(Wall Street Journal) Meta Platforms Inc. has disbanded its Responsible Innovation team, which was once a prominent piece of its effort to address concerns about the potential downsides of its products. The team had included roughly two dozen engineers, ethicists and others who collaborated with internal product teams and outside privacy specialists, academics and users…

(Harvard Business Review) Companies are increasingly feeling pressure to respond to social movements on inequality, but far too many tend to respond reactively — making a donation or social media statement — instead of taking proactive measures to build equity and inclusion in their own organizations. The author offers four proactive actions to take: 1)…

(NPR) A reported $350 million investment into a new, yet-to-be-launched real estate venture founded by a controversial businessman has drawn criticism from women entrepreneurs. The investment, which was made and publicly shared by venture capital powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz, is in Flow, the new company of WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann. Given Neumann’s questionable business dealings and his abrupt exit from WeWork amid…

(The Guardian) Business Roundtable aims to weaken efforts that would enable investors to hold companies accountable for their climate promise. Three years ago today, in a statement that would be described as “historic”, “monumental” and “revolutionary”, America’s most powerful and politically connected corporations promised to “protect the environment by embracing sustainable practices across our businesses”.…

(Fast Company) In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, a long list of companies announced that they will cover travel costs or expand healthcare benefits for employees who may be affected by the ruling. Insurance company Embroker, meanwhile, recently asked over 500 venture capitalist-backed startup founders…

(Wired) The details are chilling. Police raiding a home, a teenager and her mother arrested, fetal remains exhumed from a rural burial plot. When police dragged off a 17-year-old Nebraska girl and charged her and her mother with self-administering a miscarriage, they were armed with damning documents they could only access through the incompetence and…

(Quartz) Over the course of two days in July, West Virginia emerged as the perfect proxy for America’s messy reckoning with climate change. First, it moved to punish banks for divesting from old economy coal and fossil fuels; next, its senior US senator had an abrupt change of heart and supported a serious step up…

(Pitchbook) When tech investor Abe Yokell heard about the $369 billion bill to fund climate investment in the US, he almost fell out of his seat. Yokell, a managing partner at Congruent Ventures, wasn’t alone. Climate tech investors and advocates were shocked by the agreement between Senators Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer that, if passed,…

(The New York Times) There will be jargon: carried interest, leveraged buyout, joint liability. I am aware that none of this is anyone’s favorite thing to be discussing on a summer’s day. But private equity is counting on your lack of interest; the seeming impenetrability of its practices has been called one of its “superpowers,”…

(The New York Times) The $369 billion climate and tax package forged in a surprise deal by Senate Democrats on Wednesday would be the most ambitious action ever taken by the United States to try to stop the planet from catastrophically overheating. The agreement, which Senate Democrats hope to pass as early as next week,…