BG Reads | News You Need to Know (February 9, 2021)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
NEW // BG Podcast EP. 127: The Anatomy of a Digital Disinformation Campaign
On today’s episode we speak with Robert Matney, Managing Director of Government Affairs at Austin-based Yonder A.I. The firm’s software discovers the hidden groups who control and amplify online narratives, so companies can navigate an unpredictable, ever-evolving internet with confidence.
TOMORROW // EP. 128: Talking Tech Flight and Austin with Kleiner Perkins Investor Haomiao Huang, PhD.
CITY OF AUSTIN
Austin Council Special Called Meetings RE Charter Amendment Elections:
Tuesday (9AM) - Agenda
9 am – COVID Briefing (Item #6)
11am – take 37 speakers at 3 minutes each
Lunch break after speakers
Executive Session after lunch
Discussion and action on items 1-5.
Wednesday (1PM) - Agenda
Thursday (1PM) - Agenda
THE 87TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE
LINK TO FILED HOUSE BILLS (1,876)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Local leaders say Samsung deal could boost middle-skill jobs (Austin Monitor)
As city staffers continue to work behind the scenes negotiating an economic incentive package with Samsung to bring a $17 billion manufacturing operation to Austin, some local leaders see the deal as a large positive step for increasing so-called middle-skill jobs.
During a presentation at last week’s annual meeting of the Austin Chamber, Mayor Steve Adler touted a series of recent high-profile tech world expansions and relocations in Austin, including Tesla’s ambitious battery manufacturing facility in East Austin.
The Samsung deal would dwarf all recent tech economy activity in the area, with more than 1,700 high-paying jobs expected to follow an expansion of the company’s Parmer Lane location. It could come with a significant investment from the city and other local entities, however, with the company initially requesting $805 million in tax abatements and other considerations.
Local economic analysts see that request as purely an opening gambit in the negotiations, as it would seem to run counter to the city’s stated goal of revising economic incentive packages to favor smaller employers and moving low-income workers into higher-paying jobs through job training.
While Adler wouldn’t discuss the specifics, he told the Austin Monitor that one of the largest benefits of the expansion would be an increase in advanced manufacturing jobs for the local economy. Those would come from the company’s direct hires and the need for workers in related businesses.
“We have spoken about trying to bring to our city more and more of the middle-skill jobs. That’s only part of the challenge this community has and we also have to train people to upskill into those jobs,” he said. “One of the best ways is working with those companies to train directly for those jobs, rather than training them and then having them look for jobs.”
The Samsung deal would be a boon to the campaign the city and Travis County launched in 2017 with Workforce Solutions to focus on increasing hiring in advanced manufacturing, health care and information technology. Since that effort was launched, Workforce Solutions has enrolled 12,000 residents in training for middle-skill jobs, with 2,484 workers placed in new jobs so far.
Tamara Atkinson, CEO of Workforce Solutions, said the demand is increasing for workers in the fields identified at the start of the 2017 campaign, with health care and IT jobs exceeding demand by more than three times the number of applicants for those positions.
Atkinson didn’t have the same data for the manufacturing sector, but said the Tesla facility and the hundreds of jobs generated by Samsung could create new opportunities for the 17,000 workers in hospitality and other “face to face” industries who lost their jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Of course with Tesla coming, there’s going to be more of a focus on advanced manufacturing,” she said. “No specific plans issued by Tesla. It’s a skills game and for the jobs we expect to be created in these growing industries, to qualify and move up in them they’re going to need skills. That leads me to feel the best chance for affordability and competitiveness for our local workforce is for us to accelerate skills education locally.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Bumble boosts its IPO price on path to raising $1.8B (Austin Business Journal)
Austin-based dating and networking app company Bumble is heading into Valentine's Day season with even more ambition than previously thought.
The company Feb. 8 filed paperwork indicating it will sell 45 million shares of its stock at $37 to $39 per share. With that, the company could raise $1.8 billion through its forthcoming initial public offering. Meanwhile, the pricing means that Bumble, founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd in 2014, has a valuation of $7 billion to $8 billion.
The new federal filing is a significant increase from a filing a last week indicating the company would sell 34.5 million shares at $28 to $30.
The company hasn't set a date to begin trading yet, although Bloomberg has reported it will begin trading Feb. 11.
