman as a board member and investor. Killion said that despite the current turmoil, his company had a good experience lending from the embattled bank. “We did get a very generous deal from SVB,” he said.

Pathmatics

Pathmatics is now part of app data firm SensorTower, but before itsMay 2021 buyout, the Santa Monica-based mobile ad analytics company raised debt funding from SVB. Gabe Gottlieb founded Pathmatics and served as its CEO for nearly 11 years before the buyout, and he is now Sensor Tower’s chief strategy officer.

Gottlieb said Pathmatics found SVB after its series A round. He said Pathmatics paid off its SVB debt before the acquisition and noted if it weren’t for the closing, he’d bank with SVB again. “I feel like we got a pretty good deal,” Gottlieb told me, adding it was a “low interest rate in absolute terms for a startup that was still very much in the growth phase.”

The founder also added, “I always felt like they had top-notch people working there [and] I’m really sad to see what has happened to them as they were an important part of literally generations of startups’ success.

EcoSense

In the last several years EcoSense has bought out a number of rival LED makers, including Lumium Lighting in January 2019 andSoraa in March 2020. The LED luminaire company raised a debt financing round from SVB in late June 2020, according to PitchBook Data. EcoSense launched in 2009 and is now owned by Korrus, a lighting company based in Chinatown.

Fulcrum Microsystems

A semiconductor company based in Calabasas, Fulcrum Microsystems raisednearly $17 million from investors including SVB Capital back in March 2007. The company was lateracquired by chip-maker Intel in July 2011 for an undisclosed sum. Fulcrum’s tech mainly powers Ethernet switches for data centers, and Intel’s buy gave it a valuable direct supplier to power its data centers across the globe.

HealthTap

Per Pitchbook, Sunnyvale-based virtual doctor appointment app HealthTap raised debt financing from SVB in April 2020. SVB was biotech-focused and rana healthtech investment banking division alongside providing debt rounds to healthtech companies in California.

Last November, HealthTaplinked with Samsung to bring its Eval360 tech – which lets doctors conduct virtual medical exams – to develop software that would allow people to get those virtual evaluations through their Samsung Smart TVs in the future.

Kandji

ThisSan Diego-based company builds a device management software for IT teams using Apple products. It raised $60 million from investors including SVB Capital in March 2021. Less than a year later, itraised another $100 million, also including SVB. In addition to SVB, Kandji is backed by VC firm Greycroft, which has an Arts District office, and Manhattan Beach-based B Capital. Kandji has raised nearly $90 million since its 2018 launch.

Shield AI

San Diego-basedShield AI is trying to build Hivemind, the world’s first artificial intelligence pilot to power autonomous planes. SVB backed the company in December 2022, joining Shield AI’s$225 million Series E round. SVB also invested in its $22 million Series B round in April 2019. Shield AI has raised $575 million since it launched in 2015, and is also backed by Venice-based Riot Ventures.Boeing recently partnered with Shield AI to research unmanned flight technologies for the U.S. Air Force.

Disclosure: SVB has been a sponsor of dot.LA events and recently had an article published on the site as part of a paid partnership agreement.

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