BG Reads | News You Need to Know (February 12, 2021)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
NEW // BG Podcast EP. 128: Talking Tech Flight and Austin with Kleiner Perkins Investor Haomiao Huang, PhD.
Today’s episode features Kleiner Perkins Investor Haomiao Huang, PhD. With all the recent and continued media hype around tech flight to Austin (and Miami), we wanted to get on the ground perspective from Sand Hill Road. As a bonus, Haomiao grew up in Austin (he and Bingham Group CEO A.J. attended the same high school - Go Jags!). Haomiao also discusses his path into the venture capital world, and thoughts on being a good investor.
You can listen to this episode and previous ones on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud.. Please like, link, comment and subscribe!
CITY OF AUSTIN
THE 87TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE
LINK TO FILED HOUSE BILLS (2,112)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Elon Musk predicts Austin, Texas, will be 'the biggest boomtown that America has seen in 50 years' (Business Insider)
It's no secret that Tesla CEO Elon Musk is over California.
Last summer, Musk chose Austin, Texas, as the spot for the $1 billion factory that would build the Cybertruck, the carmaker's long-awaited electric pickup truck. And in December, he confirmed rumors that he was picking up and moving from Los Angeles to the Lone Star State.
During an interview on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast that dropped Thursday, Musk said he thought Austin had huge potential beyond just hosting him and his new factory.
"It's going to be the biggest boomtown that America has seen in 50 years, at least — megaboom," Musk said.
The CEO said Tesla chose Austin as the spot for the carmaker's next US plant because "Austin is a bit like mini California." According to Musk, he asked Tesla's team in California what its top choice would be for a new factory — where it would like to spend time — and the "No. 1 choice was Austin.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Council rejects meeting to consider adding ballot measure (Austin Monitor)
After a majority of Council members told City Attorney Anne Morgan they did not believe a special called meeting on Friday night was necessary, Morgan advised Mayor Steve Adler that the mayor would not have a quorum to consider the hastily written charter proposal to add another Council member to the dais.
Adler pulled the plug on the late-night meeting Thursday afternoon.
Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, who joined Council in January, had suggested that the group should give voters the option of adding an extra Council member. Fuentes noted that there would be an even number of Council members on the dais in 2025 if the public approves adoption of the strong-mayor proposal from Austinites for Progressive Reform yet did not add another member, or vice versa.
In response, Adler set the late-night meeting, as Council only has until midnight Friday to submit additional ballot proposals for the May 1 ballot and he was required to give 72 hours notice.
This did not sit well with Council members Alison Alter, Ann Kitchen, Leslie Pool and Kathie Tovo. Alter, Kitchen and Pool posted a joint response on the City Council Message Board outlining their objections to the proposed meeting. They wrote: “At every step this year’s charter amendment process has been frustrating, coming as it is amidst a pandemic with proposals that have far-reaching and significant consequences for city governance.”
The three added, “We believe democracy works best in the light of day and with the oxygen of public participation. With 72 hours notice, at 9:45 p.m. on a Friday evening, with a midnight deadline and under conditions of emergency passage, we are being asked to convene a special called meeting to adopt additional new ballot language. While we appreciate our colleagues’ interest in discussing these latest ideas, we believe such a meeting and course of action would further undermine public confidence in how we make decisions as a Council.”
Council Member Kathie Tovo also voiced objections on the message board, saying she would attend such a meeting if it were held though she did not expect to support the proposed measure. “While I always welcome Council discussion, the measure appears unlikely to pass. Given that circumstance, I would suggest we not hold a meeting as doing so would require the City Clerk’s office and other city staff to support us from onsite at a late hour with little notice.”
Tovo added, “I understand the interest in considering this and potentially other issues, and I support convening a City Charter Commission soon after the May election to discuss any proposed charter amendments as a community.”
On the other side, Council Member Paige Ellis and Mayor Pro Tem Natasha Harper-Madison seemed willing to attend the meeting. Harper-Madison said via email, “I agree with Council Member Fuentes that an even number of Council votes could create gridlock on the dais. Given the countless problems that need to be urgently addressed in Austin, I’m surprised my colleagues didn’t want to consider the issue and its implications a little more closely. That said, the question is now up to the voters, who now have less than three months to consider complex changes to our local government that will have lasting consequences for generations to come.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Celebrating Black Austin: Mayor Pro Tem Natasha Harper-Madison (Austin Monthly)
Since taking office in January 2019, Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison has emerged as a voice for Austin’s most marginalized groups. Whether it’s been fighting to address the city’s growing affordability issues, pushing local law enforcement to address deep-seated racial inequities, or helping deliver a long-awaited rail system, the East Austin native has established herself as an unflappable politician and natural leader.
