Justice
Here Is Everything Wrong With 'Bodega,' the Startup That Destroys Bodegas
We made you a list.
The latest startup sensation sounds pitilessly inhuman, callously privileged, and totally white—which means it’s the best disruption that Silicon Valley angel investment can buy.
Fast Company’s Elizabeth Segran tapped into a vein of white-hot social-media outrage this morning with a jaw-dropping report on a startup called Bodega. The pitch is simple: Its founders want to replace the bodega on the corner with an unmanned robo-pantry in the lobby. On paper, it’s a perfectly fine (if logistically complex) idea—outside Silicon Valley, we call them vending machines, but whatever. This specific startup, however, came with a whiff of racial insensitivity and economic privilege that the internet, shall we say, picked up on immediately.