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@Aqua: I think that the Time magazine article does a good job of putting everything into perspective. It’s an enormous economy, and certainly some businesses won’t find the advantages California offers sufficient to offset the admittedly higher cost of doing business. You give examples of a contractor, a bakery company, and after market auto modifier, and Novellus, a company which makes chemical materials used in microchip manufacturing.
I was responding specifically to your statement that “California is fiscally, morally and intellectually bankrupt.” I might agree with you on the morally part of it and the state has a systemic problem of voters approving spending projects while putting into place laws which limit the ability of the state to pay for these spending projects (e.g. Proposition 13 and the 2/3 supermajority required to approve a state budget). But California is anything but intellectually bankrupt, and that’s why it’s going to continue to lead the nation with respect to creating entire new sectors of the economy.
It’s the greenest and most diverse state, the most globalized in general and most Asia-oriented in particular at a time when the world is heading in all those directions. It’s also an unparalleled engine of innovation, the mecca of high tech, biotech and now clean tech. In 2008, California’s wipeout economy attracted more venture capital than the rest of the nation combined.
California basically ratified the Kyoto Treaty. It’s an incubator to test the concept that strict environmental standards would be ruinous for the economy. We’ll see.
California also passed malpractice tort reform of the type being hyped as a cure for rising health care costs 30 years ago, while red state Texas only followed California’s lead in the last several years and the rest of the red state world is still ruled by the tort bar.
Not so intellectually bankrupt, methinks.
Driving fatality statistics, by the way, are based on fatalities per mile travelled, not on fatalities per time spent listening to Audiobooks. I am fortunate, however, to be self employed and to live 3 1/2 miles from where I work, a route which takes me only through suburban residential streets. I’m glad that you survived your motorcycle commuting, splitting the traffic lanes.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Patvann
14 years ago
@Larry
I was among the first 50 employees of Novellus. It was started by Brad Mattson, who went on to start Mattson Technologies, where I was the 5th employee. As an aside, they do not make chemicals, they make the machines used to make semiconductors, primarily Chemical Vapor Deposition tools. Because of the environ-laws, they can not even have a demonstration lab, even though they don’t do manufacturing like AMD or Intel, without having to pay huge fines. An invention of mine was tossed by Tegal because our lab put out the same CO2 as it took in…The invention would have removed thousands of tons of Florine from the air, but to these idiots, CO2 is worse, even if the net-gain of CO2 used in the process was the same. (Like soft-drinks are.)
They are leaving because taxes and the new environmental laws, just as is the reason Tegal, Mattson, Intel, and many others in the industry are leaving. At one time these industries employed hundreds of thousands, now it is a shell of it’s former self. Those “brains” left as well.
I also used to do construction. Because of the draconian environmental laws, the last remaining cement factory went under. Now all cement comes from a horribly-polluting factory in Mexico, and the cement prices doubled, thus affecting EVERYONE who uses the stuff, primarily the states of CA, AZ, OR, and Nevada.
Patvann
14 years ago
@Larry
I was among the first 50 employees of Novellus. It was started by Brad Mattson, who went on to start Mattson Technologies, where I was the 5th employee. As an aside, they do not make chemicals, they make the machines used to make semiconductors, primarily Chemical Vapor Deposition tools. Because of the environ-laws, they can not even have a demonstration lab, even though they don’t do manufacturing like AMD or Intel, without having to pay huge fines. An invention of mine was tossed by Tegal because our lab put out the same CO2 as it took in…The invention would have removed thousands of tons of Florine from the air, but to these idiots, CO2 is worse, even if the net-gain of CO2 used in the process was zero. (Like soft-drinks are.)
They are leaving because taxes and the new environmental laws, just as is the reason Tegal, Mattson, Intel, and many others in the industry are leaving. At one time these industries employed hundreds of thousands, now it is a shell of it’s former self. Those “brains” left as well.
I also used to do construction. Because of the draconian environmental laws, the last remaining cement factory went under. Now all cement comes from a horribly-polluting factory in Mexico, and the cement prices doubled, thus affecting EVERYONE who uses the stuff, primarily the states of CA, AZ, OR, and Nevada.
CO2 paranoia is the biggest scam ever foisted on the planet.
Thanks for relating your personal experience. Certainly very relevant to the present conversation! Hope that you got a good option package and had the chance to exercise them.
