& meet dozens of singles today!
User blogs
TC Sessions: Justice, our second-ever dedicated event to diversity, equity, inclusion and labor in tech, is coming up on March 3, 2021. This is a virtual one-day conference featuring the brightest innovators, leaders and worker-activists in the industry.
We’re pumped to be able to host Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Backstage Capital founder and Managing Partner Arlan Hamilton, Gig Workers Collective’s Vanessa Bain, Alphabet Workers Union Executive Chair Parul Koul, Color of Change President Rashad Robinson, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt and others.
In addition to the firesides and panel discussions of the virtual stage, the event will also include networking, startup presentations and the chance to connect with attendees from around the world.
Below, you’ll find the official agenda for TC Sessions: Justice. If you want to be a part of this event, you can grab a ticket here for just $5.
If you’re interested in a sponsored speaking opportunity to join the stage with these fantastic speakers, contact us here to speak with someone from our sales team!
AGENDA
Wednesday, March 3
State of the Union with Parul Koul (Google), Grace Reckers (Office and Professional Employees International Union) and Clarissa Redwine (NYU)
Labor unions have been fairly uncommon in tech. That’s finally starting to change in recent years, as workers have pushed to organize at some the industry’s biggest companies, from Alphabet to Kickstarter. Parul Koul (Google), Grace Reckers (Office and Professional Employees International Union) and Clarissa Redwine (NYU) will join us to discuss the growing movement.
Finding the Next Unicorn with Arlan Hamilton (Backstage Capital)
Arlan Hamilton, the founder and managing partner of Backstage Capital, has raised more than $12 million to back 150 companies led by underrepresented founders. In this session, Hamilton will discuss how she vets the biggest opportunities in investment, and how to disrupt in a positive way.
The Path Forward for Essential Tech Workers with Vanessa Bain (Gig Workers Collective), Jessica E. Martinez (National Council for Occupational Safety and Health) and Christian Smalls (The Congress of Essential Workers)
Gig workers and warehouse workers have become essential in a pandemic-ravaged economy. In California, a law went into effect earlier this year that makes gig workers independent contractors. Meanwhile, Amazon warehouse workers in Alabama are actively seeking to form a union to ensure better protections at the workplace. You’ll hear from workers and organizers about what’s next for gig workers and tech’s contractor workforce, and what battles lie ahead for these essential workers.
Creating Equity in Tech with Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA)
The ‘pipeline problem’ is often cited as the reason for a lack of diversity in the tech industry. But it’s a myth. Congresswoman Barbara Lee, having represented the East Bay of California for almost a decade, knows all too well about the rise of tech in the Bay Area. We’ll talk with Congresswoman Lee about the opportunities before us to create an equal playing field in tech so that underrepresented investors, founders, designers, coders and the like can reap the benefits.
Identifying and Dismantling Tech’s Deep Systems of Bias with Haben Girma (Disability Justice Lawyer), Mutale Nkonde (AI for the People) and Safiya Umoja Noble (UCLA)
Nearly every popular technology or service has within it systems of bias or exclusion, ignored by the privileged but obvious to the groups affected. How should these systems be exposed and documented, and how can we set about eliminating them and preventing more from appearing in the future? AI for the People’s Mutale Nkonde, disability rights lawyer Haben Girma and author of “Algorithms of Oppression” Safiya Umoja Noble discuss a more inclusive future.
Sponsored by Latinx Startup Alliance: Latinx Founders Leading with Inclusion
Latinx Founders who are leading with inclusion through diverse teams and/or supporting a diverse mission, inclusion is a part of their DNA.
Founders in Focus with Tracy Chou (Block Party)
We sit down with the founders poised to be the next big disruptors in this industry. Here we chat with Tracy Chou of Block Party, which works to protect people from abuse and harassment online.
The Role of Online Hate and Where Social Media Goes from Here with Naj Austin (Somewhere Good and Ethel’s Club), Jesse Lehrich (Accountable Tech) and Rashad Robinson (Color of Change)
Toxic culture, deadly conspiracies and organized hate have exploded online in recent years. We’ll discuss how much responsibility social networks have in the rise of these phenomena and how to build healthy online communities that make society better, not worse.
Sponsored by StartOut: The Impact of Out LGBTQ+ Entrepreneurs
StartOut and Socos Lab are excited to speak at TechCrunch Justice, and cover the Inclusion Impact Indexes. Its first iteration; the StartOut Pride Economic Impact Index quantifies the economic value of under-utilized LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs. The project looks at entrepreneurs’ economic impact in terms of job creation, patents, financings, and exits in the U.S. Our agenda will be a brief introduction, a demo of the index and its current findings, and a Q&A discussion with the publishers of the index.
