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Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.
Elon Musk’s controversial, experimental brain computing company Neuralink held a live demonstration last night, aimed at proving to the world that its technology is safe and close to viable human trials.
During the event, Musk made the ambitious promise that Neuralink’s brain chip tech could begin human clinical trials as soon as next year. But their tech is pending vital approval from the Food and Drug Administration, and Neuralink employees noted during the demo that the government watchdog still has a lot of questions about safety.
Behind the lengthy explanations of how Neuralink’s various technologies (including surgical robots and electrode implants) work, there was also another message: Neuralink really, really wants you to work there.
"I want to emphasize, again that the primary purpose of this update is recruiting," Musk himself said during the demo.
Though based in Fremont, it’s likely there’s no shortage of SoCal-based applicants looking to join the Musk outfit, especially given the array of local universities here with strong engineering and neuroscience majors that continue to churn out well-qualified young graduates – including USC and UCLA, for starters.
Given Musk’s adversity to remote work it doesn’t appear Neuralink offers work-from-home options, though its postings do advertise commuter benefits. Plus, Neuralink has raised $373 million since its 2016 launch, so it has some cash reserved for team-building.
Similar to past Neuralink events – and many of these types of “show and tell” affairs in the tech industry – the event was by and large a spiffed-up recruiting drive. Neuralink’s careers page was flashed across the screen numerous times during the two-hour-plus presentation. The company is currently hiring for a number of roles in both Fremont and Austin, where many of Musk’s other ventures including SpaceX are expanding their presence and where Musk himself now lives.
Currently, upwards of 60 job listings are live on Neuralink’s job page. Most of them are openings for engineers in software and “brain interfaces,” including for surgery and robotics engineering technicians. But the company’s also hiring a veterinarian, electricians, and a clinical research coordinator as it ramps up its efforts to conduct trials on beings other than monkeys.
Interestingly, during Wednesday’s event Musk said employees don’t need to know how the brain functions, or a lot about biology if they want to work at the, uh, brain biology company. “When you break down the skills that are needed to make Neuralink work, it’s actually many of the same skills that are required to make a smartwatch or modern phone work,” Musk quipped during the event.
So is Neuralink having a hard time filling these roles? While it’s not unusual that the company has every intention of hiring more staff given Musk’s ambitious goals for human testing by 2023, some prior applicants have noted that Neuralink’s rigorous vetting process might be gumming up the hiring process.
Breck Yunits, a Long Beach-based software engineer who previously worked at Microsoft, said in a recent Neuralink Reddit “ask me anything” (AMA) thread that he went through five interviews at Neuralink before he was denied a job as a software engineer for web apps.
“I've never had so many interviews,” Yunits said when asked if the intense interview experience was standard in his industry. “But I'm not complaining — these people were brilliant and so fun to get to meet them.”
Like its presentations, Neuralink employees are keen to tell prospective employees that they could end up working for a company that could change disabled peoples’ lives. Something Yunits said all the employees mentioned as a goal when he was undergoing his application process. This has, after all been Musk’s alleged target from the start; to help people with paralysis or physical disabilities overcome their physical obstacles by stimulating their brain directly with electrodes.
Yunits added in his AMA that the process,“got extremely technical but only about the things I'd actually be building and my prior work.” Yunits did however note that he was limited in what he could comment on, since he signed an NDA prior to the interview process and added that he didn’t plan to re-apply.
So is Neuralink having difficulty staffing up? As one user in the Neuralink Discord server noted, it’s always harder to recruit highly skilled workers: “I guess if they are looking for people who are very skilled, it might be hard. These [events] are always a recruiting tool anyway.”
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Influencer Niké Ojekunle was surprised when a young content creator reached out to ask her about her experience working with The Carter Agency. The content creator had apparently seen Ojekunle’s name on the agency’s roster and wanted to know how helpful they’d been in helping her navigate brand deals.
The problem was, Ojekunle, who has nearly half a million followers on TikTok, had never heard of The Carter Agency, let alone worked with them. So she sent them an email inquiring about why the agency had listed her name as one of their influencers.
She received a response from a person by the name of Ben Popkin who claimed to be the CEO of The Carter Agency that lists Netflix, Amazon, Disney and Prada as just a few of their “strategic partners.”
