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A new book on venture capital and private equity explores how those two forces have helped push homeownership further out of reach for millions of Americans. And the author believes that amid the deregulation and job cuts of the second Trump administrationstaffing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development may be cut in halfconsumers are even more likely to get a bad deal. They’re playing with fire, says civic technologist Catherine Bracy. It’s catastrophic on a scale that I don’t have words for. What that means for the rental and mortgage market . . . it could put 2008 to shame. In Bracys new book, World Eaters, she traces how venture capital and private equity came to be, how they impact the health of our economy and the labor market, and how they exacerbate inequity and the housing crisis. She chose that title because she believes the approach of venture capitala sort of casino mentality, where big bets are encouraged despite the risksis subsuming the economy, eating industries and infecting the mindset of how people think about what the economy should be. Bracy, who cofounded the nonprofit advocacy group TechEquity in 2016, has long pushed for more consumer protections and better transparency around tech business models. World Eaters traces how post-Great Recession opportunities allowed tech and VC money to get into the single-family rental home market and begin building out new housing products, including fractionalized ownership and rent-to-own pathways. These models have had mixed results. Fractionalized ownership firms like Landa have gotten into legal trouble, while Divvy, the massive rent-to-own company was subject to significant consumer complaints; it has been sold, with much of its staff laid off earlier this year. Bracy has a warning about how technology may further impact the housing market during the Trump administration. Housing is the cornerstone of a normal person’s economic well being, so when you start to undermine consumer protections, when you start to . . . allow corporations to do whatever they want to do, thats only going to be worse for consumers, she said. How Property Tech Can Pressure Aspiring Homeowners Bracy argues that in many cases, property tech, or proptech, firms have presented themselves as companies seeking to help consumers who dont traditionally qualify for homeownership. But Bracy argues, theres a reason these customers were deemed too risky for traditional financial products, and perhaps they shouldnt be placed in a position where they’re trying out untested or unregulated ideas. She believes the housing market is entering an even more unregulated phase that will allow a larger variety of tech firms to push new products and services; many consumer regulators with AI and tech experience have been let go from the federal government, and new federal guidance seeks to encourage alternative financing arrangements. Even with the assumption that the government was there to provide consumer protections or civil rights protections [before this administration], there was still a feeling it was ripe for mass exploitation, she said. Now theres none of that, and there will be more desperate people, so youre increasing the market size. Venture capital in real estate startups was basically nonexistent in 2008, Bracy notes, but by 2017, the market globally had grown to $9 billion, demonstrating the impact that these funding models and firms had on the market. She argues that while a number of issues, like zoning and construction costs, contribute to high housing costs, the VC models that have made single-family rental housing a large and growing asset class are exacerbating the problem. Bracys coverage of the housing market in World Eaters pays particular attention to a new generation of firms utilizing cryptocurrency and blockchain, such as LoftyAI. (Lofty didnt respond to attempts to reach it for an interview.) Many focus on the idea of fractionalized ownership, and utilizing this technology to split the cost of ownership among many and make it easier to be a real estate investor, theoretically democratizing access. But Bracy argues that consumers often dont understand the risks of their investments, and unwieldy ownership and operations mean the tenants living in these investments can suffer from nonresponsive landlords. She’s particularly alarmed at the legal grey area these firms reside intheres no real precedent in real estate securities law. That’s compounded by the fact that Trump has repeatedly professed his support for crypto, including a recent plan to create a national crypto reserve. I would watch the crypto in the housing space, Bracy said. These models are terrifying, and theyre only going to get easier to build, scale, and replicate.
