Chainsmokers Invest $10 Million in Mortgage Startup

Popular DJ duo Chainsmokers is switching tracks with a plan to invest in startups — beginning with $10 million in mortgage lender LoanSnap. The Grammy Award-winning musicians Alex Pall and Drew Taggart had invested their personal funds before, but now they are taking it to a new level. Through a venture fund, Mantis, the two plan to invest $50 million in total, according to Bloomberg.

Danny Meyer: Restaurants won’t open until COVID-19 vaccine available

Danny Meyer, head of Union Square Hospitality Group, which owns New York City hotspots Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern, has said that some of his restaurants probably won’t open until there’s a coronavirus vaccine.

Work From Home Could Cause Sublease Spike

As companies consider longer-term plans to work from home and the economy struggles, Manhattan’s office landlords are facing the specter of competing with their own tenants to lease space.

What to expect on your first day back in a touch-free, socially distant office

Hong Kong’s SenseTime Considers $1 Billion Capital Raise

One of China’s largest facial-recognition companies is testing the waters for a $1 billion capital raise, according to people familiar with the matter, at a time when governments and businesses are making increasing use of surveillance technology during the coronavirus pandemic. …

Will the Office of the Future Be Different? I Doubt It.

I keep reading that because of this crisis, the office of the future will be different, that we are all going to have to show up every other day, sit in enclosed space bubbles, eat lunch alone and ride elevators by ourselves. Stop me when any of this sounds bad. The office of the future sounds pretty much like heaven. Show up every other day? An elevator all to myself? That has been my dream for decades. Granted, I may have to wait in a two-hour line to ride it, but still…Worth it! …

What next for the office in a post-COVID world?

It is very possible we are experiencing a seismic shift when it comes to where we work. Maybe we’ve had it wrong all along. Perhaps even in the long term, the need to justify ‘work from home’ will be replaced with ‘work from office’ as the rarer occasion?

WeWork’s Valuation Has Dropped to $2.9 Billion, SoftBank Says

The valuation of WeWork has tumbled to $2.9 billion amid the coronavirus pandemic and its ongoing business struggles, a tiny fraction of its peak when the office-sharing company was among the world’s leading startups.

TODAY @ 2 PM EST: Preparing the Built World for the New Normal: Part VI presented by Openpath

Return to work looks totally different across the US. Hear from leading property owners, developers and managers across major US markets as they share their real time feedback on the varying plans for return to work across asset types & occupier types. We are surprised by how different each market is and how employers and governments are reacting and responding to the Return to Work planning.

If It’s Good Enough For Our Clients’: Brokerages Start Returning To The Office

These firms are doing so under the knowledge that their clients, who are relying on their advice on how to allow their own employees back into offices across the globe, will be watching how it works out for them. “There are a lot of things we need to do well to make it work,” NKF Executive Vice President Roy Abernathy said. “Clients are looking to us to do it well. And clients are looking to us to provide those best practices and demonstrate them.”