States gear up to work on AI
Startup policy outlook under second Trump term
Executive coaching should be accessible to anyone who is interested, but oftentimes scaling the education is not practical. With her company Zella Life, co-founder Remy Meraz is democratizing professional development using AI. We sat down with her to discuss AI, independent contractors, and more.
After working in the financial sector for over 20 years, Mical Jeanlys-White founded her own company, WealthMore, a wealth tech with a focus on tackling a key financial barrier—wealth building and management. Her company leverages technology to connect everyday Americans with accessible wealth management services, aiming to provide wealth creation for all. We sat down with her to discuss her journey in raising capital, navigating tax policy, the evolving role of AI, and more.
Vance Reavie is no stranger to entrepreneurship. Using his knowledge from previous ventures, he created an AI platform that intelligently automates manual marketing and merchandising workflows and content generation processes for brands and retailers. We sat down with Vance to discuss the startup ecosystem in Arkansas, AI policy and regulation, grant opportunities, and more.
Fifth Star Funds is a venture philanthropy fund that seeks to create a more equitable start-up ecosystem in Chicago, Illinois through early-stage investment. We sat down with Samir Mirza, Co-Founder and Executive Director, and Francisco Martinez, Venture Associate and Head of Marketing Communications, to talk about their organization’s mission, the racial funding gap, and how policymakers can provide much-needed support to help underrepresented founders scale their businesses.
The startup ecosystem is not a monolith. Startup founders, investors, and support organizations all have different missions, priorities, and business models, and none of them have the time or resources to spend following policymakers’ every move. But when startups join together to speak with one voice, policymakers listen. As Engine turns 10, we’re celebrating a decade of work to #StandWithStartups and how we’ve raised the startup perspective for policymakers in D.C. Here are the 10 biggest ways that startups have influenced policy conversations in the last 10 years.
The Big Story: Celebrating Black founders, calling for a more equitable ecosystem. Black startup founders across the country are a crucial part of the startup ecosystem, despite the many barriers they face. As Black history month draws to a close, Engine wanted to recognize some of the important contributions of Black founders in our network and urge policymakers to advance policy solutions that create more opportunities for underrepresented founders, especially Black founders.
The Big Story: Over 100 startups, investors, organizations defend QSBS tax treatment. This week, more than 100 startups, startup investors, and startup support organizations sent a letter to Congress urging them to preserve the current tax treatment of Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS), which helps startups attract early-stage investment and employees.
Based in Los Angeles, Calif., Abstract is working to enable access to and understanding of California legislative and government data. Co-Founders Patrick Utz and Matthew Chang spoke to us about their vision for the Abstract platform, the need for policies that enable growing startups' ability to access new talent, and why lawmakers should support tax incentives that encourage innovation.
Last month, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued his annual report on the Federal Judiciary, in part highlighting growing concerns about judicial assignment of patent cases—concerns connected to a rapidly growing number of lawsuits being filed by so-called “patent trolls” in one court in Waco, Texas. This year the Judicial Conference of the United States will study the issue of how judicial assignment policies in federal trial courts are enabling plaintiffs to pick judges in a way that is driving up the volume of litigation and undermining confidence in the system.
The Big Story: EARN IT Act moves forward despite concerns from lawmakers, advocates, and industry. A bill moving through the Senate would amend critical Internet legal frameworks that startups rely on to host user-generated content and disincentivize startups from using privacy and security-enhancing measures like encryption.
Based in Los Angeles, Calif., Abstract is working to enable access to and understanding of California legislative and government data. Co-Founders Patrick Utz and Matthew Chang spoke to us about their vision for the Abstract platform, the need for policies that enable growing startups' ability to access new talent, and why lawmakers should support tax incentives that encourage innovation.
The Big Story: The startup policy priorities for 2022. This week, Engine released its 2022 Startup Agenda, highlighting the policy priorities of the U.S. startup ecosystem and featuring startups across the country explaining the ways policy can support them. As we explain in the agenda, there are startups in every state and every congressional district. There are startups that have all kinds of business models and rely on all types of funding. There are startups that operate in every sector of U.S. industry. And all of them will be impacted by policymakers' decisions across a range of issues.
Bryght Labs is a connected gaming startup dedicated to making STEM-based games more accessible. Based in Overland Park, Kansas, Founder and CEO Jeff Wigh walked us through the company’s beginnings, the success they’ve seen with their launch product ChessUp, and how Wigh’s extensive experience with patents has informed his views of the US patent system.
Heading into 2022, several technology policy debates are already underway in Washington, D.C. As always, Engine aims to be a resource in those conversations, surfacing the startup perspective and highlighting the voices of startup founders who are running small businesses, creating jobs, and building new and innovative products and services. This agenda is a high-level overview of the issues we hear about from startups every day and a jumping off point for policymakers looking to support the technology industry's small businesses.
The tech ecosystem looks a lot different than it did when Engine launched 10 years ago. There has been an explosion of innovation, entrepreneurship, and startup growth across the country. Throughout 2022, we’ll be celebrating the milestone of our 10th anniversary by highlighting the biggest wins we achieved with the startup ecosystem and inviting our network to support our efforts through our Engine@10 initiative.
The Big Story: America COMPETES is a mixed bag for startups. The new sweeping House package aimed at boosting American competitiveness and innovation has several provisions that would dramatically improve the startup ecosystem, but the bill also includes an unrelated bill that would harm e-commerce startups.
Based in Portland, Oregon, Adhere Gear is focused on developing sustainable use IoT Smart Cargo Network for cargo operations and logistics. Founder, CEO and Chief Engineer Robert Buchanan took a moment to share with us the origins of Adhere Gear, how he and his team hope to improve the global use of cargo, and his vision for the company’s future.
The Big Story: 10 years later, SOPA has lessons for startup policy. This week, we’re reflecting on copyright policy’s past as well as the impact it will continue to have on innovation, and what that all means for high-tech, high-growth startups and the Internet users and creators that depend on them. Engine, alongside many organizations, remembered and commemorated the 10 year anniversary of the defeat of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) with conversations of what balanced, innovation-friendly copyright policy looks like for startups and small businesses.
Civil is a virtual resource library that provides educators with vetted, researched, and summarized political topics and lesson plans that help safely foster discussion around current events in the classroom. We spoke with Founder and CEO Max Tendero about what experiences led him to create Civil, how potential changes to current copyright regulations could present challenges to startups like his, and why alterations to current Internet frameworks could impact Civil’s growth in the future.
Based in Washington, D.C., Pruve Systems is leveraging a variety of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, to develop workflow systems that are easy, inclusive, and completely secure. Co-Founder and CEO Thomas Dawson, spoke to us about what led to the founding of Pruve, how it’s important to be inclusive in the development of new technologies, and why policymakers should reframe how we think about the development of tech talent.
The Big Story: Changes to copyright rules would hurt news, commentary startups, and free expression. As a few countries adopt or consider laws that would require websites to pay whenever they—or their users—link to or quote a news article, the U.S. Copyright Office is studying what those sorts of laws would mean here. In comments this week, Engine emphasized the substantial unintended consequences of such policies, which would not just alter how information is shared and communicated online, but cause problems for startups and innovation.
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