Sponsored by Onshape: Fireside Chat – Diversity Is More Than Hiring People of Color
It may appear that the country is accepting change – from racial diversity to equality in the workplace. However, we still have ways to go. For example, organizational diversity is still about hiring from diverse talent pools. In reality, to activate the full potential of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) requires more than a “people strategy.” Robust and sustainable work in this area requires embedding DEI principles, policies, systems, and practices into all parts of the business, including the employee and customer experience, brand culture, and overall industry/corporate citizenship.
Networking Break
With our virtual platform, attendees can network via video chat, giving folks the chance to make meaningful connections. CrunchMatch, our algorithmic matching product, will be available to ensure you’re meeting the right people at the show, as well as random matching for attendees who are feeling more adventurous.
Demystifying First-Check Fundraising with First-Check Investors with Brian Brackeen (Lightship Capital), Astrid Scholz (Zebras Unite) and Sydney Thomas (Precursor Ventures)
There are so many ways to finance your startup that don’t include Y combinator or a traditional fund. In this stacked panel, founders will hear from a trio of decision-makers about how to leverage unconventional communities and resources to get the first dollars they need to execute.
Tech in the Era of Accountability with Jonathan Greenblatt (Anti-Defamation League)
Diversity and inclusion as an idea has been on the agenda of tech companies for years now. But the industry still lacks true inclusion, despite best efforts put forth by heads of diversity, equity and inclusion at these companies. We’ll seek to better understand what’s standing in the way of progress and what it’s going to take to achieve real change.
Access All Areas: Designing Accessibility from Day One with Cynthia Bennett (Carnegie Mellon University), Srin Madipalli (formerly of Accomable and Airbnb) and Mara Mills (NYU)
The session will examine the importance of ensuring accessible product design from the beginning. We’ll ask how the social and medical models of disability influence technological evolution. Integrating the expertise of disabled technologists, makers, investors, scientists, software engineers into the DNA of your company from the very beginning is vital to the pursuit of a functioning and equitable society. And could mean you don’t leave money on the table.
Reimagining Pathways for Returned Citizens with Jason Jones (The Last Mile), Deepti Rohatgi (Slack) and Aly Tamboura (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative)
Reentering society after having been incarcerated presents challenges few of us can understand. In this panel, we will examine the role tech can play in ensuring pathways to employment for returned citizens.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/23/announcing-the-complete-agenda-for-tc-sessions-justice/
Hackers are said to have broken into the networks of U.S. space agency NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration as part of a wider espionage campaign targeting U.S. government agencies and private companies.
The two agencies were named by the Washington Post on Tuesday, hours ahead of a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing tasked with investigating the widespread cyberattack, which the previous Trump administration said was “likely Russian in origin.”
Spokespeople for the agencies did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but did not deny the breach in remarks to the Post.
It’s believed NASA and the FAA are the two remaining unnamed agencies of the nine government agencies confirmed to have been breached by the attack. The other seven include the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, and State, the Treasury, and the National Institutes of Health, though it’s not believed the attackers breached their classified networks.
FireEye, Microsoft, and Malwarebytes were among a number of cybersecurity companies also breached as part of the attacks.
The Biden administration is reportedly preparing sanctions against Russia, in large part because of the hacking campaign, the Post also reported.
The attacks were discovered last year after FireEye raised the alarm about the hacking campaign after its own network was breached. Each victim was a customer of the U.S. software firm SolarWinds, whose network management tools are used across the federal government and Fortune 500 companies. The hackers broke into SolarWinds’ network, planted a backdoor in its software, and pushed the backdoor to customer networks with a tainted software update.
It wasn’t the only way in. The hackers are also said to have targeted other companies by breaking into other devices and appliances on their victims’ networks, as well as targeting Microsoft vendors to breach other customers’ networks.
Last week, Anne Neuberger, the former NSA cybersecurity director who last month was elevated to the White House’s National Security Council to serve as the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, said that the attack took “months to plan and execute,” and will “take us some time to uncover this layer by layer.”
Slack took the workplace communications landscape by storm after it launched its integration-friendly, GIF-tastic chat platform in 2013. Within the space of a decade it entered into the pantheon of big tech: first with massive growth and usage, then a series of giant VC rounds and valuations, spawning controversial competition from incumbents, followed by a public listing and ultimately a $27.7 billion acquisition by Salesforce. Now that the cycle is complete, the decks are clear for a Slack disruptor!
Today, a new app quietly launched out of stealth called Quill, available by way of apps for the web, MacOS, Windows, Linux, Android and iOS.
Like Slack, Quill is a messaging app for co-workers to update each other on what they are doing, have conversations about projects and more.
