“We were failing to attract data center developers to Pennsylvania because our tax policy was driving development to other states,” said state Sen. John Yudichak, a co-sponsor of the legislation. “The implementation of new tax policies that leverage private investment and encourage private sector job growth demonstrates Pennsylvania is stepping up its economic game and competing for high-wage technology jobs.”
https://gcn.com/articles/2021/07/06/pennsylvania-internet-infrastructure.aspx
“When I was at Comcast, I remember meeting with a [white] woman and being really intrigued with her business,” Crowder said. “But I had to tell her ‘I love what you are doing but I can’t invest because this is a diversity fund.’ It was the most ridiculous thing for a Black man to have to say that because of your race, we cannot invest.”
William Crowder, a lead investor for Comcast Ventures’ Catalyst Fund for five years, on setting out on his own [co-founded] $75 million fund.
https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2021/07/21/philadelphia-vc-veteran.html
When asked whether the renovations were in any way intended as a carrot for the Sixers, Camillo said: “We’re not thinking about our transformation in terms of enticing the Sixers to stay. We’re thinking about it in terms of every guest who comes into the building, and the Sixers are certainly part of that. But we also host Flyers games, concerts, family events, shows. This is an investment in the city, in the community, in the stadium district. We want to provide the city of Philadelphia a world-class arena.
Total [Paypal] payment volume grew 40% to $311 billion, while the Venmo app, which began supporting cryptocurrency services in April, saw payment volume grow 58% to $58 billion.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/28/paypal-pypl-earnings-q2-2021.html
Some industry observers warn that Big Tech’s extended geographic reach could stifle innovation. Bhaskar Chakravorti, dean of global business at the Fletcher School at Tufts University said sectors like artificial intelligence are already heavily concentrated among a small number of companies.
“If you imagine Google and Facebook and Apple and Amazon and Microsoft, they start hiring AI talent from Philadelphia, Houston and so on and so forth, those tiny startups, which also are a critical part of the AI ecosystem, they are not going to be able to get that talent,” he said.
A critical component to making the shorter week work is that employees need to relearn how to work in a more focused way, said Justine Jordan, head of marketing at a Philadelphia software company that first allowed employees to work 32-hour weeks starting in 2017. That means fewer meetings and avoiding day-to day distractions, she said. Most at the 30-person firm, Wildbit, take Friday off; some take Monday; and a smaller group, mostly parents, spread their time off across five days, she said.
“Amazon Web Services, grew its revenue 37% in the second quarter, faster than 32% growth in the previous quarter. AWS revenue came in at $14.81 billion in the quarter, surpassing analysts’ estimated $14.20 billion.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/29/amazon-amzn-earnings-q2-2021.html
“German-speaking users’ experiences with old on-premise SAP systems have been really good,” he said. “They got a lot of things done. They have good processes, but they also experienced some problems with integrating with cloud technology, and I think that’s one of the reasons why our membership is a little bit cautious about RISE with SAP, right now, because they just want to see if that’s really going to work. The experiences they’ve had were not so good all time. It’s up to SAP to prove they are a cloud company and can deliver on their promises.
https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/04/sap_user_survey/
[KOP-based] CMI and Compas both have seen double-digit growth year over year for the past several years and added lots of staff to serve their pharma and health clients. CMI added 215 people last year and already added another 154 in the first half of 2021, while Compas added 26 last year and another 21 so far this year.
“Strategically we think this deal makes a lot of sense, driving deeper integration and in-house capabilities, but we suspect the market will have a different opinion on the [nearly 87%] premium being paid,” analysts at KeyBanc Capital Markets said.
Analysts commenting on Penn National’s announced $2 billion acquisition of Canadian tech gaming firm Score Media.