Technology
Blog
Memo to Small Business: We’re from the government and we’re here to help
Across the state, main streets have gone from being closed to being boarded. For California entrepreneurs, doing business in the state has hit a new low. It’s too early to get insurance data on what the vandalism, arson, and looting has cost business owners across the state. Worse, because of ...
Blog
‘Fixing’ Assembly Bill 5: Better If It Never Existed At All
California’s Assembly Bill 5 has not been broken, but given a couple of recent developments, it might soon be showing some cracks. On May 20, Assembly Bill 1850, which would exempt some professions from AB5, a law that virtually outlaws independent contract work, was passed 7-0 by the Assembly Labor ...
Blog
The 6GHz Push Could Expand Innovation in California
Given that California has more than 33 million internet users, it is clear that the state loves its broadband access. And recent action from Washington, DC has the potential to make California’s online experience even better and inspire more innovation. According to Broadband Now, California ranks 13th in the country ...
Agriculture
Flummoxed Feds Freeze Out Frost Fix
Courtesy of the polar vortex, unseasonably cold temperatures came to a broad swath of the country, from Texas to Maine, last week, causing frost damage to crops and ornamental plants. (And snow in New York City’s Central Park on May 9). Cherry and other fruit trees are particularly susceptible, and losses ...
Blog
Is California Going To Open Without Newsom’s Approval?
Three California counties have earned the title of “free counties.” They “earned” the label for reopening ahead of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement that Phase 2 of the statewide reopening would begin soon. Some small businesses outside of the “free counties” of Modoc, Sutter, and Yuba, so designated by Press California, ...
Blog
Innovation Champion No More
Much is always written about “innovation.” How to manage it. How to inspire it. How to benefit from it. How to create an environment where it blooms. So much lip service is paid to innovation that unfortunately many people tune it out. Certainly, ignoring the value of an innovation environment, ...
Blog
California Assembly Bill 5: An Update
Nearly three dozen bills intended to revise or repeal Assembly Bill 5, which restricts workers’ freedom and could potentially kill the burgeoning gig economy, have been introduced in Sacramento. Here is some of the latest, and most important, news about efforts to smooth over the malign effects of the law: ...
Blog
Worker Freedom No More
Love it or hate it, for a variety of reasons when California enacts public policy the impact is felt across the country. And so, it has been again with the January 1st implementation of California’s Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), the so called “gig employment” law that changes the worker status ...
Blog
CCPA, California Get It Wrong on Data Privacy
Data privacy is one of the defining public policy debates of the new decade. As other countries push data privacy regulation heralded as global standards, California is headed in the other direction with the rollout of the state’s Consumer Privacy Act, or the CCPA. Unfortunately, the CCPA was not a ...
Blog
A Ghost in the Machine?
In 1967 Arthur Koestler wrote The Ghost in the Machine, which was essentially a critique of the hypothesis that the human mind could be viewed as a machine, a sort of chemical computer. He went on to consider that if were a computer, then what of the metaphysical? That is, ...
Memo to Small Business: We’re from the government and we’re here to help
Across the state, main streets have gone from being closed to being boarded. For California entrepreneurs, doing business in the state has hit a new low. It’s too early to get insurance data on what the vandalism, arson, and looting has cost business owners across the state. Worse, because of ...
‘Fixing’ Assembly Bill 5: Better If It Never Existed At All
California’s Assembly Bill 5 has not been broken, but given a couple of recent developments, it might soon be showing some cracks. On May 20, Assembly Bill 1850, which would exempt some professions from AB5, a law that virtually outlaws independent contract work, was passed 7-0 by the Assembly Labor ...
The 6GHz Push Could Expand Innovation in California
Given that California has more than 33 million internet users, it is clear that the state loves its broadband access. And recent action from Washington, DC has the potential to make California’s online experience even better and inspire more innovation. According to Broadband Now, California ranks 13th in the country ...
Flummoxed Feds Freeze Out Frost Fix
Courtesy of the polar vortex, unseasonably cold temperatures came to a broad swath of the country, from Texas to Maine, last week, causing frost damage to crops and ornamental plants. (And snow in New York City’s Central Park on May 9). Cherry and other fruit trees are particularly susceptible, and losses ...
Is California Going To Open Without Newsom’s Approval?
Three California counties have earned the title of “free counties.” They “earned” the label for reopening ahead of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement that Phase 2 of the statewide reopening would begin soon. Some small businesses outside of the “free counties” of Modoc, Sutter, and Yuba, so designated by Press California, ...
Innovation Champion No More
Much is always written about “innovation.” How to manage it. How to inspire it. How to benefit from it. How to create an environment where it blooms. So much lip service is paid to innovation that unfortunately many people tune it out. Certainly, ignoring the value of an innovation environment, ...
California Assembly Bill 5: An Update
Nearly three dozen bills intended to revise or repeal Assembly Bill 5, which restricts workers’ freedom and could potentially kill the burgeoning gig economy, have been introduced in Sacramento. Here is some of the latest, and most important, news about efforts to smooth over the malign effects of the law: ...
Worker Freedom No More
Love it or hate it, for a variety of reasons when California enacts public policy the impact is felt across the country. And so, it has been again with the January 1st implementation of California’s Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), the so called “gig employment” law that changes the worker status ...
CCPA, California Get It Wrong on Data Privacy
Data privacy is one of the defining public policy debates of the new decade. As other countries push data privacy regulation heralded as global standards, California is headed in the other direction with the rollout of the state’s Consumer Privacy Act, or the CCPA. Unfortunately, the CCPA was not a ...
A Ghost in the Machine?
In 1967 Arthur Koestler wrote The Ghost in the Machine, which was essentially a critique of the hypothesis that the human mind could be viewed as a machine, a sort of chemical computer. He went on to consider that if were a computer, then what of the metaphysical? That is, ...