Category:
E-Commerce
Management at the Bay Area transportation startup Glydways wants you to be clear about what the company is not: It may plan to move people in futuristic autonomous pods, but its not hyperloop-grade vaporware. And its funding by big-name Silicon Valley investors does not make it a ride for the 1%. Public transit for everyone, everywhere, says founder Mark Seeger.But Glydways is starting smaller than that. Its first green-lit project (after a temporary test track now under construction next to an abandoned mall in Richmond, Calif.) and others under consideration by local governments will have Glydwayss four-seat electric vehicles plying short on-demand routes between existing business and transportation hubs. [Image: Glydways]That debut pilot efforta half-mile route linking a convention center and arena to the last stop on a people mover outside Atlantas Hartsfield-Jackson International Airportis on a small enough scale to evoke the Vegas Loop that Elon Musks Boring Company opened as a shortcut between three of the halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center.We want to see how well the system operates with various fluctuations of riders showing its ability to scale and that it is indeed a viable transit option, says Krystal Harris, program director for ATL Airport Community Improvement Districts.After two years of free-fare service, that agency and the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority will assess how things worked and if the technology merits expansion.Putting a cap on capexThe $18 million in construction and operational costs that Harris cited may seem steep for such a short distance, but not in the context of U.S. transit construction expenses that have made the country exceptional in the wrong way. For example, the $3 billion Silver Line extension that Washingtons Metro system opened to Washington Dulles International Airport and beyond in late 2022 cost $263 million a mile, including a large rail yard built by the airport. That, however, looks like an outright steal next to other U.S. rail projects, topped by the Long Island Rail Roads East Side Access project in New York and its $3.5 billion a mile expense.Glydways, meanwhile, touts a design for simple, narrow guideways that require neither rails nor electric power via overhead wires or third rails that it says will cost 90% less than traditional transit. [Image: Glydways]We can do it for tens of millions, Glydways CEO Gokul Hemmady says, adding that at-grade costs could run still lower at just $2 to $3 million per mile while elevated paths needed to avoid grade crossings could run $15 million a mile. The moment youre in pedestrian-class infrastructure, your costs plummet, he says. The world knows how to build this.Construction costs of some recent U.S. cyclist and pedestrian infrastructure fall roughly into that minor-league ballpark. A trail being built along the SMART commuter-rail line in Sonoma and Marin counties in California has run about $4 million a mile. Two bridges on the Washington & Old Dominion Trail constructed over wide roads in Arlington and Fairfax counties in Virginia had project costs around $30 million a mile.But a veteran transit consultant who has led projects in North America, Europe, and Australia and New Zealand warned against expense extrapolation. Writes Jarrett Walker: They will have to build out a demo project before we know.No human operators, some operating costsThe operational part of the Glydways pitch involves leveraging autonomous-vehicle advances to provide high-frequency, on-demand service around the clock at fares not that far above traditional transitwith the ability to transport 10,000 people an hour. We offer ride-hailing-like experience at a fraction of the cost, says Hemmady. Pressed for an example, he cites the Oakland Airport Connector, an automated, elevated train that runs between that airport and Bay Area Rapid Transits Oakland Coliseum station for a one-way fare of $7.45. But while those fares covered 96% of the connectors operating costs pre-pandemic, Hemmady says Glydwayss lower costs30% of other modes of transit, the company sayswill let it clear a profit: We are the only mass transit system that is revenue positive.A Glydways vehicle shown off at CES 2025 was all shiny modernity, with a streamlined exterior hiding camera, lidar and radar sensors, and large doors that slid open to reveal a clean plastic interior with tap-to-pay terminals by thosedoors. The closest visual parallel: the pod-like Zoox robotaxis now rolling around Vegas in test drives.The lack of human operators or attendants has led some critics to raise safety concerns, but Glydways emphasizes that short waits at stations and the limited number of passengers per vehicle will keep it safe. [Animation: Glydways]Older, almost as small-scale personal rapid transit systems built on older autonomous technologysuch as one that runs between campuses of West Virginia University in Morgantown, W. Va.have operated without incident for decades.Larger automated-train systems rely on a combination of surveillance and patrolling. For example, Vancouvers SkyTrain equips its driverless trains with emergency intercom systems and contact systems while having attendants and transit police at stations.Next stopsAfter the Atlanta pilot, Glydways has advanced to final stages of consideration in a San Jose project to link that citys Caltrain and Amtrak train station with San José Mineta International Airporta 3.4 mile route that Google Maps estimates as a seven-minute drive but a 40-plus-minute transit adventure.Glydways says it can build that mostly elevated route, with its vehicles taking eight minutes between the station and the airport, for under the citys $500 million cost cap but isnt specifying a cost estimate. The city council should be voting on its proposal, which allows for possible extensions to such nearby traffic generators as Apples headquarters, in the coming weeks. [Image: Glydways]This company has a comparable plan not far north of San Jose in Contra Costa County, where its pitched its technology as an automated transit network to provide transportation from train stations to nearby destinations.And in the Los Angeles suburb of Ontario, Glydways has advanced a proposal to use its vehicles in a tunnel to connect Ontario International Airport with the closest Metrolink commuter-rail station. The Boring Company had earlier offered a version of the Vegas Loop concept but abandoned that bid in 2022.Glydwayss proposition of robotic transportation has the advantage of not having to coexist with human-driven traffic like robotaxis like Waymo. And the company has the advantage of funding from such deep-pocketed investors as the VC firm Khosla Ventures and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.But in the realm of transit, self-driving technology isnt something Glydways invented, and many transit agencies outside the U.S. already employ it on higher-capacity subway and light-rail lines. And as autonomous mobility continues to advance on public roads, Walker suggests that established transit operators will be able to make better use of it than any startup that has to pour new concreteeven if the technology goes into something as unfancy as buses.Says Walker: If driverless technology becomes available, debugged, and socially accepted, there will be all kinds of applications, including much bigger-vehicle services that will be a better use of scarce space in dense cities.
