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In 2020, Waymo began offering fully driverless rides to the public in Phoenix, turning the city into the closest thing the U.S. has to a real-world laboratory for autonomous vehicles. What began as a cautious pilot has since grown into a sprawling robotaxi network that now includes freeway travel and service to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Since then, Waymo has expanded to cities including San Francisco and Austin, while rivals like Tesla and Zoox are racing to deploy their own autonomous fleets. But the technologys spread has come with a steady stream of logistical and political questions for the cities hosting it (especially since Phoenix, with its wide roads and relatively simple grid, represents one of the easier environments for autonomous vehicles to navigate). Fast Company spoke with Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego this week at Austin’s South by Southwest festival about what its actually like to govern a city where driverless cars are more fully integrated into the transportation system. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Youve overseen Phoenix during the whole arc of Waymos rollout. Whats changed in the city once AVs moved from a pilot to something residents can actually use? People have really appreciated Waymos expansion onto the freeways, because they can get where theyre going more quickly if its a longer distance. When we started, we were the first airport to have autonomous service in the world, which is a point of pride for Phoenix. We originally started pickups at our Sky Train, and now weve moved to the curb. We tried to be very safety-focused and make sure we tested and piloted before we did full deployment. Its a point of pride for us that we were the first in the world to have autonomous vehicle service at the airport. We think it really shows were a technology-forward city and that were willing to embrace innovation. Whats been the biggest benefit of having those Waymos on the streets in Phoenix? We had a real shortage of drivers, so more people have the ability to get where theyre going, particularly during hours like overnight when its harder to find people who want to be working. So its really improved quality of life for riders. Weve also seen some traffic-calming impacts. The Waymos go the speed limit. Phoenix has above-average traffic speeds for big cities in the United States, so speeding and red-light running are challenges for us. Waymos follow traffic rules, so thats helped have a traffic-calming effect. Have you seen any evidence in Phoenixcrash data, traffic incidentsthat verifies Waymos are making the roads safer? Are there other metrics you look at? We look at Waymos crash data, and the Waymos crash less than traditional human drivers. I dont know that weve done a full analysis, but we couldwe probably should. Youre the second person to ask me that today, so maybe Ill take the hint and do that analysis. Based on the Phoenix experience, whats something cities tend to underestimate when they first start integrating AVs into the roads? What adjustments do they have to make? Its really important to have good communication. If there are issues with the programming, you want to make sure Waymo knows and can fix them. When weve reported issues to Waymo, theyve been great about adapting the programming. What does the communication pipeline between your office and Waymo look like? Our first responders work directly with Waymo. If were going to have an unusual event or an emergency were responding to, they have the ability to work directly with the company. We also work directly with Waymo to report any incidents or opportunities, or if we want to partner on anything. Fast Company has reported on incidents in San Francisco where robotaxis can stall and take time to clear off the roads, partly because theres no human driver to communicate with. Have there been incidents like that in Phoenix? Early on, we had a street closure for an arts festival and a bunch of Waymos got very confused by it. We shared the incident, and Waymo updated the programming. We havent had a repeat of the issue. Generally, when weve had challenges, theyve been fixable. We dont have the same problem repeatedly. Weve trained our first responders, and its important to me that as new entrants come into the autonomous vehicle market, first responders can communicate with vehicles from outside the car. Thats worked fine with Waymo. In Arizona the state regulates autonomous vehicles. The city does not. But its been a partnership. For example, we had an issue where a Waymo drove into a pole in an alley. We shared the issue, and they updated the programming. I think they reported it to the federal government, but we werent their regulator. We were more like their partner. When you say they update the programming, what does that mean? I think they go out, look at what happened, and make sure the system understands how to react to that type of object or situation. There