With regard to CO2, there are issues which go beyond climate change. One issue is that the era of cheap fossil fuels is coming to an end. Some nations and some states may fare better than others, if they prepare for this. Virtually everything which reduces CO2 has side benefits: less foreign oil, preservation of domestic oil reserves, reduced pollution by other gases, creation of new technologies and industries based on these technologies.
Another issue, which absolutely no one talks about is that humans did not evolve to breathe the levels of CO2 which we are now breathing. Our bodies utilize a bicarbonate/CO2 buffering system, and increasing CO2 produces more acid in our bodies, which must be buffered, and this changes our bioenergetics at the cellular level. Humans (homo sapiens) have never lived with CO2 levels where they are today, and they are continuing to rise with each year. We have no idea what this may mean for human health, disease, fertility, etc. For example, the effect of chronic CO2 exposure on development of cancers has hardly been studied at all, even in experimental animal tumors. And there are reasons for potential concern, e.g.
1. Chest. 1997 Sep;112(3):779-84.
Carbon dioxide, an important messenger molecule for small cell lung cancer.
Merryman JI, Park PG, Schuller HM.
Carcinogenesis and Developmental Therapeutics Program, University of Tennessee, Knoxville 37996-4500, USA.
Chronic nonneoplastic lung diseases that impair pulmonary oxygenation while
increasing the levels of intrapulmonary carbon dioxide (CO2) are a documented
risk factor for the development of lung cancer in smokers and nonsmokers. Using
established cell lines derived from human small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and
non-small cell lung carcinoma, our experiments demonstrated that elevated CO2
concentrations in the range of those found in the diseased lung selectively
stimulated the proliferation of SCLC but not adenocarcinoma or squamous cell
carcinoma. The proliferative response of SCLC cells involved activation of the
mitogen-activated protein kinases ERK-1 and ERK-2, as well as the p70 ribosomal
S6 kinase and the stimulation of an autocrine serotonergic loop. Kinase
activation was unrelated to changes in intracellular pH. We concluded that CO2 is
an important messenger molecule for SCLC which may contribute significantly to
the high lung cancer burden observed in individuals with chronic lung disease, by
the activation of kinases which play a central role as downstream effectors of
many growth factor-stimulated mitogenic pathways.
We do know that there are unexplained increases in certain cancers (e.g. non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma) and declining sperm counts and increasing autism and on and on.
It will probably take decades to confirm, refute, establish causality, refute causality, etc. In the meantime, CO2 keeps going up and up.
What we have going on now is the largest human guinea-pig experiment in human history, and it is anything but conservative to allow this experiment to continue.
Well, that does it for me. I give up. I’m going to go debate my rug. I think I stand a better chance of getting through.
One last thing though Larry. The brain-trust is leaving Cali. No one in their right mind would start up a business there. Business is in the business of making money, not having it removed by the government. If government doesn’t allow our businesses to do the things that make money, they will go somewhere that will. It sounds like Patvann’s company was doing something that might have helped the enviornment with net zero carbon production, but that was just to much for the Berkley Bunch.
No one in their right mind would start up a business there.
Funny that the total amount of venture capital investment in California (10% of the US population) last year was greater than the combined VC investment in the other 49 states (90% of the US population).
Let’s send the psychiatric care emergency response unit up to Sand Hill Road, Palo Alto, CA. Lot of billionaires there who aren’t in their right minds.
– Larry W (aka “The Rug”)/Huntington Beach, CA
Skookum
14 years ago
Larry W, I am not sure why you mentioned the residents of Sand Hill Road, but I have many customers scattered along that road and on into Woodside and Menlo. Let’s say you need to be an enduring and compassionate person to work for the country gentry type billionaires. Although there are some very genuine people among them, most of the locals are Liberals. Do you care to elaborate on the phenomenon of the wealthiest people in the world who either raped the earth or their “folks” ( to quote BHO ) did and now they are going to make the rest of us pay for their past transgressions with Draconian measures to keep us from enjoying life or building wealth. Like whores in church, they can become the most self-righteous and sanctimonious among us, we the more humble sinners.
I will be there in a couple of weeks, after twenty years of working for them, insight from a worldly and knowledgeable Liberal might come in handy while I tabulate their invoices.
If you detect notes of sarcasm, that’s good, I am always trying to improve my writing.
Yes Larry, with your vast knowledge of biochemistry, perhaps you can enlighten the humble and feeble among us who wonder at the peculiar traits of the carbon atom that facilitate life and whose presence on earth is the main ingredient for life to exist.
