patagonia
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The U.S. government may be in the process of formally withdrawing from the term of the Paris Agreement, an international accord on targets to fight climate change, but major U.S. employers say they’ll stay the course in a new statement jointly signed by a group of around 80 chief executives and U.S. labor organization leaders. The statement, posted at UnitedForTheParisAgreement.com, represents a group that either directly employs more than 2 million people in the U.S., or represents a larger group of 12.5 million through labor organizations.
The group collectively says they are “still in” on the Agreement, which many of the undersigned also supported vocally back in 2017 when the Trump administration announced its intent to formally remove itself. They also “urge the United States” to reconsider its current course and also agree to remain committed to the agreement. The Agreement will not only help to potentially counter the ongoing impacts of global climate change, the group says in the letter, but also prepare the way for a “just transition” of the U.S. workforce to “new decent, family supporting jobs and economic opportunity,” implying that bowing out of the Agreement will actually impede the U.S. workforce’s ability to compete on a global scale.
Apple CEO Tim Cook shared the renewed commitment on Twitter, noting in part that “humanity has never faced a greater or more urgent threat than climate change,” and other prominent tech executives have also co-signed, including Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Tesla’s Elon Musk, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen. Chief executives from other powerful U.S. companies across industries are also represented, including Coca-Cola’s James Quincey, Patagonia’s Rose Marcario, Unilever’s Alan Jope and Walt Disney’s Robert Iger.
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For a seemingly tough pitch, Light has had little trouble getting noticed. The company has run two successful crowdfunding campaigns for a pair of minimalist phones designed to augment or replace the smartphone. Today the startup announced that it will be shipping the second version of the handset, which introduces a handful of features back into the product, like texting.
Ahead of the launch, we spoke to Light’s founders, Kaiwei Tang and Joe Hollier, about funding, feature glut and the future of the handset.
Brian Heater: The project essentially started as an in-house at Google, is that correct?
Kaiwei Tang: We met in 2014 in Google’s incubator called 30 Weeks. That’s where we met and started talking about Light Phone eventually.
Joe Hollier: 30 Weeks program was an experiment that came out of the Google creative lab, and their hypothesis was that if given the right resources, guidance, designers might be able to create new creative startups, and that designers should be on the founding table of companies.
So their hypothesis was that we as designers would be able to imagine a new startup in the software application space, and then through designing the end product, which is how the Google creative lab works, we’d be able to inspire the engineers and investors that we would need to make the product a reality.
Brian: What did you see in the market that wasn’t being fulfilled by countless different smartphone companies?
Joe: People were feeling overwhelmed by their smartphone and craving some escape, and we didn’t really see an escape.
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This week on Extra Crunch, I am exploring innovations in inclusive housing, looking at how 200+ companies are creating more access and affordability. Yesterday, I focused on startups trying to lower the costs of housing, from property acquisition to management and operations.
Today, I want to focus on innovations that improve housing inclusion more generally, such as efforts to pair housing with transit, small business creation, and mental rehabilitation. These include social impact-focused interventions, interventions that increase income and mobility, and ecosystem-builders in housing innovation.
Nonprofits and social enterprises lead many of these innovations. Yet because these areas are perceived to be not as lucrative, fewer technologists and other professionals have entered them. New business models and technologies have the opportunity to scale many of these alternative institutions — and create tremendous social value. Social impact is increasingly important to millennials, with brands like Patagonia having created loyal fan bases through purpose-driven leadership.
While each of these sections could be their own market map, this overall market map serves as an initial guide to each of these spaces.

These innovations address:
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