was an issue in another community where there was a stop sign in the bed of a pickup truck. The Waymo saw the stop sign and stopped, because it was programmed to stop when it sees one. But it wasnt aware of a moving stop sign driving down the street. Once they programmed it to understand that situation, it was fixed. Are other AV companies coming to Phoenix? Right now we have Waymo and Tesla. Zoox announced last week that it plans to come, but it hasnt arrived yet. Is there a point where there could be too many AV companies operating in a city? I chaired the U.S. Department of Transportations Transforming Transportation Advisory Committee, and one of our recommendations was that certain safety standards should be common across companiesfor example, first responders should be able to communicate with vehicles from outside the car. In Phoenix were also starting to think about how to design cities for more autonomous vehicles. Do we need more drop-off and queuing space in front of buildings? Should we adjust parking ratios? Some people in Phoenix imagine having their own autonomous vehicle that drops them off at work, then goes and makes money as a robotaxi and comes back later. I think were a ways away from that. But we do think about whether traffic might move differently if there are more AVs. That could have environmental benefits and reduce the need for pavement. I care a lot about climate action and emissions. Waymos are lower-emission compared to our average vehicle fleet, and reducing tailpipe emissions helps us with our air-quality challenges. I grew up with asthma, so thats something Ive cared about for a long time. Have there been actual changes to urban design yet, or is that still theoretical? Were really looking at our parking minimums. Id love to see Phoenix devote less space to pavement and more to active uses. That could help enable better mass transit as well. There are ongoing discussions about bringing Waymo to New York. Do you think the calculus changes in a much denser city? In some ways there could be benefits. A Waymo can see many things at oce, whereas a human driver has a limited field of vision. But cities should be ready to train first responders and make sure all stakeholders understand how to work with the technology. What does transportation look like five or 10 years from now in Phoenix? We recently went to voters with a ten-year plan. As part of that, we talked about advanced transportation technologies. Im really interested in how these technologies can help Phoenix grow up rather than outencouraging more density and more sustainable land use. And voters approved that plan? Yes, with 78% approval. It was our general plan for the city. We also passed a regional transportation sales tax and set aside $250 million for advanced technology. Are other cities asking you about Phoenixs experience with Waymo? Yes. Weve had people from all over the world come visit. Delegations from the European Union, officials from Prague, and others have come to see how our regulatory system evolved and how the safety systems work. Ive taken visiting officials on Waymo rides when theyre interested in bringing the technology to their own cities. The first head of government to ever ride in an autonomous vehicle was the Dutch Prime Minister in Phoenix in a Waymo. The Secret Service was very nervous about protecting him, so they did a lot of test runs. We had this bizarre parade through downtown Phoenix where there was a relatively small Jaguar with the prime minister surrounded by large armored Secret Service vehicles. Have you taken Waymos yourself? Yes. I was the first customer when we expanded service to Sky Harbor Airport. It was a good experience, except there were a bunch of cameras watching as we drove up, and I unbuckled early so I could get out quickly. The Waymo stopped because I had unbuckled. So it was my fault. As mayor, Im glad theyre responsive to safety issues. As a human, it was a little embarrassing.
Category:
E-Commerce
The biggest new restaurant trend is small. Special menus with petite, less expensive portions are popping up all over, from large chains like Olive Garden and The Cheesecake Factory to trendy urban eateries and farm-to-fork dining rooms. Restaurants hope that offering smaller servings beyond the children’s menu will meet many different diners needs. Some people want to spend less when they go out. Others are looking for healthier options or trying to lose weight. Younger consumers tend to snack more throughout the day and eat smaller meals, said Maeve Webster, the president of culinary consulting firm Menu Matters. These are really driven by, I think, changes in the way people are thinking about their relationship with food, the way they spend money on food, what is a good value and whats not, Webster said. Looking for value Beth Tipton, the co-owner of Daniel Girls Farmhouse Restaurant in Connersville, Indiana, introduced an eight-item Mini Meals menu last fall after several customers requested smaller portions. The menu, which