Category: San Antonio (Page 10 of 62)

By HOJUN CHOI
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

State lawmakers will discuss and hear testimony about the future of Texas’ sharing economy industry at the business and industry committee meeting at the state legislature on Wednesday.

Rene Oliveira, D-Brownsville, the chairman of the committee, told Silicon Hills News that the meeting comes from a need to better understand and recognize the impact that startups like Uber and AirBnB have on Texas’ economy.

“Technology and the sharing economy is forcing us to rethink how we meet our priorities. We want to encourage the use of technology to find new, often cheaper, ways to deliver goods and services,” Oliveira wrote in an email. “At the same time, we want to make sure all competitors are playing by the same rules, and none are gaining an advantage by evading safety standards, taxation or employment requirements. Technology is forcing us to rethink how we balance these priorities.”

The meeting comes shortly after the hotly debated vote over Austin’s Proposition 1, which led to the two largest ridesharing companies in the country, Lyft and Uber, GetMe and Wingz. Several companies and organizations that were invited to speak at the hearing told Silicon Hills News that they will be watching from the sidelines.

Michael Leto, Founder and CEO of RideFare, which recently announced that it would be moving its headquarters to Austin from Phoenix, said the company will remain focused on its move.

“We’re going to make sure that we get our service offering to where it needs to be for the people of Austin, so we really wanted to focus our energy on that,” Leto said.

Andy Tryba, one of the founders of RideAustin, a nonprofit organization offering ride-hailing services, will be speaking at the hearing. Initially the company said it would not be participating.

Representatives from home sharing and delivery services will also chime in on the discussion. Lawyers and board members from the Texas Homeowners Association are also on the list of speakers, along with city leaders from San Antonio, Houston, Austin and Dallas.

“I think every participant is going to face questions about the strengths and weaknesses of their security policies and regulations. The committee needs to balance the priorities of personal safety, consumer protections, sufficient service at a reasonable price, uniform compliance of reasonable regulations, and ease of access to the market,” Oliveira wrote.To

Watch a livestream broadcast of the hearing here.

In 1922, 25 U.S. Army officers founded USAA to insure each others’ automobiles.

Today, USAA is the second largest private employer in San Antonio with 17,000 employees, only eclipsed by another homegrown company, H-E-B, according to the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation. USAA also occupies one of the nation’s largest office buildings at its main headquarters at 9800 Fredericksburg Road in San Antonio. Its bigger than the Pentagon. The sprawling campus has jogging trails, tennis courts, soccer fields, baseball fields, basketball courts and three gyms.

And now USAA, an insurance, banking and investment company, is expanding even more in Central Texas. The company is adding 100 employees and new hires to its downtown office at One Riverwalk Center in San Antonio. That will nearly double its current downtown workforce, USAA Spokesman Matt Hartwig, wrote in an email. Those employees “will focus on technology, research and development and digital capabilities to improve our members’ experience,” according to Hartwig.

“When completed, USAA will have approximately 250 employees working at our downtown location,” Hartwig wrote. It expects to complete the expansion by March of 2017.

USAA also plans to open an Austin office at the corner of 5th and Colorado Streets. That office will have more than 100 Information Technology and design employees.

“These announcements are part of USAA’s strategy to leverage multiple markets across the country, including Phoenix, Tampa and Colorado Springs, to employ the best talent in a given specialty, and we expect that to continue as USAA strives to meet the needs of our members,” Hartwig wrote.

USAA is a Fortune 500 company that is only available to military service members and their families for insurance, banking and investment services. At the end of 2015, the company had more than 11 million members.

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Lyft and Uber ceased operating in Austin Monday after voters rejected Proposition One, which would require the companies to do fingerprint background checks on drivers.

“Whether or not Uber and Lyft choose to leave town, the city is committed to ensuring that Austinites, both drivers and riders, have transportation and job options including TNC services,” Mayor Steve Adler said in a statement. “We remain open to talking with Lyft and Uber whether they are operating in Austin or not.”

The Mayor also outlined a number of steps the city is taking to work to help TNCs that operate in Austin to be successful including exploring a “local non-profit TNC with Austin entrepreneurs.” And it’s working to create the pool of fingerprinted drivers, with the support of the city or through a third party such as Thumb’s Up.

Mayor Adler said he is working on solutions with Council Member Ann Kitchen, chair of the mobility committee, the city manager, Austin transportation department staff and tech and community leaders Dan Graham, Joe Liemandt, Joshua Baer, Josh Jones-Dilworth, Joseph Kopser and Eugene Sepulveda.

In reaction to the no vote on Proposition One, both Uber and Lyft ceased operating in Austin on Monday.

“Lyft and Austin are a perfect match and we want to stay in the city,” according to a statement from Lyft.

“Unfortunately, the rules passed by City Council don’t allow true ridesharing to operate. Instead, they make it harder for part-time drivers, the heart of Lyft’s peer-to-peer model, to get on the road and harder for passengers to get a ride. Because of this, we have to take a stand for a long-term path forward that lets ridesharing continue to grow across the country, and will pause operations in Austin on Monday, May 9th.”

Uber stopped operating at 8 a.m. on Monday.

