Author: Megan Rose Dickey

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Bringing micromobility to Africa

When you look at maps of micromobility across the world, it appears there’s not a ton of activity throughout Africa. Well, that’s because there’s not, Gura Ride founder and CEO Tony Adesina said at TC Sessions: Mobility.

In Africa, there are “very few” micromobility operators, Adesina said. “Almost non-existent.”

That’s why launching bike and scooter share in Africa, and specifically Rwanda was strategic, he said. In Kigali, there are many bike lanes and cycling is quite popular in Rwanda, Adesina said. But bikeshare and scooters are “completely new to them.”

Gura Ride has been in operation for the last couple of years and says people are generally receptive to the idea. Still, it hasn’t attracted the same type of market activity as other places.

“Africa is quite unique,” Adesina said. “I don’t think it’s somewhere where you can bring an existing model, maybe that worked in the States or the UK and just dump in a country like South Africa or Rwanda. You have to understand the culture and the people you’re dealing with. It takes quite some time. You have to study the terrain and make sure the model you run in the U.S. or the U.K. can actually fit. Another thing is price. The buying power is not as heavy as you have in the States. So the numbers have to make sense and you have to make sure that the market you’re going into can meet your projected goals.”

That’s partly why Voi, which has gained a stronghold across Europe, has yet to launch in Africa. Voi CEO Fredrik Hjelm noted how the cost of supply and operations is pretty much the same wherever it operates, so in markets where there is less willingness among riders to pay higher costs, it makes it “very, very difficult to operate profitably,” he said.

Once Voi can bring down the costs of operations, it will be easier to launch in more markets and operate profitably there, Hjelm said.

“So there is definitely a time where we will be able to make markets with lower willingness to pay, such as Africa, profitable, when we go there,” he said.

What’s key to micromobility becoming more mainstream in Africa is infrastructure, Adesina said.

“I think the biggest issue [in Kigali] is that the roads are quite narrow, so how do you share the road so you don’t have a lot of hit and runs,” he said.

On the other hand, micromobility is thriving so much in Europe because of the infrastructure, Hjelm said. So, infrastructure can really make or break the industry.

“The infrastructure is better than anywhere else,” Hjlem said. “Culturally also, we’re much more used to bikes to mopeds to vespas to scooters — to all kinds of alternatives to cars. So I think that fundamentally, Europe is the world’s most attractive market.”

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Uber still sees micromobility and AVs in its future, and could push Prop 22 beyond California

Uber made headlines earlier this year when it offloaded Jump, the shared bike and scooter unit that once appeared to be a critical piece of its transportation. Despite that move, Uber still sees micromobility as “really important” to the company, according to Uber Director of Policy, Cities and Transportation Shin-pei Tsay, who joined TechCrunch on the virtual stage of TC Sessions: Mobility 2020.

“It was really hard to let go of Jump, but micromobility is a business where on the ground operations are so important,” Tsay said. “They’re vital to the success of the operations, they’re vital to the business being able to provide the service to as many people as possible. And scaling it was, is challenging for every micromobility operator. The current state of policies around micromobility is a very challenged environment. I would say where cities are really trying to get a handle on how best to manage operators and how best to manage the public right of way.”

Even though Uber offloaded JUMP to Lime, Uber is still partnering with other micromobility operators through the world. Part of that, Tsay says, means Uber can offer micromobility in more cities.

Tsay also weighed Uber’s stance on transit, autonomous vehicles and micromobility as well as its role in Propr 22, the gig workers ballot measure that is up vote in November in California.

Where Uber stands on AVs

Uber has been working on autonomous vehicles for the last five years or so. Last month, The Information published a report saying Uber is still nowhere close to achieving its AV ambitions. But Tsay said autonomous vehicles are still on the roadmap for Uber.

“I think the point here is like, there’s a transition, right?” Tsay said. “It has to be shared, it has to be electric and then we’re going to get to autonomous. And that’s still in the future of the business. But frankly, I think as a community of transportation folks, we’re still sorting out what it means to have a multimodal shared transportation system. And then what does it mean to really invest in the electrification aspect.”

Tsay pointed to how Uber recently committed to becoming a zero-emission platform by 2040. Part of that involves incentivizing drivers to transition to electric vehicles.

“So we want to increase access to transportation while we’re driving down carbon,” Tsay said. “So we felt it was really important to do that. And I think, ultimately, autonomous vehicles will have a role to play for high volume routes, for improving safety. But i think at this stage in the game, it’s like heads down, let’s focus on getting it right. Let’s focus on the cities that we have pilots in and let’s just really get it right before, you know, making additional commitments.”

Pushing Prop 22

Autonomous vehicles and Uber’s role in commercializing the tech is a distant term issue. Prop 22, which Uber is backing, could change the landscape, or more precisely protect the status quo in the near term.

Prop 22 aims to keep gig workers classified as independent contractors. The measure, if passed, would make drivers and delivery workers for said companies exempt from a new state law that classifies them as W-2 employees. If passed, app-based transportation and delivery workers would be entitled to things like minimum compensation and healthcare subsidies based on engaged driving time.