includes daily specials like a half piece of meatloaf with green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy for $8, now accounts for about 20% of the restaurant’s orders, she said. Older adults make up about half of the restaurants clientele, Tipston said, and some customers told her the regular menu was a stretch for their budgets. As someone who underwent weight-loss surgery, she also knew from experience that many restaurants won’t allow adults to order from their children’s menus. We wanted it to be available to all without the word kids meals attached, Tipton said. With the rising costs all around us we wanted to help in any way we can, and this is a great option. Eating out and GLP-1s Some restaurants are adding menus to court users of GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs like Zepbound, Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro. Last fall, restaurateur Barry Gutin ran into two different friends who told him they were taking GLP-1s and struggling to find restaurant meals that met their dietary needs and smaller appetites. GLP-1 users tend to eat less, so they need nutritionally dense foods that are low in fat and high in protein and fiber. Gutin, the co-owner of Cuba Libre Restaurant and Rum Bar in Philadelphia, Washington, Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Orlando, Florida, reached out to a doctor who specializes in weight loss and to Cuba Libres culinary director, Angel Roque. Over the next month, they developed the chains GLP-Wonderful menu, which is available during dinner. The menu has five classic Cuban options. Roque said the pollo asado on Cuba Libre’s regular menu has nearly 1,000 calories; on the GLP-1 menu, that’s slimmed down to 400 calories, but heavy on protein and fiber. He said it was also important to keep the GLP-1 meals flavorful and colorful, to stimulate appetites. Many times when people are on those kind of regimes, they feel that they cant do the same as everybody else. So we wanted to show them, yes, at Cuba Libre, you can,” Roque said. Gutin said the menu has increased business. He estimated that 10 to 20 groups at each location every week have at least one person who requests the GLP-Wonderful menu. People say, Thank you for serving us, Gutin said. Big chains go small Olive Garden, whose seven-item Lighter Portions menu rolled out nationwide in January, said GLP-1 users were one consideration. The Italian-style restaurant chain also wanted to appeal to patrons pursuing healthier diets or more affordable meals, said Rick Cardenas, the president and CEO of Olive Gardens parent company, Darden Restaurants. There is a consumer group out there that believes in abundance, but abundance is different for everybody, Cardenas said in September during a conference call with investors. So consumers can choose. Were not changing our entire menu to make it a smaller portion.” The Asian fusion chain P.F. Chang’s began offering medium-sized portions last fall. The Cheesecake Factory added smaller, lower-priced Bites and Bowls to its menu last summer, while TGI Fridays recently began testing an Eat Like A Kid menu with smaller portions. A long-term change Smaller portions arent a new concept. Twenty years ago, small-plate tapas restaurants were all the rage, for instance. But to Webster, the menu consultant, the scaled-down dishes appearing now feel like a longer-term shift. For one thing, the trend is not tied to any particular cuisine. Webster also thinks consumers are thinking more about food waste than they used to, and smaller portions can alleviate some of their concerns. I think it is a core need that consumers have, and a demand that has been lingering under the surface for a long time because restaurant meals, particularly at chains, have become so large, she said. Sure, it sounds great to take leftovers home, but they never taste as good. During a recent visit to Shelburne, Vermont, from his home in North Carolina, Jack Pless was delighted to see the Teeny Tuesday menu at Barkeaters Restaurant, which specializes in locally sourced food. Pless, whos in his 60s and used to own a restaurant, said he cant eat as much as he used to at meals. So many times you go out to restaurants, especially me or my wife, and well take home a box and itll sit in the refrigerator for two, three days and start to grow a beard, he said. Julie Finestone, the co-owner of Barkeaters, said she introduced the Teeny Tuesday menu last month to bring in more weekday business during the winter. She was concerned about the cost of offering lower-priced food options, like $12 reuben sliders, but said the decision has brought in more business than she expected. Finestone said shes pretty confident Teeny Tuesday will become a year-round fixture. Some people, its dietary. Some have smaller appetites. Some people dont like to overindulge in the middle of the week, Finestone said. I think that it just spoke to people. Dee-Ann Durbin, AP business wrtier AP Video Journalists Mingson Lau and Amanda Swinhart contributed.