As part of Austin Monthly’s “Celebrating Black Austin” series, we sat down with the City Council member to discuss the adversity she’s faced throughout her life, her unlikely path to politics, and her bold vision for our city’s future… (LINK TO STORY)
City opens up grants to help legacy businesses hit hard by Covid-19 (Austin Monitor)
A new city program set to go live next week will give long-running hospitality businesses throughout the city another possible source of Covid-19 relief.
The first round of the Legacy Business Relief Grant, which was designed to help restaurants, bars, and arts and music venues that have been open for 20 years, will offer up to $20,000 per business.
The application period for the grants opens Feb. 16, with the first wave of recipients to be determined after the March 10 cutoff. Winners from that pool will be able to apply for a second round of $140,000 in additional aid that will be allocated in installments of up to $40,000 per month.
City Council created the $5 million aid program last year as part of the $15 million Save Austin’s Vital Economic Sectors (SAVES) package, which was funded through budget reserves. A December resolution directed city staffers to find a way to help the small businesses devastated by the pandemic that have managed to become a part of the city’s cultural fabric through two decades or more of operation.
“Legacy businesses, for the purpose of this program, is designated as businesses that have been in Austin for 20-plus years … from restaurants to bars to live music venues, they’ve been part of the cultural heritage and historic fabric of what Austin has to offer,” said Nicole Klepadlo, redevelopment project manager for the Economic Development Department. “They’re the strong, institutional businesses that have helped promote the culture of neighborhoods.”
A webinar Tuesday will provide directions on how to apply, and the city has enlisted PeopleFund to administer the program, including giving assistance to applicants. Those who are selected to receive the first round of funding will have to complete a technical assistance evaluation with Business & Community Lenders of Texas, with the possibility of coaching, business planning and help accessing additional financial resources.
Veronica Briseño, the city’s economic recovery officer, said the application process will give the city a look at how many legacy businesses are currently operating. Once that number is determined, plans will be made to determine how to best select recipients for the second round of funding.
Because the program is new, “we’re going to see how many applications we get,” she said. “If we get too large a number for the $5 million fund, we want to make sure we don’t have all the $20,000 go out the door and then not have enough for the second phase of the program.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin's UpEquity lands $25M to grow tech-enabled mortgage platform (Austin American-Statesman)
UpEquity, which provides a tech-enabled mortgage platform, has raised $25 million to expand its reach.
The Austin-based company received the funding in a deal led by Next Coast Ventures. The funding consists of $7.5 million of equity financing and $17.5 million of venture debt.
UpEquity said it will use the funding for business development with real estate agents and product development to further reduce their time-to-close to 10 days.
The company was founded in 2019 by Tim Herman and Louis Wilson while they were attending Harvard Business School and later participated in startup accelerator Y Combinator's summer 2019 program.
According to the company, buyers with great credit can get approved for an UpEquity mortgage and go to the offer table with an all cash offer that is more likely to be accepted… (LINK TO STORY)
What a $17B Samsung investment might look like (Austin Business Journal)
If Samsung picks Austin for its next chip factory, the price tag would eclipse any other economic development project Central Texas has ever seen.
The chipmaking plant is pegged as an investment of at least $17 billion, according to state filings, but experts say a project of this magnitude would come with long-term impacts way beyond that figure, from thousands of jobs created during construction to an enlarged semiconductor supply chain.
Samsung, which already has a massive semiconductor factory in Austin, now appears to be weighing its location choices. Wherever the global technology giant picks will receive one of the largest economic development projectsin recent U.S. history.
On paper, Samsung is looking to spend more than 15-times what Tesla Inc. is investing in its $1.1 billion gigafactory rising in Travis County. And the price tag is almost 2.5-times the size of the voter-approved Project Connect transit plan that will cost $7.1 billion and come with a couple of new train lines.
The high dollar figure for the possible Samsung expansion reflects the expensive machines that will be needed to fill the factory, manufacturing and economic development experts told Austin Business Journal. A closer examination of what's been revealed so far in public documents paints a picture of how and where that money could be spent. That's useful in the debate over what kind of incentives should be offered.