Investment firm Blackstone is currently Bumble's majority shareholder. The new filing shows that after the IPO, Blackstone will own 60% of the company and Wolfe Herd will own about 11% of outstanding shares, although those percentages could change if underwriters exercise their options to buy up to 6.75 million additional shares… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin FC planning for June 2021 Q2 Stadium opener, early spring completion (MLS)
An expansion club’s introduction to Major League Soccer is full of landmark accomplishments: first win, first goal, first marquee signing, first playoff berth and so forth.
One of those milestone moments is in view for Austin FC, with club president Andy Loughnane telling MLSsoccer.com they’re planning for an early June opener at Q2 Stadium. Loughnane said the soccer-specific venue will be complete by “late March, early April,” putting them on schedule to reach construction completion targets that were established when Austin FC broke ground in September 2019.
How Loughnane views it, the $260 million privately-funded stadium, which has a natural grass playing surface and can fit 20,500-plus fans, will play a key role in Austin’s sports history far beyond the Texas urban hub’s relationship with soccer.
“Austin is the fastest-growing large city in the country for many years running, and it's the largest city in North America without a major league team,” Loughnane said. “Of course, that all changes here very shortly. But yes, this is league history to open a property in the city of Austin. Austin has so much going for it right now and I think Major League Soccer is equally as proud to be a part of Austin's sports history as Austin FC is.
“There's a lot of opportunity that comes with that, there's a lot of expectation that comes with that. But we've been off to a good start and are fortunate. This is a very special city and we think we've started to form a very special bond with the city. It all comes to life in Q2 Stadium here shortly.”
With an April 3 start date penciled in for the 2021 MLS season, the two-month in-between period could leave Austin FC with a lengthy road-swing before their project gets formally introduced. That situation has recent MLS precedent, with D.C. United playing a road-heavy front half of their 2018 schedule before Audi Field premiered that July. The same year, then-expansion side LAFC played their first six MLS games away before Banc of California Stadium opened in April.
Contributing to Austin FC’s situation is several internal and external factors around the 24-acre Q2 Stadium property. Even though construction will conclude by late April, they’ll still need to get their facilities operations staff up to date, integrate sponsorship elements and do onboarding for part-time gameday staff. Out of Austin FC’s control, there are traffic signals that need to be installed on private land and a road that’s being built, acting as an important artery for traffic of all kinds… (LINK TO STORY)
The race is on for downtown Austin’s first tower groundbreaking of 2021 (Towers)
Though we saw plenty of construction progress on existing projects, no major downtown Austin tower plans have broken ground since the coronavirus kicked off in earnest last year. That cautious approach from local developers isn’t unique to Austin, but what might be unique is the speed of our rebound — as we and the rest of our colleagues have pointed out quite a few times in recent months, we’re still looking at a massive list of downtown towers in varying stages of realization, some of which were improbably announced during the pandemic.
We’re not expecting everything to make it past the finish line intact, but there are currently three tower projects we think are likely to break ground pretty soon — and if all goes well, one could be the first tower to start construction downtown in 2021, not a bad symbol for Austin’s continued economic resilience. Here’s our case for each… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin-based Code2College races to solve the tech world's inequity puzzle (Austin American-Statesman)
When I first interviewed Matt Stephenson in 2017, he posed a novel strategy for solving a puzzle that was on everybody’s minds: How to recruit more African American, Hispanic and low-income students, especially girls, into the world of digital technology, and beyond that, into the spheres of science, math and engineering.
Stephenson had recently founded Code2College, an Austin nonprofit that trains young people in low-income schools to enter STEM fields by learning computer coding — as well as the larger contours of the high tech world — from volunteer experts already in the business.
Code2College started with 30 Austin students from Akins High School and the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders. Of those working after school with volunteer coaches, 70 percent were girls, 80 percent African American or Hispanic.
Less than four years later, Code2College has expanded its comprehensive programming to other schools in the Austin district, as well as to the Del Valle, Pflugerville, Round Rock and Manor districts, plus the Harmony Public Schools. The program has also leaped beyond the immediate region to San Antonio, Houston, Philadelphia and another seven scattered national districts… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
Gov. Greg Abbott has set his legislative agenda. These lawmakers could influence how much is accomplished. (Texas Tribune)
Gov. Greg Abbott has laid out a bunch of priorities that he hopes lawmakers will take on this legislative session: measures related to criminal justice, protecting businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits and how elections are run in the state. But to get anything done on his list, he’ll need help in the Texas House and Senate.
