Steve Poizner Speaks With Fortune Magazine’s Tech Talk

Click “more info” to see a transcript. Visit www.StevePoizner.com to learn more about Steve.

From GPS To Next Governor?
Fortune Magazine’s Tech Talk
June 11, 2009

http://bit.ly/8hFYz

Tech Billionaire Turned California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner Wants To Reform Sacramento

MICHAL LEV-RAM: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been all over the news recently as he tries to deal with the state’s staggering $24 billion budget deficit. But come 2010, term limits are going to force him to look for a new gig. Of course, other candidates are already lining up for his job, and we recently caught up with one of them–Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, a Republican candidate and a Silicon Valley veteran.

STEVE POIZNER: In 1995, I started my company SnapTrak, you know, with the goal of figuring out a way to embed Global Positioning Satellite receivers–GPS receivers–onto a cell phone chip. So when you dial 9-1-1 from the cell phone, the emergency operators will know where you’re calling from. And so we figured it out, and we became the industry standard. Qualcomm acquired us a few years ago. There’s now 700 million cell phones that are SnapTrak enabled with the emergency location feature. You know, we’ve saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives, and really proud of it.

LEV-RAM: You’re going up against another Silicon Valley veteran, Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay in this upcoming race. Give me a few examples of how this background that you are describing is different.

POIZNER: My competitor [has] extensive great experience in marketing and branding at Disney and Hasbro and eBay and other places. And you know, a lot of people who are interested in the idea that California needs to be rebranded or marketed in a better way, will find Meg a very appealing choice. In my case, if people will find my candidacy to be the right choice, if they are looking for the state not to be rebranded, but to be rebuilt. So people are looking for that kind of entrepreneurial engineering horsepower to actually rebuild the state of California then I’ll be their choice.

LEV-RAM: So you’re a Republican candidate for governor, what kind of changes would you make to deal with the current economic problems here?

POIZNER: Well first of all, there’s the public education system. It just has to get fixed. We cannot have a healthy growing economy when we have a public school system that’s deteriorating. We clearly need to get Sacramento politicians out of the classroom. They’re micromanaging how teachers and principals do their jobs at the classroom level. The second thing we need to do to fix our broken economy is to completely overhaul our tax and our regulatory code. Silicon Valley venture capital started all of my companies. Silicon Valley venture capital started Google, Intel, Hewlett Packard, Facebook, you name it. Silicon Valley venture capital has played a major role in the California economy. And when you want to build a manufacturing plant in California, or a power plant, you have to go to regulators and commissions and boards to get a permit. You know, to make sure you’re complying with all the rules and regulations. Well, in California, you just can’t get an answer. It takes years. So a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley looks at this and says okay, if we build the plant in California, it may take years to get an answer from a regulator about whether or not you can get a permit to build or not. If you go someplace else, you can get an answer quickly. That’s got to change.

LEV-RAM: What about the issue of visa restrictions? Is there anything that you would do to change that? Because that’s been a big problem for some pretty big Silicon Valley companies that have started to be more outspoken about it, actually.

POIZNER: I’m a proponent of securing our borders, and we need to get control of our borders. But with that said, I am a big, huge believer in the benefits of making the legal immigration pipeline as big as possible. Now, my company SnapTrak–we recruited people all over the world, and were able to tap into some of the very best talent, you know, in countries all over, and that has a big impact when Silicon Valley–or companies throughout California can recruit people. But they need to be able to get the right number of visas, and right now there’s this cap on H1B visas. That’s got to go up by a lot. If smart, talented, aggressive people want to come here to start companies or to work in companies, we should welcome them here.

Duration : 0:4:18

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Sacramento Banjo Band — Paul plays “Blue Grass”

Ralph Congdon introduces Paul who plays an original composition called “Blue Grass” For additional information please visit the Site: www.summerjazzbanjofestival.com

Duration : 0:1:45

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