♪ -next, a "kqed newsroom" special on local business leaders changing the way we live, work, and connect with our communities. -we sent out to build a resource that connected neighbors to the information that was most relevant to them. -a co-founder talks about helping neighbors tear down walls online. also, s executive at reddit taout the challenges facing the popular online forum. -what we have tried to focus on is, what is the core that makes reddit powerful? and it's that conversation. -plus, we hear how one startup is winning over consumers by ditching brand labels. -millennials don't want to buy the products they grew up with, because those brands were "trust marks," and they lost trust. -and a ceo's mission to makere . -it's very personal, and it's very high-impact. we need to do something about our broken food system. -hello. i'm thuy vu. welcome toed special edition of "ewsroom."

on this program, we're re-visiting interviews meom our archives with hanging business leaders who are using the web to create and strengthen communities or pioneering new alternatives to staples in o fridge and pantry. we also ask them about the difficulties silicon valley has had with diversity, weespecially in keyout the dleadership positions.alley othe co-founder and chief wiarchitect of nextdoor., the san francisco company allo neighbors to create private networks online to share resources and information about their communities. according to the company, odre than 180,000 neighbor from the us to europe are using nextdoor to share hyperlocal content. and we want to disclose that kqed is a media partner of nextdoor, using its service to deliver content to four bay area cities. welcome. -thanks for having me, thuy. -so, how did the idea for nextdoor come about? -so, about seven years ago, when we first started thcompany, we noticed a trend of social networks

becoming more ubiquitous and mainstream. cebook for your friends. twitter to connect with people with whom you shared interests. and of course linkedin for your professional network. ngt we found it sort of st that there was not a network where you could connect with the people right outside your front door -- your neighbors, the people that were most important to yon in your local coy -- and so we set out to build a resource that connected neighbo to the information that was most relevant to them, -so, what are some of the most interesting interactions you've seen among neighbors because, you know, i've used it. i've used it to ask for moving boxes when i was moving, and then gave it back to other people when i wasn't. i posted about the and there are certainly a lot of posts i sebut there was also someone who found an organ donor. -yeah, that's right. we've seen everything from day-to-day kinds of recommendationsrs that neighxchange with one another for babysitters, plumbers, auto mechanics.bu we've also seen more critical use cases, especially around disasters. for example, in hurricane harv or the napa wildfire

or the ventura county wildfires, we've seen neighbors banding together when the public infrastructure is under a lot of strain,al espe 911 or first responders. and in the case of the liver donor, we did see that a neighbor put out a message saying, "hey, one of our neighbors is in the hospital and looking for someone to donate an organ," and we actually found a liver donor within the neighborhood community, if you can imagine that. -extraordinary. -so a wide variety of different use cases. -yeah. that offer similar services,e lots of right?entities you could do facebook groups.n craigslist has aion where you could form a group. there are homegrown forums. why should people use nextdoor? what sets you apart? -so, i think there are ts things that really setart. the first is, when you look at networks like facebook or twitter or some of these other social networks, these are largely platforms for self-expression. thand really reveal le bit share more about yourself.es,li nextdoor is purely utility-driven. people are coming to nextdoor to use their neighbors as a resource to help them solve problems.

and the second thing that i think is unique about nextdoor is, everyone that you're interacting with is a verified member of the neighborhood communitys each neighborhoot ygeographically-bounded entity on nextdoor. -how do you verify that they actually live there? -we have a number of different ways that we verifye an do mobile-phone verification. we can do verification via postcard, through the mail, where tou redeem an invitation that proves that you actually had to go to your mailbox where tou redeem an inand take it out. we have a number of different verification mechanisms. ,d once people are verifi that increases the level of trust that they're interacting with people who are actually in their neighborhood,an facilitates a wide variety of more intimate types of exchanges than on these other platforms. -and in this world where the internet is so ubiquitous, as you say, there's a concern that people aren't interacting face-to-face more. so, why is a neighborhood social netwo necessary? why can't neighbors just go out and say, "hey. hi. i'm your neighbor. let's chat face-to-face. -yeah, i think we are combating a trendee that hashappening in the united states especially over the past 50omears of a decline innity.

in fact, one of the inspiring statistics that we saw when we started the company was that 29% of americans claim to know s,very few of their neighb and 28% of americans aim to know not a single neighbor by name. so you're talking about ov half the population wand so, as strange may seem in our kind of modern, technological world, to use an app to facilitate these in-person interactions in the community, it actually is happening. we feel like our job is best performed when an online interaction on nextdoor leads to an offline interaction. when an online interaction for example, your box story. when you needed boxes, ultimately, you had to go whinteract with someoneion for exto exchange the boxes, and now you know a new neighbor in your community. and we see that all the time. -you've also had some growing pains, like many tech compies. there have been some problems with racial profiling. residents were posting urgent alerts, for example, therabout people of colorlems in their neighborhoods. -yeah. -whasshave you done to addhis?

