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Demo days at startup accelerators are a pretty big deal around here.
These events aren’t just a chance to review the latest cohort of hopeful entrepreneurs — they also showcase the technology, products and services that will compete for VC and consumer attention over the next few years.
You never know where a hit will come from, which is why these events capture our attention. Here’s just one example from Y Combinator’s Summer 2013 Demo Day:
Positioning itself as the “FedEx of today,” it hopes to provide a logistics framework that goes beyond food and can be used for any type of on-demand order.
That startup was DoorDash, by the way.
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Full disclosure: In 2016, I was 500 Startups’ Journalist-in-residence. I covered one demo day in person, spending most of my time backstage where founder teams practiced their pitches.
It was quite a scene: Several people literally jumped up and down to shake off their nervous energy, but I also recall one who calmly recited their lines while gazing through a window.
Yesterday, Jon Shieber and Alex Wilhelm covered 500 Startups’ 27th virtual demo day and selected eight companies as their favorites:
- Stack
- Adapty
- MightyFly
- Omnitron Sensors
- AWSM
- Memechat
- Ryu Games
- Apothecary
Thank you very much for reading Extra Crunch this week! I hope you have a safe, relaxing weekend.
Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch
@yourprotagonist
TechCrunch’s favorite companies from 500 Startups’ latest demo day
Image Credits: David Malan (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
How the GameStop stonkathon helped Robinhood raise $3.4B last week
Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)
I’ve never used “stonkathon” in a headline before, but it’s been that kind of week.
The war between hedge funds and day traders over GameStop vaulted discount trader Robinhood into the headlines for days.
But how did it affect the company’s financial health?
This morning, Alex Wilhelm examined why Robinhood’s investors were willing to inject $3.4 billion more into the company in just one week.
“More trades means more PFOF (payment for order flow) revenue,” says Alex. “And Robinhood effectively doubled in size.”
Udemy’s new president discusses the reskilling company’s future
Image Credits: Andrew_Rybalko / Getty Images
Reporter Natasha Mascarenhas interviewed Greg Brown, new president of digital learning platform Udemy, after his company announced that it surpassed $100 million ARR.
A new arm of the company, Udemy for Business, just secured a 100,000-employee contract with Cisco Systems to offer software, business and technology courses.
“The opportunity that the company sees has really forced us to reallocate resources and strategy,” said Brown.
Why one Databricks investor thinks the company may be undervalued
Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)
After scaling its ARR to $425 million and reaching a valuation of $28 billion, data analytics company Databricks is clearly IPO-ready.
Battery Ventures has backed Databricks since 2017, so Alex Wilhelm interviewed General Partner Dharmesh Thakker to understand why he thinks the company may be undervalued.
“Whether it’s digital transformation, whether it’s analytics, data is everywhere,” said Thakker. “So the TAM is massive.”
4 strategies for deep tech founders who are fundraising
Image Credits: MirageC (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Deep tech founders face special challenges when pitching investors: they usually don’t have a product, customers or revenue.
It’s difficult enough to ask a stranger for a check when there’s a beta product, but how do you drum up interest in an unproven idea that may exist largely in your imagination?
“Early-stage investors are in the business of funding dreams,” says angel investor Jessica Li.
“Investors are less interested in the intricacies of your technology and more interested in what impact it can create.”
Step one: use storytelling to highlight your big vision.
Edtech valuations aren’t skyrocketing, but investors see more exit opportunities
Image Credits: Images by Tang Ming Tung (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Investors funded edtech startups with $10 billion last year as the pandemic forced widespread adoption of remote learning.
The valuations of these companies aren’t rising at the same rate as SaaS or fintech startups, but “where edtech lacks in impressive valuations, investors see it gaining in exit opportunities,” writes Natasha Mascarenhas.