Uber, Lyft, Instacart and DoorDash have collectively contributed $184,008,361.46 to the Yes on 22 campaign. Those contributions have been monetary, non-monetary and have come in the form of loans. In September, the four companies each committed another $17.5 million to Yes on Prop 22 in monetary contributions.

As of August 24, the Yes on 22 campaign had contributed just north of $110 million, while the No on 22 campaign had put $4.6 million into its efforts. The latest influx of cash brings Yes on 22’s total contributions to more than $180 million. Of all the measures on this November’s ballot, Yes on Prop 22 has received the most contributions, according to California’s Fair Political Practices Commission.

Tsay said Prop 22 is important to Uber because of what it has found from studies and surveys. In those cited surveys, drivers said they value flexibility above anything else.

“And I think that flexibility ends up being something that’s worth protecting, but it isn’t perfect, you know,” Tsay said. “We should be supporting workers more than the existing system enables currently and so this is sort of a middle way of protecting that flexibility but also offering some benefits.”

Uber also doesn’t see a way to offer flexibility to drivers while also employing them.

“I think it’d be really challenging,” Tsay said about providing flexibility to drivers as employees. “We would have to start to ensure that there’s coverage to ensure that there’s the necessary number of drivers to meet demand. That would be this forecasting that needs to happen. We would only be able to offer a certain number of jobs to meet that demand because people will be working in set amounts of time. I think there would be quite fewer work opportunities, especially the ones that people really have said that they like.”

It’s worth noting, however, that Uber’s adamancy around keeping drivers classified as independent contractors also stems from the fact that it will be costly to reclassify drivers as employees. At one point, Uber threatened to leave California in response to a preliminary injunction that seeks to force both Uber and Lyft to reclassify their drivers as employees. In an August court hearing, Uber and Lyft maintained that an injunction would require them to restructure their businesses in such a material way that it would prevent them from being able to employ many drivers on either a full-time or part-time basis. Uber and Lyft’s argument, effectively, is that classifying drivers as employees would result in job loss.

In the event Prop 22 passes, we can likely expect Uber to pursue similar legislation in other states.

“If the principles are there then yeah, there’s a possibility of it going to other states,” Tsay said.

I’m a software engineer at Uber and I’m voting against Prop 22

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What micromobility is missing

AT TC Sessions: Mobility, we heard from Tortoise co-founder and president Dmitry Shevelenko, Elemental Excelerator director of Innovation, Mobility, Danielle Harris and Superpedestrian VP of Strategy and Policy, Avra van der Zee about the next opportunities in micromobility.

“Thinking about how micromobility could expand, and the accessibility of it in terms of getting people on board, getting people to opportunities in terms of education and employment, I think there’s still a need to very much think outside of the box of what does this look like, exactly, as we evolve,” Harris said.

The discussion explored how a vast landscape of companies have emerged around micromobility but how there ultimately needs to be more infrastructure and continued steps taken toward enhancing the right of way for alternative modes of transportation.

“When I think about equity and access, I also like to think about it through the lens of designing a vehicle that isn’t just for an able-bodied 32-year-old white man,”  van der Zee said. “[…] It’s excellent we are part of a transportation system but we want to build something safe enough to entice a range of users. So there’s questions about the inherent design.”

Those questions center around whether there’s a wide enough baseboard, whether it feels robust, how it feels riding on cobblestone and how you actually build an accessible vehicle, she said. But the biggest thing that is missing from micromobility systems is the further development of fully protected bike lanes.

“For me, that is sort of the linchpin for building out a safe system,” she said, noting how she would not let her kids ride a bike or scooter unless there was a protected bike lane.

“That I think is a problem the industry has yet to tackle…transporting not just yourself but you know, a friend or a kid,” Van der Zee said.

Shevelenko noted the industry got a bit ahead of itself thanks to Bird and Lime. Their massive funding rounds led to this increased focus on two-wheeled scooter form factor “that just happened to be what was available at the time,” Shevelenko said.

“What I’m particularly excited about is different vehicle architectures,” he said. “We’re working with OEMs building three-wheeled scooters, four-wheeled scooters. I think the more balance a vehicle has, the more naturally accessible it is, the easier it is to add things like seats. Thinking of the continuum all the way from an electric wheelchair to a two-wheeled scooter, there’s still a lot of room for products there.”

You can watch the full conversation here.

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Human Capital: Coinbase and Clubhouse aside, Ethel’s Club founder wants to take us ‘Somewhere Good’

Welcome back to Human Capital, a weekly digest about diversity, inclusion and the human labor that powers tech.

This week, we’re looking at a number of topics because a lot went down. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong took a controversial stance on social, Clubhouse found itself under scrutiny again, but this time around anti-Semitism and a new site launched that sheds light on some of the negative experiences of underrepresented people in tech. Meanwhile, the founder from Ethel’s Club unveiled Somewhere Good, which aims to provide a safe social platform for people of color. The timing couldn’t be better.

Human Capital launches as a newsletter on Friday, October 23. Be sure to sign up here to get it sent straight to your inbox. 

Stay Woke

Coinbase CEO’s stance on societal issues stirs up controversy 

Over the weekend, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the company does not engage on border societal issues when they are not related to its core mission. On political causes, Armstrong said Coinbase also does not advocate for any causes or candidates that are not related to its mission “because it is a distraction from our mission.” In that Medium post, Armstrong recognized that some employees may disagree and even resign. 