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E-Commerce
There’s a $298 midi dress on Reformation’s website with delicate lace detailing throughout and a button front that allows you to show some legit’s the kind of dress the brand is known for, versatile and a little seductive. On Quince, there’s what appears to be the same dress: It has the same silhouette, the same fabric, the same drape. The Quince version costs $69.90. That $228 difference is Quince’s entire business model. At a time of inflation, when consumers are looking to curb their spending, Quince’s approach has been wildly successful. Eight years after launch, Quince generates upwards of $1 billion in annual revenue, has a 1,000-strong staff, adds hundreds of new items to the site per week, and has expanded beyond clothing to furniture and home goods, menswear and kids, wellness products like collagen peptides, and even food. (Its $125 caviar has been a huge hit.) This week, Quince snagged $500 million in Series E funding, valuing the company at $10.1 billion. Quince hasn’t achieved this scale without blowback. It has been sued by the parent companies of Coach and UGG for copying their designs, and Williams-Sonoma has taken aim at its comparative advertising practices. Most recently, Quince has been hit by a consumer class action lawsuit claiming its pricing is deceptive. All of this has shaped the public perception of Quince as a company that makes cheap knock-offs. Now, Quince is betting that it isn’t enough to be known as a dupe factory. It needs something more: a brand. In a sign of this evolution, Quince hired Dakota Kate Isaacswho previously built the cult skincare brand The Ordinaryto be its first head of brand strategy and narrative. “My role is not to create a new story,” she tells Fast Company. “It’s to humanize Quince and let consumers get a glimpse behind the curtain.” [Photo: Quince] The Copycat’s Playbook In 2018, Sid Gupta, his wife Zunu Mittal, and two others launched Quince in Palo Alto, California. These founders believed they had identified enormous inefficiencies in the retail industry that consumers end up paying for. Whereas Direct-to-consumer brands educated consumers about how bypassing department stores allowed them to cut out retail markups. Quince was built to go deeper into the system and be, in its parlance, a “manufacturer-to-consumer” brand. By working directly with factoriescutting unsold inventory that inflate prices and eliminating brokers, suppliers, and other middlementhey could sell products at a fraction of the price of competitors, including $50 cashmere sweaters, $80 silk blouses, and $100 linen sheets. Quince isn’t shy about the fact that it is actively monitoring what consumers are searching for on the internet and figuring out how to make cheaper versions of other brands’ best-selling products. In a radical move that has ruffled the industry, Quince points out on each product page how much other brands charge for items that look indistinguishable; they are often two, three, or five times more expensive. [Photo: Quince] Can Quince Become a Real Brand? Quince brought on Isaacs to create an identity for the company that goes beyond being a copycat. Isaacs built her career at The Ordinary, a cult skincare label that disrupted the beauty industry with transparent pricing and ingredient-forward marketing. Starting as a P.R. intern, Isaacs quickly proved her mettle and spent five years building the company’s entire U.S. operation from scratchhiring staff, developing social media strategies, getting into retail. One of her biggest accomplishments was landing the brand in Sephora. Sephora’s merchants initially resisted The Ordinary because they thought it would encourage their customer to trade down from more expensive labelsbut it eventually became one of Sephora’s top-selling brands. The parallel to Quince is not lost on Isaacs. Just as The Ordinary challenged the assumption that skincare had to be expensive to be effective, Quince is challenging the assumption that quality clothing and home goods require premium prices. “The consumer has kind of been conditioned to believe that quality must be expensive to be real,” Isaacs says. “I’ve seen behind the scenes, I know how this works.” When Quince approached Isaacs for this new role, she was intrigued by the opportunity to help bridge the gap between consumer perception and what she thought was a very radical business model underneath. She empathizes with some consumers’ wariness about Quince because she had similar reservations when she first encountered the brand four years ago. “My perception prior to joining the business was like, ‘Something’s sketchy here, like something’s off,'” she recalls. But as she’s gone behind the scenes at Quince, she believes there’s a compelling story to tell about how the company is radically reimagining the supply chain and democratizing quality. “People should think about Quince less as a brand and more as a new operating model for retail,” she says. Her job, as she sees it, is not to spin a new narrative but to do a better job explaining what the company already does. Isaacs is inspired by Everlane’ approach to storytelling when it first launched in 2011, as it tried to explain how the cost of a t-shirt balloons thanks to expensive brand campaigns and department store markups. Over the years, Everlane has moved away from this messaging, which gives Quince an