Speak Up—or Slow Down: Why We Need A Day of Action for Net Neutrality

Internet users, advocates, and major tech companies will come together next week to make their voices heard: the time for real net neutrality is now. A long-awaited decision from the FCC on the future of net neutrality is imminent, and we’re excited to see companies that depend on an open Internet rallying together to let the FCC know once and for all that an Internet with fast lanes and slow lanes is unacceptable.

On September 10, major Internet companies—including Automattic, Cheezburger, Dwolla, Etsy, Foursquare, General Assembly, Kickstarter, Meetup, Mozilla, Namecheap, Reddit, and Vimeo—will join Engine and other tech advocacy organizations for a Day of Action that will give a glimpse at what the Internet might look like if the FCC’s proposed rules go into effect, and net neutrality as we know it is left by the wayside. Under the FCC’s proposal, Internet providers will be free to charge for access to special Internet “fast lanes,” leaving startups and others unable to pay these new tolls in slow lanes. In such a world, startups that can’t pay for fast lane access could see their sites slow down, their traffic vanish, and their funding dry up, harming the Internet and the economy.

For the Internet Slowdown on September 10, many participating companies will install widgets on their sites displaying a revolving icon (a common signal of slowly loading content) to symbolize how the Internet would function in a world without net neutrality. Others, including Engine, will direct their users to call or email policymakers. With over one million public comments already filed with the FCC, much has been written about why the FCC’s proposed rules would damage the Internet, but the FCC needs to see firsthand how Internet fast lanes would devastate startups.

To help make sure the FCC gets the message, join Engine and companies like Automattic, Cheezburger, Dwolla, Etsy, Foursquare, General Assembly, Kickstarter, Meetup, Mozilla, Namecheap, Reddit, and Vimeo on September 10 to show why real net neutrality rules are necessary to the future of an open Internet. For more information on the Day of Action and to learn about other ways to get involved, visit Battle for the Net or email evan@engine.is.

What We Can Learn from Rockport: On Fiber Networks and Our Economic Future

If you’re anything like me, you don’t exactly have an abundance of choice in broadband providers. In virtually every market in America, your options are limited to the local cable monopoly or the local telephone monopoly (and if we’re being realistic on what speeds are sufficiently fast to be considered “broadband,” you’re really stuck with cable). Economically, this dearth of choice comes as no surprise. High upfront investment costs make it incredibly difficult for competitors to unseat the incumbent provider, leaving that provider with the market power to charge high rates for relatively slow speeds.

Broadband markets simply aren’t competitive, and this lack of competition has caused the US to fall behind other industrialized nations in access to ultra-fast technologies like fiber, which provides symmetrical upload and download speeds many times beyond what cable can offer. Because it’s expensive to build fiber networks, and because your local broadband provider is likely the only game in town, ISPs have been reluctant to invest in fiber networks. Fiber options remain distressingly rare in America, accounting for only 8.16% of broadband connections, well behind other industrialized nations with robust tech sectors. Worse, we don’t seem to be in any hurry to catch up, as fiber connections grew only 12% in the US from 2012-2013, again lagging behind other industrialized nations.

Here’s the good news: in the absence of ISP fiber offerings, some municipalities are taking action to bring fiber to their citizens themselves. Today, Rockport, Maine, with the support of Sen. Angus King, a vocal champion of Internet access policies, launched a municipal fiber network with gigabit per second connections. That means Rockport citizens—in a town a of 3,300—can get download speeds almost 35 times faster than what I have access to in San Francisco, the supposed heart of the tech world. In doing so, Rockport joins cities like Chattanooga, Tennessee, which has positioned itself as an emerging tech hub by installing a gigabit fiber network in 2010. Chattanooga’s fiber network has already proven attractive to businesses, with 5,000 business subscribers and an emerging startup community. Companies like Claris Networks are moving operations to Chattanooga to take advantage of the municipal network, which provides equally fast upload speeds crucial to business success.

Municipal broadband networks provide consumers with alternatives in markets desperately in need of competition. Not surprisingly, monopoly incumbent ISPs have fought hard to block municipal broadband networks, helping pass laws in 20 states preventing communities from building their own broadband networks. The telecom lobby has also worked to prevent municipalities from operating or leasing fiber networks that have already been built but lay dormant. These laws have prevented Chattanooga from expanding its fiber network, and the city filed a petition with the FCC, asking the agency to step in and preempt these anti-competitive restrictions.

Access to ultra-high-speed Internet is quickly becoming necessary for business success, and as the US continues to lag behind peer countries in fiber access, startups will soon face significant competitive disadvantages without greater access. Since telecom incumbents have been unable or unwilling to provide fiber access, towns like Rockport have stepped in to create needed competition and provide fiber to its citizens.

If we hope to stay competitive in the world economy, we need to make sure that citizens and businesses have adequate broadband access, whether through private or municipal networks. To achieve that, we need to ensure that Rockport, Chattanooga, and other forward-thinking municipalities investing in connectivity become the trend, not the exceptions, in the marketplace.

