There is evidence of discontent among the voters in CA. It comes from the growing disappointment with specific laws, regulations and policies passed by the California State legislature in recent years. The problem can be described as the Law of Unintended Consequences. Several Laws passed by the California legislature, created conditions that were not part of the sponsors’ original intent. Most reasonable people can accept that logic. Every government administration has had this experience. But ...
Oct 04, 2022•14 min•Season 2Ep. 10
We are in the midst of a perfect wildfire storm. Warm temperatures, an ongoing drought, reduced snowpack, and reduced rainfall are contributing to a tinderbox potential for wildfires for this summer of 2022. In 2021, California recorded 8,835 wildfires burning 2.5 million acres. The last seven years have seen a geometric increase in the frequency and destruction caused by wildfires. On November 8, 2018, the most deadly wildfire in California’s recorded history started in the area of Paradise, Ca...
Jun 09, 2022•26 min•Season 2Ep. 23
First-generation candidate Jon Elist for the U.S. Senate sits down in a Zoom call to discuss the top five issues in his bid to be the new Congressional Senator representing California. Topics include inflation, immigration, homelessness, national security, and why he is willing to move from being the CEO of a healthcare company to a six-year term as a U.S. Senator.
Jun 02, 2022•26 min•Season 2Ep. 22
California will hold its primary election on June 7, 2022. Effective January 1, 2011, California changed the way primary elections operate, with a law titled, The Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act. Most of the offices that were previously known as "partisan" are now known as "voter-nominated" offices. All candidates for voter-nominated offices are listed on one ballot and only the top two vote-getters in the primary election – regardless of party preference - move on to the general election. B...
May 24, 2022•30 min•Season 2Ep. 21
We admire the person who overcomes adversity to succeed in a chosen profession or line of work. Perseverance, tenacity, and passion create the drive to expand the horizons of the “possible”. This is the story about an individual who transformed his early life struggles into a desire to improve the opportunities in marginalized communities. Our conversation in this podcast is an eye-opener about the challenges of growing up in a marginalized community. Hard work led to a scholarship to attend UCL...
May 02, 2022•22 min•Season 2Ep. 20
Revenue-based financing is gaining traction as an alternative to the traditional startup debt and equity structures. This structure, referred to as revenue-based financing, represents a third rail for entrepreneurs to obtain working capital and for investors to reduce the risk of loss in their investment.
Apr 26, 2022•22 min•Season 2Ep. 15
There is good news for startup companies. Corporate acquirers are looking for niche products and technologies to fill a gap in their product line or simply grow through acquisition. There are more opportunities than ever before to be viewed as an attractive company for acquisition. But getting noticed by potential acquires requires research, a thorough internal review of valuation points, engagement, and negotiating skills. This podcast is the first of a two-part conversation with an advisor to ...
Apr 19, 2022•18 min•Season 2Ep. 4
The buyer has qualified your startup as a potential candidate for acquisition and now the real work begins, defining how the assets of your startup will fit the needs of the acquiring company. My guests, Garry Guseinov and Mark Addison, provide insights into situations that resulted in successful outcomes for all parties or encountered setbacks and ofter failed to close. The final part of this conversation involved a discussion of the value and role of investment bankers....
Apr 19, 2022•21 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Speaking with a tech entrepreneur in eastern Slovakia, just 100 miles from the Ukrainian border, we get insights into the original Declaration of Ukrainian Independence, the gradual move toward the West, statements about joining NATO and joining the European community. Adding fuel to the conflict, the eastern provinces of Ukraine are Russian-speaking and appear to have cultural ties to Russia. But now Russia has undertaken a devastating invasion, caused over 3 million refugees, and seems committ...
Mar 28, 2022•21 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Never before have we had close-up access to personal stories, photographs, and videos showing the violence and destruction of war. But I did sense that part of the story was being overlooked. Ukraine has been transformed from the country it was 30 years ago when it gained independence from the Soviet Union. The country has built an impressive technology sector providing application development services and products which contribute to the employment opportunities for its citizens. So the questio...