In the email, Popkin explained to Ojekunle that he had previously worked with her through a different PR agency and apologized for the mix-up. Then he pivoted to a new proposition: he could help her get two $5,000 brand partnership deals. Ojekunle agreed to the details of the agreement and completed two campaigns with Popkin as the middleman. A few weeks later, Popkin reached out again. This time it was with an offer from Clinique—a skincare brand Ojekunle had worked with in the past.
“In June, he wrote me and said Clinique offered me two campaigns for $1,900,” Ojekunle says. “I’ve been with Clinique for six years. Clinique knows not to put anything in front of me for less than $6,000.”
Not interested in lowering her standard rate for a product campaign, Ojekunle declined the deal and informed Popkin she no longer needed his assistance.
In subsequent months, however, Ojekunle noticed something was wrong: similar to the situation with Clinique, brands that had previously offered her campaigns worth thousands of dollars were offering her campaigns at significantly lower rates.
One of those brands was Naturiu, a skincare company run by Susan Yara, a friend of Ojekunle. When Ojekunle reached out to learn more about why the offer had been significantly lower than their past partnership deals, Yara informed Ojekunle, she too had never spoken to Popkin and was unaware any such offer had been issued.
The malpractice of influencer agencies has, of late, been well reported. In 2020, talent management firm Influences, came under fire over claims the company did not pay its clients. According to the New York Times, the firm owed dozens of creators thousands of dollars from brand deals. One of those influencers claimed the company withheld $23,683.82 from her. Influences' former owner is currently suing the New York Times over defamation.
In July, influencer Liv Reese called out Creative Culture Agency for not paying her after she made a video for one of the company’s advertising campaigns. According to its private Instagram page, Creative Culture Agency is “no longer available.”
And in 2020, 13 influencers paid talent management firm IQ Advantage a $299 deposit when they first signed with the company. But when IQ Advantage failed to secure them brand deals, the deposit was never returned and eight months later, once all the money had been collected, IQ Advantage conveniently shut down.
But Ojekunle’s experience with The Carter Agency shows signs of a different offense. “He’s [Popkin] telling the brand that he’s representing me, then he’s telling me he’s representing the brands,” Ojekunle says. “It's a very violating feeling and a very vulnerable feeling. You ask yourself, ‘how was I so stupid’ over and over.”
According to OpenCorporates.com, The Carter Agency LLC is registered to a person by the name of Josh Popkin — a former social media star who faced public backlash in 2020 after pouring cereal in a New York City subway as part of a prank. Ojekunle suspects Popkin took on a fake name (Ben Popkin) when reaching out to her in order to distance himself from his controversial reputation. The Carter Agency has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
Like so many influencers who find themselves victims of unethical behavior, Ojekunle took her allegations straight to TikTok. In the first of five videos, the influencer claims that Popkin was not only pretending to be her manager, but had also been operating under a pseudonym.
Ben Carter = Ben Popkin = Josh Popkin. Carter Agency = Malibu Marketing Group = Jesse GreenSpun. A Complete Scam! #carteragency #benpopkin #joshpopkin #scammers
Jessy Grossman, co-founder of Women In Influencer Marketing, wasn’t surprised when people shared Ojekunle’s video in the company’s private Facebook group. She says reports of the Carter Agency’s misconduct had begun circling among the members as early as February—Ojekunle’s video was further evidence.
Soon after, Grossman began connecting with other influencers who were impacted by the company. And in recent weeks, ever since Ojekunle posted her videos, many brand managers have reached out to Grossman with claims that, despite Carter’s previous push to hire his influencers, he has since ceased all contact.
Grossman believes The Carter Agency is specifically targeting TikTokers not only because of the platform’s success but also because many of them are teens.
“Some are young and think that having management is the path to ‘making it,’” Grossman says. “You have to know the right questions to ask and industry standards, otherwise anyone can claim to be legitimate since there’s no regulatory body.”
Looking back on the low offers she had been accepting from brands, Ojekunle now believes Popkin was attempting to pocket the difference after sending only a portion of what the brands were really offering her.
“It was a predatory and well-calculated thing that he did,” Ojekunle says.