Abbott works closely with the leaders of each chamber — Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in the Senate and Speaker Dade Phelan in the House — to pursue his agenda. Look closer, though, and there’s a lot more going on in the new Legislature. There are a total of 181 legislators in the Capitol, but the influence is not evenly distributed. Due to the lawmakers’ positions, ideology and tenure, some will have a much bigger say on the biggest issues this session. Here’s who to watch... (LINK TO STORY)
Analysis: Texas tries to make the connections on broadband internet (Texas Tribune)
Of all the things on Gov. Greg Abbott’s list of priorities, the call for broadband internet might be the most popular in the state Legislature. But fixing the problems of accessibility and affordability will be expensive and time-consuming.
And it’s not a new problem. The governor has had a task force working on it; they’ve already issued a report. A majority of the members of the Texas House spotlighted the issue in a letter to Abbott last September. And a related telecommunications dispute at the Public Utility Commission is tied up in court, potentially threatening phone service in some rural areas of the state and with it, access to broadband internet.
The pandemic has made the need clear. Texans stuck at home need high-speed internet for schooling, for work, for shopping, for medicine, for entertainment — the live, in-person activities we all took for granted a year ago.
Sounds simple enough, but there’s a lot to untangle. It’s expensive to run lines to the most sparsely populated areas of the state, which is why so many people don’t have access to broadband, especially in rural areas. And it’s expensive to subscribe even if access isn’t the problem; just because there is a fiber optic line next to the house doesn’t mean you can afford the service.
Some of the state’s smallest phone companies depend on the state’s Universal Service Fund — an account filled by a tax on local phone lines — to subsidize the higher costs of getting telephone service to the less populated parts of Texas. But those subsidies have been dwindling, which could make it more difficult to get broadband internet service to customers in those areas.
The state fund is for phone service — not internet. But those are linked — often delivered over the same infrastructure. Weldon Gray, CEO of the Texas Statewide Telephone Cooperative Inc., said it’s possible to build a broadband network without a phone network, but it’s more often the case that the broadband piggybacks on phone lines…(LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
Here's what you need to know about the senate impeachment trial (NPR)
President Trump made history when he became the first president to be impeached twice by the House of Representatives. Roughly a year ago, the Senate acquitted Trump on two articles — abuse of power and obstruction. This time he faces one article approved by the House arguing he incited an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, the day that Congress was required by the Constitution to count and certify the electoral votes in the 2020 election.
Here's how the trial is expected to work… (LINK TO STORY)
The U.S. mulls requiring domestic air travelers to show a negative virus test. (New York Times)
Federal officials are considering whether to require airline passengers to have a negative coronavirus test before boarding domestic flights, according to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Proof of a negative test result is already required for passengers boarding international flights bound for the United States, under a policy imposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month.
In a program that aired on Sunday night, Mr. Buttigieg told “Axios on HBO” that “there’s an active conversation with the C.D.C. right now” about whether to require a negative test for domestic travel as well.
“What I can tell you is, it’s going to be guided by data, by science, by medicine, and by the input of the people who are actually going to have to carry this out,” he said.
Asked about the issue at a White House briefing on Monday, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the C.D.C., said that providing more coronavirus testing at places like airports could help to curb the spread of the virus by people who are contagious but do not know it, because they lack obvious symptoms.
“There’s more gathering that happens in airports, and so, to the extent that we have available tests to be able to do testing, this would be yet another mitigation measure to try and decrease risk,” Dr. Walensky said… (LINK TO STORY)
Bitcoin powers towards $50K as Tesla takes it mainstream (Reuters)
Bitcoin was fast approaching the $50,000 mark on Tuesday as the afterglow of Elon Musk-led Tesla’s investment in the cryptocurrency had investors reckoning it may become a mainstream asset class for both corporations and money managers.
The most popular cryptocurrency has gained 1,150% from March 2020 lows as institutional investors search for alternative wealth stores and retail traders ride the wave. It traded at a few hundred dollars only five years back.
Monday, it leapt 20% after Tesla announced it had a $1.5 billion investment and that it would eventually take the cryptocurrency as payment for its cars. That was its largest daily rise in more than three years.
The price of one bitcoin climbed to a peak of $48,216 -- almost enough to buy one of the best-selling Tesla vehicles, Tesla Model Y SUV. Rival cryptocurrency ethereum struck a record high of $1,784.85 on Tuesday… (LINK TO STORY)