The Human Utility’s Tiffani Ashley Bell on how small nonprofits are stepping up

07/18/18 • 44 min

Tiffani Ashley Bell is the founder of the Human Utility, a nonprofit organization working to restore water service to people who are unable to pay their bills. The organization, which was founded in 2014, began its work in Detroit and has since expanded to Baltimore. Bell lays out her thoughts on how Silicon Valley should change its priorities on this episode of Converge.

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Dream Machine’s Alexia Bonatsos makes a surprisingly good case for an Airbnb for horses

Alexia Bonatsos has watched countless startups come and go. First as the editor in chief of TechCrunch, and now in her current role as the founder of venture capital firm Dream Machine, Bontasos’ job has been to understand what makes a tech company succeed. “A lot of it’s gut, but gut’s not magical woo-woo dust,” she says. “It’s taking in data and information, and eventually making a decision based on that.” Bonatsos has seen thousands of companies, and so on today’s episode of Converge, we turned the tables. Using two decks of cards — one with a set of famous companies, and the other with a set of random nouns — we invited Bonatsos to draw two cards, and pitch us the resulting company.

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Taggart Matthiesen takes us for a ride

Should ride-sharing companies build a “quiet mode”? “We have thought about it,” Taggart Matthiesen, head of product for autonomous driving for Lyft, told me. “I think it’s interesting. At some point, we may play around with that idea, but that’s unfortunately not a feature at this point.” Matthiesen says that a “zen mode” would represent another step in more personalized rides, a move the company plans to accelerate as it changes gradually to include more autonomous vehicles. “The autonomous car is going to know a lot more [about you],” Matthiesen said. “It’s going to know your temperature that you’re going to want. It’s probably also going to know that it’s early in the morning, and so it’s going to have a dark-lit cabin to let you sleep. Maybe you can even relax in the seat, and the back will extend into some sort of lie-flat mode. Maybe not complete lie-flat, just based on the area, but a good recline.” Lyft is currently testing self-driving cars in Las Vegas in a partnership with the British company Aptiv. In March, it signed a deal with auto parts maker Magna to build and deploy its own self-driving cars. For Lyft, which is valued at more than $15 billion, autonomous vehicles represent an important plank of the company’s plans to remain competitive against larger competitors like Uber, which has grand autonomous driving plans of its own. “THE AUTONOMOUS CAR IS GOING TO KNOW A LOT MORE ABOUT YOU.” Matthiesen lays out his thoughts on how Silicon Valley should change its priorities on this episode of Converge.

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