In total, The Carter Agency’s actions have affected more than 130 influencers, including those signed to Popkin’s company and those who he falsely claimed to represent. Ojekunle also claims The Carter Agency has potentially jeopardized nearly $60,000 in brand deals by pretending to represent her. She’s currently pursuing a civil lawsuit and has opened up a criminal investigation into the company.
“I have been doing this for 10 years, and I have built a name for myself,” Ojekunle says. “I'm not scared of him.”
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Snap is the latest major tech company to bring the hammer down on remote work: CEO Evan Spiegel told employees this week that they will be expected to work from the office 80% of the time starting in February.
Per the announcement, the Santa Monica-based company’s full-time workers will be required to work from the office four or more days per week, though off-site client meetings would count towards their in-office time. This policy, which Spiegel dubbed “default together,” applies to employees in all 30 of the company's global offices, and the company is working on an exceptions process for those that wish to continue working remotely. Snap’s abrupt change follows other major tech firms, including Apple, which began its hybrid policy requiring employees to be in the office at least three days per week in September, and Twitter, which axed remote work completely after Elon Musk’s takeover (though he did temporarily close offices amid a slew of resignations in mid-November).
“After working remotely for so long we’re excited to get everyone back together next year with our new 80/20 hybrid model,” a Snap spokesperson said in a statement to dot.LA. “We believe that being together in person, while retaining flexibility for our team members, will enhance our ability to deliver on our strategic priorities of growing our community, driving revenue growth, and leading in AR.”
In a memo to employees, Spiegel said “spending more time together in person will help us to achieve our full potential,” Bloomberg reported. “What each of us may sacrifice in terms of our individual convenience, I believe we will reap in terms of our collective success.”
The move, however, is a complete 180 for Snap, which, like Twitter, once embraced a remote-first policy. And despite Spiegel’s rosy outlook that the change will bring increased productivity, it may have the opposite effect.
In a study of 2,300 full-time U.S. workers published in November by remote work hardware company Owl Labs, the company found employee interest for in-office work fell by 24% between 2021 and 2022. Interest in hybrid and remote work, meanwhile, jumped by 16% and 24%, respectively.
According to Owl Labs CEO Frank Weishaupt, complete overhauls of remote work policies could mar employee retention, trust and morale at tech companies.
“You take a position that you're looking to fill, you create a culture of accountability, and you hire someone to do a role,” Weishaupt said. “Are you hiring them to perform a role and the duties that you outlined? Or are you hiring them to watch them work? Anybody that answers the latter is not thinking about it the right way.”
Not to mention, employees also aren’t afraid to walk if they’re forced to return to their cubicles. The same study found that, if work-from-home flexibilities were taken away, two-thirds of workers would immediately begin searching for a new job, and nearly 40% reported they’d quit outright. At Twitter, for example, Elon Musk’s abrupt return-to-office demands — on top of requiring long hours and “extremely hardcore” work — sent hundreds of employees running for the hills. Though likely less severe than Twitter’s chaos, Snap may be in for a similar exodus, and re-upping its talent may prove difficult.
“It’s quite a(s)tonishing to see this joke of a company that can’t even plan 1 month ahead and won’t hesitate to mess up their employees’ lives,” One Snap employee wrote on Blind, an anonymous forum for verified tech workers.
Another wrote, “Can someone spare a referral, the last straw has been pulled at Snap.”
To that end, roughly 75% of the workers surveyed by Owl Labs said that working from home would make them feel more trusted by their company, and 86% said it would make them feel happier.
“Unhappy employees don't perform as well,” Weishaupt added. “If I came out with a notification to my organization that said ‘You're required to be in the office five days a week,’ I think that we would have a lot of unhappy employees that produce way less than they do right now.”
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
Last month, when dot.LA toured the Hexagon Purus facility in Ontario, California, multiple employees bemoaned the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) ruling on renewable natural gas (RNG) as a hindrance to decarbonizing trucking-haul trucking. They argued that keeping RNG classified as a “near-zero emission” fuel prevented companies using financial incentives like the Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project, which, as the name suggests, is only available to true zero-emission trucks. The effect, they said, was that the agency was missing an opportunity to accelerate the state’s transition away from diesel.
But over the weekend, Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to announce that the EV company’s battery powered class 8 semi-truck had completed a 500-mile trip fully loaded (to the tune of 81,000 lbs). It now appears CARB’s refusal to classify renewable natural gas (RNG) as a zero-emission fuel source was ultimately the right decision.
