Report: Houston saw a spike in Black entrepreneur-founded companies amid pandemic

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New data shows that Houston communities saw an uptick in startup founding from Black entrepreneurs. Photo courtesy

It might seem that the formation of startups would have stagnated amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet that was anything but the case for Houston startups founded by Black entrepreneurs.

A recent study by economists at Rice University, Boston University, Columbia University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that from 2019 to 2020, the startup rate rose 32 percent in four largely Black areas of Houston: Kashmere Gardens, Missouri City, South Acres, and Sunnyside. By comparison, the statewide startup rate during that period was only 10 percent.

There's no denying that Black-owned businesses already have a significant impact on the economy of the Houston metro area.

A report released in 2019 by the Greater Houston Black Chamber estimated the group's more than 1,500 members collectively generate anywhere from $1 billion to $2 billion in annual revenue. A little over one-fifth of the population in the Houston area is Black. That population is projected to grow 34 percent between 2010 and 2030.

In 2015, personal finance website NerdWallet ranked Houston the 15th best metro in the country and the best metro in Texas for Black-owned businesses.

The Rice economist who contributed to the study is Yupeng Liu, a doctoral student at the university's Jones Graduate School of Business. While he and his fellow researchers note that their study doesn't confirm a cause-and-effect relationship, "it is useful to note that the federal relief payments, and their uniform distribution (independent of eligibility criteria), may have played a role in enabling new firm formation in Black neighborhoods which might otherwise have been constrained by discrimination."

Furthermore, some experts speculate that last year's rise of the racial justice movement may have helped lift up Black entrepreneurs, and that many Black Americans set up new businesses out of necessity in 2020 after being laid off or seeing their work income or hours reduced.

The study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, compared startup data for 2020 in Texas and seven other states — Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New York, Tennessee, Vermont, and Washington — with startup data for 2019. In all, the number of business formations spiked by 21 percent, with the growth of Black-owned startups being especially pronounced. However, an estimated 40 percent of Black-owned businesses closed during the pandemic, compared with 20 percent across all racial and ethnic groups.

The findings of the research bureau's study mirror a subsequent report from the Ewing Kauffman Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes entrepreneurship. The report found more Black-owned businesses were launched last year compared with the total population than at any time in the past 25 years, according to the Los Angeles Times. On average, 380 out of every 100,000 Black adults became new entrepreneurs during the 2020 pandemic, up from 240 in each of the previous two years, the report shows.

In reporting on the National Bureau of Economic Research study, CBS News and The New York Times spotlighted two new Black-owned startups in Houston.

Last July, Destiny McCoy and Oyinda Adebo of Houston launched a mental health company called Wellness for Culture. The company already has been so successful that McCoy says it now supports her financially, according to CBS News.

"All I knew is that I wanted to help Black women," McCoy told CBS News, "and all I knew was I didn't want to do therapy in the typical way."

Another Black entrepreneur from Houston, Pilar Donnelly, enjoyed similar success in 2020. Last summer, Donnelly began making playhouses for her two 6-year-old boys, the Times reported.

"She had been laid off from her job in sports marketing and wanted to give them something for their birthday. With no background in woodworking, she started off with a design she liked online and watched YouTube to learn woodworking techniques," according to the Times. "After making a number of playhouses for her friends and family, she realized it could be a business. That business, which she registered in June, is called Wish You Wood Custom Creations."

Woodworking is now Donnelly's full-time job.

"Everyone I encountered either had a really good year or a really bad year — and for me I had a good year," she told the Times. "Now I'm working outside in the grass and the dirt. I have a workshop in the garage; I have scrap wood everywhere. My life is really different."

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Houston lab explores how AI bots can help the elderly

AI for aging

The University of Houston’s Empathetic Lifespan AI & Robotics for Aging (ELARA) Lab is currently conducting research into how AI bots may be able to help the elderly live more social and independent lives through several ongoing initiatives.

