When you hear the name Graham Norton, you picture his savvy, freewheeling British television talk show (on BBC America and YouTube) with star guests from England/U.S., featuring audience confessions, prank phone calls, and raunchy anecdotes. The celebrities feel they can be their true selves and have good bawdy fun. Norton himself comes across as campy, flamboyant, playful, and energetic.
So when readers turn to his new novel (he s previously published two novels and a memoir), one might expect similar characteristics to appear in the plot and his characters, but they would be mistaken.
Home Stretch reveals a more quiet, restrained, literate persona, but you won t be disappointed in Norton s alter ego, as this is a stirring, gripping, compassionate tale that will have your fingers turning pages as fast as your eyes can read. While the book won t win any literary prizes, it is an unexpected insightful character-driven delight that is as binge-worthy and compelling as any trending
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Canadian venture firm Inovia Capital just closed a whopping $450 million fund.
The company is scouting the next European tech unicorn as the continent preps for a wave of IPOs.
Partner and ex-Google CFO Patrick Pichette gave Insider the lowdown on Inovia s strategy for 2021.
Inovia Capital, the Canadian venture firm specializing in growth-stage tech startups, has just put together a $450 million fund – and is keen to discover Europe s next tech unicorns.
The firm now has close to $1.5 billion in capital at its disposal, and plans to invest its Growth Fund II in startups across the fintech, healthtech, e-commerce, travel and future of work sectors. Winners from Inovia s first $400 million growth fund include business software startup Lightspeed, travel firm Hopper, and Airbnb rival Sonder.
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Google reportedly reacted to complaints of racism and sexism by suggesting employees go on mental health leave.
Insiders told NBC the company normalized going on leave when employees raised issues with HR.
Google says it has a well-defined process through which employees can air their concerns.
Google reportedly advised employees complaining about racism and sexism within the company to seek mental health care or go on medical leave.
In a bombshell report, NBC spoke to Benjamin Cruz, who previously worked at Google s Cloud division as a designer and goes by the pronouns they/them. Cruz told the network that when they reported an incident that they alleged was racist in which a colleague told them their skin was much darker than expected Google suggested Cruz go on leave and move to a new role upon their return.
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Black people remain woefully underrepresented in tech investor and startup circles.
Google s VP of startup partnerships said there was a lot of work to do to improve representation.
Google has unveiled a $2 million funding scheme for Black startup founders in Europe, in an attempt to combat the dire lack of representation across the technology sector.
According to Atomico s most recent State of European Tech report, less than half a percent of venture capital money goes to Black founders on the continent, and less than 3% of European venture capitalists identify as Black.
Google has made its own pledges to improve diversity internally following criticism from employees, with CEO Sundar Pichai promising to improve representation of underrepresented groups in the company s leadership by 30% by 2025.