Copyright Damages: A Capricious System That Stifles Innovation

The last time Congress enacted significant new copyright legislation, only about one quarter of U.S. households had Internet access. It’s not surprising, then, that the current copyright regime isn’t exactly suited to our digital age. Copyright law is meant to provide incentives for creators and innovators. This principle is in the Constitution, which gives Congress the power “to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” In other words, we give creators limited monopolies over their works—patents and copyrights—in order to encourage them to create.  

Lately, however, this concept has started to backfire. Laws meant to foster innovation have in fact discouraged technological innovation by imposing the threat of ruinous financial penalties on entrepreneurs for engaging in perfectly legal activities that lawmakers couldn’t have envisioned when drafting the Copyright Act.

Copyright law can be confusing, particularly because many of the ways we create and share content today didn’t exist in the 1960s and ’70s, when Congress wrote most of the current Copyright Act. But, one aspect of the law is clear: a court may levy damages of up to $150,000 for each instance of infringement. This means that you could be on the hook for $150,000 for illegally downloading a single song, or for reusing or repurposing content in a manner that you believed was totally legal—until you found out it wasn’t.

The uncertainty resulting from this huge potential liability touches innovators of all kinds, not just traditional content creators. If you’re a startup and host any third-party content, you could find yourself unwittingly facing the threat of outrageous damages. Even if what you’re doing is legal, just starting your business may not be worth the risk.

Recognizing the need to reform copyright law to better protect the new types of creativity that technological changes have allowed, Congress held several hearings in recent weeks evaluating different aspects of the copyright regime, from term lengths to music licensing to the first sale doctrine. Most recently, and perhaps most importantly, the Judiciary Committee held a hearing to discuss possible changes to the nature and scope of the remedies available in copyright infringement actions.

Under virtually all U.S. laws, plaintiffs can only collect money from defendants to the extent that they were actually injured by the illegal activities. Copyright law, however, is different: plaintiffs don’t have to show any economic injury from infringement whatsoever in order to collect money from defendants. Instead, a copyright plaintiff can ask the court to award a fixed amount of money—between $200 to $150,000 per work infringed—whether or not the plaintiff was actually harmed. Juries have significant discretion to award damages within this range, and, as juries are wont to do, they often issue awards that are wildly unpredictable and many times larger than the plaintiff’s actual injury.

While it’s certainly important to deter blatantly infringing conduct, the chilling effects of these large statutory damages have unintended consequences. Copyright law doesn’t have a lot of bright lines separating conduct that is infringing from conduct that isn’t; this flexibility is necessary to ensure that new, beneficial modes of creative expression aren’t outlawed under statutes that couldn’t predict future innovations. This, of course, means that it’s often difficult for innovators to know with certainty whether their conduct is infringing or not, and the threat of hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages for failing to accurately predict what a judge or jury will say will necessarily deter a lot of non-infringing conduct.

For example, the rules surrounding liability for companies that provide content distribution services (e.g. BitTorrent, YouTube, etc.) are decidedly unclear. The law does provide “safe harbors” for content intermediaries, but those harbors are hardly safe if, like YouTube, you have to spend seven years and untold millions in court to determine whether you’ve qualified. The risk of a high statutory damages award, even if it is unlikely that any infringement has occurred, can be enough to discourage entrepreneurs and investors from entering the market.

The disincentivizing effect of massive statutory damages awards isn’t limited to startups hosting third-party content. The rules regulating software copyrights are incredibly confusing, even for copyright experts. Considering so much software development revolves around building off preexisting code, uncertain copyright liability is a risk for virtually any entrepreneur who wants to innovate by transforming existing code. In the wake of the Oracle v. Google ruling, using simple APIs to ensure interoperability raises the risk of huge statutory damages liability, even if the use of such APIs causes no damage at all.

The existing statutory damages framework seems to have lost sight of the ultimate purpose of all copyright laws: “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”—essentially, to promote innovation. When considering changes to the Copyright Act, Congress must reconsider the statutory damages framework to make sure that discouraging infringement doesn’t also discourage innovation by subjecting entrepreneurs to undue risk from the threat of irrational statutory damages awards.

Thanks, President Obama: President Speaks Out Against Slow Lanes

The latest politician to add his voice to the growing coalition supporting Title II reclassification and strong net neutrality rules is none other than U.S. President Barack Obama. The President, in remarks given at this week’s U.S.-Africa Summit in Washington, made a strong statement in favor of real net neutrality, saying, “I personally, the position of my administration, as well as a lot of the companies here, is that you don’t want to start getting a differentiation in how accessible the Internet is to different users. You want to leave it open so the next Google and the next Facebook can succeed.”