For this edtech investor survey, she interviewed:
- Deborah Quazzo, managing partner, GSV Ventures (an education fund backing ClassDojo, Degreed and Clever)
- Ashley Bittner, founding partner, Firework Ventures (a future-of-work fund with portfolio companies LearnIn and TransfrVR)
- Jomayra Herrera, principal, Cowboy Ventures (a generalist fund with portfolio companies Hone and Guild Education)
- John Danner, managing partner, Dunce Capital (an edtech and future-of-work fund with portfolio companies Lambda School and Outschool)
- Mercedes Bent and Bradley Twohig, partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners (a multistage generalist fund with investments including Forage, Clever and Outschool)
- Ian Chiu, managing director, Owl Ventures (a large edtech-focused fund backing highly valued companies including BYJU’s, Newsela and MasterClass)
- Jan Lynn-Matern, founder and partner, Emerge Education (a leading edtech seed fund in Europe with portfolio companies like Aula, Unibuddy and BibliU)
- Benoit Wirz, partner, Brighteye Ventures (an active edtech-focused venture capital fund in Europe that backs YouSchool, Lightneer and Aula)
- Charles Birnbaum, partner, Bessemer Venture Partners (a generalist fund with portfolio companies including Guild Education and Brightwheel)
- Daniel Pianko, co-founder and managing director, University Ventures (a higher-ed and future-of-work fund that is backing Imbellus and AdmitHub)
- Rebecca Kaden, managing partner, Union Square Ventures (a generalist fund with portfolio companies including TopHat, Quizlet and Duolingo)
- Andreata Muforo, partner, TLcom Capital (a generalist fund backing uLesson)
Deep Science: AIs with high class and higher altitudes
Image Credits: MF3d (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
In his latest recap of recent breakthroughs in applied science, Devin Coldewey looked at how researchers are using AI to:
- Categorize thousands of pieces of classical music
- Read MRIs to spot patients with schizophrenia
- Track elephant herds via satellite
- Improve accessibility on mobile phones
Spotify Group Session UX teardown: the fails and their fixes
Image Credits: Getty Images
In the latest of a series of articles that examines user experiences for consumer apps, UX expert Peter Ramsey and TechCrunch reporter Steve O’Hear studied Spotify Group Session, the shared-queue feature that permits users to create playlists collaboratively.
“Many of these lessons can be applied to other existing digital products or ones you are currently building,” such as the need to add context for important decisions and how to best use “react and explain” prompts.
Lightspeed’s Gaurav Gupta and Grafana’s Raj Dutt discuss pitch decks, pricing and how to nail the narrative
Extra Crunch Live returned this week with two guests: Lightspeed Venture Partners’ Gaurav Gupta and Raj Dutt, co-founder and CEO of Grafana Labs.
In addition to walking us through the presentation that encouraged Lightspeed to invest in Grafana’s Series A, the duo also gave direct feedback to audience members about their pitch decks.
Watch a video with our complete episode, or read highlights from the chat to get Gupta and Dutt’s insights on what goes into a successful pitch deck.
New episodes of Extra Crunch Live drop each Wednesday at 12 p.m. PST/3 p.m. EST/8 p.m. GMT.
Here’s a breakdown of the complete episode with Gaurav Gupta and Raj Dutt:
- How they met — 2:00
- Grafana’s early pitch deck — 12:00
- The enterprise ecosystem — 25:00
- The pitch deck teardown — 32:00
Subscription-based pricing is dead: Smart SaaS companies are shifting to usage-based models
Paper plane made from a ten-dollar bill. Image Credits: LockieCurrie (opens in a new window)/ Getty Images
Some IT managers may still be debating the merits of usage-based pricing versus subscription-based models, but SaaS investors have made up their minds.
Compared to their rivals, companies that employ usage-based pricing trade at a 50% revenue multiple premium. You can argue with success, but seven out of the nine IPOs since 2018 with the best net dollar retention offer usage-based models.
If you’re a founder who hopes to break into the $100M ARR club, this guest post can help you identify the right usage metrics for creating a sustainable customer journey.
For more actionable advice regarding SaaS pricing and sales, see these previously published Extra Crunch stories:
- Should your SaaS startup embrace a bottom-up GTM strategy?
- How should SaaS companies deliver and price professional services?
Bumble IPO could raise more than $1B for dating service
Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)
How many dating networks can the public market support?
In Tuesday’s column, Alex Wilhelm examined the latest IPO filing from relationship-finding service Bumble.
The company set a range of $28 – $30 per share, so Alex set out to find its simple and diluted valuations, how much it expects investors to pay and “how those stack up compared to Match Group’s own numbers.”