opportunity to pick up where it left off. Isaacs wants every consumer touchpointfrom the first ad impression to the moment a package arrivesto convey a consistent message about quality, transparency, and the logic of the system. [Photo: Quince] The Dupe Problem But changing consumer perception is no easy task. And Quince is known as being a dupe-maker extraordinaire. Quince’s rise is inseparable from the broader cultural moment that made dupe culture mainstream. For years, buying knockoffs carried a social stigmasomething you did but didn’t necessarily advertise. That has changed in the era of social media and inflation, when many creators proudly share cheaper dupes of their favorite products. Susan Scafidi, a professor of fashion law at Fordham Law School, has observed this change closely. “Everyone has access to imitation goods, and social media celebration of dupes has become a communal way to concurrently show off fashion knowledge and financial savvy,” she says. “Dupe, a diminutive nickname for ‘duplicates,’ does some of the work of making the otherwise morally questionable world of fakes, copies, knockoffs, replicas, and worst of all counterfeits, sound adorable.” When asked about the dupe characterization, Isaacs pushes back. “Many silhouettes are not unique to a single brand,” she says. “These are things that have existed for years across categoriesa silk slip dress, a cashmere sweater, linen bedding. These are not proprietary designs. They’re ubiquitous products that a lot of brands produce.” While Quince does makes general items that aren’t visually associated with a single brand, it has also copied designs with distinct features, like the Reformation dress, Coach’s Rogue bag, and UGG boots. Scafidi notes that while Quince has managed to avoid the most common fast-fashion IP violationsinfringing trademarked logos or copyrighted fabric printsit has found itself in more complex territory. Trade dress claims, like those brought by Deckers about Quince’s version of UGG boots, argue that a shoe’s silhouette alone can be protected IP if consumers strongly associate that shape with a particular brand. Quince pushed back against Deckers with an antitrust countersuit that argued that the company is running a “litigation mill” to maintain a monopoly over sheepskin boots. “That action may be largely part of Quince’s efforts to control the narrative and cast itself as a good guy,” Scafidi says, “a quality-oriented, transparent, slow-fashion brand trying to deliver value to consumers.” (Deckers lost its key trade dress claim, but it has come back with a new wave of lawsuits.) The Williams-Sonoma lawsuit alleges that by directly comparing its products to Pottery Barn and West Elm, Quince is unfairly benefitting from these brands’ hard-earned reputation for quality. Quince is fighting back, calling the suit a case of an established brand using litigation to squash a scrappier competitor. There has yet to be a ruling.“Brands can’t stop Quince from engaging in legitimate comparisons,” Scafidi says. But she points out that if Quince is, in fact, making lower quality products than those of Pottery Barn and West Elm, “creating a halo effect around lesser goods could be deceptive.”There hasn’t yet been a ruling. [Photo: Quince] The Work Ahead Legal issues aside, Neil Saunders, managing director and analyst at GlobalData Retail, argues that building a brand entirely on dupes is a losing business strategy in the long run. “If your competitive position in the market, especially in fashion, is that you go around copying everyone else, you’ll definitely find an audience for it, but it’s not very imaginative,” he says. “If you’re a copycat, you’re always later to market. Premium brands do well because they have a distinct point of view and people will buy into that aesthetic.” That’s a ceiling that even a $10 billion dupe company will eventually hit, Saunders says. Without a strong brand, consumers have no reason to stick with Quince if a cheaper dupe-maker shows up. “I don’t know how defensible this business model is,” says Vidyuth Srinivasan, founder of Entrupy, a tech company focused on fighting counterfeits. “They’ve done an awesome job scaling this business model, but it is definitely possible to replicate it.” Now, it falls on Isaacs to reshape Quince’s identity from being maker of lower-priced goods to having a compelling story in its own right. Her goal is to focus on Quince’s efforts to shake up the status quo and democratize quality. The companies that have done this bestEverlane’s ‘radical transparency’ era, The Ordinary’s ingredient-obsessed honesty, Warby Parker’s mission-driven pricingsucceeded by making their mission feel urgent and understandable, then keeping it front and center. The $500 million raised in this round will go toward building a world-class team, expanding into new international marketsCanada is live, Europe is nextand deepening the company’s range of categories. The investment, Isaacs says, reflects confidence in something more durable than a dupe strategy. “This latest round has really shown the trust in the system that exists,” Isaacs says. For now, the Reformation dressand the Quince dress that looks almost exactly like itare still both for sale. The question is whether Quince can get consumers to want it not just because it’s cheaper, but because it’s Quince.
Category:
E-Commerce
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