Posts by lucidcapitalism

(Techcrunch) Funding for Black entrepreneurs in the U.S. hit nearly $1.8 billion in the first half of 2021 — a fourfold increase from the previous year. But most venture-backed startups are “still overwhelmingly white, male, Ivy-League-educated and based in Silicon Valley,” according to a study conducted by RateMyInvestor and Diversity VC. Read more here.

(The Hollywood Reporter) The Vice Media union’s labor management committee has requested the company improve its “unconscionable” severance terms for the 17 staffers at Vice Digital and Refinery29 who were laid off in late August. In a letter sent to top executives, including Vice CEO Nancy Dubuc, this week, the committee demanded that the media…

(Responsible Investor) Investors should require companies issuing sustainability-linked bonds to have Paris-aligned targets, according to the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI). In a discussion paper exploring credible climate transition strategies, the influential non-profit identified five ‘hallmarks.’ Read more here.

(BSR) The increasingly widespread media coverage of surveillance and spyware technologies used to track ethnic and racial minorities and immigrants and surveil journalists, human rights activists, and other prominent figures has put a spotlight on the role of private equity firms, including venture capital (VC) investors, in financing human rights abuses in the United States…

(WSJ) Forget Gordon Gekko. The hottest companies launching IPOs are branding themselves as do-gooders. A new generation of companies, including startups such as Rent the Runway Inc., Chobani LLC, Warby Parker Inc. and Allbirds Inc., are on tap to go public this fall, people familiar with the matter say. They will be doing it with…

(HBR) A 2018 estimate of unemployment among the five million formerly incarcerated people living in the U.S. found that they are “unemployed at a rate of over 27% — higher than the total U.S. unemployment rate during any historical period, including the Great Depression.”  In this article, author LeRon L. Barton poses the question: What role…

(Inside Higher Ed) In technical fields, we often pride ourselves on our objectivity — as though the work exists outside ourselves. In engineering, we have historically believed that we could make technologies that work for anyone, regardless of the identity of the engineer or the user. We have believed that technological progress was inherently making…

(AP) Nine activists from Bahrain had their iPhones hacked by advanced spyware made by the Israeli company NSO Group, the world’s most infamous hacker-for-hire firm, a cybersecurity watchdog reported on Tuesday. Read more here.

(MarketWatch) When a Blackstone-backed company in March sold $260 million in bonds under its Servpro Industries banner, a franchise specializing in fire- and water-damage cleanups, the financing went off without much notice. But three months later, a whistleblower complaint from two former workers at Fort Bliss, Texas, one of the nation’s largest emergency migrant youth…

(CNN) Since 1993, the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) has said that CEO pay should be more in line with what other employees receive. Boards, we have said, should not approve pay plan elements that result in unexpectedly high compensation, such as mega stock-option awards, and plans should be expressed simply, so that shareholders…