We weren’t talking political ideology; we were talking high tech, biotech, and greentech. We are talking about where the people who are investing in America’s future are putting their money. More of that money is going into a state with 10% of America’s population than in the rest of the country combined. This was stated in response to Aqua’s assertion that “no one in their right mind would start up a business there.” Well, that’s were most of the new businesses in the tech fields are being started. And the tech fields are the world’s future; so if America is to stay competitive with the world, it’s going to be because of California.
Sure, we’ll lose some bakeries and some manufacturing — at the margins. We sure won’t lose construction, although some contractors may find it more profitable to work elsewhere. So we’ll have some bakers and manufacturing workers leaving the state (although the net population of the state is still growing). Say goodbye to the past and say hello to the future.
I’ve been in business in CA in the private sector for 22 years now, since leaving my academic job. I couldn’t have gotten started and survived elsewhere; fossilized Red State brains certainly would never have given me the chance. Too conservative. Conservative about politics; conservative about business. To change paradigms, you have to push the envelope. Nowhere does the envelope get stretched as much as it does here.
Just got a recent teeny bit of a shout out, by the way, on the blog of a minor celeb:
Where’s Nagourney located, by the way? Also in California.
The point is that if you want to do something new, this is still the best place to do it.
With regard to your question about carbon:
Yes Larry, with your vast knowledge of biochemistry, perhaps you can enlighten the humble and feeble among us who wonder at the peculiar traits of the carbon atom that facilitate life and whose presence on earth is the main ingredient for life to exist.
I don’t understand what you are asking. You want to be enlightened about — precisely what?
I couldn’t have gotten started and survived elsewhere; fossilized Red State brains certainly would never have given me the chance. Too conservative. Conservative about politics; conservative about business. To change paradigms, you have to push the envelope. Nowhere does the envelope get stretched as much as it does here.
“Fossilized Red State Brains?” Wow!. I don’t really stay on top of all the medical research going on out there, just as I’m sure telecommunications technology isn’t at the top of your list of things to read up on. But down here in lil ole Georgia, we have a little place called Emory University. You may have heard of it. Started up by fossilized Methodist Episcopal brains. Emory may have made a scientific contribution here and there. /And I know, the doctors and scientists may live in fossilized brain Georgia, but they are liberals because they are academics. /sarc.
Funny that the total amount of venture capital investment in California (10% of the US population) last year was greater than the combined VC investment in the other 49 states (90% of the US population).
Yep, you’re right. http://www.ssti.org/vc/index.php
Just barely, but nonetheless impressive. I checked out some other websites and it seems silicone valley reigns supreme. I’ll retract my intellectual bankrupt statement as it relates to the brain trust in Cali, but leave it in place as it pertains to the politicians.
Apple Computer has expanded in other states, most recently with a $1 billion facility planned for North Carolina.
I wouldn’t expect that from Steve Jobs. But if you look through the list, it’s not just bakeries and manufacturing.
I gotta get back to the books. I’m trying to pursue my Master’s degree. But my fossilized brain has been out of school for too long and I have to take some prereqs. Which is the schools way of saying they want some of my money before they will allow me to participate in their program. They sure are some greedy liberal academics out there. You’d think the road to enlightenment would be free. 😉
Apple Computer has expanded in other states, most recently with a $1 billion facility planned for North Carolina.
I wouldn’t expect that from Steve Jobs. But if you look through the list, it’s not just bakeries and manufacturing.
Here’s where you and I are having a failure to communicate. Apple Computer is an enormous, well-established company, in an enormous, well-established industry. They are about as mainstream as you can get. They are large and diverse, and no doubt certain of their activities would be placed advantageously in environments outside of Cupertino.
It’s the difference between discovery, on one hand, and investigation, on the other. Investigation is an incremental, one step advance. It makes up 98% of all research, including University research at places like Emory. Investigative research is built on the shoulders of giants. It is low risk, as it is based on established paradigms. Discovery is a multistep advance, which creates new paradigms. It is very high risk. It has the appearance of disorganization, oftentimes, as the discoverer seeks to create a new paradigm.
This is the essence of California, in virtually all aspects of life. From lifestyle, to entertainment, to business. People taking risks to create new paradigms and having the true societal freedom to be given enough rope to hang themselves. This kind of thinking is supported in business in California as in nowhere else that I know. It shouldn’t be at all surprising that the venture capitalists who support these sort of businesses might also trend to have liberal politics.