The lab officially launched last month as part of the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture & Design under the leadership of Assistant Professor Chorong Park. Part of the lab’s mission is tackling ongoing problems with aging, such as dealing with disabilities and social isolation. Researchers’ current work is focused on designing a new AI companion bot specifically tailored to the needs of older people.

“We need to take all the needs of older adults seriously,” Park said in a news release. “They won't use the robot if they don't feel at ease or if they feel they are being constantly watched.”

The field testing of new AI bots in this population hopes to overcome several traditional obstacles in technology use among the elderly. A study by Park shows that many older people have a fear of overt surveillance when using advanced AI. There is also ageism to consider. Most new technologies are designed with younger and employed buyers in mind, not retirees who may need help remembering daily tasks or accessing important information.

“The more older adults are excluded from technology development, the worse those technology gaps will become,” Park said. “AI and the majority of technologies are created for younger people, so my research method integrates older adults directly into the design process.”

ELARA recently collaborated with the Mamie George Community Center in Richmond, Texas, to track seniors’ response to desktop AI bots like Emo and Cupboo. Researchers also had participants use air-dry modeling clay to create their ideal robotic companion.

While the eventual AI bot may be able to help the elderly feel less isolated and more supported, there are concerns to consider. A study published in the Asian Journal of Psychology charted the development of delusional thinking in a 72-year-old woman who became convinced the empathic-response bot was in love with her. The rise of “AI psychosis” has the potential to exacerbate mental health problems, particularly in socially isolated people, which a quarter of Americans over the age of 65 are.

ELARA’s research is focused on creating “pet-like” AI models with enhanced trust cues. If it can overcome the dangers of socially isolated people relying on AI for companionship, it could be a big step forward for independent aging.

SpaceX IPO set to be biggest ever and could make Elon Musk a trillionaire

IPO News

SpaceX says it plans to raise up to $75 billion when it goes public this month, setting the stage for the largest-ever stock market debut and putting Elon Musk on course to becoming the world's first trillionaire.

The company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., said Wednesday it will sell 555.6 million shares at $135 a piece in an initial public offering. The estimated proceeds would easily top the $26 billion raised by oil giant Saudi Aramco in 2019. The offering would also give SpaceX a market value of $1.77 trillion. Only six companies in the S&P 500 are currently worth more, with Nvidia tops at $5.2 trillion.

Besides the size of the offering and the expected proceeds, SpaceX's amended prospectus updates details about how much control of the company Musk will have. As SpaceX's CEO, chief technical officer and chairman, Musk's voting power will come primarily through his ownership of 5.22 billion Class B shares, which give the holder 10 votes for every share held. According to the filing, Musk would have 82.4% of the voting power in the company.

Forbes currently values Musk's net worth at $826 billion and his stake in SpaceX at $542 billion. The estimated value of his SpaceX holdings was based on an overall value for the company of $1.25 trillion. Based on those numbers, a $1.77 trillion valuation for SpaceX would boost Musk's net worth by $223 billion, making him a trillionaire. However, much of Musk's worth is in stock that he has yet to cash in.

Even as it makes a bid for a blockbuster market debut, SpaceX is currently losing billions of dollars a year. The filing shows that the company lost $2.6 billion from operations last year on $18.7 billion in revenue, and the losses kept piling up at the start of this year, too.

Fantastical plans

Time will tell how SpaceX fares on the market. Musk's plans for the company are as fantastical as the money he hopes raise in the sale.

Colorful, even frightening in parts, the IPO document strikes a contrast with the typically dry, technical prose in IPO documents, detailing plans to use proceeds from the sale to help put men on the moon again and perhaps even Mars. In one section, it talks of a need to build "a permanent human colony" on the red planet with "at least one million inhabitants" as existential threats loom that could consign man to "the same fate as the dinosaurs."