Here’s the thing: the only way to ensure there is no “differentiation in how accessible the Internet is to different users” is to reclassify the Internet as a “common carrier” under Title II. The crux of the current debate surrounds under what legal authority the FCC can protect an open Internet, one without paid prioritization and fast lanes. The FCC Chairman, in public statements, has signaled his intent to work under the current legal structure--called Section 706--but, simply, the law will not allow that.

The D.C. Appellate Court has made it abundantly clear that the FCC must reclassify broadband as a “telecommunications service” under Title II if it wants to ban the type of behavior President Obama spoke out against.  According to that Court, the FCC’s prior rules preventing ISPs from discriminating against or blocking access to disfavored companies were “per se common carrier obligations,” and only services subject to Title II can be treated as common carriers. Quite simple, in fact.

Which is why the President’s statements are so important. It’s now clear that the President must support reclassification. And those comments came at a particularly important time. As you likely know, the FCC, and its Chairman, Tom Wheeler, are currently evaluating a number of proposals dedicated to protecting the Internet, and keeping it free for innovation.

In making his comments, President Obama joins with hundreds of our country’s leading startup companies, Fortune 500 corporations, technologists, advocacy organizations, Internet users and supporters across the world in calling for the Internet to be reclassified under Title II. We look forward to continuing our work with the Administration to protect and “leave open” the Internet to ensure that all startups, especially the “next Google and the next Facebook can succeed.”

The Drumbeat Continues: More Startups Call for Title II Reclassification

Today, 10 more startup companies across the United States called on the FCC to reclassify the Internet and keep it free and open for innovation. While Congress has gone home for the August Recess, the process on Internet rulemaking continues at the FCC, where startup companies continue to make their voices heard. The companies, which represent a broad swath of growing businesses all across the country, once again focused on the only real choice available for Chairman Wheeler to preserve the ability for these companies to hatch, grow, and scale in the marketplace, and that is reclassification under Title II.

Take, for example, the story of San Francisco-based microfinance startup LendUp. Their story, according to co-founder Sasha Orloff in the filing, is only possible because the rules governing the Internet allowed for free and fair competition. As Orloff writes, “Competition within this industry is fierce and, if we were founded under the rules laid down in the Chairman’s proposal, our initial cost projections could have proven prohibitive. We would have needed to pay a substantial premium in order to ensure customers could find and access us within a crowded marketplace.” Instead, LendUp is now able to provide financial assistance to people in need, while also educating their customers about the positive benefits of responsible financial behavior, all because of technology they could build on an open Internet.

We get a bit of a global influence in this batch of comments as well, because despite Europe’s having recently fought -- and won -- its’ own battle for Net Neutrality, the FCC’s proposal could have deleterious effects on global companies doing business in the United States. Publitas, an Amsterdam-based company working to optimize and present digital content in the retail space, writes that not only would the company never have been gotten off the ground in the world envisioned by the current proposal, their future is under threat as well. U.S. influence on the Internet has global reach, and because of that, Publitas Founder and CEO Guillermo Sanchez warns that “[i]f the FCC had enacted policies which infringed upon net neutrality, the Netherlands might have enacted similar ones” which would have put the original idea under threat. But also, with a “data intensive” business like Publitas, “our business would be seriously hobbled if we were in a slow lane.”

The current proposal could also have negative influences on new marketplaces, writes Shapeways, a New York-based leading marketplace for 3D Printing images and blueprints. They are responsible for 18,000 Shapeways shops already, and with 3D Printing continuing its massive growth curve, the market they empower is continuing to foment further entrepreneurial gains in the economy on the whole. But that future is uncertain because of the proposal which Shapeways says, undermines “the great equalizer.” Everyone has the same access, anyone can float their own “crazy idea.” By creating two-tier access, you sacrifice this core tenet, throttle the spirit of freedom, and ultimately kill the power of wild innovation this nation is founded upon.” They lay out their proposed solution plainly, asking the FCC to reclassify the Internet as a utility, “which it is.”

These comments and more are available on our site, and we have again extracted multiple key quotes below. For more like this, sign up at startupsfornetneutrality.org and our work to reclassify the Internet continues over the course of the summer, we’ll keep you updated with all the news and views you need to help support a better proposal and a solution that keeps the Internet free and open for innovation.

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Distinc.tt

We currently spend considerable resources ensuring that our users can quickly access the content that they need. They view high-resolution photos of restaurants, events, and people; as well as geolocation data to help with coordination. They find out what places around them are most popular and who is currently there. These tools help LGBT people stay connected and maintain a sense of community in this rapidly changing environment. As you can imagine, the amount of bandwidth that this takes up is exponentially related to our growth and success. Having to negotiate with ISPs for the same access that our competitors would enjoy is simply not an option at our stage as a startup, we neither have the time nor the money.

Badger Maps, Inc.

