Congress

As we come to the end of a particularly noisy and contentious election cycle, a thought echoes over and over in my mind – we need more entrepreneurs in Congress. As I continue to believe that innovation and entrepreneurship are the key drivers to our economic future, it’s frustrating to hear such little cogent discussion around it. I recently got a call from a long time friend, Martin Babinec. Martin is running for Congress in Upstate New York (District 22) as an Independent . We met in 1991 when Martin had just started his company (TriNet – now a public company) and Feld Technologies (my first company) was a dozen people. We’ve been friends ever since and when he told me he was running for Congress, I smiled, gave him feedback, and listened to his reasoning. ...

I’m gearing up for a long series of posts about the various books I read on my month off on Bora Bora. In the mean time, I read a bunch of stuff online this morning (from Friday through today) and thought I’d give you a taste of some of it in case you feel like digging in. I started with How Reading Transforms Us . It’s a good frame setting piece about some new research on the impact of reading – both fiction and non-fiction – on humans. There is a pleasant surprise in there about how non-fiction influences us. ...

My partner Jason has a longer post up on Senate Bill 1933, but I’m supporting S. 1933, otherwise known as “Re-opening American Capital Markets To Emerging Growth Companies Act.” In short, this act would allow for an IPO on-ramp that would minimize costly and burdensome regulation on smaller offerings. If you have contacts in the Senate, now is the time to let them know that you support it too.

Yesterday I was with yet another non-US entrepreneur who is struggling to get the right visa to stay in the US and build his company here. This entrepreneur happens to be from England and his business partner (and best friend since they were kids) is also English, but managed to get into the US because he fell in love with and married and America a while ago. The business partner lives in Denver so they started the company in Denver a year or so ago. ...

There are two very disturbing bills making their way through Congress: Protect IP Act (PIPA – S.968 ) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA – H.R.3261 ). These bills are coated in rhetoric that I find disgusting since at their core they are online censorship bills. It’s incredible to me that Congress would take seriously anything that censors the Internet and the American public but in the last few weeks PIPA and SOPA have burst forth with incredibly momentum, largely being underwritten by large media companies and their lobbyists. ...

I’m really proud of my Congressman Jared Polis. Jared was one of the first people I met when I moved to Colorado in 1995 (we met in early 1996) and have been good friends ever since. Jared has a great article about his first few weeks in Congress up on the CNN website titled Commentary: Congress is like going back to college . There’s also a fun video. Jared – you look very serious in that suit and tie.