Venture firm a16z just announced that it will be "moving its headquarters to the cloud." At the same time, it announced 3 new offices in Miami Beach, New York, and Santa Monica. These will be in addition to their existing offices in Menlo Park and San Francisco.

Part of their argument is that hybrid work is weakening the network effects and agglomeration economies associated with being right in Silicon Valley. So they've deiced to be virtual, but still have offices where they can "materialize physically" when needed.

They acknowledge that physical presence is important for developing a company's culture, building relationships, and helping entrepreneurs (their core business).

What's interesting about all of this is that it's further validation for Miami (Beach). Here is one of the most important venture firms out there saying that when they quickly materialize in real life, they want to be able to do that in Miami Beach.

It also raises some interesting questions. Because even if the network effects of Silicon Valley are weakening when it comes to tech, this announcement still speaks to the importance of agglomeration economies. These three new office locations were chosen for a reason.

Bloomberg Businessweek just published this article summarizing the impact that Bird and its electric scooters are having on Los Angeles. Here are a couple of highlights:

- Bird launched a year ago and is, today, valued at around $2 billion.

- The company has around 15,000 scooters on the road in Los Angeles. We already know that this is making some/many people grouchy.

- The cost to rent a scooter is $1 plus $0.15 a minute.

- LA has an incentive program in place that allows Bird to expand its fleet within low-income areas. Still, their scooters tend to be concentrated in wealthier areas of the city.

- Beverly Hills is trying to figure out how to handle/regulate these scooters and currently has a 6 month ban in place.

- Supposedly, you can ride a Bird through West Hollywood but you’re not allowed to park it anywhere.

The company is based in Santa Monica, so it’s not surprising that they have such a stronghold in the LA market. Still, there appears to be a lot of latent demand for this kind of mobility.

According the US Department of Energy, almost 60% of vehicle trips in the US last year were less than 6 miles. And around 40% were less than 2 miles. 

So these “last mile scooters” do appear to have a lot of utility. Do any of you regularly use an electric scooter to get around?

A couple of months ago I wrote about Bird, the electric scooter sharing company that is trying to solve the last-mile problem. They are expanding across the US and it is seemingly wildly popular.

But its popularity is also leading some people to call them a public nuisance. Perhaps the biggest contributor to that is the fact that the system is dockless. That is, when you get to your destination you can park the Bird wherever you want.

That’s obviously a great feature for users (who wants to look around for a docking station?), but it’s also causing a proliferation of “Bird litter” in the cities and neighborhoods where they are widely used. 

I am sure this will eventually get resolved.

The other thing about going dockless is that you now have a charging problem. Where and when do these scooters get charged and by whom? Bird solves this problem through decentralized contract workers called “Bird hunters.”

You register to be one and then Bird pays you $5 to $20 for every scooter charged, depending on how difficult the Bird is to find. And as you can expect, these scooters are getting left all over the place.

I thought this was a clever solution. And apparently it is popular with high school students looking to earn extra cash. Some are making several hundred dollars a day by spending their evenings picking up and dropping off Birds.