A couple of days later, Armstrong began offering employees who don’t feel comfortable with the direction of the company a severance package, The Block Crypto reported. 

“It’s always sad when we see teammates go, but it can also be what is best for them and the company,” Armstrong wrote in an internal memo. “As I said in my blog post, life is too short to work a company that you aren’t excited about.”

It’s quite a statement to make just weeks away from a very important presidential election. But Armstrong’s justification seems to be that he doesn’t want the internal strife that has happened at companies like Google and Facebook to happen at Coinbase. 

Obviously, people have feelings and thoughts about Armstrong’s stance. One on side, there’s Y Combinator Founder Paul Graham saying Coinbase will push away the “aggressively conventional-minded” people but that those types of people “tend not to be good at building things anyway.”

And on another side, there’s Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey pointing out how Armstrong’s stance leaves people behind. 

Then, there’s also confusion around how Armstrong could say that Black lives matter in June and then go on to say that workers essentially need to leave their politics and beliefs that don’t relate to work at home. Well, GitHub Director of Engineering Erica Baker tweeted that someone probably forced Armstrong’s hand into speaking out about Black lives. 

The latest Clubhouse drama

The invitation-only audio social app was home to a discussion titled, “Anti-Semitism and Black Culture” this week. During the discussion, someone reportedly said Black and Jewish communities differ because of their relationship to economic advancement, Bloomberg reported. In response, another person reportedly said, “The Jewish community does business with their enemies; the Black community is enslaved by their enemies” — to which some people pushed back, saying it perpetuates a harmful stereotype about Jewish people.

Ethel’s Club founder teases Somewhere Good, a digital space that centers people of color

Amid private social app Clubhouse finding itself again under heavy scrutiny, there perhaps is no better time for the emergence of a platform that provides a safe space for people of color.

Naj Austin, founder and CEO of subscription-based physical and digital community Ethel’s Club, is building Somewhere Good to be a one-stop shop for people of color. Beyond being a place for people of color to connect, it’s also about creating a safe space for folks to be their authentic selves.

“A lot of how we’re talking about Somewhere Good with investors is this idea of a new online world where our identities are centered,” Austin told me. “The vision for Somewhere Good is you take your phone out of your pocket and, as a Black person or person of color, all of your needs are met there in that one place.”

Greylock teams up with Management Leadership for Tomorrow to diversify tech’s wealth cycle

Greylock is one of a number of VC firms that have kicked into action following the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other unarmed Black people and people of color. The multi-pronged partnership will enable Greylock to tap into MLT’s network of around 8,000 Black, Latinx and Indigenous professionals and connect them with potential roles at the firm’s portfolio companies. Additionally, Greylock and MLT will work together to support retention at those companies, as well as help MLT professionals pursue careers in venture capital.

“And look, VCs and tech startups — we just have to be honest that we’ve been really bad at getting this right,” Greylock Partner David Sze told TechCrunch. “Historically, I mean, we’ve let the system sort of evolve without much top down oversight in regards of diversity and inclusion and we just really need to change that.”

Twitter releases latest diversity report

Twitter’s most recent diversity report showed that the company has done an okay job of increasing representation of Black employees at its company since 2017. In 2017, Twitter was just 3.4% Black and in August 2020, Twitter was 6.3% Black.

Image Credits: Twitter

By 2025, Twitter aims for at least 25% of its workforce to be underrepresented minorities, and at least 10% of that overall 25% to be Black. Overall, Twitter is 41.4% white, 28.4% Asian, 5.2% Latinx, 3.7% multi-racial and less than 1% Indigenous. 

Twitter’s technical team is also mostly white (41.4%) so perhaps it’s no wonder why Twitter has had some algorithmic bias issues. 

DiscoTech highlights diversity issues in tech

A new site popped up that details the discrimination people experience in tech. The folks behind DiscoTech describe themselves as “a diverse group of cross-tech organizers who are committed to ending discrimination in the workplace.”

The posted experiences — all anonymous — describe sexism, racism, ageism, sexual harassment and assault, weight discrimination, suicide and mental illness. Here are a few stories that jumped out:

On being a woman in tech:

After introducing myself to a peer at a social gathering, I was asked if I had ‘come to Microsoft to find a husband?’ The blatant question left me speechless, and I was shocked by his total disregard for my professional aspirations. My friend overheard and she quickly asked if he would pose the same question to a man, asking if he’d ‘come to Microsoft to find a partner?’ He got defensive and denied his originally offensive inquiry.

On being underpaid in tech:

This event happened prior to my joining the team, but I didn’t find out about it until years later.  The hiring manager bragged openly about how ‘little’ she hired me for while I was desperately leaving a toxic work environment. I pushed back, she was persistent and being afraid of losing the offer I took it. I ended up leaving the position for a job that paid market value. Irony.