There are a lot of costs to starting a business, and investors and venture capitalists are only interested in funding certain types of businesses. An entrepreneur needs to pay peoples' salaries, pay for servers, buy software, pay for space to house workers, buy Ramen and peanut butter, etc. So by adding another cost — paying off Internet service providers, to keep them from putting a gun to companies’ heads — you will get less innovation in the American economy.

LendUp

Beyond competition, core aspects of our business depend on Internet speed and efficiency. From underwriting to transaction processing, we rely on large amounts of data flowing quickly to meet customer needs and ensure accuracy and security. Speed also enables our value proposition as no customer is going to sit through a credit education video that takes too long to load. Again, with competition so intense and the alternative lenders so lacking our benefits, the consequences of a borrower abandoning us for a less compliant lender that could pay more for bandwidth are high. Furthermore, as investors evaluated the potential of our business, if these would-be risks had been a reality, I am confident conversations would have been different.

Linear Air

I am a serial networking entrepreneur and inventor.  I have four Internet patents, and prior to Linear Air, I spent a decade as the CTO of a networking company (Ipanema Technologies) whose product was designed to guarantee good performance across the Internet. That makes me, as it happens, one of the world’s foremost technical experts on Internet performance, the matter at the heart of this proposal, and I can state definitively that the only way to create a “fast lane” on the Internet is to slow everything else down. Anyone who claims differently is either mistaken, or lying.

MobileWorks

We need strong network neutrality rules that keep the Internet as a level playing field. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler should not preside over the transformation of the Internet from a level playing field that has been the greatest engine of innovation and growth the world has ever seen to being a discriminatory, heavily tolled platform controlled by an largely uncompetitive ISP industry. The Chairman’s proposal would allow ISPs to create new barriers to innovation that would harm startups like ours—and all those who may benefit for our services. It harms consumer choice, entrepreneurship, and will kill jobs.

Publitas

We need the protection of bright-line rules. We cannot make do with the FCC’s vague commercial reasonableness standard. We have no telecommunications lawyers on staff; big ISPs have hundreds at their disposal. We simply don’t have the resources to fight a legal battle on the basis of presumptions. We urge the FCC to enact bright-line rules which prohibit blocking, technical discrimination, paid prioritization, and access fees, applicable to both fixed and mobile connections, and to reclassify broadband providers under Title II of the Communications Act.

RebelMouse

The FCC’s proposal will parch the Internet ecosystem, constricting our revenues. It will also force us to pay whatever we must to put ourselves in the fast lane, and to negotiate individual deals with multiple ISPs. That is time and money that we could have spent on hiring, innovation, and growth. We also face the threat of exclusive deals, hammered out between our competitors and ISPs, giving them and them alone the right to a fast lane. We could not afford to purchase such a right, which undoubtedly would be very expensive. If any of our competitors bought the exclusive right to a fast lane, we might have to go out of business.

Shapeways

Over the past twenty years, American innovators have created countless Internet-based applications, content offerings, and services that are used around the world. These innovations have created enormous value for Internet users, fueled economic growth, and made our Internet companies global leaders. This innovation happened in a world without discrimination. An open Internet has also been a platform for free speech and opportunity for billions of users. Shapeways would not have come to life without the Internet, and the FCC’s proposal threatens our future to provide an open platform for independent businesses to flourish, even those with an inventory of one product. The proposal will further harm competition by quelling innovation among small businesses in all sectors by creating financial barriers to entry.

Fred Trotter

The Digital Divide is getting narrower but steeper, there are fewer on the ‘wrong’ side but life is getting worse and worse for those few. Our country is betting on digital health interventions working to rescue our economy but this model relies on consistent connectivity between consumer grade doctor ISP connections and consumer grade patient ISP connections. If we allow for the creation of Internet “fast lanes” we will force at least some patients and doctors into the slow lane. This will deepen the Digital Divide and significantly damage the healthcare reform efforts that are designed to rescue our country’s economy.

Poll Everywhere

Many of the concerns we would have had at our founding remain problematic today. We still run on a tight budget, and we’re not sure whether we could afford to put ourselves in a fast lane. Even if we could, that would only mean diverting money away from hiring and growth.

Meanwhile, we are terrified by the threat of an exclusive deal, forged between ISPs and a giant producer of clickers. We certainly could not afford such a deal, which would come at a great cost. If that deal forced us to the slow lane, it would be hard for us to draw in new users. We might even lose our current ones, frustrated as they would be with our slow and patchy service.

Startup Day Across America 2014

The story of startups isn’t just happening in the Bay Area or New York City. It’s happening all over the country, as we’ve learned through our growing “Startup Cities” initiative, our recent road trip with Steve Case highlighting the “Rise of the Rest,” the labor economic research we’ve done to highlight the growing impact young companies have on communities, our political work in Washington and around the country urging policymakers to support and create better conditions for startup growth.

