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View from California

· 2 min read

Tonight's speakers for "Election 2012"'s talk "The View from California": Stanford University President John Hennessy, Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (D-CA), and Accel Partners' Theresia Gouw Ranzetta.

California

Confession of a Stanford Sloan Fellow Series EP30

Speakers:

General​

  • (Theresia) $2-3MM cost for complying with Sarbanes-Oxley Act for new IPO companies
  • (John) whoever in the White House will face one of the worst budget deficit ever
  • H1-B visa and DREAM Act was a big topic
  • Gouw was born in Indonesia, a first-generation American. I've seen a lot of excellent foreign-born English speakers and she has no accent whatsoever Amazing. She's well covered by major news media, such as Forbes' Midas List of Tech Top Investors and Times's Top Ten Most Influential Women in Technology.
  • (John) For many years Silicon Valley has been blessed with staying far away from Washington DC. Not anymore. Technology invented out of Silicon Valley has wielded such a tremendous impact on the entire American society that Silicon Valley needs to champion its own cause with a stronger voice in DC.

Privacy Issue​

  • (John) privacy information in credit card transactions vs privacy issues from Internet use. Any difference? No much.
  • (John) security issue is a much bigger issue than privacy
  • (John) opt-in vs opt-out (US vs Europe)... opt-in is better
  • (Anna) starting with children is easier
  • (Theresia) it's a very technically complicated issue for the congress/DC to tackle effectively. The moment DC creates some legislation regarding technology issues such as privacy, it'll become obsolete.
  • (Theresia) the evolution of patent law is a much more complicated issue than privacy. it's much more difficult to deal with patent officers in the Valley.

How Does Majority/Minority Work in the Congress?​

  • (Anna) if you are in the majority, be a senator as that's a very powerful position.
  • (Anna) tea party is bringing some insanity to science.
  • (Anna) ex-Speaker of the House Gingrich left his mark in the congress.

California's Initiative Process​

  • (David) US' constitution has amended by 17 times; while California's consitution , 100+ years younger, has been amended by more than 500 times.

Wonderful talk. There were many topics I just couldn't fully digest yet. Wish I had known more.