Mar 14, 2022•23 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Today, the average life expectancy in the U.S. is 78 years. It’s a remarkable achievement in light of the fact that the average life expectancy during the 18th and 19th centuries was less than 50 years old. Innovations in medical treatment, food production, and hygiene standards have all played a key role. However, the celebration of a longer average life span has been met with a sobering reality about the quality of those later years. There is a general acceptance that most of us will experienc...
Dec 07, 2020•33 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Professional sports face a number of common challenges starting with developing a winning team as well as maintaining brand value within the community and with ticket buyers. While Loyalty, community support, and financial viability are easier with a winning team, in today's connected world, every venue is vying for the attention of the consumer. On a completely separate path, the Smart City movement has defined its mission as bringing the benefits of the digital revolution to city services. Loc...
Feb 08, 2020•22 min•Season 2Ep. 14
The media spends most of their time in the “happy part of Silicon Valley”, with stories about companies that were successfully funded, grew and acquired. The exit or sale of the company sounds like a naturally occurring event, but the effort to sell a startup company is incredibly demanding and the fact is: there are very few public forums that talk about the challenges, strategies, and effort required. This podcast is Part 2 of Companies are Bought not Sold, and explores the strategies a startu...
Oct 09, 2019•25 min•Season 2Ep. 13
All entrepreneurs need an exit plan, an opportunity to see their company, generally through an acquisition with an established corporation. The difficult question is knowing when to sell, the terms of the sale and finding the right acquisition partner. This podcast challenges that assumption. It’s actually the buyer who is controlling the decision to acquire and the terms of the transaction. Part 1 of this podcast explores the sequence of events for a Founder and CEO to take his venture-backed c...
Sep 24, 2019•26 min•Season 2Ep. 12
Every city or metropolitan area desires to emulate the startup ecosystem using the Silicon Valley model. However, the success of Silicon Valley did not happen overnight. Building out that ecosystem took a ramp of approximately 20 years along with the engagement and belief of many talented people. Nonetheless, every major metropolitan area is facing the challenge of facilitating the development of a start-up ecosystem or seeing their most promising companies and talented human resources move to o...
Sep 11, 2019•19 min•Season 2Ep. 11
The depth and breadth of the Agtech movement are transforming many agriculture sectors. The dairy industry is a well-established industry that has received some productivity enhancements over the years. such as automated milking machines. Otherwise, the products and methods have remained the same over the decades and centuries. The dairy sector is now going through a transformation in Ireland. Private industry and the government are making a move to apply 21st-century innovation and productivity...
Aug 31, 2019•22 min•Season 2Ep. 10
The startup ecosystem continues to create new products and services that contribute to our productivity and quality of life. The participating parties including research and intellectual property from universities, programs for entrepreneurs, technologists and an established set of service providers from startup accelerators to a range of outsourcing services for everything a startup company needs to grow efficiently. A key driver to allow these components to produce results is the startup inves...
Aug 27, 2019•26 min•Season 2Ep. 9
On Monday of last week, Capital One announced a data breach affecting an estimated 106 million Credit card customers and applicants. This is one of the largest Data breaches experienced by a large bank. One noteworthy point is that this cyber theft was conducted against data stored in the cloud-hosted by Amazon Web Services. In the past, most cyber intrusions have been conducted against a corporate data center. Capital One is just one of the many companies that have migrated to cloud services te...
Aug 07, 2019•21 min•Season 2Ep. 8
This conversation is with Jamie Rhodes, founder of the Central Texas Angel Network, an active angel investor group, based in Austin, TX. The startup story begins with an accelerator hosted by Texas State University and supported by a group of local mentors and advisors. One of the companies gaining traction in the accelerator was SioTeX. The company ’s Intellectual property which had been funded and developed by Texas State University was a new method to convert rice hulls, which are a waste pro...
Jul 27, 2019•21 min•Season 2Ep. 7
According to a United Nations study by the year 2050, the world’s population will reach 9.1 billion which is 34 percent higher than today. In order to feed this larger, more urban, and richer population, food production must increase by 70 percent. So the question is given the limits of available farmland and water resources, how are we going to meet this increase in food demand? Agtech Sector Perspective from Roger Royse, Founder Royse Law Firm: Agtech is not just a movement it’s a revolution. ...