At Engine, we’re committed to fighting from and for the startup community to grow opportunity and strengthen communities. And that’s why, for the second year running, we’re working with the Congressional Innovation Caucus and friends in our own community like 1776 and the National Venture Capital Association to come together and celebrate startups with Startup Day Across America. Startup Day is an opportunity for Members of Congress, their staff and other policymakers to meet with entrepreneurs, tour their businesses, and get a sense for how they are creating economic opportunity, right at home.

Last year’s Startup Day gave more than 100 members of Congress the opportunity to meet with startups in their home districts. This year, with events starting today, we’re hoping for even more participation from new places and new faces. We’ve got events on tap throughout the country, from Kansas City to Columbus, Brooklyn to Seattle and everywhere in between, with more being announced each day.

We’ll be pulling together highlights from these events throughout August both here and on our social channels. Make sure to follow #StartupDay on Twitter to watch startups and government coming together to learn from each other.

And, if you’re interested in hosting a Startup Day event in your hometown this August, let us know and we can connect you with your local Congressional office. (And if you call and do it on your own, let us know and post on #StartupDay!)

RFP-IT: Making It Easier for Government to Support Startups

Our Federal Government spends a lot of money. I mean, a lot of money. And with that money, they purchase many goods and services. Increasingly, many of those purchases have intersected with technology: technology that makes existing products more efficient, solutions for new and existing problems, new infrastructure to help the government manage its processes, and so on. In fact, the government buys so much stuff, whole industries (yes, plural) have been built with the singular goal of selling to the government. While these processes and industries are largely pretty boring, every once in a while something happens, the system stops functioning properly, and it becomes news.

That is exactly what happened with the mangled rollout of the much-maligned healthcare.gov website late last year.

Among the many problems uncovered by the process, we realized that those systems in place to spend the aforementioned sums of money are not always best at finding the most efficient projects, programs, and services to buy. In fact, healthcare.gov was just latest high-profile example of the problem. Many, if not most, of the issues faced in federal government procurement are situated squarely in the fact that these laws and regulations represent a different time, and have been made archaic by advances in technology.

Stepping into that breach with an innovative solution of her own is Silicon Valley’s own representative, Anna G. Eshoo. The Democratic Congresswoman, a longtime supporter of the technologies that lead the world from her home district, today introduced the Reforming Federal Procurement of Information Technology (or, RFP-IT) Act which seeks to make these processes more open, easier to navigate, and more accessible to startup companies looking to sell to the Federal Government.

The bill, co-sponsored by a bipartisan coalition of Rep. Eshoo’s House colleagues, has three specific goals. First, it will enhance competition in the marketplace by enabling more small businesses to bid on federal IT contracts without having to spend thousands on compliance costs by lifting the threshold for a streamlined contracting process from $150,000 to $500,000. According to Eshoo’s summary of the bill, “expanding the use of simplified acquisition procedures will shorten procurement lead times and help level the playing field for start-ups and small businesses – a critical factor in an IT marketplace that is characterized by the constant influx of new entrants and rapidly evolving IT products and services.”

Second, the bill takes a number of steps to promote innovation, including codifying the popular Presidential Innovation Fellows program, and asking the General Services Administration to recommend how to slim-down certain procedures.

Finally, the bill moves to ensure more accountability by establishing a Digital Government Office within the Office of Management and Budget, strengthening the existing CIO office in the White House and improving transparency and oversight.

You can read the full text of the (very short!) bill here. We thank Rep. Eshoo and her colleagues for highlighting one of the ways our government functions, and working to bring more efficiency and innovation into the process.

ECPA Pushes Past 235 Co-Sponsors

For the last few months, we’ve closely watched the progress of a bill in Congress seeking to reform and update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. We’ve discussed the current law’s outdated regulations of our communications infrastructure, but a piece of that could be updated very quickly through Kansas Congressman Kevin Yoder and Colorado Congressman Jared Polis’ Email Privacy Act. Essentially, as we’ve noted before, law enforcement currently doesn’t currently need a warrant to read your email--leaving many startups in the unenviable position of not being able to protect their customers. We think this is wrong, and it turns out a bunch of our elected representatives agree.

Less than a month ago, we noted that the bill had reached 218 co-sponsors, fully half of the House of Representatives, and which, let’s face it, is a monumental achievement with such a divided Congress, and a testament to ECPA reform’s popularity. With this week’s announcement that six more Republican co-sponsors are signing on, that number has now ballooned to 235 and is threatening to climb even higher.

Even as we creep closer and closer to mid-term elections, there are certain things Congress can still do while it’s in session. The Email Privacy Act, which would drastically enhance both privacy and security for Internet users and bring our laws into the 21st Century, is a great example of the “art of the possible” and we encourage the House to listen to itself and pass this much-needed reform swiftly.