On being a Black woman in tech:

I’m not sure where to begin with the amount of discomfort I’ve experienced in the work place. As a Black, woman in tech I’m all too familiar with being an extreme minority. I guess you could say my discomfort began at the beginning of my professional career. I accepted a position at my company in a 6 month training program for recent college graduates. Upon arrival at orientation I realized I was the only Black woman out of 70 participants. 70 other co-workers and I was the only one. I felt completely alone and as if I had no one who could relate to my unique experience. From there, it was small incident after small incident that caused my discomfort to grow. From my technical trainer referring to me as Sheba, as in the Queen of Sheba, in the middle of a training session to my colleagues constantly questioning my intelligence, work became a stressful environment. It didn’t help that when I tried to reach out throughout the company for assistance with existing in the workplace, I was often told to keep to myself and try my best to ‘fit in.’ It took me a while to find a support system but I’m glad I finally did because the amount of microaggressions I face on daily basis is often overwhelming.

Labor Organizing

Shipt shoppers protest new pay model

Shipt shoppers are organizing a handful of actions in protest of Shipt’s new pay structure that began rolling out this month. The first action is happening from Saturday, Oct. 17 through Oct. 19, when workers are calling on their fellow Shipt shoppers to walk out and boycott the company. Organizers are asking for shoppers not to schedule any hours or accept any orders during that time.

“Our goal is to draw attention to the fact that this pay scale really does affect shoppers and regardless of Shipt’s position of it taking into account effort and benefitting shoppers, we are finding it is the opposite on both fronts,” Willy Solis, a Shipt shopper in Dallas and lead organizer at Gig Workers Collective, told TechCrunch. “It’s not holding up to the true reality. We are getting paid less for more effort.”

Spin workers ratify first union contract

A group of 40 workers at Ford-owned Spin ratified their first union contract with Teamsters Local 665 this week. The group of workers consists of shift leads, maintenance specialists, operations specialists, community ambassadors, and scooter deployers and collectors.

“This new contract gives us job security and immediate money up front, with guaranteed increases each year going forward. We also got holiday pay and vacation, which we didn’t have before we organized,” Spin worker Shamar Bell said in a statement. “All this means a lot during the pandemic. We know our union will have our back if our boss or the city government tries to make changes. I can say for sure, we’re proud to be Teamsters.”

As part of the three-year agreement, Spin workers will get annual pay raises of more than 3% each year, six paid holidays (compared to zero holidays), vacation days based on years of employment (compared to no vacation days), five sick days a year, a $1,200 per employee ratification bonus, benefits accrual for part-time workers and other benefits.

In Other News

By the way, TechCrunch Sessions: Mobility is coming up next week. Since you made it to the end of this, here’s a 50% off code for you to get full access to the event. This code will get you into the expo and breakout sessions for free.

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Human Capital: Coinbase and Clubhouse aside, Ethel’s Club founder wants to take us ‘Somewhere Good’

Welcome back to Human Capital, a weekly digest about diversity, inclusion and the human labor that powers tech.

This week, we’re looking at a number of topics because a lot went down. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong took a controversial stance on social, Clubhouse found itself under scrutiny again, but this time around anti-Semitism and a new site launched that sheds light on some of the negative experiences of underrepresented people in tech. Meanwhile, the founder from Ethel’s Club unveiled Somewhere Good, which aims to provide a safe social platform for people of color. The timing couldn’t be better.

Human Capital launches as a newsletter on Friday, October 23. Be sure to sign up here to get it sent straight to your inbox. 

Stay Woke

Coinbase CEO’s stance on societal issues stirs up controversy 

Over the weekend, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the company does not engage on border societal issues when they are not related to its core mission. On political causes, Armstrong said Coinbase also does not advocate for any causes or candidates that are not related to its mission “because it is a distraction from our mission.” In that Medium post, Armstrong recognized that some employees may disagree and even resign. 

A couple of days later, Armstrong began offering employees who don’t feel comfortable with the direction of the company a severance package, The Block Crypto reported. 

“It’s always sad when we see teammates go, but it can also be what is best for them and the company,” Armstrong wrote in an internal memo. “As I said in my blog post, life is too short to work a company that you aren’t excited about.”

It’s quite a statement to make just weeks away from a very important presidential election. But Armstrong’s justification seems to be that he doesn’t want the internal strife that has happened at companies like Google and Facebook to happen at Coinbase. 

Obviously, people have feelings and thoughts about Armstrong’s stance. One on side, there’s Y Combinator Founder Paul Graham saying Coinbase will push away the “aggressively conventional-minded” people but that those types of people “tend not to be good at building things anyway.”

And on another side, there’s Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey pointing out how Armstrong’s stance leaves people behind. 

Then, there’s also confusion around how Armstrong could say that Black lives matter in June and then go on to say that workers essentially need to leave their politics and beliefs that don’t relate to work at home. Well, GitHub Director of Engineering Erica Baker tweeted that someone probably forced Armstrong’s hand into speaking out about Black lives. 

The latest Clubhouse drama

The invitation-only audio social app was home to a discussion titled, “Anti-Semitism and Black Culture” this week. During the discussion, someone reportedly said Black and Jewish communities differ because of their relationship to economic advancement, Bloomberg reported. In response, another person reportedly said, “The Jewish community does business with their enemies; the Black community is enslaved by their enemies” — to which some people pushed back, saying it perpetuates a harmful stereotype about Jewish people.

