I’ve been hearing a lot about Bird recently. Perhaps it has something to do with the $15 million Series A round they raised last month (February 2018) and the $100 million Series B round they announced earlier today.

A “Bird” is small electric scooters that look like this and can be rented from your phone for short haul trips. They are currently available in Santa Monica, Venice, UCLA, Westwood, and San Diego, and they are intended to be ridden in existing bike lanes.

What may be particularly interesting to this blog audience is the fact that Bird is calling itself a “last-mile electric vehicle sharing company.” The pitch: 40% of car trips (in the US?) are less than 2 miles long. Let’s replace those using electric scooters.

One of the first things that came to my mind is that this feels more accessible than cycling. Cycling to work can be a commitment. You have to think about your attire and the sweat factor, among other things.

Would you agree?

There’s a lot of talk about how venture capital investment has shifted from the suburbs to cities and how it is also concentrated in certain metro areas. But a new report from the Martin Prosperity Institute has dug even deeper to look at the top 20 neighborhoods (zip codes) in the US for venture capital investment.

Here’s a summary of what they found:

“The top 20 neighborhoods or zip codes for venture investment include nine in San Francisco, five in San Jose, three in Boston-Cambridge (one in suburban Waltham and two in Cambridge close to MIT) and one each in San Diego (close to the University of California, San Diego), Dallas, and New York (close to New York University).”

And here’s the full top 20 list:

Initially I looked at this list and thought that neighborhoods such as Menlo Park and Redwood City shouldn’t be labeled as San Francisco, since they are outside of the county. But technically they still fall within the San Francisco Metropolitan Area. 

It’s amazing how San Francisco dominates this list.

I first learned about the work of Jonathan Segal back when I was in architecture school. And he was somebody I immediately admired. 

At the time, I was struggling to figure out where I wanted to position myself between architecture and real estate development, and he was somebody who had seemingly figured it all out: he simply merged the two.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Jonathan Segal, he has made a name for himself by being a pioneer of the “Architect as Developer” business model. That is, he acts as both the architect and the developer/client.

This business model isn’t going to suit everyone, but I suspect that we’ll see more of it in the future.

Of course, it doesn’t just have to be an architect acting as a developer. It could also be an architect and a developer joining forces or some other permutation. Whatever the case may be, design and innovation are central to business today and that’s why I think this model will only become more relevant.

Below is a short 3 ½ minute video about Segal’s latest project, called Mr. Robinson. It is located in San Diego. If you can’t see the video below, click here.

[vimeo 155403927 w=500 h=211]

If you’d like to see the typical floor plans or rent one of the apartments (they start at $2,400/month), click here.

Now I’d be curious to hear your thoughts. Do you like the project?