Memphis Soul Boosts Startup Economy

Last month, the Engine production team took a trip down South to experience for ourselves the vibrant local startup economy we’d been hearing about in Memphis, Tennessee. We had the opportunity to meet a number of local entrepreneurs, some based full-time in Memphis and some just in town for the summer, participating in an accelerator program at StartCo. Across the board, we found a group of extremely dedicated tech entrepreneurs, many working seven days a week, more than 12 hours a day, to ready their companies for launch -- and a community taking shape that is passionate about building a better future for the city.

Some founders were lifelong Memphians who had chosen to keep their companies there, aiming to bring jobs, vitality, and a new phase of entrepreneurship to their hometown. These founders spoke of Memphis’s rich business history and entrepreneurial spirit. St. Jude, FedEx, and Autozone are among the companies that call Memphis home, and many founders spoke about these companies with an excitement that seemed to inspire their own hard work and dedication. Within the community, we met logistics startups, saw innovation in the healthcare space, and heard about medical device accelerators in the area. These were companies obviously attracted to Memphis for the resources already built into the local economy.

We also found teams from all over the country who had come to reside in the center of downtown Memphis and take advantage of the startup ecosystem that has taken shape there within the last few years. Teams from places such as NYC and Silicon Valley had come to Memphis to focus on building their businesses, looking for a different pace and a less saturated market. They described their year-round homes as having a lot of noise, and they had come to Memphis for the summer to focus on building their product -- finding real benefit living in a place where they could find a little more calm. They were astounded by the abundance of resources at their disposal: talented mentors, investors, and other startup founders -- all ready and willing to help.  

This is not to say that Memphis is lacking a noise of its own -- we were able to meet with entrepreneurs in a variety of backdrops -- from their offices, to blues clubs on Beale Street, to the tops of their tents at BBQ Fest alongside the Mississippi River. The StartCo accelerator uses Memphis in May, an international festival showcasing arts, food, and music, as a networking opportunity for its companies. As one entrepreneur put it, “What better way to build relationships than over beer and barbeque?” By the end of our visit, we had to agree. There was a liveliness and enthusiasm -- at the festival on the river, as well as in the office, that was contagious.

As with the barbeque, startup founders have taken notice, and taken advantage, of the Southern hospitality they have encountered in Memphis. A very common theme in the interviews we conducted was the sense of community, kindness, and the willingness of anyone and everyone to help out. We spoke with the founders of eDivv from NYC, who told us “the best thing about Memphis is everyone knows each other, and everyone is willing to help. They want to see Memphis succeed. It’s a small community within a big city.” Layla Tabatabaie of BarterSugar agrees: “Of all the meetings I’ve had with local residents, professors, and others in the area, they’re all willing to help and they’re all very kind. I think that is something that is sometimes harder to find in places like New York.”

As a Memphian for the vast majority of my life, it was no surprise to hear about the close-knit community as well as the kindness of complete strangers. What I was surprised to hear, though, was how these ingredients of a place I lived for 18 years are fueling a new phase of growth in the local economy. I left for San Francisco without any knowledge of a startup community in Memphis, and it was not until I spent a couple of years involved in the community here that I began to take notice of the activity in my own hometown. It was very exciting to return to Memphis and discover such a vibrant community there -- one so diverse and different than that of Silicon Valley, and one that had not existed in the Memphis I knew.

Whether a lifelong Memphian, or a founder just in town for the summer, everyone we met had a personal interest in boosting the local economy. They hoped to create jobs and bring growth to local businesses, with a heartfelt interest in improving the community they had become a part of. Though the concept of technology startups reviving the local economy may be a fairly new one for Memphis, the passion and dedication of Memphians to make Memphis a better place is not. When we asked locals to sum up Memphis in one word, one we heard quite often was “soul”. It’s easy to see how the history and soul of Memphis are finding their way into a new chapter.  

Watch our Startup Cities, Memphis video here:

Evan Engstrom: Engine’s New Policy Director on Smart Policy

This is an incredibly important time for technology policy.

We're in the midst of what future generations of tech policy wonks will remember as the summer of net neutrality. But, it's not just policy nerds that recognize how important it is to preserve an open Internet. Citizens by the thousands have filed comments with the FCC—over a million comments in all—to weigh in on what is in large part a rather dry question of regulatory authority. Many of these folks have been moved to comment because they recognize that the economic, technological, and cultural advances of the past decade were possible because of the Internet’s freedom and openness, which allowed anyone with an idea and a little technical know-how to start a business with global reach.

While a positive outcome on net neutrality would go a long way to ensuring that future entrepreneurs remain free to innovate, we still have much work to do. In the coming years, we hope to see key changes to immigration policy, patent reform, copyright law, and other matters of great interest to the startup community. Being able to shape the direction of these issues is a thrilling prospect; it’s why I’m so excited to be joining Engine.

Engine is already one of the most respected voices on matters of tech policy from patent reform to access, and one of the only organizations addressing these issues from the perspective and the backyard of startups and entrepreneurs. As Engine’s new Policy Director, I’m looking forward to maintaining and expanding our focus, growing the policy team, and ensuring that when we weigh in on an issue, we are providing insights backed by concrete examples, data, and expertise. This is no simple task, but an important one.