Ethel’s Club founder teases Somewhere Good, a digital space that centers people of color

Amid private social app Clubhouse finding itself again under heavy scrutiny, there perhaps is no better time for the emergence of a platform that provides a safe space for people of color.

Naj Austin, founder and CEO of subscription-based physical and digital community Ethel’s Club, is building Somewhere Good to be a one-stop shop for people of color. Beyond being a place for people of color to connect, it’s also about creating a safe space for folks to be their authentic selves.

“A lot of how we’re talking about Somewhere Good with investors is this idea of a new online world where our identities are centered,” Austin told me. “The vision for Somewhere Good is you take your phone out of your pocket and, as a Black person or person of color, all of your needs are met there in that one place.”

Greylock teams up with Management Leadership for Tomorrow to diversify tech’s wealth cycle

Greylock is one of a number of VC firms that have kicked into action following the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other unarmed Black people and people of color. The multi-pronged partnership will enable Greylock to tap into MLT’s network of around 8,000 Black, Latinx and Indigenous professionals and connect them with potential roles at the firm’s portfolio companies. Additionally, Greylock and MLT will work together to support retention at those companies, as well as help MLT professionals pursue careers in venture capital.

“And look, VCs and tech startups — we just have to be honest that we’ve been really bad at getting this right,” Greylock Partner David Sze told TechCrunch. “Historically, I mean, we’ve let the system sort of evolve without much top down oversight in regards of diversity and inclusion and we just really need to change that.”

Twitter releases latest diversity report

Twitter’s most recent diversity report showed that the company has done an okay job of increasing representation of Black employees at its company since 2017. In 2017, Twitter was just 3.4% Black and in August 2020, Twitter was 6.3% Black.

Image Credits: Twitter

By 2025, Twitter aims for at least 25% of its workforce to be underrepresented minorities, and at least 10% of that overall 25% to be Black. Overall, Twitter is 41.4% white, 28.4% Asian, 5.2% Latinx, 3.7% multi-racial and less than 1% Indigenous. 

Twitter’s technical team is also mostly white (41.4%) so perhaps it’s no wonder why Twitter has had some algorithmic bias issues. 

DiscoTech highlights diversity issues in tech

A new site popped up that details the discrimination people experience in tech. The folks behind DiscoTech describe themselves as “a diverse group of cross-tech organizers who are committed to ending discrimination in the workplace.”

The posted experiences — all anonymous — describe sexism, racism, ageism, sexual harassment and assault, weight discrimination, suicide and mental illness. Here are a few stories that jumped out:

On being a woman in tech:

After introducing myself to a peer at a social gathering, I was asked if I had ‘come to Microsoft to find a husband?’ The blatant question left me speechless, and I was shocked by his total disregard for my professional aspirations. My friend overheard and she quickly asked if he would pose the same question to a man, asking if he’d ‘come to Microsoft to find a partner?’ He got defensive and denied his originally offensive inquiry.

On being underpaid in tech:

This event happened prior to my joining the team, but I didn’t find out about it until years later.  The hiring manager bragged openly about how ‘little’ she hired me for while I was desperately leaving a toxic work environment. I pushed back, she was persistent and being afraid of losing the offer I took it. I ended up leaving the position for a job that paid market value. Irony.

On being a Black woman in tech:

I’m not sure where to begin with the amount of discomfort I’ve experienced in the work place. As a Black, woman in tech I’m all too familiar with being an extreme minority. I guess you could say my discomfort began at the beginning of my professional career. I accepted a position at my company in a 6 month training program for recent college graduates. Upon arrival at orientation I realized I was the only Black woman out of 70 participants. 70 other co-workers and I was the only one. I felt completely alone and as if I had no one who could relate to my unique experience. From there, it was small incident after small incident that caused my discomfort to grow. From my technical trainer referring to me as Sheba, as in the Queen of Sheba, in the middle of a training session to my colleagues constantly questioning my intelligence, work became a stressful environment. It didn’t help that when I tried to reach out throughout the company for assistance with existing in the workplace, I was often told to keep to myself and try my best to ‘fit in.’ It took me a while to find a support system but I’m glad I finally did because the amount of microaggressions I face on daily basis is often overwhelming.

Labor Organizing

Shipt shoppers protest new pay model

Shipt shoppers are organizing a handful of actions in protest of Shipt’s new pay structure that began rolling out this month. The first action is happening from Saturday, Oct. 17 through Oct. 19, when workers are calling on their fellow Shipt shoppers to walk out and boycott the company. Organizers are asking for shoppers not to schedule any hours or accept any orders during that time.

“Our goal is to draw attention to the fact that this pay scale really does affect shoppers and regardless of Shipt’s position of it taking into account effort and benefitting shoppers, we are finding it is the opposite on both fronts,” Willy Solis, a Shipt shopper in Dallas and lead organizer at Gig Workers Collective, told TechCrunch. “It’s not holding up to the true reality. We are getting paid less for more effort.”

Spin workers ratify first union contract

A group of 40 workers at Ford-owned Spin ratified their first union contract with Teamsters Local 665 this week. The group of workers consists of shift leads, maintenance specialists, operations specialists, community ambassadors, and scooter deployers and collectors.