Musk has almost equally ambitious plans for his other publicly traded company, Tesla. His goal is to transform the maker of electric vehicles into a producer of robotaxis and humanoid robots. Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities wrote in a research note that he expects Tesla and SpaceX to merge next year.

AI plays a key role

Key to the success of both companies — and any merged entity — is artificial intelligence. In its IPO filing, SpaceX says it sees potential revenue from AI of up to $26.5 trillion. But that depends on another lofty Musk ambition — putting data centers in space, which is not technologically possible at the moment.

Transforming his space company into a primarily AI-focused company will be a challenge for Musk, who started xAI in 2023 with 11 other co-founders who have all since left. Some were recruited away by rivals.

Its main AI product, the chatbot Grok, is "less impressive than anything that we see from any other major player in the space, whether that's OpenAI, or Anthropic, or (Google's) Gemini," said IDC analyst Arnal Dayaratna.

Dayaratna said that doesn't mean SpaceX doesn't have potential as a major AI player, thanks in part to its computing partnership with Anthropic and Musk's recent deal that gave SpaceX the rights to buy AI coding tool Cursor for $60 billion later this year. Folding in Cursor's capabilities would give SpaceX access to the coveted business customers now using Anthropic's Claude or OpenAI's ChatGPT.

SpaceX plans to use the net proceeds from the IPO to fund the expansion of infrastructure for its AI and rocket businesses, and to beef up the constellation of satellites that power Starlink Mobile, among other investments.

The company plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol "SPCX" and could begin trading as soon as the end of next week.

And SpaceX isn't the only colossal market debut investors are now bracing for. Earlier this week, Anthropic submitted a confidential filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to officially start its own IPO clock.

OpenAI has not yet reported filing the initial SEC paperwork, but an IPO from the ChatGPT maker is widely expected.

"This listing represents the first major test for public markets after years of muted IPO activity with SpaceX paving the way for AI giants Anthropic and OpenAI to follow soon after," Ives wrote.

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Associated Press Technology Writer Matt O'Brien contributed.

New UH survey reveals concerns over AI data center growth in Houston

data findings

A new report out of the University of Houston shows that area residents remain wary of the long-term effects of operating data centers.

The recent survey from the University of Houston’s latest SPACE City Panel, conducted by the Center for Public Policy at the Hobby School of Public Affairs, shows that while 85 percent of Houston-area residents use AI, nearly 63 percent oppose the construction of AI data centers within 1 mile of their homes.

Respondents’ concerns centered around data centers’ high energy demand and the area’s power grid reliability. According to the survey, 32 percent of residents who oppose local data center projects would be more likely to support the centers if they relied on renewable energy over fossil fuels.

“Respondents understand that AI can bring economic and educational benefits, but they are also concerned about the physical infrastructure needed to fuel AI, especially data centers,” Soran Mohtadi, post-doctoral fellow at the Hobby School and a researcher on the report, said in a news release. “This physical infrastructure demands more electricity and water, leading to environmental impacts.”

Experts estimate that 6.5 gigawatts of data center capacity will be added to the Texas grid by 2030. And Houston’s data center capacity is predicted to more than double by 2028.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas also projects electricity demand could reach 218 gigawatts by 2031, which would be more than double the record peak set in August 2023. Data centers are expected to account for 86 gigawatts of that new demand.

Survey respondents also said they are concerned about the state's future water supply, given the large amounts of water that data centers need to stay cool.

In terms of who’s responsible for that issue, 57.6 percent of respondents said they put the onus on Texas lawmakers, while 31.5 percent say tech companies should be responsible.

Additionally, more than 75 percent of respondents believed that data center developers and technology companies—not residents—should bear the cost of infrastructure upgrades to support data centers.

“Every decision legislators make has implications on residents’ everyday lives and local infrastructure now and in the future,” Maria P. Perez Arguelles, lead researcher on the report and research assistant professor at the Hobby School, added in the news release. “This issue is going to become more important in years to come, so this is just the beginning.”

Read the full report here.

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