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PII 2011 Venture Forum Breakfast

November 15th, 2011
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This should be an interesting kick-off to a fascinating day. Disclosure: the breakfast at PII 2011 Venture Forum is sponsored by C-PET, the Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies. I hadn’t heard of this organization before today. It’s a think tank focusing on long term, transformative effects, how things fit together.

Nigel Cameron (President and CEO) notes that the gap between regular corporate culture and policy around emerging tech is large, with disparate cultures.

Jim Dempsey, Center for Democracy and Technology: works on issues affecting the Internet. There are lots of things that DC and Silicon Valley have in common: people come from all over the country, meritocracy, attraction of talent, people who are dedicated and have a vision, rapid response. DC is all about ideas. There is a culture clash among people who should be able to understand each other. DC got it right for initial policy framework for early Internet development. Now it’s under challenge.

Rebecca Lynn, Morgenthaler Ventures: She’s a VC, every company in her portfolio has a unique relationship with DC. About a year and half ago, she realized she needed to know how this all worked (then did so). Convened business competition pitch with entrepreneurs and policy makers.

Christine Peterson, Foresight Institute (started early with nanotech policy): Current (physical) arrangement of lobbyists in DC is “kind of nauseating.” Individual people are approachable. People here needed to learn the system in order to launch a rocket that the military would not shoot down. Genetic information isn’t seen as the people’s.

David Tennenhouse, New Venture Partners: work on spin-outs from corporates, has run the gamut of systems. The key interest in common between Silicon Valley and DC is innovation. DC depends on it for competitiveness, we (SV) live and breathe it. One problem: I do see two levels of engagement: 1) fly in and lobby then fly out (doesn’t do too much for long term), and 2) really influencing the agencies, agendas in an ongoing way. They can’t form agendas without substance from Silicon Valley.

Cameron: mostly wonderful people locked into a dysfunctional corporate culture–working while the ship goes down. Two questions: creative community is represented in DC by a mega technology companies (who represent too much of the past, therefore not inclined to shift the corporate culture). Lynn: Start-ups don’t have time to do this, they need to focus on their interests. Look where the money flows; people are rational actors. Hard for a VC to get behind innovation when the money in DC flows against them. Peterson: large tech companies do some wonderful things and use the word innovation, but the real deep innovation comes from small companies, competitors. Lynn: Salesforce was busy in Congress, it can be daunting to be representing a competing interest. Tennenhouse: Sources for innovation: Universities are largely government funded for research, large corporates start inventions but then spin out, scale things up. Need to make sure the invention parts stay in tact, keep government off backs of innovators. Dempsey: if goal is to promote innovation, it’s not likely to be a big company that will support it and you can’t just get the government out of the way (they facilitate). What are values that promote innovation, the Internet ecosystem? Communities can lobby for these principles.

Questions/Statements: Marcy: There’s a very different value system between policy makers in DC and working landscape in California. Need for startups to band together, need for agile legislation. John Gerard: divide is not cultural, it’s structural. What focuses our energy? Global trademarks (e.g., Facebook pages). Gene Cavanaugh: WIPO has it’s problems but that’s where international trademarks are done. He represents small inventors (lawyer). What he finds is process is contorted: government is only interested in grassroots efforts is if you don’t need the money. If you don’t, the gov will fund you. (Irony alert). Agrees that there’s a structural disconnect: DC gives lots of lip service to innovation but funds top-down. Ernie Te: telecom policy and Continental Divide: systematically saw a government mindset vs entrepreneurial mindset. Government has an illusion of control, decides policy A or B for reality A or B. People in the valley understand there’s more uncertainty, will allow different approaches to be taken. Jacky (SAP): she represents industry bodies in cloud competing, wrote a blog (post) about data crossing borders, job growth globally; there’s an opportunity can enable start-ups.

Lynn: I’m more practical. There are reasons people live in Silicon Valley, the way business is done is different. Need to figure out how DC works. They’re doing things that are more entrepreneurial, but the system is different. Hopefully we can work together. Tennenhouse: Comment about the role of uncertainty in innovation: looking back, development and success are unevenly accomplished. Acknowledging difference in cultures, some agencies (inside beltway, DARPA) should be figuring out how to do it, suggests partnership systems. Peterson: heard this from Peter Theil first: startup companies don’t have to start here, in nanotech, in Sinapore. These decisions are invisible to DC. How to make this more visible. Example: if you give up your US citizenship, you continue to pay taxes for 10 years. Braindrain if we disabled that? Lynn: cross-pollination of cultures. Bring people out here to help with translation. Dempsey: everybody is looking for failure? Unacceptable to say that 50% of R&D investments will fail. How to turn this around, make it work? Point is that failure is a successful strategy: try things that might not work is a definition of success (a Silicon Valley perspective). Think comprehensively, act incrementally. Cautiousness, conservativeness, unwillingness to try new things is a problem (DC). Cameron: it’s all about corporate culture. There are things that could be done. Get these guys (DC) to come to conferences here, get the thinking into their bloodstreams. It’s not so much about technology or process, but in DC all conversations are about debt. Look at what the questions are. We need to reshape what questions are being asked.

 

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Getting to know you

August 20th, 2009
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National ID cards and programs are problematic at best, and an ongoing nightmare for citizens and visitors alike when the programs are poorly designed. The U.S. government has made earlier attempts at developing such a program, which have failed. However, the dream lives on in the minds of certain government officials and representatives.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been following these efforts for years. EFF’s Richard Esguerra has a post, PASS ID: REAL ID Reanimated that offers an informed look at the latest effort to create the next version of a national identity card.

The PASS ID Act (S. 1261) seeks to make many of the same ineffectual, dangerous changes the REAL ID Act attempted to impose. Fundamentally, PASS ID operates on the same flawed premise of REAL ID — that requiring various “identity documents” (and storing that information in databases for later access) will magically make state drivers’ licenses more legitimate, which will in turn improve national security.

An ID card is only a small part of the picture. The government program that supports the card is where the devils live. I recommend to you Bruce Schneier’s testimony to the Senate on why this whole idea is seriously flawed.

Coaching moment: Have you ever filled out a form for a new service, at a web site or store, where the form asked for information that they might not have needed for the transaction you were seeking? Long forms that ask a lot of questions about you, your preferences, your income, and other personal information, are unnecessary. If you’re just buying something, why might the vendor need your income, your birthdate, or any information about other family members?

The fact is that they often don’t need it. They’re collecting information about you because they can, and because you might volunteer it. Even when certain information is marked as “required,” it might be in your best interest to think twice about doing business with companies that would be so invasive and demanding.

Treat your personal information on a “need to know” basis. What that means is don’t give out more information about yourself than you think the companies need to know in order to carry out the transaction. If the company or form require more information than you’re comfortable giving, think hard about your future well-being as a trade-off for today’s discount. Your mindfulness is a low-cost insurance on your future.

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