“This new contract gives us job security and immediate money up front, with guaranteed increases each year going forward. We also got holiday pay and vacation, which we didn’t have before we organized,” Spin worker Shamar Bell said in a statement. “All this means a lot during the pandemic. We know our union will have our back if our boss or the city government tries to make changes. I can say for sure, we’re proud to be Teamsters.”

As part of the three-year agreement, Spin workers will get annual pay raises of more than 3% each year, six paid holidays (compared to zero holidays), vacation days based on years of employment (compared to no vacation days), five sick days a year, a $1,200 per employee ratification bonus, benefits accrual for part-time workers and other benefits.

In Other News

By the way, TechCrunch Sessions: Mobility is coming up next week. Since you made it to the end of this, here’s a 50% off code for you to get full access to the event. This code will get you into the expo and breakout sessions for free.

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Ethel’s Club founder is launching Somewhere Good, a social platform that centers people of color

Naj Austin, founder and CEO of subscription-based physical and digital community Ethel’s Club, is building Somewhere Good to be a one-stop shop for people of color. Beyond being a place for people of color to connect, it’s also about creating a safe space for folks to be their authentic selves.

“A lot of how we’re talking about Somewhere Good with investors is this idea of a new online world where our identities are centered,” Austin told me. “The vision for Somewhere Good is you take your phone out of your pocket and, as a Black person or person of color, all of your needs are met there in that one place.”

That means folks could access communities around things like wellness, art, music and film, and engage in commerce through those groups. It’s not that some of these communities don’t already exist, it’s just that they’re fragmented across the web and not always easy to find.

Through operating wellness community Ethel’s Club, Austin said many members keep asking her if she knows of other types of spaces for Black people and people of color that focus on more granular topics, like jazz music from the eighties or an online space specifically for Black women who don’t want children.

“We’ve had so many of those,” Austin said. “We just need to create a platform where they can do it themselves. It goes back to my core belief of building a company that provides space for people of color. My whole thing is, are we providing more space, are more people of color feeling empowered. As long as that’s a yes, it doesn’t matter the vehicle.”

[gallery ids="2054998,2054999,2055000,2055001,2055010,2055011"]

When Somewhere Good launches in beta in January, Austin said users will be able to input their general info and then choose a selection of interests. For example, someone could identify themselves as a mother who likes painting, has a dog and works as a baker.

“We would then spit out communities we think are the best fit for you,” Austin said.

That will enable Somewhere Good to foster an additional level of connection for users, Austin said. One way of achieving that extra layer will be through a matchmaking tool.

“We’re trying to give people a more tangible reason for connection,” Austin said. “Other than you’re both Black.”

Ethel’s Club, the wellness platform for people of color that currently lives on Mighty Networks, will be just one of many communities on Somewhere Good. The plan is to bring on a number of other communities to the platform that center Black people and people of color. From there, Austin envisions users of those communities may then create communities of their own on Somewhere Good.

“We want to give space to people who are already creating community, allow people who want community to build it and then for the audience, once they’re feeling empowered, to be able to build community,” she said.

When you go to Somewhere Good right now, you’ll engage in a Stumble Upon-esque experience where you click “Take me somewhere new” to see a brand geared toward Black people or people of color. There are a little over 100 brands currently featured on the site, including Black hair brand Nappy Head Club, Black designer directory Black Fashion Fair and cereal and culture brand OffLimits.

Image Credits: Screenshot

While OffLimits, for example, doesn’t currently have a community, the brand centers around thinking about food differently, Austin said. But OffLimits, which tells its story through “emotionally unstable, counterculture cartoon characters,” could run a community on Somewhere Good centered around product design or food. She also envisions makeup brand Fenty running a community centered around skin care.

Each community on Somewhere Good will have a moderator and all members will need to follow Somewhere Good’s code of conduct. The platform will not allow any hate speech, abusive behavior, bullying or other types of violence.

“Any users acting against out code of conduct will be immediately removed from the Somewhere Good platform,” the platform’s mission statement says.

Somewhere Good will be a 100% ad-free environment and says it will never sell data. Its business model relies on users paying to join communities and then taking a percentage of that transaction.

“That means we have to create a compelling opportunity for people to create communities,” she said.

Down the road, Somewhere Good plans to enable communities to charge for live-streamed events, sell products and enable other types of peer-to-peer transactions. The company would then take a percentage from those transactions, as well.

Somewhere Good soft-launched with a tweet last week and began taking signups. Already, there are more than 2,500 people on the wait list.

It’s a similar strategy Austin said she had with Ethel’s Club. With Ethel’s Club, she didn’t quite know the functionality of the product before launching but went ahead and started talking about it to see if there was interest. Once Austin saw there was interest, Ethel’s Club embraced the community to help the company build products they wanted. That’s the same framework she’s now using for Somewhere Good, she said.

Ethel’s Club, which got its start as a physical community space in Brooklyn before expanding into the digital realm as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, has currently raised a little over $1 million from Dream Machine, Shrug Capital, Canvas Ventures, Color, Debut Capital and angel investors like Katie Stanton, Roxane Gay and Hannibal Buress.

Since transitioning into digital, Ethel’s Club has grown to more than 1,500 members. But the biggest issue is that people just want more, Austin said. And Somewhere Good aims to be just that, she said. It aims to be the one platform where people of color can go to for everything.