Robinhood’s Q4 2020 revenue shows a return to growth
Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)
Discount brokerage Robinhood stayed in the news last week as it became a proxy battlefield for institutional and retail investors, but its backers “put in another billion just last week,” says Alex Wilhelm.
Why were investors so bullish after days of screaming headlines?
In yesterday’s column, Alex unpacked Robinhood’s Q4 2020 numbers, “which shows a return to sequential-quarterly growth at the trading upstart.”
Trading app Public drops payment for order flow in favor of tips
Image Credits: Towfiqu Photography / Getty Images
Before Redditors came after GameStop, zero-cost trading service Public says it was seeing “steady ~30%” month-over-month growth.
Last week, however, “new user signups went up 20x,” founders Leif Abraham and Jannick Malling told TechCrunch.
After closing a $65 million Series C, Public announced yesterday that it would “stop participating in the practice of Payment for Order Flow,” replacing PFOF with an “optional tipping feature.”
Customer advisory boards are a gold mine for startup brand champions
Image Credits: Andrii Yalanskyi (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Startups that don’t directly engage their earliest customers with purpose and intention are leaving money on the table.
Creating a Customer Advisory Board (CAB) is a proven method for soliciting product ideas, testing marketing plans and turning early users into loyal brand advocates.
Before you call a CAB, read this post to find out how to identify customers who’ll contribute real insights, establish goals and “pick members who play well together.”
Best practices as a service is a key investment theme to watch in 2021
Red and white stop sign on the wall. Image Credits: Karl Tapales (opens in a new window)/ Getty Images
Identity and access management company Okta announced in a study last week that its largest customers use an average of 175 different applications to manage their operations.
Managing Editor Danny Crichton says this “explosion of creativity and expressiveness and operational latitude” offers widespread benefits, but it’s “also a recipe for disaster,” since many end users aren’t well-trained when it comes to using these tools.
This enterprise version of the Tower of Babel creates an opening for companies that offer “best practices as a service,” says Danny. “The next generation of SaaS software has to take those abecedarian building blocks and forcibly guide users to using those tools in the best possible way.”
This week, flexible workspace operator (and one-time unicorn) Knotel announced it had filed for bankruptcy and that its assets were being acquired by investor and commercial real estate brokerage Newmark for a reported $70 million.
Knotel designed, built and ran custom headquarters for companies. It then managed the spaces with “flexible” terms. In March 2020, it was reportedly valued at $1.6 billion.
At first glance, one might think that the WeWork rival, which had raised about $560 million since its 2016 inception, was another casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But New York-based Knotel was reportedly in trouble – facing a number of lawsuits and evictions – before the pandemic had even hit, according to multiple reports, such as this one in The Real Deal.
Jonathan Pasternak, a partner in the bankruptcy, restructuring and creditor rights group at New York-based Davidoff Hutcher & Citron, believes the company’s Chapter 11 filing was inevitable despite it reaching unicorn status after raising $400 million in Series C funding in August 2019.
“In addition to being grossly overvalued on the market, the company overextended itself with long term leases and lavish build-outs, leaving the company in significant debt while failing to ever turn a profit,” Pasternak wrote via email. “The pandemic exacerbated their vacancy situation, resulting in more than 35% vacancies in their 2.4 million square-foot NYC portfolio. The company overextended and likely ran out of cash.”
Newmark’s purchase of Knotel’s assets is an effort to recoup some of its investment, according to Pasternak.
Anytime a company that has raised more than half a billion dollars basically implodes, it’s worth taking a look at the roller coaster ride it was on before it got to that point.
2016
Virgin Mobile co-founder Amol Sarva and former VC Edward Shenderovich founded Knotel, essentially reversing the WeWork model. There’s hype around the company in its early days.
2017
Knotel raised a Series A round of $25 million in February from investors such as Peak State Ventures, Invest AG, Bloomberg Beta and 500 startups. It marketed its offering as “headquarters as a service” — or a flexible office space that could be customized for each tenant while also growing or shrinking as needed.