Just two years ago Bill Gates famously declared that, “even with big breakthroughs in battery technology” electric vehicles were simply not ready to tackle long-haul trucking. If Tesla’s numbers hold up to scrutiny, it proves Gates and many other industry experts were likely wrong to suggest that “we need a different solution for heavy, long-haul vehicles.” And while 500 miles represents the lower limit for what’s necessary to transition long-haul transportation to battery power, Tesla’s announcement proves the tech is getting there.
What’s interesting is that the transportation sector saw the same arguments in the 2010s against passenger EVs. But then lithium-ion batteries underwent a small revolution where energy density gains outpaced even the most bullish predictions. And while such a surge in performance is unlikely to be repeated, even incremental gains on a truck with 500-mile range could cement the technology as the dominant energy source for the sector.
So what does this latest announcement mean for natural gas trucks?
As it currently stands, natural gas, in addition to hydrogen fuel cells, is still touted as a low- or even negative-carbon solution that could let the trucking industry slash emissions and get to net zero. In such a model, biowastes such as manure or plant scraps are harvested and converted into natural gas that can be combusted inside an engine. While this process does create CO2 as a byproduct, the amount of carbon saved by cleaning up the biowaste is often equal to or even greater than what’s created when the gas is burned. Industry insiders have often pointed to the fact that renewable natural gas can outperform alternatives from a greenhouse gas emissions perspective.
Tesla’s announcement also comes at a time when trucking giant Cummins recently showed off a new 15-liter natural gas engine design, which the company has advertised as a way for fleets to reduce their carbon usage and comply with California’s stricter nitrogen oxide emission requirements coming in 2024. Natural gas, the company has said, could once again be the “bridge fuel” that buys the industry time while hydrogen fuel cell and battery tech matured.
But outside of the trucking industry, environmental policy experts also seem increasingly confident that batteries represent the best chance for decarbonization. Colin Murphy, the deputy director of UC Davis' Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy, points to the fact that RNG is only carbon negative due to the credits it receives for reducing methane emissions.
Put another way, if California cleans up its methane problem anyway–as CARB has been proposing–there’s no sense in rewarding transportation companies for capturing and burning natural gas.
“If agriculture has to reduce their emissions in order to keep in line with the rest of the economy, they can't have this giant emission of methane out there that transportation is taking credit for,” says Murphy. “It's carbon negative for now, but it will not be carbon negative forever.”
Without the credit for capturing methane, burning natural gas is still 60% to 70% better than diesel in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, but compared to a battery charged from a grid that’s increasingly powered by solar, wind and other zero-carbon renewables, natural gas quickly loses much of its luster.
The same logic applies to RNG’s benefits to nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions compared to diesel: They’re real, but they’re second best to actual zero-emissions tech like hydrogen and batteries. NOx pollution is generated in both diesel and natural gas engines and emitted at the tailpipe. While these chemicals don’t contribute as much to climate change as CO2, they create smog and air pollution that is a major health burden worldwide.
“These [natural gas] vehicles, they certainly are contributing to climate change, but they're much more closely tied to the local air quality,” says Patricio Portillo, a senior advocate for the NRDC’s Climate & Clean Energy Program. “And what we've seen, especially with natural gas vehicles, is that they don't really live up to the hype.”
Portillo notes that the vehicles receive their NOx ratings at the time they’re manufactured. But as the trucks age, components degrade and the actual amount of pollution they create increases.
“On the other hand, you are plugging into an increasingly clean grid with zero-emission vehicles,” he says. “So if anything, those things are just going to get cleaner over time, as the electricity grid continues to get cleaner.”
As CARB continues to drive policy with the state announcing a ban on new diesel truck sales by 2040, the transition to greener transportation will be a massive effort. To be clear, there is still a ton of work to do, on both the infrastructure side and on the supply chains needed to power such a massive undertaking. But at the moment, announcements like Tesla’s are increasingly looking like a signal that legacy truck makers and fleet owners would be wise to heed.
“If I'm a fleet looking at this, I think it's pretty clear that the writing's on the wall,” says Portillo. “It took some time for the technology to get there, but it's there now. It's not worth continuing to invest in second-best technology, because the result is going to be stranded assets for natural gas.”
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
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