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Spin workers just ratified their first union contract

A group of 40 workers at Ford-owned Spin just successfully ratified their first union contract. This comes after this group of shift leads, maintenance specialists, operations specialists, community ambassadors, and scooter deployers and collectors joined Teamsters Local 665 toward the end of last year.

“This new contract gives us job security and immediate money up front, with guaranteed increases each year going forward. We also got holiday pay and vacation, which we didn’t have before we organized,” Spin worker Shamar Bell said in a statement. “All this means a lot during the pandemic. We know our union will have our back if our boss or the city government tries to make changes. I can say for sure, we’re proud to be Teamsters.”

As part of the three-year agreement, Spin workers will get annual pay raises of more than 3% each year, six paid holidays (compared to zero holidays), vacation days based on years of employment (compared to no vacation days), five sick days a year, a $1,200 per employee ratification bonus, benefits accrual for part-time workers and other benefits.

“Since this is the first ever group of union e-scooter workers at Spin, we worked to build this contract from scratch,” Local 665 Secretary-Treasurer Tony Delorio said in a statement. “We are proud of this agreement and excited to continue our representation of workers with Spin.”

Spin first signed a labor peace agreement with Teamsters Local 665 last summer, before workers voted to be represented by the union.

“Throughout this pandemic, we’ve worked with the Teamsters to ensure our company could continue servicing the City by implementing safety procedures to keep both our employees and riders safe,” Spin Regulatory and Labor Affairs Counsel Nima Rahimi said in a statement to TechCrunch. “We are proud to have negotiated this contract with the Teamsters to best support our local workforce in San Francisco.”

In January, Spin CEO Euwyn Poon told TechCrunch, “We think it’s a good thing to be having the rights of our workers represented…We do want to figure out a way to have everybody win here. Fair wages and a good environment promotes retention for our business.”

This group of Spin workers were able to organize a union because they are classified as W-2 employees, rather than independent contractors. For folks in similar roles at other scooters companies, however, forming a union is not an option.

“We have aggressively advocated for our members not only at the bargaining table, but also with the city to ensure that e-scooter jobs are not temp gig work, that they are good union jobs,” Delorio said. “We welcome the expansion of the e-scooter program to companies that follow the rules. So far Spin is the only company to abide by labor standards and San Francisco’s requirements for permitting under its labor harmony provisions.”

More tech workers are starting to unionize

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Shipt shoppers are organizing a walkout in protest of new pay model

Shipt shoppers are organizing a handful of actions in protest of Shipt’s new pay structure that began rolling out this month.  The first action is happening from Saturday, Oct. 17 through Oct. 19, when workers are calling on their fellow Shipt shoppers to walk out and boycott the company. Organizers are asking for shoppers not to schedule any hours or accept any orders during that time.

“Our goal is to draw attention to the fact that this pay scale really does affect shoppers and regardless of Shipt’s position of it taking into account effort and benefitting shoppers, we are finding it is the opposite on both fronts,” Willy Solis, a Shipt shopper in Dallas and lead organizer at Gig Workers Collective, told TechCrunch. “It’s not holding up to the true reality. We are getting paid less for more effort.”

Shipt shoppers also plan to stage a direct action at Target’s corporate headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Monday, October 19. During the action, shoppers plan to read letters written to Shipt CEO Kelly Caruso that describe how the pay changes have impacted them.

Shipt shoppers have been speaking out against this new pay model since earlier this year, after Shipt started testing this new pay structure. In February, a Shipt shopper from Kalamazoo told me they were losing about 30% or more of their regular pay as a result of the change.

According to Target-owned Shipt, it’s doing this to “better account for the actual effort it takes to complete and deliver orders,” Shipt wrote in the Shipt Shopper Hub. That means the new pay model takes into account estimated drive time from the store to the customer’s door, how many items are in the order, location, peak shopping windows and more. But Shipt isn’t sharing an exact formula for calculating pay because “each metro has unique characteristics that can affect the shopping experience.”

On the blog, Shipt also points to how similarly priced orders might pay differently as a result of the effort it takes. For example, if the order total is $100 but is only one item versus 30 items, the latter order scenario would take more effort. That means the shopper would get paid more for that order with more items. But Solis said that’s an anomaly and that the majority of shoppers don’t receive orders like that.

“To base an entire pay structure off of an anomaly like that is really concerning,” he said.

Meanwhile, Solis said he’s found discrepancies between the way Shipt talks about its formula for calculating pay. In July, Shipt published a blog post about shop time. In it, the company laid out how it thinks about things like the location of the item, size of store and more. In the original post, which has since been updated, Shipt said it did not take into account checkout time, nor was it trying to gain insight about it.

Image Credits: Willy Solis/Screenshot

After shoppers expressed frustration about it in a Facebook group, Solis noticed that Shipt deleted that part from its blog post.

Image Credits: Willy Solis/Screenshot

“They literally said they are not interested in taking into account checkout times, which is a considerable amount of time shoppers spend in stores,” Solis said.

Shipt shoppers have staged actions before, but Solis said this one is receiving the most support to date. As part of the call-to-action, Gig Workers Collective is also asking Shipt shoppers to spread the word to at least five other workers they know.