Helping to craft policy today means both anticipating the future concerns of a sector that's moving faster than the law, and making sure that policymakers and the public understand the often complex technological issues involved.  We must ensure that policy solutions are strong enough to provide the certainty necessary to encourage investment while remaining flexible enough to efficiently adapt to changing technologies. To do so, it is crucial that we maintain a dialogue with entrepreneurs and investors to keep apprised of where technology innovation is headed and where technology policy must adapt to meet new needs.

Engine is uniquely situated to lead on these important issues.  As a policy shop tied to an advocacy organization with a research arm, and a community of over 500 startups, technologists, and investors, we are closely involved with the most innovative people and companies in the tech space today.  We will continue to foster a connection between startups and government. Engine is ready to lead the conversation on tech policy, and I’m eager to be a part of this important effort.

Net Neutrality Comments Crash FCC Website: Keep The Pressure On

Back in May, we sent a letter to the FCC signed by over 150 startups supporting net neutrality. Since then, we have thought a lot about the dangerous uncertainty the lack of real net neutrality will cause, and the FCC has received nearly 700,000 comments and counting on the subject -- including some from education startups, software companies, reddit, and Internet giants. In fact, so many people are filing today that the system crashed, prompting organizations (us included!) to file by hand, and forcing the FCC to extend today’s deadline to midnight (eastern time) on Friday.

This is great, because we have to keep the pressure on Chairman Tom Wheeler to make sure he does the right thing, and issues a strong, sensible rule that preserves the open Internet. If you still want to file comments, you can do so here.

There is still a strong wave of opposition from individuals and groups committed to letting telecommunications companies build fast lanes on the Internet for those who can pay. And unfortunately, those telecommunications companies, and their supporters, have targeted the U.S. Congress, and now we are anticipating amendments to the Appropriations bill currently being debated in the House. The Latta bill, for example, would gut the FCC’s ability to reclassify the Internet as a utility, and other similar telecom-favoring legislation like prohibiting communities from building their own broadband networks.

You can help preserve an open Internet by letting your representative in Congress know that any such bill is unacceptable. Our friends at Free Press have set up a call tool to contact your member of Congress today. It is especially important that Democratic members who have generally (though not entirely) been supportive of our goals stand strong against these tactics.

You can make that call here.

And if you can’t call, think about sending out a tweet. Here are some examples:

Stand up for an open Internet. Say no to a bill that would stop the FCC from issuing real #NetNeutrality rules! http://goo.gl/mH95YT

Startups need an open Internet. Say no to the Latta amendment and stand up for #NetNeutrality! http://goo.gl/mH95YT

#NetNeutrality supporters in Congress, please make your voices heard and say no to the Latta amendment. Preserve the open Internet!

It’s time for the telcos to stop messing with #NetNeutrality. Call Congress and tell them to stand up for innovation http://goo.gl/mH95YT

Finally, if you haven’t already done so, please sign up with http://www.startupsfornetneutrality.org/ to show your support and join the movement for an free and open Internet.

More Companies Comment on Net Neutrality

In our continuing series of filings with the FCC and their open docket on Net Neutrality rules, we have a series of comments this week from a broad range of companies and organizations, again focusing on one critical viewpoint: that the Chairman of the FCC has within his power the ability to reclassify the Internet as a utility under Title II, and that he should do so. From the web, Opera Software is one of the world’s leading web browsers with more than 350 million users worldwide, and comments have been written by Chief Technology Officer Haakon Wium Lie from their head office in Oslo, Norway in support of reclassification with a global perspective. 

Opera Software services many users in sub-optimal situations, mostly those with poor connectivity or lower-end devices, which is first among many reasons that in a marketplace designed for ease of switching with only marginal cost, speed is a key factor in retaining consumers. And with one of Opera Software’s key differentiators being their proprietary compression service, Lie points out they would “have to” secure fast lane agreements under the Chairman’s proposal in order to stay effective for their users. In a sense, Opera Software provides a service on the margin for those on the margins of our society, and the reason they do so is that the Internet is the great equalizer. Even those without the latest and most powerful devices, or the best connectivity and bandwidth, can still explore the vast recesses of information and connect with people around the globe.

And, as Lie points out, if other countries copy the FCC’s current proposal, we run the risk of continuing to chip away, not just at the innovative Internet which has brought us so many products and services to enrich our life, but the very fabric of the community built online by restricting access to those who may not be able to afford to connect. In that “undue bureaucratic burden” says Lie, we find the greatest cause for alarm, all of which can be averted, in his words, by reclassifying the Internet as a utility under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.

We also hear from organizations in the global health space, including the Global Healthy Living Foundation, which creates disease-specific communities and networks to help many facing chronic illness get the support they need. And from the interactive world, Heyzap and TouchCast create new experiences online. Without rules that keep the Internet open for innovation, their businesses won’t reach their users.

