How big will a potential reprieve on the city’s new cloud tax be, and how small a company will you have to be to get it?
As Chicago’s tech community pushed back on the instantly notorious tax, the city said it would likely exempt companies with smaller revenues, with more details to be determined.
Amina Elahi continued her reporting on the tax and also spoke with a lawyer about the ramifications for business. And the Tribune editorial board noted in “Fury Over Chicago’s Cloud Tax” that there was no public discussion nor City Council vote on the matter.
For the city, there are reputational risks as well as financial ones. The city doesn’t need the phrase “Chicago cloud tax” hanging over its head.
The lack of clarity over the law “is bad for Chicago, and basically it says that although the mayor or everyone is pro-business, that they’re only there when it’s fun to take photos,” said Modest CEO Harper Reed ?.
That has to sting.
Meanwhile, Chicago tallied its biggest Kickstarter funding ever with Gramovox’s Floating Record. The vertical turntable has raised almost $1.1 million, surpassing former leader CST watch, John Carpenter reports.
And Glappitnova is now in swing, with a special Technori Pitch on Friday night and other events continuing into next week.
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Accelerator Techstars Chicago named its 2015 class. Seven of the 10 companies are based in Chicago, and the list is heavily focused on business-to-business ideas. The companies will spend 13 weeks leading up to an October Demo Day refining their businesses — and, if the past is any guide, not all will emerge bearing the same names, either.
Why the face? Teens in the Don’t Judge Challenge posted pictures of themselves with faces made ‘ugly’ by cosmetics to underline the idea that you shouldn’t judge based on appearances. The intent seemed noble enough, though the resulting shade thrown at eyeglasses, acne and unibrows set off a counter-protest. It’s all gone global at #dontjudgechallenge.
Elsewhere on social, Facebook made some News Feed usage and design changes, the former to allow you more control over what you see and the latter placing the female icon in a less subservient position to the male one.
Tech crashes interrupted business at United Airlines, the New York Stock Exchange and The Wall Street Journal. Hackers were not blamed, but my mind went straight here. Prepping, anyone?
KnowledgeHound, which has a product that indexes a company’s own research assets and returns it based on natural language queries, raised $1.2 million to add staff. Its clients include PepsiCo and Procter & Gamble. I can’t help but feel writing the Exit would be easier if I could just ask our content management system questions.
When should you fire a customer? Hardware manufacturer MBX decided it needed to streamline and better focus its efforts. Jill Bellak, president and COO, told Kate MacArthur why the company decided smaller customers were too expensive to serve.
Missed you last Friday when I had already exited for the holiday and you no doubt had, too. In case you missed that week of news, you can catch up on the front end of the cloud tax story; entrepreneurship lessons from the lemonade stand, with Joe Mansueto and others giving their advice; and a conversation with a forecaster at the National Weather Service Chicago about how they use social media for both warnings and information-gathering. Or if you just need to relax this weekend: Color.
Blue Sky Social is Wednesday at TechNexus! This will be a casual night of networking with snacks from Smoque BBQ and a great list of guests. Tickets are just $5. Hope to see you there!
Email: [email protected] * Twitter: @andreahanis