(The Guardian) American private equity tycoons are profiteering from the global climate crisis by investing in fossil fuels that are driving greenhouse gas emissions, a new investigation reveals. Oil and gas pipelines, coal plants and offshore drilling sites linked to Indigenous land violations, toxic leaks and deadly air pollution are among the dirty energy projects…

(Financial Times) Former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt is launching a $125mn philanthropic project to fund artificial intelligence research that solves “hard problems” in the field, including issues of bias, harm and misuse, geopolitical conflict, and scientific limitations of the technology. The fund, known as AI2050, will be paid out over five years to individual…

(Time) In a drab office building near a slum on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, nearly 200 young men and women from countries across Africa sit at desks glued to computer monitors, where they must watch videos of murders, rapes, suicides, and child sexual abuse. These young Africans work for Sama, which calls itself an…

(Vox) The Senate passed a significant bill on Thursday that effectively prevents employers, universities, and other institutions from immunizing themselves from lawsuits alleging sexual harassment or assault. The bill passed the House on Monday, and President Joe Biden is expected to sign it into law. The bill, known as the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual…

(sifted) The Atomico office in central London is an eco-warrior’s dream. The building is carbon-neutral, the in-house chef limits meat consumption and food waste, its giant annual report is printed on recycled paper and partners have guidelines to make working from home greener.  But the firm now wants its portfolio companies to get into shape…

(Medium) The world is changing. Venture capital is struggling to keep up. The best venture capital investors anticipate emerging trends, seize opportunities in untapped markets, and invest in the people who are inventing the future. But there’s a gaping hole in the current venture ecosystem’s investment strategy: a persistent lack of diversity. According to The…

(The Hill) In the summer of 2020, amid America’s national reckoning with its white supremacism and systemic racism, lovers of nature and conservation began to ask questions about how our national parks and other public lands fit into this reckoning.   They took a closer look at beautiful, nationally prized landscapes, like the Grand Canyon and…

(Fortune) JoAnn Price is used to busting venture capital stereotypes.  As an influential Black woman running 28-year-old Fairview Capital Partners—a pioneer of diversity-focused investing—that’s been her whole career. Back in the 1990s, she entered an industry that almost never backs or hires people who look like her. And while things are beginning to change—as a…

(Axios) Private equity is one of the world’s largest carbon emitters, by virtue of its outsized role in the global economy. That also means it has the opportunity to lead on carbon emissions reduction, and there are indications that the industry is moving in that direction. Driving the news: Carlyle Group this week committed to…

(Protocol) In her resignation letter Wednesday, Google ethical AI researcher Alex Hanna accused the company of having deep “rot” in its internal culture, “maintain[ing] white supremacy behind the veneer of race-neutrality” and being a workplace where those with “little interest in mitigating the worst harms” of its products are promoted at “lightning speed.” “I am…