“Disappointment does not begin to describe how we feel about shutting down operations in Austin,” said Chris Nakutis, general manager of Uber Austin. “For the past two years, drivers and riders made ridesharing work in this great city. We’re incredibly grateful. From rallies to phone banking to knocking on doors, they spread the word and their support was humbling and inspiring. We hope the City Council will reconsider their ordinance so we can work together to make the streets of Austin a safer place for everyone.”

Meanwhile, ridesharing newcomer, GetMe, which launched in Austin last Fall, is continuing to operate in Austin.

“Prop 1 failed because Uber and Lyft totally botched the campaign and pissed everyone off. I do not believe this was a mandate for fingerprint-based background checks — it was an emotional response to bullying tactics and aggressive campaigning. People just didn’t like the way they handled it,” Baer, founder of Capital Factory, wrote in a blog post on Medium .

Reactions to Proposition One failing were all over Twitter.

Nothing but sadness for Austin tonight. Saw it coming. But a giant leap backward nonetheless.

— Mike Maples (@m2jr) May 8, 2016

If you fear riding with @Uber/@Lyft, just don't use them. Don't pass restrictions that increase costs or prevent me from using them. #Prop1

— Wes Finley (@wesblog) May 8, 2016

Uber & Lyft pull out of Austin, leaving only more traditional ride sharing options pic.twitter.com/oQds3U7IJD

— Hunter Walk (@hunterwalk) May 8, 2016

working w/ @MayorAdler, @AnnKitchenATX & entrepreneur ldrs to find transport & job options for drivers & riders https://t.co/s6vlX1893m

— Eugene Sepulveda (@EugeneAustin) May 9, 2016

Small turnout election loss ≠ anti-ridesharing mandate; does cost jobs, though. @MayorAdler committed to solutions https://t.co/753F8U3i00

— barbary (@barbary) May 9, 2016

About 75 miles down the road in San Antonio, a similar situation took place with ridesharing companies last year. The city adopted regulations calling for mandatory fingerprint background checks for drivers and both Uber and Lyft ceased operating in San Antonio. Then a grassroots organization called Techbloc formed and garnered signatures on a petition and advocated for the return of ridesharing to San Antonio. Mayor Ivy Taylor and the city council reached an agreement with Lyft and Uber to bring ridesharing back last summer.

Google Fiber has partnered with the Nonprofit Technology Network, known as NTEN, to hire Digital Inclusion Fellows to help build digital literacy programs in Austin and San Antonio.

Residents in Austin and San Antonio can apply to participate in the program and to become a Digital Inclusion Fellow through its application online through May 13th.

This is the second year Google Fiber is offering the program, but the first time for San Antonio, which was added as a Google Fiber city last year.

Altogether, Google is offering the Digital Inclusion Fellowships in its 11 Google Fiber metro areas. The program pairs 22 people with local community organizations. The fellows will lead projects such as showing adults how to take their GED online, helping job seekers learn digital workplace skills and teaching parents how to access their children’s grades online.

In San Antonio, one fellow will work with each of the following organizations: the San Antonio Housing Authority, San Antonio Public Library and Each One Teach One. The fellows get paid $35,000 each plus benefits. In Austin​​, Austin Free-Net and Skillpoint Alliance will each get a fellow.

Google Fiber will contribute about $1 million to cover the costs of the fellowship salaries and benefits and stipends to fund new digital inclusion programs.

“Over the past 9 months, our Digital Inclusion Fellows have been hard at work bringing people online for the first time,” Andrew Bentley, Digital Inclusion Specialist, Google Fiber, said in a news statement.

Max Levchin, one of the co-founders of PayPal, stayed up all night at South by Southwest Interactive, to come up with his list of five unstoppable trends that are going to change the world.

During his keynote address, Levchin said too many entrepreneurs focus on small ideas. He’s looking for transformative ideas that will have a massive impact through his firm, HVF. He is also the co-founder and CEO of Affirm, a financial technology startup and is an active investor in Uber and other startups. He also founded Slide and helped start Yelp. So he knows a thing or two about game-changing technology startups.

“Riding the big wave is the dream of every entrepreneur,” Levchin said.

During his talk, he outlined four major trends and a fifth bonus trend for entrepreneurs to focus on and to create startups around.

1. Beneficence – the act of doing good, active kindness. A company that does well by doing good for its customers.

2. Human-assisted AI – the robots will get smarter but they will still need humans to provide insight and knowledge.

3. Software eating older software – Building on Marc Andreessen’s famous essay on Software Eating the World, Levchin sees the second wave of software replacing older software creating tremendous innovation in old industries.

4. Regulatory Arbitrage – Opportunities created and money available from the government around data.

5. Fractal Knowledge – Specializing in niche markets and becoming an expert and forming a new model of how the world works and seeing opportunities that others might not.

For the past six years, Julie Huls has served as president of the Austin Technology Council during one of the biggest boom times for the city’s technology industry.

During her time there, she helped grow the organization’s membership and raise funds for the organization. The ATC has 280 companies as members representing 1,600 executives and more than 60,000 employees in the Austin area. Huls recently left the organization and the ATC named Barbary Brunner as its new CEO.

Now Huls plans to apply her talents in a new city, San Antonio as senior vice president of strategy for the DoSeum, the city’s children museum which just opened last June. She will join the museum in April. Huls made the announcement on her Facebook page.

The DoSeum, located near downtown at 2800 Broadway, is focused on science, technology, education and mathematics. The 29,000 square foot building features as variety of indoor exhibits but it also has plenty of outdoor space for kids.