Category: Entrepreneurs and Innovation
-
Amazon in Northern Virginia: 5 Positives
1-The Future. In 2011 Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape, wrote an essay for the Wall Street Journal titled, “Why Software is Eating the World.” The eight years since Andreessen’s essay was published have served to vindicate, validate and verify the accuracy of his thesis. Yet while software eats the world, it doesn’t necessarily dine in the…
-
How Walkable Urbanism and the Talent Pipeline Won the Amazon Deal
More information is coming out about the wheeling and dealing behind Virginia’s incentive package that coaxed Amazon, Inc., to locate a $2.5 billion campus in Northern Virginia. It turns out that many of the key pieces in Virginia’s incentive package were initiatives that had been in the works for years. Virginia is putting resources into…
-
Dissecting Virginia’s Amazon Deal
Virginia has committed to investing a sum unprecedented for an economic development deal in the Commonwealth — roughly $2.5 billion in state and local dollars to bring Amazon, Inc. to Northern Virginia. In a presentation to the House Appropriations Committee yesterday, Stephen Moret, CEO of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) provided a detailed account…
-
Safety Training for Offshore Wind Workers?
Who knows if and when Virginia will ever build a dynamic wind-power industry, but at least one aspiring entrepreneur wants to make Virginia Beach the location of the East Coast’s first safety training facility for wind industry workers. Scott Chierepko, a retired Navy Seal, wants to break ground on a 25-acres facility complete with a…
-
Will Virginia Legalize Recreational Marijuana Use?
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68cbjlLFl4U&w=500&h=288] High times today. The marijuana legalization wave is beginning to wash over North America. Nine states (WA, OR, CA, NV, CO, MA, VT, ME and AK) along with the District of Columbia have legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Well over 20% of Americans now live in states which have legalized recreational marijuana…
-
Predictions of Coal’s Demise a Tad Premature
As a teenager E. Morgan Massey worked a summer job in the West Virginia coalfields as an assistant “field man.” He traveled around with Stuart Andrews (father of the late state Senate Finance Chair Hunter Andrews), keeping tabs on coal mining operations represented by his grandfather’s coal sales company, the Richmond-based A.T. Massey Coal Company. That…
-
AI – Nirvana or Apocalypse (for Virginia)?
Smells like tech spirit – Artificial Intelligence may be on its way to becoming the buzziest buzz-term in the buzzword laden history of the buzz-o-sphere. No prior trend has engendered the societal debate that AI has sparked. Scientists, billionaires, politicians, poets, priests, butchers, bakers and candlestick makers have all gotten into the game. Ok, the candlestick maker reference was hogwash but give that industry…
-
Huzzah for Middle-Aged Startup Entrepreneurs
Many communities are obsessed with making themselves attractive locations for Millennials on the theory that recruiting and retaining skilled and educated young workers will boost the entrepreneurial economy. Come to think of it, I might have contributed to that line of thinking. But maybe localities should be appealing to an older crowd. Successful start-up entrepreneurs…
-
Virginia Small Business Rating: Fair to Middling
Yesterday I opined on the critical importance of tax rates in influencing the flow of corporate and human capital between the states (“Supply Siders Like Virginia’s Economic Outlook“). But I made the point that taxes are hardly the only factor driving economic growth. Another important variable is entrepreneurial vitality — the ability of states and…
-
21st Century Wealth Creation: block.one
Nine years ago Dan Larimer was broke, living with his parents, driving a 2001 Nissan Altima, and recovering from a messy divorce. Today Forbes magazine estimates his net worth at $600 million. The source of the 35-year-old Virginia Tech graduate’s fortune? Crypto-currency. As the Roanoke Times‘ Jacob Dimmit tells the story, when Larimer was down…
-
This Bitcoin Mania Is out of Control
If people want to invest in bitcoin, or invent competing cryptocurrencies, or dedicate their computers to “mining” bitcoin by solving computationally difficult puzzles, well, it’s a free country and they can do what they want. As a political-policy commentator, I would never advocate banning such endeavors. As a social commentator, I am moved to ask,…
-
The Promise of Personalized Medicine
Personalized medicine is the new frontier of healthcare. DNA testing has become so inexpensive that it is now practical to develop wellness regimes tailored to peoples’ individual genomes. Virginia’s biggest endeavor in this field is taking place in Northern Virginia under the auspices of Inova Health System’s Center for Personalized Health. But another approach to…
-
The Airbnb Dilemma: Regulate or Not?
Airbnb, the website that allows homeowners to rent rooms and houses for short periods, no longer occupies an obscure niche in the Virginia lodging marketplace. The company is capturing a disproportionate share of growth in lodging industry rooms and revenues, and it depresses the ability of hotels to raise rates during periods of peak demand,…
-
Celebrating Creativity at the Makerfest
After watching too much cable TV news, I get really depressed about America. But I’ve found a tonic: Attend an art show, craft fair or a makerfest to connect with real people doing real things. The creativity, imagination and craftsmanship on display are a delight to behold. Yesterday I spent a half day at the RVA…
-
A Patch in Time Saves Nine
The WannaCry and Petya cyber-assaults on banks, airports and other businesses in Europe in May used a vulnerability in Microsoft software to infect machines and spread around the world. Microsoft had issued a patch to close the back door months earlier, but many users never installed the update. Ironically, when Microsoft creates a software patch,…