One sunny day in 2016, Chris Ludwick and his coworkers spent eight hours driving around the Phoenix, Arizona, metro area. With Taco Bell in hand, they talked through traffic scenarios and vehicle maneuvers, taking notes on construction zones, roundabouts, and road laws.

They worked for Waymo, and after weeks of considering and visiting potential places to establish the world’s first commercial robotaxi program, the company was ready to make its decision: Phoenix was a go.

Waymo gradually pushed the autonomous ride-hailing service forward over the next three years, beginning with an early rider program, then partnering with Lyft to scale up, and finally, in October 2020, expanding to the general public, with anyone able to book a robotaxi ride via a mobile app.

Big picture: Once upon a time, many US cities were predicting they’d have robotaxi networks just like this, but two years after Waymo One’s public release, it remains one of just two fully driverless services with commercial operations in the US.

• Part of the challenge comes with the territory—literally—as robotaxi companies struggle to find the right environments, not only regarding compliance with local laws but also due to the intrinsic properties of cities, from climate to population density to road infrastructure.

After a few years of setbacks, some AV companies are becoming more intentional about how they select cities to partner with, according to Philipp Kampshoff, a senior partner with McKinsey who co-founded the firm’s Center for Future Mobility. Keep reading about the shift here.—HF

This story is part of our new package exploring smart cities—click here to view the full interactive series.

The Inflation Reduction Act is poised to accelerate the energy transition in the US, which will lead to a rapid workforce transition as well.

By the numbers: The legislation could help create nearly 5 million new jobs in renewable energy over the next 10 years, along with more than 2 million jobs to manufacture climate tech—like EVs and wind turbines—and shrink the carbon footprint of buildings, according to an analysis from the BlueGreen Alliance.

• But figuring out who gets those jobs and how to support workers in industries like coal or oil and gas can become complicated quickly.

“How do you transition coal miners into renewable energies or into battery production or something like that? A big concern of labor was making sure that on the front end you would have these commitments toward honoring their union contracts,” Alí Bustamante, deputy director of education, jobs, and worker power at the Roosevelt Institute, told Emerging Tech Brew.

• “Basically, just transitioning over to do something else, but really with the same compensation and the same kind of union protection that they had in the past,” he added.

Where we’re at: Companies looking to take advantage of all the IRA’s tax incentives are in wait-and-see mode. The open-comment period for labor requirements in the IRA closed last Friday, and federal agencies will now solidify what will be required of employers when it comes to maximizing potential tax credits through wages and apprenticeships.

Keep reading about the IRA’s workforce potential here.—GD

For some, the spookiest thing October brought may not have been ghouls, ghosts, or Liz Truss lettuce costumes, but the continued drop in VC funding.

In October…VC funding clocked in at $27 billion, per Crunchbase—down more than 50% year over year but basically equivalent to the prior month. Deal count also hit a recent low, falling to 1,800 in October, compared to nearly 2,200 in September and 3,400 in January.

• The trends were the same this month as in months prior: The later the stage, the deeper the pullback.
• Earlier-stage startups saw more modest declines in funding than later-stage companies.

Finding financing: As VCs continue to show restraint—even despite, at least in the US, having amassed record-shattering levels of dry powder—startups are seeking out alternative forms of financing. In the first half of this year, some startups began looking to secure debt in the absence of willing equity investors, but venture debt funding fell off a cliff in Q3 due, in part, to rising interest rates, per Pitchbook.

With the Big Two funding formats either tough to come by or tough to swallow, CFO Brew reports that more creative forms of funding (e.g., tapping into nonaccredited investor funds through a securities law called the 40 Act) are becoming available.

View this story on-site.—DM

Stat: IBM announced a 433-qubit quantum processor called Osprey, following its breakthrough release of a 127-qubit processor in 2021. Check out our in-depth profile of the man leading these efforts for IBM.

Quote: “We’re going to continue to lean into this rather than pull away from it. It’s certainly nothing to be afraid of.”—Shutterstock CEO Paul Hennessy to Emerging Tech Brew, on the stock-photo giant’s decision to embrace DALL-E 2

Read: Gift guide season is upon us. Here’s one from the folks at The Verge, who know their gadgetry.

Learn: The tech industry is showing it isn't “recession proof” after all—but you don’t have to be another statistic. Learn how to lead your company through turbulent times with our Leadership Accelerator.

New in town: What should security and IT pros know about cyber asset attack surface management (CAASM)? In a world of repackaged and renamed tech, see why CAASM stands out from the crowd. Get Axionus’ new ebook here.*

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Three of the following news stories are true, and one...we made up. Can you spot the odd one out?

• Apple is hosting an open competition for users to come up with a new and improved wake word for its Siri voice assistant.
• Fortnite has partnered with Swarovski to make a trophy for the game’s invitational tournament.
• Oculus founder Palmer Luckey designed a VR headset that kills you if you die in the video game.
• McDonald’s dropped a…gaming chair.

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• The FAA is concerned about airport 5G deployments again
• Why Shutterstock execs decided to embrace DALL-E 2
• A faster energy transition could mean trillions of dollars in savings