SF startup is helping amid California fires. PurpleAir’s air quality monitoring technology and its real-time map is arming residents and governments alike with high-quality data to help them deal with the massive fires that California (as well as Oregon and Washington) is currently facing. [Fast Company]
Working through a scene out of Blade Runner. The wildfires resulted in a smoky fire-orange sky blanketing much of the Bay Area last Wednesday, which was an understandable distraction for folks trying to go about their workday. Psychologists say self care and mindfulness exercises like meditating or practicing deep breathing can help take your mind off of situations like these, as well as taking breaks and resisting the urge to doom-scroll through social media. [SF Business Times]
Moment CEO talks The Social Dilemma. If you’ve already streamed Netflix’s new documentary on the psychological and civil questions presented by social media today, you might recognize Tim Kendall, who is featured in the film. We spoke with the CEO of SF-based Moment and former director of monetization at Facebook about the film and his take on social media ethics. [Built In SF]
Carbon Health launching nationwide pop-up clinics. The SF-based healthtech startup is planning to roll out its pop-up COVID-19 clinics nationwide in the months ahead and is focusing on communities that are still underserved by testing for the virus. [TechCrunch]
Facebook gives employees paid time off to work polls. Many companies are taking action to encourage their workers to take part in election day, and Facebook is offering extra time off for employees who are signing up to work as poll workers. This is significant because of an anticipated poll worker shortage due to the pandemic. [Axios]
Twitter is subleasing 100K+ square feet of office space in SF. The social media company has rolled out a permanent WFH option for its workforce, and is now looking to offload some of its square footage in SOMA. It’s likely this trend will continue for other big employers as the pandemic drags on. [SFGate]
Ribbon Experiences lands $1.2M seed round. Of course, every week in the Bay Area comes with a whole lot of tech funding, but one small seed round last week felt especially timely: Ribbon offers an online streaming platform for live and recorded events, a space that has exploded with interest amid the pandemic. [Crunchbase News]