Unlike Slack — the implication seems to be — the difference is that Quill is about delivering messaging in a non-distracting way that doesn’t take up too much of your time, your concentration, and your energy. Quill bills itself as “messaging for people that focus.”
So while you get a lot of the same features you have in Slack for chatting with workers, creating channels, integrating other apps, and having video and voice conversations — one of my colleagues quipped, “It looks like Slack, but more colorful!” — it also includes a bunch of features that put the focus on, well, focus.
“We grew exhausted having to skim thousands of messages every day to keep up, so we built a way to chat that’s even better than how we already communicate in person,” Quill notes on its website. “A more deliberate way to chat. That’s what Quill is all about.”
For example, “structured channels” let you enforce threads in a channel for different conversations rather than view chatter in a waterfall. Automatic sorting in the app moves up active conversations you’re in above others. Limitations on notifications mean you can have more nuance in what ultimately might end up distracting you, and senders for example can alter a setting (with a !!) to notify you if something is critical and needs to ping you. Video chats come automatically with a sidebar to continue texting, too.
Then, you get separate channels for social and non-work chat; and a series of features that let you manipulate conversations after they’ve already started: you can recast conversations into threads after they’ve already started and you have a fast way to reply to messages. There is an easier and more obvious way to pin important things to the tops of channels; and in addition to creating new threads after a conversation starts, you can also move messages from one channel or thread to another.
You can also interact with Quill chats using SMS and email, and like Slack, it offers the ability to integrate other app notifications into the process.
It’s also working on adding a Clubhouse-like feature for voice channels, end-to-end encryption, context-based search (it already has keyword search), and user profiles.
Managing “high load”
The app has been in stealth mode for nearly three years, and while some projects might never go noticed in that time, this one is a little different because of the pedigree and the context.
For starters, Quill was founded by the former creative director of Stripe, Ludwig Pettersson, who was given a lot of the credit for the simplicity and focus of the payment company’s flagship product and platform (simplicity that became the hallmark of the service and helped it balloon into a commerce behemoth).
His involvement signaled that the effort might get at least a little attention. In a landscape that seemed to be all but dominated by Slack and a few huge, well-funded rivals in the form of Microsoft and Facebook, it’s notable that when Quill was just an idea, it had already picked up $2 million in seed funding, from Sam Altman (at the time the head of Y Combinator) and General Catalyst.
Following that it raised a Series A of $12.5 million led by Sarah Cannon of Index Ventures, totaling some $14.5 million in funding in all. The Series A valued the company at $62.5 million, as we reported at the time.
Added to this is the story behind Quill and what brought Pettersson and others on his team to the idea of building it. From what we understand, the idea in its earliest inception was to capture something of the magic of communication that you get from messaging apps, and specifically from workplace communication tools like Slack, but without the distraction and resulting frustration that often come along with them.
By 2018, Slack was already a big product, valued at over $7 billion and attracting millions of users. But there was also a growing number of people criticizing it for being the opposite of productive. “It’s hard to track everything that’s going on in Slack, it can be distracting. Given the network effect, Slack has become powerful, but it was not designed as a high-load system,” Sam Altman, the investor and former head of both Y-Combinator and OpenAI, said to me back in 2018 when I asked him what he knew about Quill after I first got wind of it.
He said he was “super impressed” by Ludwig’s work at Stripe, and then OpenAI (where he stayed for a year after leaving Stripe), so much so that when Ludwig suggested building “a better version of Slack,” it seemed like a “credible idea” and one worth backing even without a product yet to be built.
It’s quite fitting that for an app focused on focus, Quill launched today quietly and without much fanfare: why worry about PR distraction when you can just get something out there?
In any case, we’re hoping to hear more and see what kind of momentum it picks up. We’ve asked Index if we can talk to Sarah Cannon about the investment, and we are still waiting to hear back. We are also trying to see if we can talk to Pettersson. But I should mention we have been trying to talk to him since first getting wind of this app back in August of 2018, so we’re not holding our breath (nor this story).
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/23/the-new-new-slack-quill/
A number of online creators and influencers have adopted mobile-friendly “link in bio” websites, like Linktree, to point their fans to their social profiles or other content they want to promote. Today, live streaming software company Streamlabs launched its own product in this market with its new mobile website builder Willow. Its tool differentiates itself from others in this space by integrating a tipping feature directly on the landing page.
“Link in bio” websites have grown in popularity because social platforms like TikTok and Instagram only allow users to feature one main URL on user profiles. But online creators and influencers often have a presence on multiple sites they want their fans to know about. That’s where these custom websites come in.
Like most “link in bio” website builders, Willow offers a simple way to add a list of links to a customized, mobile-optimized webpage.