Here's how the investment would break down: roughly $11.4 billion would go toward equipment and machinery, while construction of the facility would cost about $5.6 billion, according to an investment schedule included in the company's application for Chapter 313 incentives… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
Gov. Greg Abbott plans to relax business restrictions soon if COVID-19 numbers continue to drop from record highs (Texas Tribune)
During a Thursday press conference, Gov. Greg Abbott said that more announcements are likely “coming soon” about relaxing COVID-19 restrictions in Texas as cases and hospitalizations continue to drop.
Abbott spoke at a roundtable discussion in Dallas with small business owners about the state’s role in supporting small businesses during the pandemic. As more Texans continue to get vaccinated and COVID-19 hospitalizations trend downward, Abbott said, he plans to lift statewide restrictions if trends continue.
“We know there are businesses that need to get back to work. There are employees that have bills to pay. There are jobs that must be opened,” Abbott said. “I was visiting with the people around the table today to expect that things economically will be picking up very rapidly.”
On Thursday, 8,933 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Texas — the first time the number has dropped below 9,000 since December, according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services. The state also reported 9,936 new confirmed COVID-19 cases and 2,332 new probable cases… (LINK TO STORY)
Are casinos coming to Texas? Gambling industry sees state as huge untapped market (Austin American-Statesman)
A push by Las Vegas Sands to legalize casinos in Texas is moving forward, despite odds of success that appeared to get significantly longer recently when Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick reiterated his opposition to loosening the state’s gambling restrictions. Las Vegas Sands, the Nevada company founded by the late Sheldon Adelson, views Texas as a huge untapped casino market, with the potential to support major casino-based "destination resorts" in four top metropolitan areas, including Austin, as well as smaller regional facilities around the state, according to Andy Abboud, a Las Vegas Sands senior vice president. The company's casinos — which incorporate hotels, restaurants, spas and nongambling entertainment venues — require investments of $2 billion to $3 billion each and directly employ up to 10,000 people, and "we're never going to ask for one tax incentive," Abboud said Thursday.
Speaking to reporters in Austin in the wake of Patrick's comments Tuesday to the host of a Lubbock radio show, Abboud said Las Vegas Sands is continuing its effort to form a coalition of like-minded gaming companies, gambling interests, sports teams and citizens to lobby the Legislature. The coalition is expected to be announced soon, he said, along with the introduction of legislation that would allow Texans to vote on whether to legalize casinos and potentially other forms of gambling by amending the state's constitution. But Patrick, a Republican, has already doused some hopes that lawmakers might approve such legislation this session. Patrick said in his radio interview with Chad Hasty on KFYO in Lubbock that he's "never been in favor" of expanded gambling in the state, and he noted that "we are nowhere close to having the votes for it" anyway in the Republican-controlled Texas Senate… (LINK TO STORY)
More solar power was generated in Texas last month than in all of 2015 (San Antonio Express-News)
Solar farms keep cropping up around Texas, and the state now produces as much solar power in one month as it did in all of 2015. Last month, power producers generated 732 gigawatt-hours of electricity from solar panels, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s grid operator. Just six years ago, the state produced 420 GWh from solar throughout the entire year.
And in 2016, solar panels produced 836 GWh in Texas — just over last month’s total, according to ERCOT. “Just in the last couple of years, we’ve really seen the price of solar come down so far that it’s competitive, and in some cases more competitive, than wind,” said Joshua Rhodes, a research associate at the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas at Austin. “We knew solar would grow, but it has been growing extremely fast and is going to continue to grow extremely fast for the next few years.”
The January generation figures highlight the state’s swift shift to electricity from renewables and away from power generated from fossil fuels. Solar power made up 2.3 percent of total electricity generation in Texas last month. While that figure is still low when compared with more established power sources, such as wind and natural gas, solar energy’s share of the fuel mix is growing rapidly. A year ago, the state produced half as much power from solar as it did last month — 361 GWh in January 2020, which at the time was just over 1 percent of the state’s fuel mix. A quarter of the state’s power last month came from wind, which last year overtook coal as the second-largest source of electricity in Texas… (LINK TO STORY)
Former top aides say Attorney General Ken Paxton received assistance with home remodel, job for alleged girlfriend in return for helping political donor (Texas Tribune)
Late last year, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton fired multiple senior aides who accused him of accepting a bribe. A court filing obtained by The Texas Tribune reveals for the first time what four of those aides believe Paxton received in exchange for helping a donor with his business affairs.