I had an interesting debate on this blog some months ago about why academics tend to be liberal politically and why people with post-graduate college degrees trend Democratic by a 60-40 margin. There is this concept among conservatives that there is discrimination against conservatives in academia and this explains the liberal stranglehood there. But I pointed out that post-graduate academics is about discovery and that, even in disciplines such as science and engineering, university faculties are disproportionately liberal. By definition, conservatives are not looking to do things in new ways. By definition, liberals (who often like to be referred to as progressives) are very open to changing the status quo. This extends to judges, as well as to Presidents, legislators, and voters. It also extends to venture capitalists, trying to create new sectors of the economy.
Conservatism has great virtues, in daily life, in business, in politics, and even in science.
But SOMEONE has to be willing to take risks and in SOMEPLACE there has to be an environment supportive of risk taking. No state is as open to new ideas and as supportive of risk taking as California. Coupled with all of the other state resources, described in the referenced Time Magazine article, it is understandable that California will continue to lead the nation in the creation of the technology businesses of tomorrow, for the foreseeable future.
@Aqua: I think that the Time magazine article does a good job of putting everything into perspective. It’s an enormous economy, and certainly some businesses won’t find the advantages California offers sufficient to offset the admittedly higher cost of doing business. You give examples of a contractor, a bakery company, and after market auto modifier, and Novellus, a company which makes chemical materials used in microchip manufacturing.
I was responding specifically to your statement that “California is fiscally, morally and intellectually bankrupt.” I might agree with you on the morally part of it and the state has a systemic problem of voters approving spending projects while putting into place laws which limit the ability of the state to pay for these spending projects (e.g. Proposition 13 and the 2/3 supermajority required to approve a state budget). But California is anything but intellectually bankrupt, and that’s why it’s going to continue to lead the nation with respect to creating entire new sectors of the economy.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1931582,00.html#ixzz0W0YP3tRi
California basically ratified the Kyoto Treaty. It’s an incubator to test the concept that strict environmental standards would be ruinous for the economy. We’ll see.
California also passed malpractice tort reform of the type being hyped as a cure for rising health care costs 30 years ago, while red state Texas only followed California’s lead in the last several years and the rest of the red state world is still ruled by the tort bar.
Not so intellectually bankrupt, methinks.
Driving fatality statistics, by the way, are based on fatalities per mile travelled, not on fatalities per time spent listening to Audiobooks. I am fortunate, however, to be self employed and to live 3 1/2 miles from where I work, a route which takes me only through suburban residential streets. I’m glad that you survived your motorcycle commuting, splitting the traffic lanes.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@Larry
I was among the first 50 employees of Novellus. It was started by Brad Mattson, who went on to start Mattson Technologies, where I was the 5th employee. As an aside, they do not make chemicals, they make the machines used to make semiconductors, primarily Chemical Vapor Deposition tools. Because of the environ-laws, they can not even have a demonstration lab, even though they don’t do manufacturing like AMD or Intel, without having to pay huge fines. An invention of mine was tossed by Tegal because our lab put out the same CO2 as it took in…The invention would have removed thousands of tons of Florine from the air, but to these idiots, CO2 is worse, even if the net-gain of CO2 used in the process was the same. (Like soft-drinks are.)
They are leaving because taxes and the new environmental laws, just as is the reason Tegal, Mattson, Intel, and many others in the industry are leaving. At one time these industries employed hundreds of thousands, now it is a shell of it’s former self. Those “brains” left as well.
I also used to do construction. Because of the draconian environmental laws, the last remaining cement factory went under. Now all cement comes from a horribly-polluting factory in Mexico, and the cement prices doubled, thus affecting EVERYONE who uses the stuff, primarily the states of CA, AZ, OR, and Nevada.
@Larry
I was among the first 50 employees of Novellus. It was started by Brad Mattson, who went on to start Mattson Technologies, where I was the 5th employee. As an aside, they do not make chemicals, they make the machines used to make semiconductors, primarily Chemical Vapor Deposition tools. Because of the environ-laws, they can not even have a demonstration lab, even though they don’t do manufacturing like AMD or Intel, without having to pay huge fines. An invention of mine was tossed by Tegal because our lab put out the same CO2 as it took in…The invention would have removed thousands of tons of Florine from the air, but to these idiots, CO2 is worse, even if the net-gain of CO2 used in the process was zero. (Like soft-drinks are.)
They are leaving because taxes and the new environmental laws, just as is the reason Tegal, Mattson, Intel, and many others in the industry are leaving. At one time these industries employed hundreds of thousands, now it is a shell of it’s former self. Those “brains” left as well.