The product itself is somewhat basic compared to those being offered by newer startups — like Beacons, for example, which lets users add links for donations, affiliate shopping, paid downloads, and more. In Willow’s case, you just enter a URL and it appears on your website. You can also pick from a handful of colorful designs, each with their own style and font.
The online website builder lets you view your site in progress as you add links or update the design, and you can preview how it looks on mobile, tablet and desktop by clicking a button.
But Willow’s more interesting feature is the ability to add tipping to your website.
To do so, you’ll just toggle on the Tips feature from the website builder interface and then connect your PayPal account to Willow. This places a “Donate!” button at the top of your link list, so you can encourage fans to leave a tip.
Image Credits: Streamlabs
This feature will be the new website builder’s key selling point, given that today, creators who receive tips through social and streaming platforms often have to share the revenue from those transactions back with the platform itself. Tips through PayPal will be a more direct form of payment between fans and creators, beyond any applicable PayPal fees.
Streamlabs tells us it doesn’t keep any of the tip money — everything goes to the creator.
However, it does plan to soon monetize the new product in a different way. In a few weeks’ time, the company will introduce a paid version for $5 per month that will include enhanced analytics like click-through rates and which days see the most clicks and views. The pro version will also include more custom themes.
Image Credits: screenshot of Willow
Because Willow only launched today, it doesn’t have a large number of users at this time. However, a top streamer FaZe Mew has already signed up, per the short Willow link (wlo.link) found on his various social media bios.
“Our experience building tools for live streamers inspired us to build products that cater to the greater content creator ecosystem,” said George Kurdin, Streamlabs GM. “To deliver on this mission and grow our business, we are building products that cater to more brands, businesses, and individuals,” he said.
Mark your calendar for TechCrunch’s annual celebration of the startup community — TC Disrupt 2021 returns this September 21-23! At Disrupt, you’ll rub virtual elbows with the thousands of startup founders, investors and innovators building cutting-edge products and companies. Disrupt will be all-virtual, allowing more builders from around the world to share in the learning, growth, connection and excitement that you can only experience with TechCrunch.
As always, networking will be front and center. You’ll have the opportunity to make spontaneous connections, curated connections with CrunchMatch and chat with other attendees, all while watching sessions. Between the tools provided by our virtual event platform and curated matches, you’ll make valuable connections and expand your network.
Every year we iterate on the Disrupt experience to make sure the event includes more of what founders, investors and innovators want and need to be successful. This year, on the Disrupt Stage we’ll not only bring you the minds behind the headlines but also incorporate analysts’ viewpoints, and highlight emerging founders in Startup Alley in an engaging format geared toward helping you find solutions, build your business or expand your portfolio.
We’re also growing the Startup Battlefield cohort this year. Featuring more startups means more opportunity for founders. If you’re a founder or startup selected for Startup Battlefield, you’ll be able to pitch to a panel of renowned VCs for a chance to win $100,000 in equity-free prize money. Applications for Startup Battlefield will open Q2 2021.
Our Extra Crunch Stage will continue to be a valuable resource for entrepreneurs who are looking to tap the minds of experts and VCs across a variety of industries and categories. In highly interactive sessions, you’ll be able to get your questions answered live or have your pitch deck analyzed to help you refine your fundraising and business development strategies. Plus, all applicable passes will get a three-month membership to Extra Crunch, which gives you a library of insider analyst content that you can put into action at your company right away.
For those early-stage founders who are looking to get some extra exposure for their products and company, the Startup Alley experience is for you. The founders who are accepted into Startup Alley will get a dedicated listing at the virtual event, where they can hold live product demos, generate leads and chat with interested attendees. Founders in Startup Alley will also give a live 60-second elevator pitch to TechCrunch staff for feedback and there will be dedicated time for attendees to browse startups in each category during the Startup Alley Crawl. With a dedicated success manager in your corner providing you tips on how to use all of the items in your toolkit, this is a perfect opportunity to gain new customers, meet potential investors and expand your professional social graph.
From the Startup Alley exhibitors we will also select up to 50 founders to participate in Startup Alley+, which will give them access to a pre-Disrupt series of master classes to prep for the event, pitch-off opportunities at Extra Crunch Live and white-glove curated meetings with investors from the TechCrunch network.
There is much more happening behind the scenes to add to your TC Disrupt 2021 experience that we will be sharing with you over the coming weeks, but we know you’ll want to secure your spot at Disrupt now. Passes are now available at the lowest Super Early-Bird rate, with additional savings available on top of that for founders, students and employees of nonprofits and government organizations. These passes are your full-access ticket to everything Disrupt has to offer and more for under $100 — but only for a limited time. Be a part of the startup world’s annual rite of passage online this September 21-23 and register today!
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/23/registration-for-tc-disrupt-2021-is-now-open/
