Now that the election is over, we hit up some of the smartest, hungriest folks in tech to get their wishlist for the next four years with Obama running the show. From immigration reform to education and an end to partisan gridlock, tech entrepreneurs will be demanding a lot of the president in his next term. Nerd cred or not, it’s clear Obama needs to deliver to keep the tech economy vibrant, and the startup world’s most creative minds making a beeline to the United States.
1. Get to Work on Immigration Reform
Kevin Hartz, CEO Eventbrite
Technology has made the world a much smaller and more open place. It’s also been a clear economic growth driver. As such, immigration reform to help attract talent worldwide, and incentives to new businesses to drive growth are top of mind. Either way, the innovation economy makes unequivocal positive impact independent of politics.
Naval Ravikant, founder AngelList
Passing the Startup Visa would be incredible. It would help us import more scarce technical talent. We need to separate the skilled and unskilled immigration debate. Pushing educational initiatives into technical education would also be good. What’s going on right now is that, as Dilbert creator Scott Adams put it, “the smart are getting richer” – mostly through huge leverage in the form of cloud computing, smartphones, open source, etc. Declaring a war on the rich could spill over into the smart. The better solution is to create a more technically leveraged workforce.
Other than that, don’t mess with the current system too much. I’d leave the rest of the system as is. One thing I am concerned about is that politicians are so intent on punishing bankers and private equity funds for the 2008 crash that they’re going to increase taxes and financial red-tape on entrepreneurs along the way.
2. Set Some Policies on Privacy and Personal Data
Andy Hickl, co-founder and president Saga
I really hope that the next administration is going to have something to say about how companies handle personal data. Tech companies are swimming in personal data collected from their users — and users are only too eager to fork over some bit of private info to get their hands on the latest app or gadget. Many tech companies are doing the right thing and taking extra steps to safeguard their users’ data. But how much is enough? What’s the gold standard? Until we get some Federal framework in place that lays out how companies should safeguard personal data, it’s still going to be the Wild West.
Anthony Goldbloom, CEO of Kaggle
As a data company that does work in healthcare, HIPAA, the legislation that attempts to protect patient privacy, does far more harm than good. It does not fully protect patient privacy, while making it difficult for medical researchers to access the data that might contain life-saving insights, and for healthcare companies to use predictive modeling (a great tool for supporting preventative medicine). HIPAA should be reworked to better support getting insights out of medical data. In practice, it’s almost impossible to fully protect patient privacy anyway
A nice-to-have would be measures that simplify the administrative burdens involved in running a company. For instance, we have employees in California, Indiana and New Jersey. We file tax returns in each jurisdiction and have different obligations to our employees in different jurisdiction. Streamlining this process is not something a president can do alone, but it’s unlikely to happen without a presidential push.
Narges Bani Asadi, CEO, Bina Technologies
Those of us at the intersection of big data and genomics are also very concerned about privacy mandates. The genomics revolution must define “clear policies” on who can access and use whole genome data – including health insurance providers and third-party data storage companies such as “cloud computing”
services.
The Obama administration may indeed need to influence the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects patients’ medical information, or the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which is intended to prevent employers and insurance companies from misusing genetic data. Additionally, patients need to be informed about what it means to have their genome sequenced– who can access their data, how it might be used, and the consequences of specific test results.
3. Better Math and Science Education, and More Funding for Research
Jeff Bonforte, CEO, Xobni
Obama should prioritize research and development in fundamental, long time-frame science areas like space, environmental preservation and recovery, energy, materials, etc. This has many benefits, but the most important are to inspire the next generations of entrepreneurs, inventors and innovation. Disruption begets disruption. Core improvements in these areas drive massive innovation downstream. For example, fund internet development and you get Google, et al. Fund energy breakthroughs and we will see massive improvements in computing ubiquity and power.
For the short term, citizens that are safe, healthy, educated and well-employed provide fertile markets for both existing players and new entrants alike. But massive imbalances of wealth distribution ultimately makes these goals impossible, and undermines startup markets.
Dean Rotchin, president and CEO, Blackjet
BlackJet’s biggest issue right now is talent, and we are not alone. I believe Obama’s clear focus on education, especially in math and science is critical for solving this problem in the long term.
Real wealth creation results from finding and developing new and better solutions. So, the idea of cutting education in public schools, universities and research institutions would be antithetical to solving our problems. In fact, cuts to education and research could be catastrophic for the tech industry, which is for the most part a function of the skills of our workforce. Adversely affect the education system, and the tech industry suffers and wealth creation suffers as well. We need a political approach that promotes education and research in order to cultivate talent, encourage the talent to stay in the U.S., and help grow our advantages in technology.
4. Political Reform, and an End to Partisan Bickering
Chris C. Kemp, co-founder and CEO of Nebula.
Today, a gap is widening between how citizens interact with society, businesses, and each other and how they interact with their government. Never before has it been easier to richly interact with every person you’ve ever known, every company and brand you interact with. In Barack Obama’s second term, government agencies should be “re-booted” and “re-tooled” to interact directly with citizens through the web, social, and mobile applications that have become so ubiquitous in our lives. They need to retool their infrastructures to support direct engagement with citizens and more efficient execution of their missions.
Jason Cavnar, co-founder and CEO, Singly
As a citizen, I am looking for a leader who will actually lead. The U.S. political climate has reached an unacceptable and unsustainable point of stagnation and contentiousness. We sit at the crossroads of major historical shifts and we are not, as a nation, capitalizing on them, let alone leading in them. We are seeing huge economic, intellectual and spending capital springing up in what were previously third-world countries. And security, liberty and information access are all colliding forces that require speed and intellect. So leadership, boldness and intelligence are at a premium.
Peter Caparso, president Adyen
The bottom line is that we need someone to cross over party lines and create bipartisanship cooperation to get the economy moving. There has been so much bickering between the two parties that has led to minimal growth that for the sake of the country we need to put aside differences. As a fast-growing tech company, it is paramount that we have an environment where businesses can invest and grow without fear of financial contraction.
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The 8 Missions That Should Dominate Obama's Technology Agenda
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The 8 Missions That Should Dominate Obama's Technology Agenda
