Friday, August 21, 2026
Welcome to another Friday edition of the Tech:NYC Digest, featuring our favorite five highlights in New York and tech this week.
A quick note: Due to a technical issue, some subscribers received yesterday’s Digest this morning. Sorry for the duplicate email and any confusion. Now, on to today’s Friday Five.
Was this digest forwarded to you? Subscribe here.
New York unseats San Francisco as the top market for tech talent, CBRE reports (CNBC)
For the first time in CBRE’s 13-year ranking, New York has overtaken the Bay Area as North America's largest tech talent market. AI is a big reason why. 🗽🤖
Per CBRE’s report, New York now has 394,300 tech workers, edging out the Bay Area's 375,730.
AI jobs are booming, with New York and San Francisco each adding more than 20,000 AI-specific roles over the past year. AI-related positions now make up nearly one-third of all U.S. tech job listings.
The hiring surge is also boosting office demand. Manhattan ranks among the country’s hottest markets for AI office leasing, reinforcing the trend that many AI companies prefer employees working together in person.
Meet the 17-year-olds behind the finance world’s favorite Gen Z newsletter (NY Post)
Brooklyn high school students Jasper Gould and Emile Chilingirian, both 17, built Passing the Torch into a 60,000-subscriber newsletter read by employees at firms like JP Morgan, Blackstone, McKinsey, Nvidia, Goldman Sachs, and Microsoft. ✍️
The duo says their edge is that they write about the trends they’re living — from AI and sneaker culture to robotaxis and Gen Z consumer habits — giving Wall Street a real-time window into the next generation.
Two guys are eating their way around the world without ever leaving New York (Wall Street Journal)
After growing tired of “corporate slop” office lunches, roommates Dillon Davis and Nichols Neff challenged themselves to eat the cuisine of every country in the world without ever leaving New York City — an idea that spawned the viral social media project, Tastebuds. 🍜
Their videos, now reaching more than 600,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram, have become a major boost for family-run restaurants, sending waves of new customers to neighborhood favorites serving Armenian, Antiguan, Moroccan, Malaysian, and dozens of other cuisines.
Having featured 30 countries so far,, the pair say the goal is to introduce New Yorkers to the people and stories behind the city’s incredible culinary diversity, one neighborhood at a time.
Together with The Atlantic 🤝
This September 17-19, The Atlantic Festival returns to New York City’s Perelman Performing Arts Center, where leaders, innovators, journalists, and curious minds will come together for three days of conversations that examine the forces shaping our world.
Expect rigorous conversation and deep connections — to not only meet each other, but to meet the moment together. Prepare to meet great minds who don’t think alike.
Register here and get $100 off your one-day or two-day pass with code TECHNYC.
Meet some of the New Yorkers walking the city’s 600,000 dogs (Vogue)
Behind every great New York dog is a dog walker just trying to keep up. 🐕
Vogue profiled six professional dog walkers — from an Upper West Side fixture known as the neighborhood's “mayor” to a queer dog-walking collective in Brooklyn — whose work keeps the city’s estimated 600,000 dogs (and often their neighborhoods) running smoothly.
Many balance dog walking with creative careers as artists, comedians, writers, and models, saying the flexible work helps fund their passions while giving them an unusually intimate view of New York life.
There are over 1 million NYC street signs. Here’s how they are made (New York Times)
Every street sign in New York has to start somewhere. 🛑
Inside the Department of Transportation’s Maspeth Central Shop in Queens, a team of just 46 workers handcrafts more than 70,000 street, highway, and parking signs each year while maintaining more than one million signs across the five boroughs.
Beyond keeping drivers on course, the warehouse doubles as a living archive of city history, preserving signs commemorating everything from Nelson Mandela’s 1990 visit to World Series victories and the Stonewall uprising.
And this is your sign that it’s time for the weekend. Have a good one, New York! 🗽
Daily Digest Rewards 🎁
Treat yourself: Send subscribers our way, and we’ll send swag your way.
1 Referral: Shoutout in the Digest
5 Referrals: Obviously NYC Hat
10 Referrals: Obviously NYC Tote Bag
25 Referrals: Obviously NYC Sweatshirt
{{rp_personalized_text}}
Or share your personal link with others: {{ rp_refer_url }}
Want to advertise in the Digest? Fill out our form here.
Any feedback or suggestions of things to add? Get in touch here.
Was this digest forwarded to you? Sign up to receive it directly here.
