What We’re Reading
Here are a few good articles the Collaborative Fund team came across this week.
Demographics
Millennials are taking over:
Edge
A great Lyft profile, with comments from co-founder John Zimmer:
Asked whether he was surprised to see Mr. Kalanick fall from grace, he fell silent. The pause lasted a long time — longer, it seemed, than most Lyft rides take to arrive — before he finally answered.
“The fact that values matter and ethics matter does not surprise me,” he said. “To me, that’s obvious.”
Culture
Josh Brown on finance’s shifting culture:
Brown compared the evolution of the U.S. presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Clinton had to tread lightly in 1992 and say he never inhaled pot, while Obama in 2008 basically said “I was 20 once, so what?”
“The world moves forward,” Brown said. “In this day and age, to pretend like we don’t all have a personal life because we work in finance, like we walk around in suits and ties all day? Enough already!
“We try to be open and honest about who we are. We show up to work in jeans and sneakers sometimes. It’s about the substance with us, not the style.”
Brand
Our own Sophie Bakalar writes on brand and transparency in Fortune:
Transparency can actually be a more effective marketing strategy than spin. According to a survey by Label Insight, nearly 40% of customers say they would switch from their current preferred brand to one that offers more transparency.
That’s because authentic transparency is a proxy for a company’s values, which modern consumers increasingly care about. According to Nielsen, nearly two-thirds of global consumers are willing to pay more for products from companies committed to positive social and environmental impact. And what’s the number one driver of purchasing decisions for sustainable products? Trust.
Inclusivity
A hard piece about fitting in at startups:
“In tech, there are very few starring roles for women, and almost none for older women,” said the tech industry veteran and Project Include co-founder Susan Wu. “In Hollywood, if you’re a mother, you still have to pretend to be young, to be attractive and have the body of a 20-year-old. At most startups in Silicon Valley, to succeed as a parent, you have to pretend to fit in with the youth culture – don’t talk about your kids, participate in youthful activities, pull all-nighters, go out drinking with the team.”
Budgets
The economics of shared, self-driving cars:
They will have a powerful incentive to do so. A study by Deloitte Consulting, for example, estimates that the cost of personal car ownership is on average 97 cents a mile today but could drop by two-thirds in a world of shared, self-driving vehicles—a tipping point that could usher the technology into daily life for many people. In cities, the idea will be even more appealing, because it takes away the unpleasant sides of ownership, such as parking and negotiating traffic jams.
Have a good weekend.