Jul 20, 2019•19 min•Season 2Ep. 6
We hear a great deal of discussion about protecting access to our digital assets, bank accounts, travel services, retail sites and even government agencies like the IRS and State Tax Authorities. The recommendations focus on creating a secure name and password, two-factor authentication and possibly a biometric verification such as a fingerprint or voice print. During the RSA conference in San Francisco, I came across another source of digital identity theft, easily overlooked and there is was, ...
Jul 16, 2019•13 min•Season 2Ep. 5
What are your options if you have a real business but there is a lack of engagement from venture capital? In 2015, Congress implemented Title IV of the Jobs Act, which was intended to provide a process for startup companies to sell stock to the general public while remaining a private company. Why haven’t you hear about this process, knows as a Reg A+? The provisions of Reg A+ allow a company to raise up to 50 million, but there are compliance regulations, audits, SEC-mandated disclosures. But t...
Jun 04, 2019•22 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Many of the best entrepreneurs have leveraged their corporate experience, contacts, and resources to create new products and deploy a business strategy that was verified while they were corporate managers. Despite having that extensive background in product development and innovation, the life of the founders in any startup is a never-ending roller coaster ride that can easily derail valid ideas, strategies and market needs. The Knightscope story is personal, compelling and demonstrates just how...
May 15, 2019•19 min•Season 2Ep. 3
As I scanned the list of my unread emails, one stood out, coming from alerts@citibank.com . The message indicated there was a problem with a credit card transaction, a link was provided to learn more about this problem. I clicked on the link and was taken to an official-looking Citibank web page with a form to login to my account. Fortunately, I did catch myself before completing the login, realizing that this was a classic phishing attack to trick me into providing my login credentials on a fak...
May 02, 2019•17 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Studio software and computer vision have empowered the adoption of virtual characters and virtual movie sets. The next logical question was: why are we limited to actual human voices in the dialogue? The emergence of AI is powering a new approach to analyzing voices, identifying and tagging speaking patterns by age, sex, education, cultural heritage, and accent to fix audio tracks in movies. This podcast discusses the Company’s technology to create a synthesized voice that is designed to fit the...
Apr 27, 2019•22 min•Season 2Ep. 1
The world population stands at approximately 7.5 billion people at this time. The United Nations in 2009 and the International Organization for Migration in 2015 both estimated that around 3 million people are moving to cities every week. Today, approximately 54% of people worldwide now live in cities, up from 30% in 1950. Sources estimate this will grow to 2/3 of the world population in the next 15-30 years. Those people want high-quality services and unfortunately, many of our cities are facin...
Apr 14, 2019•16 min•Season 2Ep. 12
The Aha! Moment and Developing a High-Quality Mentor Relationship This podcast explores the process where a woman entrepreneur had that insightful epiphany that lead her to create a startup company and pursue a resulting vision of providing a solution to an issue. Beyond this discussion of the Aha! moment, you will hear how this entrepreneur also found a mentor that provided her with the advice and feedback on her business development and the importance of that relationship based on timely busin...
Apr 07, 2019•15 min•Season 1Ep. 11
The startup ecosystem has been widely adopted throughout the US and in most industrialized countries in a similar form. St engaging investors to fund the development of new technologies, create jobs and businesses for the 21st century. As a startup company grows, one investor’s end game is another investor’s entry point. This conversation will look into one of the more obscure aspects in Silicon Valley; the process for startup companies to secure late stage growth funding and prepare for a merge...
Mar 18, 2019•14 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Artificial intelligence has projected some fantastic benefits and yet we hear ominous rumblings in the background warnings about a brave new world, it's a world where computers outpace and outperform humans in repetitive past analysis and perhaps even in creative work. Information technology (IT) certifications are a gateway to many professional jobs worldwide, and developing a reliable and cost-effective method to test skills has faced challenges on several fronts. This conversation discusses t...
Mar 10, 2019•21 min•Season 1Ep. 9
In just about every business, Cash remains King in terms of operations, but Growth is the key to valuation. So, while Cash is King, Growth determines value and growth in value promotes product leadership, attracts our most talented resources and is a high priority among investors. This pursuit of growth outside of North America can be an expensive and risky endeavor. Companies will typically experience a number of reality checks on their Growth initiative, facing challenges with new partners, di...
Mar 03, 2019•18 min•Season 1Ep. 8