Category:
E-Commerce
Over the past year, a growing number of corporate employers have shown signs of backing away from diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the workplace, amid mounting social pressures and the risk of litigation from right-wing activists. President Trumps recent executive orderswhich explicitly threaten legal action against the private sector over illegal DEI practiceshave only exacerbated those concerns, leading companies to take more forceful action or, at a minimum, reevaluate their diversity programs. In a report released today by the research insights firm Gravity Research, nearly three-quarters of corporate executives claim that potential federal investigations into corporate DEI have been keeping them up at night. This sentiment was nearly universal across the finance sector, with 95% of leaders expressing those concernsin line with reports that Wall Street firms have pared back their DEI initiatives over the last year. When we actually talk to our clients, there’s a lot of question marks around: I thought we were legally compliant, says Gravity Research president Luke Hartig, noting that the group of employers surveyed includes Fortune 500 companies. We don’t have a clear answer to that question just yet. However, the fact that 74% said that they fear federal investigations tells us that its at least creating a sense of fear and anxiety among these large companies, even if we’re still uncertain as to exactly how far this can go. The report also captures how many companies have responded to the executive orders and anti-DEI movement, with 64% saying they were redefining or rebranding their DEI functionsa common shift among employers that have altered their DEI programs recently. Many companies reported altering their public messaging on DEI: In 2025 alone, 66% of companies say they have cut back on the use of DEI terminology in their external communications. That can mean curtailing mentions of equity or the acronym DEI, opting instead for terms like inclusion and belonging, which might be less loaded. We know terminology matters, but the work is more important, one executive explained as part of the survey. We are striving to communicate in a way that won’t attract undue attention so we can protect the work versus having to defend the work with external actors.” And yet, many companies are still worried about how their workers may react to these changes, with 60% of respondents saying they expected to see employees mobilize on political or social issues. In fact, the majority of respondents said they were feeling pressure to make an internal statement reaffirming their commitment to inclusion and belonging, according to Hartig, though only 28% have actually done so. Despite all the pushback to corporate DEIand the changes that have already been made at a number of companiesmost of them are still not entirely culling their ranks. Gravity Research found that most employers were not eliminating C-suite DEI roles, though certain sectors were more likely to do so; this shift was especially evident in the consumer staples sector, where 20% of employers had made changes to C-suite DEI positions. Even prior to Trumps executive orders, however, consumer companies and retailers have been particularly vulnerable to the DEI backlash, as evidenced by the response to conservative activist Robby Starbucks social media campaigns over the last year. When [we] talk to the chief diversity officer community, we definitely hear a lot of anxiety about the future of DEI-dedicated functions within companies, Hartig says. But certainly the research shows that they are not getting rid of it all together. As Fast Company has reported, plenty of companies have continued to stand their ground on DEI or have made minimal changes to protect against potential legal risks. That much is also clear from the report, which indicates that 80% of companies are actively monitoring anti-DEI laws and legal challenges, rather than taking immediate action. While a good share of employers have adopted semantic changes, their approach has been more conservative as it relates to cutting DEI programs. About half of respondents have revised DEI trainings, but few have taken more significant steps like cutting employee resource groups. That said, a sizable portion of employers (34%) are now reconsidering their participation in the Human Rights Campaigns annual survey measuring workplace inclusion for LGBTQ+ workers, which can be traced back to the anti-DEI campaign that Starbuck has waged across social media. Several major companiesincluding McDonalds, Target, and Walmarthave already pulled out of the HRC survey in recent months. As Hartig points out, moves like this appear to be motivated more by social pressure than by legal consequences. Gravity Research has found that even companies that have yet to bow out of the survey are now more reticent to advertise their scores publiclywhich many employers have long used to send a signal to LGBTQ+ workers. At least from major companies, we’ve seen virtually no publicization of their HRC scores, Hartig says. This was something that companies previously touted and used as a sign of being an inclusive employer. Will that change as we get closer to Pride month? Will companies start to talk about that? Maybe. But it certainly reflects a broader movement from the corporate community.
Category:
E-Commerce
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