2018
In April, Knotel announced the close of a $70 million Series B financing led by Newmark Knight Frank and The Sapir Organization. In August, the company told me that it was operating over 1 million square feet across 60 locations in New York, London, San Francisco and Berlin, and that it was on track to reach 2.5 million square feet and $100 million in revenue by year’s end. Revenue growth had increased by 300 percent year over year, according to the company. Customers and users and clients ranged from VC-backed startups Stash and HotelTonight to enterprise customers such as The Body Shop.
“What they’re doing is different,” said Barry Gosin, CEO of Newmark Knight Frank, in a press release, at the time of the round. “It’s a new category the industry hasn’t seen and is rapidly adopting. We’ve watched their ascent from a distance and are now thrilled to join them on the journey. It marks a shift in how owners and tenants are coming together.”
2019
In August, Knotel announced the completion of a $400 million financing, led by Wafra, an investment arm of the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Kuwait. With the round, the company had achieved unicorn status and was being touted as a formidable WeWork competitor. At the time, Knotel said it operated more than 4 million square feet across more than 200 locations in New York, San Francisco, London, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Paris, Berlin, Toronto, Boston, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
In a statement at the time, CEO Sarva said: “Knotel is building the future of the workplace, and we are excited to welcome a group of investors who believe passionately in our product, vision and ability to execute. Wafra will help us continue our rapid global expansion and solidify our position as the leader in a fast-growing, trillion-dollar flexible office market.”
2020
In late March, Forbes reported that Knotel had laid off 30% of its workforce and furloughed another 20%, due to the impact of the coronavirus. At the time, it was valued at about $1.6 billion.
The company had started the year with about 500 employees. By the third week of March, it had a headcount of 400. With the cuts, about 200 employees remained with the other 200 having either lost their jobs or on unpaid leave, according to Forbes.
“Business as usual is over,” Amol Sarva, Knotel’s CEO and co-founder, said in a statement to Forbes. “Knotel has decided to take sharp action to prepare for the worst case — a long health and economic crisis.”
In the second quarter, Knotel’s revenue slipped by about 20% to about $59 million compared to the first quarter, reported Forbes. Multiple landlords had filed lawsuits against the company.
By July, Forbes had reported that Knotel was attempting to raise as much as $100 million, according to various sources “familiar with the matter.”
2021
Knotel filed for bankruptcy, agrees to sell assets to investor Newmark for a reported $70 million after being valued at $1.6 billion less than one year prior.
“Newmark’s commitment offers a path forward amidst this challenging climate,” CEO Sarva said in a statement. “We are optimistic that, through a successful restructuring, we can refocus on our mission of providing state-of-the-art, tailored flex space in key U.S. and international markets.”
To facilitate the transaction under Section 363 of the United States Bankruptcy Code, an affiliate of Newmark agreed to provide Knotel with about $20 million in cash as DIP financing to support Knotel through the bankruptcy process.
Just as the startup and VC world watched as WeWork lost a significant amount of value over the past two years, we’re paying attention to the demise of Knotel and wondering what this means for the flexible workspace sector. As much of the world continues to work from home and office buildings remain mostly vacant as this pandemic rages, our guess is that things will only get worse before they get better.
The first major Section 230 reform proposal of the Biden era is out. In a new bill, Senate Democrats Mark Warner (D-VA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) propose changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that would fundamentally change the 1996 law widely credited with cultivating the modern internet.
Section 230 is a legal shield that protects internet companies from the user-generated content they host, from Facebook and TikTok to Amazon reviews and comments sections. The new proposed legislation, known as the SAFE TECH Act, would do a few different things to change how that works.
First, it would fundamentally alter the core language of Section 230 — and given how concise that snippet of language is to begin with, any change is a big change. Under the new language, Section 230 would no longer offer protections in situations where payments are involved.
Here’s the current version:
“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information speech provided by another information content provider.”
And here are the changes the SAFE TECH Act would make:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any speech provided by another information content provider, except to the extent the provider or user has accepted payment to make the speech available or, in whole or in part, created or funded the creation of the speech.
(B) (c)(1)(A) shall be an affirmative defense to a claim alleging that an interactive computer service provider is a publisher or speaker with respect to speech provided by another information content provider that an interactive computer service provider has a burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence.
That might not sound like much, but it could be a massive change. In a tweet promoting the bill, Sen. Warner called online ads a “a key vector for all manner of frauds and scams” so homing in on platform abuses in advertising is the ostensible goal here. But under the current language, it’s possible that many other kinds of paid services could be affected, from Substack, Patreon and other kinds of premium online content to web hosting.
“A good lawyer could argue that this covers many different types of arrangements that go far beyond paid advertisements,” Jeff Kosseff, a cybersecurity law professor at the U.S. Naval Academy who authored a book about Section 230, told TechCrunch. “Platforms accept payments from a wide range of parties during the course of making speech ‘available’ to the public. The bill does not limit the exception to cases in which platforms accept payments from the speaker.”
Internet companies big and small rely on Section 230 protections to operate, but some of them might have to rethink their businesses if rules proposed in the new bill come to pass. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), one of Section 230’s original authors, noted that the new bill has some good intentions, but he issued a strong caution against the blowback its unintended consequences could cause.
“Unfortunately, as written, it would devastate every part of the open internet, and cause massive collateral damage to online speech,” Wyden told TechCrunch, likening the bill to a full repeal of the law with added confusion from a cluster of new exceptions.
“Creating liability for all commercial relationships would cause web hosts, cloud storage providers and even paid email services to purge their networks of any controversial speech,” Wyden said.
Fight for the Future Director Evan Greer echoed the sentiment that the bill is well intentioned but shared the same concerns. “…Unfortunately this bill, as written, would have enormous unintended consequences for human rights and freedom of expression,” Greer said.
“It creates a huge carveout in Section 230 that impacts not only advertising but essentially all paid services, such as web hosting and [content delivery networks], as well as small services like Patreon, Bandcamp, and Etsy.”
Given its focus on advertising and instances in which a company has accepted payment, the bill might be both too broad and too narrow at once to offer effective reform. While online advertising, particularly political advertising, has become a hot topic in recent discussions about cracking down on platforms, the vast majority of violent conspiracies, misinformation, and organized hate is the result of organic content, not the stuff that’s paid or promoted. It also doesn’t address the role of algorithms, a particular focus of a narrow Section 230 reform proposal in the House from Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Tom Malinowski (D-NJ).
New exceptions
The other part of the SAFE TECH Act, which attracted buy-in from a number of civil rights organizations including the Anti-Defamation League, the Center for Countering Digital Hate and Color Of Change, does address some of those ills. By appending Section 230, the new bill would open internet companies to more civil liability in some cases, allowing victims of cyber-stalking, targeted harassment, discrimination and wrongful death to the opportunity to file lawsuits against those companies rather than blocking those kinds of suits outright.
The SAFE TECH Act would also create a carve-out allowing individuals to seek court orders in cases when an internet company’s handling of material it hosts could cause “irreparable harm” as well as allowing lawsuits in U.S. courts against American internet companies for human rights abuses abroad.
In a press release, Warner said the bill was about updating the 1996 law to bring it up to speed with modern needs:
“A law meant to encourage service providers to develop tools and policies to support effective moderation has instead conferred sweeping immunity on online providers even when they do nothing to address foreseeable, obvious and repeated misuse of their products and services to cause harm,” Warner said.
There’s no dearth of ideas about reforming Section 230. Among them: the bipartisan PACT Act from Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI) and John Thune (R-SD), which focuses on moderation transparency and providing less cover for companies facing federal and state regulators, and the EARN IT Act, a broad bill from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) that 230 defenders and internet freedom advocates regard as unconstitutional, overly broad and disastrous.
With so many proposed Section 230 reforms already floating around, it’s far from guaranteed that a bill like the SAFE TECH Act will prevail. The only thing that’s certain is we’ll be hearing a lot more about the tiny snippet of law with huge consequences for the modern internet.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/05/safe-tech-act-section-230-warner/
The Founder Institute isn’t just trying trying to help entrepreneurs launch new startups — with its new VC Lab, the accelerator says it’s also hoping to fuel the launch of 1,000 new venture capital funds.
Fi co-founder Jonathan Greechan described this as an attempt to bring more “alignment” to the startup ecosystem.”
“The thinking here is that if we can better align the startup and funding ecosystems towards impact, then we can create companies that are truly positive for humanity,” Greechan said.
In fact, FI has already held two sessions of the VC Lab, one in the spring of last year (which Greechan compared to a minimum viable product) and one in the summer-fall (which he compared to a beta test). Now the deadline to apply for the next cohort is coming up on February 14.
Greechan said that 48 funds have emerged from its most recent cohort and they’re on-track to raise a total of $100 million in the first quarter of this year.
While many of those funds are still in the fundraising process and cannot be disclosed publicly yet, he noted that one-third of those funds are being created by partners from underrepresented backgrounds and that more than half of them are focused on impact. And he pointed to Pacer Ventures — a $3 million fund targeting startups in sub-Saharan African — as an example of the kind of firm VC Lab is meant to support.
“What we found was that a lot of the issues that these new fund managers have are pretty similar to the issues that new entrepreneurs have,” Greechan said. “They don’t understand the sequence of steps to actually get them off the ground.”
VC Lab is meant to help them understand those steps, with a curriculum that includes webinars, virtual office hours and conversations on Slack. Participants are also required to take The Mensarius Oath, which commits them to a number of values including endeavoring “to help create positive outcomes for all of humanity” and opposing “any abuse of power that leads to unfair advantage, seduction, corruption or mistreatment.”
The program is free, although participants can also pay $500 a month for access to “premium office hours.” Founders Institute/VC Lab isn’t participating in the funds financially.
When I asked about the business model, Greechan said, “We’re not looking at this necessarily as the next phase of our business. We’ve been fostering this community of people building interesting and impactful companies, and now we’re making sure that we build a correlated community of people funding impactful companies. It’s not for charity, but there’s long-term benefits that we see for all of our grads.”
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/05/founder-institute-vc-lab/
After “pausing” political giving to any politician who voted to overturn the 2020 election, Microsoft has clarified changes to its lobbying policy, doubling down on its original intention and changing gears with an eye towards funding impactful organizations.
Microsoft, along with most other major companies in the tech sector and plenty others, announced a halt to political donations in the chaotic wake of the capitol riots and subsequent partisan clashes over the legitimacy of the election.
At the time, Microsoft said that it often pauses donations during the transition to a new Congress, but in this case it would only resume them “until after it assesses the implications of last week’s events” and “consult[s] with employees.”
Assessing and consulting can take a long time, especially in matters of allocating cash in politics, but Microsoft seems to have accomplished their goal in relatively short order. In a series of sessions over the last two weeks involving over 300 employees who contribute to the PAC, the company arrived at a new strategy that reflects their priorities.
In a word, they’re blacklisting any Senator, Representative, government official, or organization that voted for or supported the attempt to overturn the election. Fortunately there doesn’t seem to be a lot of grey area here, which simplifies the process somewhat. This restriction will remain in place until the 2022 election — which, frighteningly, happens next year.
In fact, as an alternative to donating to individual candidates and politicians in the first place, the PAC will establish a new fund to “support organizations that promote public transparency, campaign finance reform, and voting rights.”
More details on this are forthcoming, but it’s a significant change from direct support of candidates to independent organizations. One hardly knows what a candidate’s fund goes to (Superbowl ads this time of year), but giving half a million bucks to a group challenging voter suppression and gerrymandering in a hotly contested district can make a big difference. (Work like this on a large scale helped tip Georgia from red to blue, for instance, and it didn’t happen overnight, or for free.)
There’s even a hint of a larger change in the offing, as Microsoft’s communications head Frank X. Shaw suggests in the blog post that “we believe there is an opportunity to learn and work together” with like-minded companies and PACs. If that isn’t a sly invitation to create a coalition of the like-minded I don’t know what is.
The company also will be changing the name of the PAC to the Microsoft Corporation Voluntary PAC to better communicate that it’s funded by voluntary contributions from employees and stakeholders and isn’t just a big corporate lobbying slush fund.
As we saw around the time of the original “pause,” and indeed with many other actions in the tech industry over the last year, it’s likely that one large company (in this case Microsoft) getting specific with its political moves will trigger more who just didn’t want to be the first to go. It’s difficult to predict exactly what the long-term ramifications of these changes will be (as they are still quite general and tentative) but it seems safe to say that the political funding landscape of the next election period will look quite a bit different from the last one.
