🤗Empathy🫂

Despite all the LinkedIn posts and leadership mantras, most leaders are getting empathy wrong  — or worse, skipping it entirely according to an article in the HBR.

According to the 2024 State of Workplace Empathy Report, 55% of CEOs think they’re empathetic. But only 28% of employees agree. Translation? There's a massive empathy gap in workplaces, and it’s costing businesses in morale, innovation, and retention.

Empathy isn't about playing therapist or oversharing in team meetings. It's about practicing presence, listening without fixing, and balancing individual needs with team priorities. It's about knowing when to hold space, when to ask questions, and yes — when to back off and stop making it about you.

The article lays out six powerful strategies leaders can use:
✅ Develop an empathy protocol
✅ Be other-focused
✅ Balance individual and group needs
✅ Facilitate support (don’t take over)
✅ Set healthy boundaries
✅ Use language that connects, not minimizes

Read more here

👖If you don't jump to put jeans on👖

Ok so this one isn't tech but hey we wanted to tell you anyways,

Levi Strauss shareholders voted against a proposal for the company to end its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, it disclosed in a filing on Monday.

Looks like it turns out that if you want to have a product that appeals to everyone, shareholders think supporting those communities is good for business👀

You can read more in Reuters here

😤Delayed😤 

Well, well, well. Rockstar Games has once again pulled the ol' switcheroo, announcing that Grand Theft Auto VI won't grace our consoles until May 26, 2026. That's right, the game originally teased for a 2025 release has been pushed back as 2025 was clearly too good to be true, leaving fans clutching their controllers in despair😭

Rockstar Games made the announcement with a familiar cocktail of corporate sincerity and vague reassurances. TL;DR? “We love your patience. We promise it’s worth it.” Translation: “You’ll wait, and you’ll like it.” 🙃. Because, you know, nothing says "we care" like making you wait over a decade for a sequel.😏

But let's be honest, this delay isn't entirely surprising. It’s been over a decade since GTA V, and we’ve had Five UK Prime Ministers, 11 iPhones, and a pandemic since then. Maybe the next game will let us play as a coder trying to fix toxic culture at a VC-backed startup. Now that’s fantasy. The lack of a concrete release date had already raised eyebrows, and now we have confirmation that our virtual crime sprees in Vice City will have to wait a bit longer😕

So, what's a gamer to do in the meantime? Perhaps revisit GTA V for the umpteenth time (At least it's still being supported), or maybe explore other open-world adventures. Just remember to keep your expectations in check—after all, patience is a virtue, especially in the gaming world.

Well we drafted this and then the biggest news well since this news dropped and that was a new trailer🤯

Yep over a year since the last one, Rockstar has managed to get us all salivating again and this time around, they just dropped it, no fanfare or warning (probably best that way given the leaks on the first one), You can read more about it here but to be honest just watch for yourself here🍿

💡 So What?

For the Colorintech community, the irony runs deeper. While Rockstar moves deadlines like they're calendar invites, Black and Brown creatives in gaming and tech are still fighting for entry-level visibility (Watch what we have planned for this year's BTF on this topic). The pipeline to leadership? Still more fiction than anything in Vice City.

So yes, let’s roll our eyes at yet another release delay — but let’s also stay sharp. Because while the tech elite drag their feet, we’ve got real work to do building new systems, backing underrepresented founders, and creating narratives that don’t take 10+ years to see the light of day.

Game on — even if Rockstar's stuck on the loading screen.

🛍Hacking the highstreet🛍

Picture this: iconic British retailers — Harrods, Marks & Spencer, and Co-op — all facing major cyberattacks within days of each other and all caused by the same hacker group🥷

 Three different brands, with what appears to be the same story: chaos behind the scenes, and customers left wondering if their loyalty cards now come with a side of identity theft😅.

