You have a business idea, and you’re ready to put your plan into action. But, wait a minute. You’re not sure what to call it! Is it a startup or a small business? our infographic explains the difference:
Women In Tech
The Virtual Skinny: Keep It Short…
11.24.2015
Good to Know: The holidays can be stressful. Turns out getting on social media may only make things worse.
THE SKINNY
Adding Fuel to the Fire …
U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) are throwing in a bill of their own to heat up the U.S. immigration reform debate. It’s called the H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2015. Grassley and Durbin want American employers to focus on hiring U.S. citizens first and forget about outsourcing certain jobs. Houston, we have a problem.
Back it up …
Quick background: This isn’t exactly what tech and Internet companies had in mind for immigration reform. These companies want the ability to bring in more foreign-born high-skilled workers like engineers to keep their businesses competitive. After all, there’s been talk about the U.S.’s shortage of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) workers. So, tech and Internet companies often have to look elsewhere to bring in talent.
What Do You Want From Me?
These companies want to up the available number of H-1B visas, which are work visas for foreign, high-skilled professionals. The demand for these visas is currently so high that the U.S. government resorts to a lottery system for H-1B applicants. In other words, qualifications don’t matter, it all comes down to luck. Groups like FWD.us, backed by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are pushing for “common sense” immigration proposals that focus on high-skilled immigration and immigrant rights.
Taking the Good with the Bad …
The bill wants to limit job outsourcing by targeting companies such as Indian outsourcing firms. But, it also has some redeeming points for the broader tech industry. For one, the legislation would make it easier for H-1B employees to switch employers without fear of losing their visa status. Win! The bill will likely go nowhere, but it’s putting immigration back on the map. With an election year coming up in the U.S. and campaigns moving full steam ahead, expect more immigration chatter.
WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
Is IT OR ISN’T IT?
Sports fantasy sites FanDuel and DraftKings will finally get their day in the New York Supreme Court tomorrow. On the agenda? Whether FanDuel and DraftKings’ services qualify as gambling. Since the alleged insider trading involving a DraftKings’ employee a couple of months back, the federal government and states have been on the companies’ backs. Tomorrow’s hearing is key because whatever comes out of New York on this issue could influence how other states deal with FanDuel, DraftKings, and other fantasy sports sites.
THE STREETS ARE TALKIN’
Social media company Facebook is in the business of giving away free Internet access. The company’s Internet.org initiative offers basic Internet access to emerging markets via a program called Free Basics. India’s got next.
Microsoft (MSFT) put out a report on the company’s diversity numbers. Slight improvement in racial and ethnic diversity within the company but not so much for gender diversity. The percentage of women at MSFT dipped 7.6% in the past year.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos tweeted for the first time. His side hustle, Blue Origin, successfully landed a rocket ship. Definitely tweet-worthy if you ask us.
Apple’s mobile payment and digital wallet service Apple Pay will be in China by February 2016. Chinese services like WePay and AliPay are already dominating the market. We’ll see if Apple Pay even stands a chance.
Lady Gaga’s ex manager Troy Carter helped her to stardom. Now, Carter wants in on tech talent. He’s launched an LA-based incubator called Smashd Labs.
The Virtual Skinny: The Swing of Things…
11.10.2015
Good to Know: ICYMI, yesterday Google featured Hedy Lamarr who is more known for her acting chops back in the day than being the designer of a communication system during World War II that set the groundwork for modern Wi-fi.
THE SKINNY
When Tragedy Strikes …
Freelance journalist Zak Stone published a seriously tragic and heart-wrenching story about how his dad died while staying at an AirBnB rental during a family trip. The incident happened about two years ago but now he’s letting everyone know how a major safety hazard on the AirBnB property took his dad’s life.
Now What?
His family’s story adds fuel to the ongoing debate about sharing economy services and their consumers’ safety. In AirBnB’s case, questions are being raised about the company’s responsibilities regarding safety. The site offers safety pointers to hosts under the “Trust” section of its site. The company also suggests to hosts that getting renter’s or homeowner’s insurance is probably a good idea. The insurance issue a huge deal.
Why?
Well, the problem is a lot of home owner’s insurance policies out there don’t include commercial activity like AirBnBs. So basically, people can get the insurance, but it still wouldn’t cover their AirBnB rental. To fix that issue, the company began offering Host Protection Insurance for up to $1 million earlier this year.
What to Do?
AirBnB and other sharing economy companies are working to put more safety measures in place. But, Zak notes that AirBnB is still not held to same standards as hotels (which is a huge point of contention between AirBnB and regular hotels). Sharing economy companies say that users’ reviews will weed out all the bad folks in their system, but consumer advocates want more than that. The struggle continues between balancing the benefits of these services with issues like safety.
In the Meantime …
Here’s Zak’s post in full but please proceed with caution.
WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
Not Many Things In Life Are Free …
Google is giving away its machine learning software TensorFlow. In normal people speak, TensorFlow is software the company uses to make computers “smarter” (e.g., teaching a computer to recognize cats by saturating its computer network with millions of cat images courtesy of YouTube). No, this doesn’t mean Google is going to kill its own business. The search company wants people to spend time with the software, come up with new ways to use the thing, and also hopefully improve the software. If you’ve got what it takes, then by all means, have at it!
When People Are Playing Games …
Immigration is a major issue in the United States (U.S.) and will continue to rage with upcoming presidential elections next year. The tech industry has been pretty vocal about the need for more H-1B visas, three-year work permits for foreign-born professionals to legally work in the U.S. With each passing year, the demand for these visas (only 85k available in total) are only going up. The demand is so high that the U.S. government had to put in place a lottery so regardless of whether people are qualified or not, their chances to legally stay in the U.S. to earn a living comes down to the luck of the draw. French born software engineer Théo Négri thought he had a promising career in San Francisco. But, that dream was cut short after he didn’t make it through the lottery. Négri later found out through data analysis that large global outsourcing companies are “gaming” the system by submitting thousands of applications and clogging up the system, leaving American companies with fewer chances of locking down a visa for their foreign-born applicants. Things definitely need to change.
The Clock Is Ticking …
A Belgian court wants Facebook to stop tracking people who aren’t users of its site. For the past five years, whenever an Internet user visits FB, a cookie (aka a file that tracks when someone visits a site and also certain online activities) is instantly triggered. This applies to non-FB users, which the court doesn’t think is right. The court says FB can only track people who directly give their consent; otherwise, the company will be fined 250,000 euros (£180,000) daily. The court gave FB two days to come into compliance, but the social networking is putting up a fight and plans to appeal the decision.
THE STREETS ARE TALKIN’
U.S. President Barack Obama got a Facebook for the country’s top position. His first post is about climate change.
Facebook Messenger is relying on facial recognition technology for its new Photo Magic feature. Photo Magic can i.d. your friends in photos and then asks if you want to send it to them or not. Photo Magic makes its first debut “Down Under.”
Match Group, Inc., parent company of many dating sites and apps that we know, is looking to get in the money. The company is looking at a $3.4 billion IPO and wants to raise $536.7 million to get there.
Tag Heuer Connected is Android’s answer to Apple Watch. You can get yourself one of these bad boys for $1500.
Indian e-commerce company Flipkart partnered with Google to revamp its new mobile website. One point for Google! It’s a good way to get new Internet users from emerging markets, especially since most of them live in India and will be accessing the web via mobile phones.
Social platform Twitter is looking to diversify its Board of Directors.
Some execs recently peaced out on Yahoo so its CEO Marissa Mayer came up with an idea. Mayer wants the remaining execs to sign a pledge saying they’ll stay on with the company for three to five years. Interesting.
Apple’s 12-inch iPad Pro hit stores tomorrow.
What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?
If you are asking women at Stanford University, they are likely to say a computer scientist. According to recently released statistics by the reputable institution, Stanford women are increasingly choosing to major in computer science, making it the most popular major among the school’s female student body. Currently, 218 women are enrolled in the university’s computer science program, making up 30% of students in the program.
Does this mean we are on our way to correcting the gender problem that’s plaguing the Internet and tech industries? It depends on who you ask, but it is advisable to be cautiously optimistic. Reports indicate that the number of women in computer science between 2007 and 2014 more than doubled, increasing from 10 percent to 21 percent, respectively.
While these are all positive developments, it is important to put these number in perspective.
Back in the eighties, women accounted for 30 to 40 percent of the computer science field, but those numbers have drastically dwindled over the years to a mere 16 percent according to the National Science Foundation. Even when taking a broader look at entrepreneurship in the U.S., the numbers are just as underwhelming for women – only 27% of women count themselves as entrepreneurs.
Women’s collective waning interest in this important field is attributable to a broad range of factors including young girls simply trying to be avoid the “nerd” label in grade school to lacking relatable role models in the field. According to the Anita Borg Institute (ABI), women that transition into technical careers often leave those roles for other positions and regularly cite less than favorable working conditions such as no prospects for career advancement and poor compensation.
In recent years, organizations and tech leaders have stepped up to call attention to this problem and factors that feed into it. For instance, current U.S. Chief Technology Officer (U.S. CTO) and former Googler Megan Smith is an evangelist for spotlighting “unconscious bias.” Unconscious bias simply means the bias you exhibit without even knowing it. When it comes to women in the tech industry, unconscious bias goes beyond pay and seeps into areas such as entrepreneurial pitches, institutions gravitating towards male applicants as opposed to female applicants for technical roles, and personality criticisms during performance reviews. And this week, ABI is hosting its annual three-day Grace Hopper conference bringing together thousands of women (and men) in computing to share ideas, make connections, and pay it forward to junior women in the field. Heavy hitters are expected to address the crowd including U.S. CTO Megan Smith, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki.
While there is much work to be done in improving women’s presence in technical areas like computer science, keeping a constant drumbeat on these issues, bringing tough issues to the forefront, and highlighting women in this field may just inspire the next generation of women computer scientists and entrepreneurs.