An updated version of a lawsuit filed by the four whistleblowers claims that Austin real estate developer Nate Paul helped Paxton remodel his house and gave a job to a woman with whom Paxton allegedly had an affair.
In return, the aides allege, Paxton used his office to help Paul’s business interests, investigate Paul’s adversaries and help settle a lawsuit. The claims in the filing provide even more details about what the former aides believe Paxton’s motivations were in what they describe as a “bizarre, obsessive use of power.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Online students won't have to take STAAR test, Texas Education Commissioner Morath says (Houston Chronicle)
Students attending schools remotely will not have to take the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR test, when it is administered on campuses, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath said Thursday. In a live-streamed interview with the Texas Tribune, Morath said schools will be able to make a “variety of adjustments” for students whose families are concerned about the health implications of sending them onto campuses to take the STAAR test in-person. “It’s not opting out of the STAAR test — it’s opting for remote instruction,” Morath said. “They will continue to experience remote instruction, but we don’t have the capability to do the test remotely, so they won’t sit for the STAAR exam.”
Morath said the Texas Education Agency still will require schools to administer the test for students learning in-person to see where they are this year after the academic disruptions forced by the COVID-19 pandemic. He said parents who keep their children working remotely during STAAR testing will lose access to that assessment and will not have as much information about their academic performances. “It is because in a time of crisis we have to use every tool at our disposal, which includes, in some cases, objective third-party assessments,” Morath said.
“If we don’t know where they are, how do we know how to support them?” TEA officials already announced last year that students in grades 3 through 8 — including those in online-only courses — will not be held back or face any punishments due to their STAAR test performance this school year. While his comments Thursday clarified whether remote students in younger grades would be forced to come to schools to take the test, TEA officials reiterated Thursday that high school students are still required to take their end-of-course exams in-person to graduate. Texas law requires high schoolers to pass state-issued course exams to graduate, but school-based independent graduation committees still have the authority to clear a student for graduation even if they failed or did not take those tests. Gov. Greg Abbott or the Texas Legislature could also make accommodations for those rules in the coming months if they desired… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
After Democrats’ visceral presentation, Trump team on stage (Associated Press)
After a prosecution case rooted in emotive, violent images from the Capitol siege, Donald Trump’s impeachment trial shifts on Friday to defense lawyers prepared to make a fundamental concession: The violence was every bit as traumatic, unacceptable and illegal as Democrats say.
But, they will say, Trump had nothing to do with it.
Stipulating to the horrors of the day is meant to blunt the visceral impact of the House Democrats’ case and quickly pivot to what they see as the core — and more winnable — issue of the trial: whether Trump can be held responsible for inciting the deadly Jan. 6 riot.
The argument is likely to appeal to Republican senators who themselves want to be seen as condemning the violence without convicting the president.
“They haven’t in any way tied it to Trump,” David Schoen, one of the president’s lawyers, told reporters near the end of two full days of Democrats’ arguments aimed at doing just that.
He previewed the essence of his argument Tuesday, telling the Senate jurors: “They don’t need to show you movies to show you that the riot happened here. We will stipulate that it happened, and you know all about it.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Bumble’s 31-Year-Old CEO Becomes a Rare Female Billionaire (Bloomberg)
A company catering to women and led by women has made its 31-year-old female founder a billionaire.
Shares of Bumble Inc., the owner of the dating app where women make the first move, soared 67% in its trading debut to $72 at 1:03 p.m. in New York, valuing Chief Executive Officer Whitney Wolfe Herd’s stake at $1.5 billion.
The listing caps a saga that’s both inspiration and cautionary tale for women tech founders. Wolfe Herd capitalized on an underserved market and built a multibillion-dollar company that was in a sense born from one of the most vexing obstacles to women entrepreneurs: sexual harassment.
“Hopefully this will not be a rare headline,” Wolfe Herd said Thursday in an interview with Bloomberg Television, referring to the uniqueness of Bumble’s women-led management. “Hopefully this will be the norm. It’s the right thing to do, it’s a priority for us and it should be a priority for everyone else.”
Bumble’s IPO launches Wolfe Herd into a rarefied club of self-made female billionaires. While women make up about half of the global population, self-made women -- mostly from Asia -- account for less than 5% of the world’s 500 biggest fortunes, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Self-made men comprise almost two-thirds of the wealth index… (LINK TO STORY)