Let’s start with M&S. According to a whistleblower via Sky News, staff were sleeping in offices amid "paranoia and chaos" because —  the company apparently had no meaningful plan for a cyberattack. Not even a dusty PDF somewhere on SharePoint. Percy Pigs: stocked. Cybersecurity playbook: not so much.😤

Meanwhile, Harrods tried to play it cool with a press release that screamed “everything’s fine” — despite significant operational disruption. According to NPR, customer data may be at risk, and their internal systems were hobbled. Some may say, perhaps people care less because this one may effect the rich👀

Then there’s Co-op.. TechRadar reports that up to 20 million UK customers may have had their data stolen — including addresses, phone numbers, and transaction histories. In their public apology, Co-op essentially said: “Sorry we let hackers stroll through our digital front door. We’ll try harder next time.”

This is less a series of unfortunate events and more a crash course in what happens when legacy institutions treat cybersecurity like a weekend intern’s side project😟

Cyberattacks have always been big risks and more end points and complex cloud system's means the risk level is just ratcheting up. Thrown in a hint of AI and you can see why Google would spend north of $30bn on Wiz

💡 So What?

These cyberattacks aren’t just cautionary tales about outdated tech stacks or underfunded IT teams. They’re reminders that in our increasingly digital world, resilience isn’t just technical — it’s cultural. The difference between a minor glitch and a full-blown crisis often comes down to leadership mindset, preparedness, and whether cybersecurity is treated as a boardroom priority or a back-office nuisance and embedded in culture or not

🤳🏾Fine, we won't make money🤳🏾

After months of internal wrangling, boardroom drama that rivalled HBO's Succession, and lawsuits from Elon Musk (because of course), OpenAI has scrapped its plans to shake off nonprofit control and go full startup-unicorn👀

The plan to spin its for-profit arm into an independent, investor-friendly machine? Dead. Instead, the nonprofit will continue calling the shots — and owning a chunky slice of the pie💰

Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO / cult leader / AI oracle, shared the decision in a letter that reads like part TED Talk, part therapy session. He admitted they didn’t know what they were doing a decade ago when they started, but now they’ve seen the light: AI is too powerful, too transformational, and frankly too expensive to leave to pure profit motives. The mission, apparently, must come first🤔

Meanwhile, OpenAI is still quietly restructuring into a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), a trendy Silicon Valley compromise that says, “Yes, we’ll still make money. Just… responsibly.” Think of it like Patagonia, but instead of fleeces and backpacks, it's synthetic intelligence that could one day write your novel and launch your startup and possibly destabilize democracy💻

Investors may grumble — the uncapped return party they were promised now has a few more bouncers at the door. But Microsoft’s still onboard, the Attorney Generals of Delaware and California gave their cautious nod, and Altman swears they’ll be able to raise “hundreds of billions” regardless💸

💡 So What?

it’s a moment of clarity (or confusion, depending on your lens) for how we build and fund world-shaping technology.

For the Colorintech community, there’s a bigger takeaway: the question of who controls AI is far from settled, but it matters now more than ever.

OpenAI staying under nonprofit oversight won’t fix the bias in models, close the access gap, or diversify the field overnight. But it does slow down the Silicon Valley instinct to “move fast and monetise everything,” and offers a reminder that not every innovation needs to chase unicorn status to be valuable.

Still, structure alone won’t ensure equity. We’ve seen countless orgs with the right mission fall short in practice. So here’s the challenge: as AI reshapes industries from health to education to the creative arts, how do we ensure it’s not just the same voices shaping the tools, profiting from the outcomes, and deciding what “benefit” looks like?

OpenAI says it wants to build a “brain for the world.” Cool. But we should all be asking: whose values shape that brain? Who gets to influence it? Who gets access? And who’s left out of the conversation entirely?

In the end, “fine, we won’t make profit” might be the tagline — but the real work is ensuring progress doesn’t come at the cost of inclusion. If this AI future is truly for everyone, it’ll need everyone at the table — not just those with compute credits and VC friends.