I also used to do construction. Because of the draconian environmental laws, the last remaining cement factory went under. Now all cement comes from a horribly-polluting factory in Mexico, and the cement prices doubled, thus affecting EVERYONE who uses the stuff, primarily the states of CA, AZ, OR, and Nevada.
CO2 paranoia is the biggest scam ever foisted on the planet.
@Patvann:
Thanks for relating your personal experience. Certainly very relevant to the present conversation! Hope that you got a good option package and had the chance to exercise them.
With regard to CO2, there are issues which go beyond climate change. One issue is that the era of cheap fossil fuels is coming to an end. Some nations and some states may fare better than others, if they prepare for this. Virtually everything which reduces CO2 has side benefits: less foreign oil, preservation of domestic oil reserves, reduced pollution by other gases, creation of new technologies and industries based on these technologies.
Another issue, which absolutely no one talks about is that humans did not evolve to breathe the levels of CO2 which we are now breathing. Our bodies utilize a bicarbonate/CO2 buffering system, and increasing CO2 produces more acid in our bodies, which must be buffered, and this changes our bioenergetics at the cellular level. Humans (homo sapiens) have never lived with CO2 levels where they are today, and they are continuing to rise with each year. We have no idea what this may mean for human health, disease, fertility, etc. For example, the effect of chronic CO2 exposure on development of cancers has hardly been studied at all, even in experimental animal tumors. And there are reasons for potential concern, e.g.
1. Chest. 1997 Sep;112(3):779-84.
We do know that there are unexplained increases in certain cancers (e.g. non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma) and declining sperm counts and increasing autism and on and on.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ReproductiveHealth/story?id=3451404&page=1&page=1
It will probably take decades to confirm, refute, establish causality, refute causality, etc. In the meantime, CO2 keeps going up and up.
What we have going on now is the largest human guinea-pig experiment in human history, and it is anything but conservative to allow this experiment to continue.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@ openid.aol.com/runnswim (Larry)
Well, that does it for me. I give up. I’m going to go debate my rug. I think I stand a better chance of getting through.
One last thing though Larry. The brain-trust is leaving Cali. No one in their right mind would start up a business there. Business is in the business of making money, not having it removed by the government. If government doesn’t allow our businesses to do the things that make money, they will go somewhere that will. It sounds like Patvann’s company was doing something that might have helped the enviornment with net zero carbon production, but that was just to much for the Berkley Bunch.
@Aqua:
Funny that the total amount of venture capital investment in California (10% of the US population) last year was greater than the combined VC investment in the other 49 states (90% of the US population).
Let’s send the psychiatric care emergency response unit up to Sand Hill Road, Palo Alto, CA. Lot of billionaires there who aren’t in their right minds.
– Larry W (aka “The Rug”)/Huntington Beach, CA
Larry W, I am not sure why you mentioned the residents of Sand Hill Road, but I have many customers scattered along that road and on into Woodside and Menlo. Let’s say you need to be an enduring and compassionate person to work for the country gentry type billionaires. Although there are some very genuine people among them, most of the locals are Liberals. Do you care to elaborate on the phenomenon of the wealthiest people in the world who either raped the earth or their “folks” ( to quote BHO ) did and now they are going to make the rest of us pay for their past transgressions with Draconian measures to keep us from enjoying life or building wealth. Like whores in church, they can become the most self-righteous and sanctimonious among us, we the more humble sinners.
I will be there in a couple of weeks, after twenty years of working for them, insight from a worldly and knowledgeable Liberal might come in handy while I tabulate their invoices.
If you detect notes of sarcasm, that’s good, I am always trying to improve my writing.
Yes Larry, with your vast knowledge of biochemistry, perhaps you can enlighten the humble and feeble among us who wonder at the peculiar traits of the carbon atom that facilitate life and whose presence on earth is the main ingredient for life to exist.
@snookum
We weren’t talking political ideology; we were talking high tech, biotech, and greentech. We are talking about where the people who are investing in America’s future are putting their money. More of that money is going into a state with 10% of America’s population than in the rest of the country combined. This was stated in response to Aqua’s assertion that “no one in their right mind would start up a business there.” Well, that’s were most of the new businesses in the tech fields are being started. And the tech fields are the world’s future; so if America is to stay competitive with the world, it’s going to be because of California.