TechCrunch is awaiting comment from Shipt. We’ll update this story when we hear back.

Shipt shoppers are the latest gig workers to organize

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Greylock and MLT are trying to diversify tech’s wealth cycle

Greylock Partners has teamed up with Management Leadership for Tomorrow to address issues of diversity and inclusion in the technology industry.

“Our view is this has to be a comprehensive approach,” MLT Founder and CEO John Rice told TechCrunch. “This is not just a coding program, mentor program, fellowship program. There are plenty of great ones. They’re important. But what we’re saying is you have to work on all these levers and take a long-term view. Our view is we can really move the needle exponentially to grow minority participation in the highest leverage areas of the tech ecosystem.”

For starters, the multi-faceted partnership will enable Greylock to tap into MLT’s network of around 8,000 Black, Latinx and Indigenous professionals and connect them with potential roles at the firm’s portfolio companies. Additionally, Greylock and MLT will work together to support retention at those companies, as well as help MLT professionals pursue careers in venture capital.

“Being at Greylock and seeing the tech ecosystem over the last 20 years — it’s become pretty clear that, at no surprise to us, modern technology is one of the greatest opportunities for wealth creation,” Greylock Partner David Sze told TechCrunch. “Has been one of the greatest creators for wealth and is likely to be so in the future — in the foreseeable future.”

But the greatest financial returns accrue to founders, early employees and investors. That creates this network where those early employees and alumni from top companies like Facebook or Google then go on to become founders of the next generation of startups in the wealth creation cycle, Sze said.

“And the cycle repeats itself,” Sze said.

Then, VCs are eager to back teams with people who used to work at those high-growth companies, he said.

“That’s just how the Valley works,” Sze said. “It’s a social network in and of itself. […] But the issue is that Black and Latinx and Native American people really largely have been left out of tech startups and venture capital and those networks. And as a result, it actually is a compounding factor.”

For those folks in the system, it compounds in their favor but that means for those left out, it becomes harder to figure out how to break into it, Sze said.

“And look, VCs and tech startups — we just have to be honest that we’ve been really bad at getting this right,” Sze said. “Historically, I mean, we’ve let the system sort of evolve without much top down oversight in regards of diversity and inclusion and we just really need to change that.”

That’s a key reason why Greylock and MLT are partnering to try to get more Black, Latinx and Indigenous people in these tech startups. And it’s not that there is a pipeline problem because there is plenty of available talent, Sze said. But he said that if there is a pipeline problem, “the problem is actually on our side.”

“It’s not on the talent side,” Sze said. “There is plenty of talent out there. It’s that the networks and systems that have existed and grown over time in the valley have not been conducive to allowing the inclusion of that group.”

Greylock’s partners also donated $5 million to anchor MLT’s first-ever impact fund, which allows MLT to be a limited partner in Greylock’s latest fund, a $1 billion fund.

“We have a long history with our LPs,” Sze said. “We do not let new LPs in very often and we’re super excited to have them involved because we think it’s a force multiplier.”

The hope with this partnership is that it’ll spur ideas for other collaborations with VC funds, Sze said. For Rice, he hopes that other leaders in tech will take note and get on board with moving the needle.

“Leaders need to be at this time, at this critical juncture, be much better informed about why we are where we are,” Rice said. “[…] Leaders not only need to be well-informed but also be willing to hold themselves accountable to be more informed. And that doesn’t require them to be experts on the history of racism. It requires them to understand like they understand, you know, AI and bitcoin and things like that. Understand this stuff.”

Leadership, Rice said, also looks like committing to a comprehensive approach with the same level of rigor that venture capitalists apply to how they invest in companies, and that tech companies apply to their growth.

“If we don’t have that same level of rigor in our approach and we just think that we can move the needle with random acts of diversity, then we’re done. We’re not going to move the needle. It’s going to require, you know, a comprehensive approach.”

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Black founders face a unique set of challenges

The notion that Black people in America need to work twice as hard as others to succeed may be a depressing sentiment, but it has been deeply ingrained into the psyches of many African-Americans.

At TechCrunch Disrupt, several Black founders spoke about some of the burdens that come along with being a Black person in tech. Many of us are familiar with imposter syndrome, where one feels like they’re a fraud and fear being “found out.” But another idea that came up was representation syndrome.

Representation syndrome centers around this idea that because there are so few Black people in tech, being one of the only ones comes with this added pressure to be successful. Otherwise, one may feel that if they fail as one of the only Black people in tech, they will inadvertently make it harder for other Black people to be embraced by this homogeneous industry. That’s a heavy load to carry. 

As Jessica Matthews, founder and CEO at Uncharted Power said:

When we raised our Series A, the immediate thing I thought was, ‘Oh, man. I can not lose these people’s money.’ This is huge and if we don’t work, it’s not even about us, it’s about every other person who looks like me.

Matthews said she hopes for a world where her daughter “can be mediocre as hell and still raise funding.”  In 2016, she launched the Harlem Tech Fund, a nonprofit organization focused on STEM. 

“You know, we would tell people we’re going to be the first billion-dollar tech company in Harlem, but we do not want to be the last,” she said.