📈 The tools behind the tech📉

📦Product📦

• Why software teams stick to old habits—and how to challenge them

• Has Spotify's discovery algorithm gotten worse

📏Design📏 

• The 12-bit rainbow palette
  

• Icones

👩🏿‍💻Code👩🏿‍💻

• Settling the File Structure Debate

• A faster way to copy SQLite databases between computers

🏢The business behind the tech🏢

• Interview a software engineer preparing with AI

🇩🇪New In-Person Networking Event in Berlin with Netflix🍿

Lights, Camera, ACTION! On June 3rd, Netflix is teaming up for round two with Colorintech to host an exclusive in-person networking event focusing on hiring in:

• Media / Ad Sales (6+ years experience);

• Advertising Account Management (3+ years experience);

• Measurement Specialists (3+ years experience);  

• Brand Partnership Marketing (5+ years experience). 

This is your opportunity to meet and network with the fantastic team at Netflix including the recruitment team who are happy to answer your questions, whilst enjoying some tasty food and drink. 

Check out the key details below: 

Date: Tuesday 3rd June 2025

Time: 18:00 - 21:00

Where: Berlin, Germany.

As this event has limited spaces, we'll need you to register your interest to attend using our application form below: 

https://form.typeform.com/to/YJa7CbzA 

After applying, Catherine will reach out to you if Netflix have chosen you to attend the event and will provide you with the next steps!

 New AI Practical Event for Founders

Following our successful Investment Insights event, we're launching our next founders event on using AI to positively impact and scale your business with Google Cloud!

Similarly to fundraising insights, our community survey told us that growth and using tech solutions like AI scored highly (15.91%) as a topic for support. So, with that in mind, we've put together an interactive event which has three key parts: 

A short panel discussion on how exceptional founders André Skepple and Elaf Deyab are currently using AI to growth theirs (and others) businesses; 

An activity where you'll be working with other founders to come up with ways to use AI to solve the challenges you're all facing; 

Network with the Google Cloud team about the benefits they can offer to startups. 

Key Details: 

Date: 28th May 2025

Time: 17:00 - 20:30 BST

Location: Google Cloud - London Office

 Sign Up Link: https://lu.ma/Ignite-AI-Tools

If you're a founder interested in finding out how AI tools can be used to help drive growth in their startups, then be sure to get a ticket and come along!

Roles at ARM

Staff Firmware Engineer
Arm Neoverse is the foundation for the next era of digital infrastructure. This role provides an outstanding opportunity to develop and contribute to the success of Arm Neoverse CSS based solutions.

Edge AI Ecosystem Lead
Arm has revolutionised multiple industries and is now defining the future of AI on edge computing. The IoT Line of Business is rapidly moving inference from being a cloud centric compute, to a distributed local computing experience with all the benefits of reduced latency, privacy and cost this change will deliver.

AI System Architect
This is an opportunity for an experienced application developer to have broader impact, significantly influencing an AI platform that is used by billions of people every day, in every major cloud and the vast majority of smartphones.

Community Coordinator (12 Month FTC)This role will support the Software Communities organisation. The ideal candidate will bring strong detail oriented, execution and organisational skills to help drive the impact of Arm in the Software community.
Deskside Support EngineerThe deskside engineering team is responsible for all support requests that cannot be fulfilled by our service desk or remote support teams, from new user device orientation to support of sophisticated desktop issues. This includes covering our Cambridge Office Tech Hub on a rota basis.

🎓Our latest partnership🎓

Colorintech is excited to announce its new partnership with the Government Digital Service (GDS), the leaders of the Government Digital and Data profession in the UK government. GDS plays a vital role in transforming public services, setting digital strategy, and ensuring services are user-centred, efficient, and accessible to all. 

This partnership aligns with the UK government’s Blueprint for Modern Digital Government, which sets out a vision for a more connected, innovative, and resilient digital public sector. By working together, Colortech and GDS will focus on building a diverse and highly skilled digital workforce, ensuring that government services are shaped by talent that reflects the communities they serve.

Roles to check out

• Ministry of Defence: SEO Defence Business Services (DBS) - Senior Technical Architect

• Department for Energy Security & Net Zero: G7 Senior Salesforce Developer
• Department for Education: G6 Lead Technical Architect

😃What we are consuming😃

✈️Why are more than 90% of pilots still men

🧑🏾‍💻Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, economists claim

🔍Google's AI mode

🤖Meta's Reality Labs has, cumulative losses since 2020 that now exceed $60 billion.