-yeah, first, we were definitely shocked to see our platform being used ithis way. and especially as a bay area native, hearing about communities inakland, where we first became aware of this happening, was a real shock to the system. but we worked together with these communities to re-design our product in a way that i think is almost unprecedented in technology, where we changed the product. -how did you re-design?ew -so, ahings that were really important to us were, number one, to make people aware of the fact tiat they were using descr text without the context around what actually was suspicious about the activity. so we introduced friction into the posting process to force people to be more specific about the circumstances under which they were postingu not to bly describing people on the characteristics of their race without some additional context as to what was suspicious. co you know, a person or riding a bike in a neighborhoo is not in itself worthy of putting out an urgent alert to all of your neighbo. but if they're casing the neighborhoodor

reaking into cars, now, that's the descriptive text that accompanies it. -so, then, what kds of posts -- how do you regulate something like this? he because what about kinds of posts that other people may find offensive, he bmaybe concerningnder o. kinds of posts where do you draw the line? -well, we expect, throughous for sort of mandating the social decorum of the communities in which we land this product. so, understanding that we are in 180,000 different neighborhoods he acrossountry, the product takes on a lot of the identity of the communities in which you land it. and so there are, in some cases, local, specific issues that need to be discussed, but need to be done with civil discourse in mind. and soouur community guidelines, and then we have a support team back at hq that helps when those neighborhood leads feel like they're aittle bit beyond their capability to handle things. -and, in 10 seconds, are you making any money yet?

-we are starting to earn revenue through sponsored posts, native advertising in the feed and in our e-mails, and now with realtors, as well. -nextdoor co-founder prakash janakiraman. thank you so much. -thank you. -turning now from connecting neighborhoods to bringing together millions of people online. imagine a free website where you can find0 more than 100,discussios on pretty much any topic imaginable. welcome to reddit.e sis launch in 2005, reddit has become the fourth most popular website in the us. each month, hundreds of millions of visitors comment on and post links to various topics, known as subreddits. cht with that growth comelenges. like facebook, twitter, and other social media, reddit is grappling with how to protect fe speech while fighting hate speech and online bullying.lk here now to bout all of this is the general counsel and vice president of reddit, melissa tidwell. h melissa, nice e you here. -thanks for having me. -so, reddit is one of the most popular websites, melnot only in the us,re. -tbut in the world.me.

yet it doesn't have the same name recognition as, say, youtube or facebook. why do you think that is? -you know, i think it's a couple of things. whewe were about 60 p company and now we're about 400. -that's hypergrowth. -it's a lot of growth. but, you know, in comparison to, sort of, our user growth, we're an incredibly small company. and so, in terms of users sort of being out there, and the and perception, some users are doing interesting things for the world, and some users want to maintait their privacy and hat. -how do you balance reddit users' right to free speech while monitoring and even shutting down hate speech? we-yeah, i mean, i think e having a great conversation today on those questions. i think for reddit, we are focusing on a couple othings. as i said, part of our growth is growing the company, i think for reddit, we are focusing on a couple othings. and growing the functions that we need to have for the company to be suessful. so for us, that means we have an actual policy team now that thinks about these things from a big-picture persptive. we have a trust and safety team, which are the enforcers,an that ensure that, as we have policies,

they can enforce at scale. we have the anti-evil engineering team. -that's what they're called? anti-evil engineering team? -build the tools..and ss -do you think that social-media sites have an obligation to curb hateful content, including conspiracy theories? -youionow, it's a great que i think for us, as a csepany, what we are foon is ensuring that the conversation is healthy. i think we're at a time where it's importa to have hard conversations, and it's important that, as a platform, we recognize that and facilitate it. it's not okay to allow a small number of voices to short of over-shout what's happening, and that's a hard thing to manage.wh we have tried to focus on is, what is the core th makes reddit powerful? and it's that conversation. if there's an article posted about the washington nationals and whether or not they made the playoffs -- is it people shouting ov each other and yelling about the players, or is it people talking about what was awful about them not making it, and what they should do about it.

we are trying to encourage those types of behaviors, and we try and do that in different ways. sometimes that's with our community management team, to reach out to e moderators to say, "hey, your conversation has gone off the rails. get your users back on track. focus on what the topic of your community is." se -or else what? -or e'll take action. -and how do reddit users differ from users of facebook, twitter, or other social media?ay -i would one of the big lessons for me was the importance of thinking about the reddit community. come from google to reddit, we do posts on a very consagtent basis where we ewith our users. and they're very honest. they give really -- we're almost like politicians. they give us real-time feedback on what they think we're doing right and what they think we're doing wrong. -a-t they're anonymous, too.y'r, so it's just a user name and password that's required to create an account and take action. -so, on the one hand, that could be good, because if you were talking about sensitive topics, like maybe an eating disorder or something, you don't want your identity know.bu

does staying anonymous also make it easier to bully someone, or trolling? -you know, perhaps it does. but opthink it also allows to sort of stand up. i think on other, real-namis platforms, there's aof, how are your friends gonna react to what you're saying, right? and i think part of the beaut-- we have a community called ask a trump supporter, which is, i think, a great communi, of people who are sayi "lbut i'm here to beee tional voice as to, says,a from a policy perspective, what's actually happening."fa -what abou accounts? facebook has come under fire for allowing fake accounto s or to fan political tensions.fa ar accounts a problem for you as well, and what do you do about it? -that's a great question. for us as a compan we have voting on our platform, upvoting and downvoting. one of our rules is thater is not allowed to be vote manipulation. so, from our very early days, we have focused e. the integrity of the v and that means, for us, looking whether the userstu are bots or real users, ensuring that we're fighting spaman dealing with those issues. at the same time, there are good bots.

thercrare communities who have, at the beginning of posting, the rules of the community. so politics, as a community, will say, "we require civil discussion.t s an automated bot, something that reminds the users. so i think it's imrrtant for us to remem that there are good bots and things that can be helpful to users, and there are bad bots. -lll's talk about silicon 's diversity gap, as well. prior to reddit, you spent eight years as an attorney at google. so you've been able to sort of break through the ranks. but you're a rarity. -mm-hmm. -studies show, government figures show that, in tech companies, the executive it's nearly 70% men.. what can you do to change that and move more women and people of color into positions of tech leadership? -it's definitely a problem in tech, and i think tech is starting to realize that. ivas a black female exec one of the very few,

i think a coupmp of things are reallytant. number one, it's ie ortant that you have nversation at the executive level.ar so, i d at the company. came probably a moor two . steve huffman, who's our ceo,h and we've had a very open and honest conversation about diversity and the importance of it. -what do you do about it? -you have to acknowlge the issue, and you take steps to address it. i think, for us, as an executive team, r executive team reflects diversity, ait's not shocking eports as a minority executive, i then have three out of four women who are my leads. it's not shocking that the diversity of my own team is much more intuitive, because i'm looking for different things.i looking for different perspectives. and we try and talk about that as a company,te as to how othes can sort of think differently. you can't just search on linkedin. you can't just look for, "i need someone who has exactly done this at this type of company."

you have to think outside the box and do it in different ways. and i think it's a problemat, and something that you just have to continually work at. -one step at a time. melissa tidwell, general counsel at reddit. thank you for being with us. hank you. -moving on now from the way we connect to the way we shop. brstdless is an e-commerce tup based in san francisco. the so-called anti-brand got its start in 2017 with a mission to offer quality products at a very low cost. their inventory includes a broad range of everyday necessities, from food to beauty products to office supplies, each wh a price tag of $3. kqed's marisa lagos sat down with the ceo of brandless, tina sharkey. -tina, thanks for coming in. -thank you so much for having me. -so, everything at brandless is $3, which ivery low. tell me what kind of products we're talking about. the whole idea of brandless was to create a simple, organized, edited assortment of the things that you love, from chips to crackers to cookies, you name it.

and then in the essentials -- so, organic spices or organic all-purpose flours and baking mixes -- as well as personacare -- so fluoride-free toothpaste, essential-oil mouthwash. -was there a particular momenr thatof drove you to create this brand? you've been in business for a while and done a lot of other things that are pretty different from this. -yeah. i would say what's interesting is, it all started with my co-founder. ido leffler and i decided that we actually wanted to change the world togethle in our own small, huay. and we were both doing lots of other things at the time, but we said, "let's carve out the time and the space to as ually figure out whaoken and what we want to fix." i came from building communities. i came from buildingommerce and media and direct consumer experiences, all digital. ansuhe came from creating cr packaged-goods products. so i said, "what if we were to, like, fuse i d build a community that's based on something that's bigger than anything that we sell?" -- this whole idea that we could democratize access

to better things at fair prices for everyone. so we set off to do that. -so, how are millennial customers different from, maybe, their parents? -it's so interesting about the millennial consumer, because think of them as first time head-of-household, right? either they're setting up their college dorm room or they are setting up their first apartment or they'reaving babies. millennial moms are gonna be the largest segment of moms. they probably already are. and if they're not, they will be in two seconds. 78% of millennials have said they don't want to buy the products that they grew up with or that their parents used.ha s so interesting to me, because i feel like product branding is so ingrained in ush s so interesting to me, -i know, but it'ging.roduct because today, the brands of yesterday don't represent the value system. and i think it's like 67% of americans say -- not just millennials -- they want to shop from a company that represents their values. an so millennials don't wanto s theyosrew up with because brands were "trust marks," and they lost trust.

so people are turning over their taste. it's millennials, but it's also perennials -- people who are changing their habits, changing their consumption patterns, and changing the brands that they want to reach for. -you call yourself a social capitalist. changing their consumption patterns, i mean, how important is it,s from a businrspective, too, to have a company that's sort of aimed at the broader good? m i know you guys giey to programs for feeding folks when y buy something. -yeah, so, we partner with feeding america.s ther million people in this country that go hungry every day, and feeding america the largest hunger-relief organization in this country, with the broadest network of food banks. when youheck out at brandless, because we believe that therough doing in life is what matters, and we don't wait for givi tuesday. every time you can do a tangible act of kindness is just kind of how brandless rolls. so our community is always doing things. and, in fact, as we celebrated our first anniversary, we'd already given away over 1.6 million meals.

ofow. so you have a loxperience as an entrepreneur, an executive. you co-founded iville which, at the time was the largest online community for women. you were president of babenter. how's the business landscape changed as a woman in tech, and business broadly? -you know, it's funny,ntbd as a woman or a man in terms of who i was as a leader. i'm tina. and i have my experience. -you know, it's funny,ntbd i have my passions. i'm also a mom. i'm also a friend. i'm also a sister. i'm lots of things. but when i show up at work, i'm a leader who'sdihere to build an extrary business, and i don't think of it as "it's a female-run business." it's a business that fully expresses the commitment p and passion of tple that come to work for us and the moveme that we're building. and so i think the landscape has changed in that having tlet real seat at the t is something that's very, very important, because i represent not only my own business experience,

but also my personal expernce. and 89% of the purchasing in this country is done by womenw so the idea then wouldn't have a seat at the table for any consum business -- let alone any business to begin with -- is kind of crazy. but i don't think about it as, "oh, i'm a woman, therefore..." i think "i'm tina, and this is my experience." and"i don't want to be "labe or given an advantage other than my skills, my passion, and what i'm building and executing. -so, what would be your biggest piece of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs? -i would say always be your authentic self, because authenticity scales. bring smarter people around you that complement your skill set and complement what you can bring to the table. always make room. d ersity and inclusion, it's not just about color or race or ethnicity. it might be about style. it might be about apoach. and so not everybody has the same approach to things. -right. -but as an entrepreneur, part of your job is to sort of convene a diverse set of voices,

a diverse set of experiences, and a diverse set of opinions, and then surround yourself with people who actually want to stay with you and your movement for the long game. -fabulous. well, tina sharkey, thank you so much for coming in. -thank you for having me. n -ot ceo created method,vi a line of enronment-friendly cleaning products. adam lowry sold method in 2012 and embarked on a new mission to reduce the planet's carbon footprint. his new company is ripple foods, located in emeryville. its flagship product is a non-dairy milk made from peas. that's right, peas. all pght, so, milk made frs. why peas? -yeah, that's right. h. pea milk, eh? -y -you know, peas are high in protein. and the situation right now is, most alternatives to dairy products are actually pretty bad dairy alternatives they don't have any protein in them, or have very little, and most people agree they're k. so by making milk out of peas, we were able to make sometinng really high in pro

but really creamy and delicious. and at the end of the day, th the way we're gonna get more people to eat healthier, more nutritious, and more sustainable foods. -you're a chemical engineer by tining. you where did the inspiration for this company come from? does your environmental training come into it? -yeah, partially. i thiny,a big part of this st also, is my co-founder, neil renninger, who's a phd biochemist. t he real scientist between the two of us. and he created a way to get totally pure protein out of any plant source. and when you do that, it's tasteless. many people don't know that proteinhave no flavor. so if you get really pure protein from plants, you can make foods out of it that are really delicious. and then they are foods that a lot more people will buy and enjoy. -and i think you were also inspired by this philosop of trying to cut down on the carbon footprint, rightm hmm. -tell us about that. -yeah. i mean, you mentioned that i do have a background as a climate scientist. that was a long time ago. and that was a big part of the inspiration

for my first business, method, trying to use a business and that was a big part of the inspiration to create social and environmental impact. now, fortunately, that's become a much me mainstream idea now. food is even more personal, and has even more impacts on our environment and on our health, of course, than cleaning products, and so that was why i really wanted to get into food, because it's very personal, and it's very high-impact. we need to do somethingou, and we need to do it through foods that are really delicious that people enjoy. -and that don't cause a lot of carbon tput, for example, because dairy products and meat products contribute to the carbon footprint. -yeah, exactly. so, dairy is about aer of our food carbon footprint, and food's about 30% of our human carbon footprint. that means dairy is about 8% of humanity's carbon footprint. and most of the alternatives are not much better. you know, almond milk, for example, takes a lot of wer. -mm-hmm. and i know that this was also the inspiration behind your method cleaning products,

your prior company, you started it with your college buddy, eric ryan, and in the beginning, you were actually maki different method formulas in your bathtub.or -that isct. yeah, it was sort of the most ironic place you could think of a cleaning-products company being born, which is the bachelor pad of five guys in their mid-20s. -a probably noso-clean bachelor pad -it was exactly as clean d as you would think it wo. and, yeah, we made the product there. p actually used bechersas clean dand things like that initially, and we were selling it door-to-door to grocery stores. but now method is actually the largest green cleang company in the world. -is it really? -mm-hmm. -that's a great silicon valley story, isn't it? but silicon valleyhas c. it makes amazing products that billions of people use around the world. but there's also been criticism iethat silicon valley comp don't do enough to be good corporate citizens. for example, on this like housing. what are your thoughts on that? -well, i think in today, you have to have a civic identity

th has a sense of purpose a c. it's no longer appropriate for a company to jus. now, what i don't mean is that a company has to be it's no longer appropriate overtly political.o jus. there is a difference between politicsnd policy. and i think that businesses have a responsibility to put forward ideas about how they can make the world a better place, whether thatere environmental or whehat be social, whatever the issue may be. and i think that it's -- -do you think silicon valley has done enough on that front? -well, clearly there are some places where silicon valley has some ways to go. i mean, it's the hotbed of innovation. there's a spir creative that's absolutely fantastic. and i think we've seen some examples where we needer to do bes an overall business community in this area. so i think that's where examining the impacts that a business can have socially and environmentally is really critical, and then being consciory and deliberate aboutg

to do better in those areas. -yeah. and just real quickly, since we're on the topic of corporate social responsibility, th c week we saw a number panies step forward on the gun-control debate, united and delta cutting their discounts for nra members, for example, walmart and dick's sportg goods changing their gun-sales policies. how do you feel about companies taking stands on controversial issues? -yeah, i think it's important for companies to have a point of view, and to share that point of view. and as i said, it can be a little bit of a tricky linet when it startoe the line into politics, and the sausage-making of politics.n' but i think it's appropriate anymore i think that trust ietal institutions, s trust in business is really at an all-time low, and we need to rebuild that by saying, "hey, this is what we stand for. this is what we think is right and wrong."ve and hat. -okay. adam lowry, co-founder and ceo of ripple foods. thanks for being here. -yeah. thanks for having me. -and that will do it for us.

r more of our coverage, go to kqed.org/newsroom. i'm thuy vu. thank you for joining us. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

cang sponsored by wnet >> sreeniv for sunday, september 2nd: tonator john mccain is lai rest at the u.s. naval academy. an update for our "peril & promise"s: how big businesses are investing in renewable energy. and, a new report on how climate change and the growth of wildfires are unovrmining imprents to air pollution. next on "pbs newshour weekend." >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. the cher family.lip milstein the sue and edgafowachenheim dation. the cheryl and philip milstein family. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t. vagelos. the j.p.b. foundation. rosalind p. walter. ebarbara hope zucke