Sure, we’ll lose some bakeries and some manufacturing — at the margins. We sure won’t lose construction, although some contractors may find it more profitable to work elsewhere. So we’ll have some bakers and manufacturing workers leaving the state (although the net population of the state is still growing). Say goodbye to the past and say hello to the future.
I’ve been in business in CA in the private sector for 22 years now, since leaving my academic job. I couldn’t have gotten started and survived elsewhere; fossilized Red State brains certainly would never have given me the chance. Too conservative. Conservative about politics; conservative about business. To change paradigms, you have to push the envelope. Nowhere does the envelope get stretched as much as it does here.
Just got a recent teeny bit of a shout out, by the way, on the blog of a minor celeb:
http://www.suzannesomers.com/Blog/post/Chemosensitivity-Tests-e28093-Why-Does-Big-Pharma-Know-About-Them-and-WE-Done28099t.aspx
Where’s Nagourney located, by the way? Also in California.
The point is that if you want to do something new, this is still the best place to do it.
With regard to your question about carbon:
I don’t understand what you are asking. You want to be enlightened about — precisely what?
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@ openid.aol.com/runnswim (Larry)
“Fossilized Red State Brains?” Wow!. I don’t really stay on top of all the medical research going on out there, just as I’m sure telecommunications technology isn’t at the top of your list of things to read up on. But down here in lil ole Georgia, we have a little place called Emory University. You may have heard of it. Started up by fossilized Methodist Episcopal brains. Emory may have made a scientific contribution here and there. /And I know, the doctors and scientists may live in fossilized brain Georgia, but they are liberals because they are academics. /sarc.
Yep, you’re right. http://www.ssti.org/vc/index.php
Just barely, but nonetheless impressive. I checked out some other websites and it seems silicone valley reigns supreme. I’ll retract my intellectual bankrupt statement as it relates to the brain trust in Cali, but leave it in place as it pertains to the politicians.
But you may find this site interesting. http://bizleavingcalifornia.blogspot.com/2009/10/californias-hostility-to-business-56.html
This one got my attention:
I wouldn’t expect that from Steve Jobs. But if you look through the list, it’s not just bakeries and manufacturing.
I gotta get back to the books. I’m trying to pursue my Master’s degree. But my fossilized brain has been out of school for too long and I have to take some prereqs. Which is the schools way of saying they want some of my money before they will allow me to participate in their program. They sure are some greedy liberal academics out there. You’d think the road to enlightenment would be free. 😉
@Aqua:
Here’s where you and I are having a failure to communicate. Apple Computer is an enormous, well-established company, in an enormous, well-established industry. They are about as mainstream as you can get. They are large and diverse, and no doubt certain of their activities would be placed advantageously in environments outside of Cupertino.
It’s the difference between discovery, on one hand, and investigation, on the other. Investigation is an incremental, one step advance. It makes up 98% of all research, including University research at places like Emory. Investigative research is built on the shoulders of giants. It is low risk, as it is based on established paradigms. Discovery is a multistep advance, which creates new paradigms. It is very high risk. It has the appearance of disorganization, oftentimes, as the discoverer seeks to create a new paradigm.
This is the essence of California, in virtually all aspects of life. From lifestyle, to entertainment, to business. People taking risks to create new paradigms and having the true societal freedom to be given enough rope to hang themselves. This kind of thinking is supported in business in California as in nowhere else that I know. It shouldn’t be at all surprising that the venture capitalists who support these sort of businesses might also trend to have liberal politics.
I had an interesting debate on this blog some months ago about why academics tend to be liberal politically and why people with post-graduate college degrees trend Democratic by a 60-40 margin. There is this concept among conservatives that there is discrimination against conservatives in academia and this explains the liberal stranglehood there. But I pointed out that post-graduate academics is about discovery and that, even in disciplines such as science and engineering, university faculties are disproportionately liberal. By definition, conservatives are not looking to do things in new ways. By definition, liberals (who often like to be referred to as progressives) are very open to changing the status quo. This extends to judges, as well as to Presidents, legislators, and voters. It also extends to venture capitalists, trying to create new sectors of the economy.
Conservatism has great virtues, in daily life, in business, in politics, and even in science.
But SOMEONE has to be willing to take risks and in SOMEPLACE there has to be an environment supportive of risk taking. No state is as open to new ideas and as supportive of risk taking as California. Coupled with all of the other state resources, described in the referenced Time Magazine article, it is understandable that California will continue to lead the nation in the creation of the technology businesses of tomorrow, for the foreseeable future.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA