Forget ad optimization: This VC wants to invest in startups working on real problems

The U.S. will face some very serious challenges in the coming decades, including arresting damage to the environment, rebuilding our infrastructure, reinventing education, defending against new geopolitical threats, and venturing to Mars. Traditionally, we look to the federal government to tackle these problems—but that tradition may be over. The technical talent needed to confront our biggest problems now works in the private sector, because that’s where the money is. And too many of those talented people are spending their days working on trivial problems like ad-tech algorithms and photo-sharing apps. Katherine Boyle [Photo: courtesy of General Catalyst] To lure tech workers into focusing on important problems with fresh ideas, Katherine Boyle at the venture capital firm General Catalyst is starting a new investment sector within the fund: She will invest in civic-tech startups targeting aerospace and defense, public safety, education, transportation, and infrastructure. “A big part of our thesis is that innovative companies can fill in where existing government agencies have fallen short,” Boyle tells Fast Company . Boyle will work the sector from her new home in Miami. She believes she might have a clearer view of the field of civic tech startups from a vantage point far away from tech industry hubs such as the Bay Area and Austin. Boyle and General Catalyst have already made some bets on companies that could be called “civic tech.” Crunchbase shows that General Catalyst participated in three funding rounds for Anduril Industries , the Palmer Luckey -founded defense startup that produces autonomous drone surveillance systems. ‌ Boyle’s investment thesis recognizes that engineers and designers and programmers and data scientists aren’t likely to take a pay cut and move from San Francisco to Washington to work for a government agency. Innovation happens in the private sector. Her new fund is part of a growing awareness that the government should lean harder on private-sector startups—civic tech startups—to find new approaches to the massive challenges we face as a society. Where the talent is Boyle says that there was a time in America when entering civil service professions within the government were a source of social cachet and a respectable salary. This attitude among professionals was influenced by President John F. Kennedy’s famous words, “ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” That maxim came in the midst of the Cold War (and the Space Race), when, regardless of their political party, Americans felt the presence of a common enemy in the Soviet Union. How times have changed. We live in a deeply polarized society with great distrust of the government, and as a result, working within it is no longer as popular. Read More …

4 reasons you need more EQ in a hybrid workplace (and how to get it)

Although it is hard to predict what the post-COVID world of work will look like, it’s safe to assume that, at least in the short term, most organizations will increase the flexibility of their working arrangements and become more hybrid or fluid than they were before. In principle, this sounds like a better proposition for employees. When we asked 8,000 workers about their top concerns for this new next, “going back to the way things were” came in third place, preceded only by health and keeping their job.  History tells us that many people will see the crisis as a catalyst for change; they will be more likely to opt for work that suits their needs, family priorities, and lifestyle. Yet of course, things are rarely as good or simple as they seem, and the devil is always in the details.  In fact, whenever you try to personalize anything—working arrangements are no exception—you introduce more nuances, complexities, and unforeseen problems. Change is always taxing and more demanding than business as usual, and as such is always met with resistance.  That’s why there’s never been a more important time for managers to act with emotional intelligence (EQ) if they want to make hybrid work…work.  Remote and hybrid work come with diverse circumstances In the past year, we have all been invited into each other’s homes. We’ve met pets, children, partners; we’ve been serenaded by piano lessons and choir practice; we’ve learned about newfound bread-making skills and sourdough starters. Hours shifted to teach kids from home, take kids to various stages of part-time school reopenings, and do more work, often with fewer hours, than ever before.  However, in the midst of the chaos, many people discovered (or in some cases rediscovered) different facets of their lives.  Parents have enjoyed the opportunity to eat lunch every day with their kids or take a walk around the block with the family dog each evening. As we head back to work now, more than work will be hybrid: our lives will be, dissipating the historical divide between our professional and our personal selves. We are caught between the normalcy we knew prior to the crisis and the normalcy we’ve built in the past 14 months. We will continue to operate between these two worlds until we set new patterns for what’s next. During this transition, empathy will be paramount. Demonstrating the ability to put yourself in someone else’s situation and understand their views, and then using that knowledge to guide your own reaction, will support successful change. We need to understand that normal will be redefined as we all determine how to keep the best of what we’ve embraced in the past year and balance a return to a world that didn’t previously integrate work and home. E mpathy will be required to continually bridge the two. We must actively demonstrate a willingness to understand how other people are redefining their professional space, and how far into their personal lives we are invited.   Uncertainty and stress will continue Transition is stressful. Life as we knew it literally stopped more than a year ago and is slowly restarting now. Our tendency will be to move in full force at a speed that attempts to catch up on what is perceived as lost time. However, leaders need to set the pace. A pace that is purposeful and sustainable. An environment that acknowledges the pendulum swung dramatically from Go to Stop and cannot instantly swing back to Go again.  We are emerging as a different workforce as we reopen Read More …

How Sears and Standard Oil paved the way for the age of Amazon

Despite Amazon’s undisputed centrality in the contemporary digital economy, a close look at its core business model reveals it to be surprisingly conventional. Before the invention of e-commerce, mail-order catalog companies such as Sears, Roebuck had accustomed American consumers to purchasing goods sight unseen from vendors with whom they communicated solely via information technology. Like Amazon, Sears, Roebuck neither manufactured goods nor owned inventory but functioned solely as information intermediary. Read More …

How two Southeast Asian superapps beat Uber at its own game

In 2009, while Uber’s cofounders were gearing up to launch, a cadre of young Asian entrepreneurs-to-be entered the MBA program at Harvard Business School. Out of that group came two ride-sharing startups that would evolve quite differently than their American cousins. The company now called Grab was conceived by Malaysian students Anthony Tan and Hooi Ling Tan (no relation) as their entry in a business-plan contest. They didn’t win—but later, they wound up out-Ubering Uber in burgeoning cities across the 10-country ASEAN region in Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, another classmate took a zigzag route to the top. Nadiem Makarim, working remotely with buddies back home in Indonesia, started Gojek as a side project while finishing his MBA. This ride-share app has branched into businesses from massage therapy to moviemaking. And just this week Gojek announced the largest business deal in Indonesia’s history, its merger with e-commerce giant Tokopedia. (Disclosure: Golden Gate Ventures is a small shareholder of Gojek via its acquisition of Ruma Mapan. We’ve also invested in Gojek’s spinout, GoPlay.) Both Gojek and Grab are now venture-funded decacorns. Each is headed for a dual IPO on New York and Asian exchanges. And they’re racing to dominate much more than ride-hailing on Southeast Asians’ mobile phone screens. Grab and Gojek each offer what hasn’t yet been seen in the U.S. market: a superapp combo, featuring a payment app that’s a potential gateway to selling anything people may wish to buy. Gojek’s Winding Road Gojek began modestly in 2010. At first it was a “minimum viable product” venture—a local, low-tech operation led on a part-time basis by its faraway founder. Read More …

How Google’s new ‘MUM’ algorithm could transform the way we search

Google is flexing its artificial intelligence muscle to help users of its search engine research complex tasks that would normally involve multiple queries. Many of the Google searches we do are just a single query, such as “file a request for extension federal tax.” But other searches involve several searches about different aspects of a complex task. You might, for example, want to know how to prepare for a river rafting trip in Montana in August, and how the preparations might differ from the preparations you did before your Colorado River rafting trip last fall. If you asked a local rafting expert how to prepare you might get an extended answer that covers a range of relevant questions. Will the weather be hotter than it was in Colorado Read More …