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Venture Capital Data Shows L.A. Struggling to Meet Diversity Goals

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The Los Angeles Business Journal shared findings from a UCLA Luskin report that analyzed the diversity of venture capital investments in the Los Angeles region in 2022. While Greater L.A. leads the country for the amount of capital funded to entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds, progress in meeting racial and gender equity goals is lagging, according to the report led by Jasmine Hill, assistant professor of public policy. Hill’s team produced the report in partnership with PledgeLA, the Annenberg Foundation’s coalition of Los Angeles-based tech and venture capital firms that have committed to prioritizing equitable access to capital. The researchers found that less than one-third of PledgeLA firms’ 2022 investments went to companies led by women, Black or Latino founders, and these companies received only 4.6% ($6.4 billion) of the $139 billion invested. “If we’re being honest, it’s still way below where any of us would want it to be,” one founding member of PledgeLA said.

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Report Finds Equity Gaps in L.A. Tech Sector

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A new study led by UCLA Luskin Public Policy faculty member Jasmine Hill analyzes the diversity of 2022 venture capital investments in Greater Los Angeles. Released today, the report assesses investments made by 75 venture capital firms that are members of the PledgeLA initiative, which prioritizes equitable access to capital. Hill’s research team determined that less than one-third of the firms’ investments in 2022 went to companies led by women, Black or Latino founders, and these companies received only 4.6% ($6.4 billion) of the $139 billion invested. However, venture capital firms led by underrepresented minorities and those with a diversity thesis were almost twice as likely to back Latino and women founders and four times more likely to invest in Black founders. “Los Angeles has long surpassed the portfolio diversity typical of venture capital on the national level,” Hill said, “but there is a considerable journey ahead before PledgeLA firms reflect the region’s diversity.” The research team, which used a cross-section of data to create a holistic view of the Los Angeles tech ecosystem, included master of public policy student Sydney Smanpongse and public affairs major June Paniouchkine from the Luskin School and UCLA master of economics student Joleen Chiu. The report was commissioned by PledgeLA, launched by the Annenberg Foundation and the Office of the Mayor of Los Angeles to measurably increase diversity, equity and community engagement in the tech sector. In June, PledgeLA announced a new regional goal called “50 in 5,” which seeks to drive 50% of all venture investments to companies led by women, Black and Latino founders by 2028.

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To Combat Housing Crisis, ‘We Must Build Up,’ Manville Argues

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Architectural Digest spoke to Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville about Apple’s pledge of $1 billion to address California’s housing crisis — including devoting 40 acres of company-owned property in San Jose to affordable housing. Much of the area is currently zoned for detached single-family homes, a “very inefficient use of valuable land,” Manville said. Increasing the housing stock by allowing for more density would surely face resistance from homeowners who want to preserve the atmosphere of their neighborhoods and the soaring value of their property. However, Manville argued, “if your desire to have your neighborhood remain the same is imposing extremely high costs on other people in the form of high rents, there has to be some give.” He concluded, “Land is finite, but housing is not. … We must build up, so that the same plot of land of one home can accommodate many families. You know, the elevator also exists in Silicon Valley.”

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Tilly on Barriers Facing Union Organizing in Tech

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Urban Planning Chair Chris Tilly spoke to KQED about the obstacles facing Silicon Valley workers who want to unionize. In recent years, tech employees have protested lack of diversity, mishandling of sexual harassment claims, and the second-class treatment of temporary workers and contractors. White-collar tech employees recently formed Alphabet Workers Union at the parent company of Google. According to Tilly, Silicon Valley companies such as Google have done a lot to make it difficult for workers to form unions. “There are a lot of barriers to building worker solidarity within Google,” he said. “Google and other tech companies have been effective at fissuring workers, hiring some as contractors, others as temps and also outsourcing labor around the globe,” Tilly explained. Workers are physically separated and have different employment statuses, including different wage and benefit packages, making it difficult to organize them around common goals.

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Tilly on Labor Inequities in Big Tech

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Urban Planning Professor Chris Tilly spoke with KQED about the disparities in benefits that contract workers experience compared to full-time workers — a gap that has been put into sharp focus by the coronavirus outbreak. At big tech firms, in particular, a significant number of workers are contractors who receive vastly different benefits and pay packages. In the current pandemic, offers to allow employees to work from home may not apply to contractors, for example. Tilly said that white-collar contracting, which is also on the rise in a number of industries beyond tech, creates a “fissuring” of the workplace. “These fissures undermine the U.S. safety net, which depends crucially on employment status, since contractors are considered self-employed and generally receive no benefits at all,” he said. “An emergency situation like the current one worsens the impact of the inequities, and intensifies confusion and the complexities of mounting an effective response.”

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Yaroslavsky on Labor-Tech Faceoff as a Campaign Barometer

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Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, spoke to the Associated Press about a faceoff between Big Labor and Big Tech that has become an issue in the Democratic presidential primary. Several major Democratic White House hopefuls have expressed support for a California bill backed by labor and opposed by tech giants such as Uber and Lyft, the article said. The bill would make it harder for tech companies to classify workers as independent contractors, who are not entitled to minimum wage or workers’ compensation. “It says something about where the candidates think the primary voters are on this issue,” Yaroslavsky said. They “may believe that labor can be more helpful to them than the high-tech companies can be to them in a caucus state or a primary.”

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