Subscribe
On January 23, a Waymo autonomous vehicle hit a child in Santa Monica, California. The age and identity of the child are not public, but "minor injuries" were reported. Waymo responded with this blog post where they essentially argued that "if this had been a human driver, the accident would have been worse."
The event occurred when the pedestrian suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle's path. Our technology immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle. The Waymo Driver braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph [~9.7 km/h] before contact was made.
To put this in perspective, our peer-reviewed model shows that a fully attentive human driver in this same situation would have made contact with the pedestrian at approximately 14 mph. This significant reduction in impact speed and severity is a demonstration of the material safety benefit of the Waymo Driver.
All car accidents causing human injury are unfortunate, but car accidents involving AVs are obviously more noteworthy right now. In my mind, it makes sense that a Waymo should be more responsive than a human driver in the face of a pedestrian jumping out into a roadway.
But being "less bad" is not going to win everyone over. The accident is being investigated to ensure "the Waymo AV exercised appropriate caution given, among other things, its proximity to the elementary school during drop off hours, and the presence of young pedestrians and other potential vulnerable road users.”
The headline is suboptimal for AVs, but it's very possible the Waymo did everything it could, and did it better than any one of us could ever do. We shall see.
Cover photo by Andri Aeschlimann on Unsplash
Customarily, landlords induce tenants to lease space in a building by offering X months of free rent, as opposed to discounting the actual face rent.
For example, let's assume that the rent for a particular apartment is $3,000 per month or $36,000 per year. Assuming the inducement is equal to one month of free rent, the two logical options are: (1) offer the first month for free and then charge $3,000 for the remaining 11 months or (2) charge $2,750 per month.
Both options equal $33,000 in gross annual rent, but the second option permanently impairs the value of the real estate asset by lowering the overall rent roll on a go-forward basis. So when you capitalize the net operating income of the property, you end up with a lower value. For this reason, option one is the standard approach. You want to offer as much free rent as possible before touching your face rents.
But there can also be local nuances to consider on top of this standard practice. For example, I found this recent tweet from Paul, a multi-family landlord in Los Angeles, interesting. He notes that in rent-controlled buildings in Santa Monica, you also have to be careful not to offer free rent in the first 12 months of a lease. Instead, you need to offer it starting in month 13 or beyond.
His example:
Lease rate of $3,000
Inducement equal to 2 months of free rent ($6,000)
Tenant pays 10 months x $3,000 = $30,000 in Year 1
Apparently, the way Santa Monica looks at this is that the tenant is paying $30,000 / 12 months = $2,500 per month in rent. So, after year one this becomes the Maximum Allowable Rent (MAR) going forward under the city's rent control policies. In other words, the monthly rent becomes the $2,500 number and not the $3,000 number that you thought you had contracted for.
It's an annoying gotcha detail, but it's a meaningful and permanent one until the apartment turns over. Landlord beware. Real estate may be subject to the flows of global capital, but in many ways, it still remains a local business.
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.
On January 23, a Waymo autonomous vehicle hit a child in Santa Monica, California. The age and identity of the child are not public, but "minor injuries" were reported. Waymo responded with this blog post where they essentially argued that "if this had been a human driver, the accident would have been worse."
The event occurred when the pedestrian suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle's path. Our technology immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle. The Waymo Driver braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph [~9.7 km/h] before contact was made.
To put this in perspective, our peer-reviewed model shows that a fully attentive human driver in this same situation would have made contact with the pedestrian at approximately 14 mph. This significant reduction in impact speed and severity is a demonstration of the material safety benefit of the Waymo Driver.
All car accidents causing human injury are unfortunate, but car accidents involving AVs are obviously more noteworthy right now. In my mind, it makes sense that a Waymo should be more responsive than a human driver in the face of a pedestrian jumping out into a roadway.
But being "less bad" is not going to win everyone over. The accident is being investigated to ensure "the Waymo AV exercised appropriate caution given, among other things, its proximity to the elementary school during drop off hours, and the presence of young pedestrians and other potential vulnerable road users.”
The headline is suboptimal for AVs, but it's very possible the Waymo did everything it could, and did it better than any one of us could ever do. We shall see.
Cover photo by Andri Aeschlimann on Unsplash
Customarily, landlords induce tenants to lease space in a building by offering X months of free rent, as opposed to discounting the actual face rent.
For example, let's assume that the rent for a particular apartment is $3,000 per month or $36,000 per year. Assuming the inducement is equal to one month of free rent, the two logical options are: (1) offer the first month for free and then charge $3,000 for the remaining 11 months or (2) charge $2,750 per month.
Both options equal $33,000 in gross annual rent, but the second option permanently impairs the value of the real estate asset by lowering the overall rent roll on a go-forward basis. So when you capitalize the net operating income of the property, you end up with a lower value. For this reason, option one is the standard approach. You want to offer as much free rent as possible before touching your face rents.
But there can also be local nuances to consider on top of this standard practice. For example, I found this recent tweet from Paul, a multi-family landlord in Los Angeles, interesting. He notes that in rent-controlled buildings in Santa Monica, you also have to be careful not to offer free rent in the first 12 months of a lease. Instead, you need to offer it starting in month 13 or beyond.
His example:
Lease rate of $3,000
Inducement equal to 2 months of free rent ($6,000)
Tenant pays 10 months x $3,000 = $30,000 in Year 1
Apparently, the way Santa Monica looks at this is that the tenant is paying $30,000 / 12 months = $2,500 per month in rent. So, after year one this becomes the Maximum Allowable Rent (MAR) going forward under the city's rent control policies. In other words, the monthly rent becomes the $2,500 number and not the $3,000 number that you thought you had contracted for.
It's an annoying gotcha detail, but it's a meaningful and permanent one until the apartment turns over. Landlord beware. Real estate may be subject to the flows of global capital, but in many ways, it still remains a local business.
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.
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