In all of these cases, especially in the delivery of high-bandwidth content like YouTube videos or other interactive devices, user experience could be hamstrung to the point of dysfunction without clear rules keeping the Internet open for innovation. “If we aren’t in a fast lane, by definition we are in a slow lane,” says GHLF. According to Heyzap, “If we had pay a special fee to each phone company to get the same treatment as our competitors, we would have to slow our growth and our hiring,” and that even if litigation under commercial reasonableness standard were available, it wouldn’t help them with ISPs. And TouchCast points out, “When someone views a TouchCast, they not only stream video, but also download web pages and data from the Internet all at the same time. Any perceived delays in video streaming rates or the presentation of any other information within a TouchCast would result in high consumer abandonment rates.”

We have links to the full comments comments and some key quotes below. If, like any of these organizations, your business and customers will be adversely affected by the Chairman’s proposal, sign up with us at startupsfornetneutrality.org. And if you can file a comment, let us know at comms@engine.is.

---

Opera Software

“In the hyper-competitive market for web browsers, speed is key. Consumers will switch browsers to experience the web marginally. Competition would suffer if some browser vendors have fast lane arrangements, or if the non-fast lanes do not provide sufficient capacity. Under the Chairman’s proposal, in order to have a viable web compression service, we would have to secure agreements for a fast lane. “

“Our worst-case scenario is that other countries copy FCC’s proposal. The United States is not only influential with new technological innovations, but also Internet policy. Opera Software would never be able to provide web companies, including U.S. companies, with access to 350M end users if we had to negotiate Internet fast lane agreements with all network operators globally. If other countries follow the logic of the FCC proposal, we and other Internet companies would have to prioritize countries and regions.”

Global Healthy Living Foundation

“We are the first source of health-related news for thousands of people. When several contaminated vials of methotrexate (an arthritis medication) were recalled, we were one of the first organizations to reach out to the people in our community. Within two hours of disseminating the recall message through the Internet, we received two replies from members who were scheduled to take the contaminated medicine that afternoon. Our ability to quickly and efficiently reach a large number of people very likely saved lives. If we had slow or patchy service, we likely would have had a much smaller network that relied on us less often for information.”

Heyzap

“We could not have become the company we are today under the rules proposed by the FCC. We provide real-time recommendations of apps based on data gathered from users. This requires gathering a lot of data, bringing it to our computers, processing it, and sending recommendations and ads back to our users—all in fractions of a second. We need to process a lot of data, quickly. Any limitations in speed or consistency of our service would be noticeable to our users.

Meanwhile, under the Chairman’s proposed rules, broadband providers have strong incentives to make the differences between their standard and premium access options noticeable. If there were no noticeable differences, then no edge provider would feel the need to pay for premium access.”

TouchCast

“We are hoping to change the way people watch videos and TV. Established broadcast companies are wealthy and powerful, and they could easily forge exclusive agreements with broadband providers and lock us from those providers’ networks. While the Chairman’s proposal prevents NBC from forming an exclusive agreement with its affiliate, Comcast, it does nothing to prevent NBC from forming the same agreement with Verizon, or CBS with both Verizon and Comcast. These exclusive agreements could shut us out of the game entirely.”

Diversity Numbers Aren't Good, But Tech is Taking Action

Back in May, Google became the first major Internet company to disclose its workforce diversity data to the public. Since then, more of tech’s big names -- LinkedIn, Yahoo, and most recently, Facebook -- have followed suit and published their own employment statistics. While Google, LinkedIn, Yahoo, and Facebook are four different companies with different products in different sectors, there is a troubling, but not-so-shocking sameness to the diversity of their workforces. There is a lot of work to be done, but these businesses are starting to take action.

Sixty to seventy percent of the workforce at each company are male; white employees make up over 50% of total employees across all four companies; the percentages of Asian employees ranges from 30%-39%, and all four companies employ only 2% of black and 3-4% of Latino workers.

Each company has conceded that making these statistics public is their first step on the long road to solving tech’s inclusion problem, and have made clear that they won’t stop at these revelations. The starkness of their data has presented an imperative to act, and all four have introduced initiatives such as partnerships with pipeline organizations and the implementation of employee resource groups to improve their recruitment and retention.   

Google

• Google has over 13 employee resource groups ranging from Ethnic groups, sexual orientation, and age, that aim to provide support communities and discuss targeted recruitment and retention initiatives.
• Partnered with HBCUs such as Howard to elevate coursework and attendance in CS.
• Hosts education outreach programs, talent development programs, and technical conferences and events worldwide, while also sponsoring conferences put on by external organizations such as the National Society of Black Engineers, the AdColor Industry Coalition, and the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.
• Partners with organizations that work to increase the diversity of talent in tech including: Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology, American Association of People with Disabilities, Leadership Education and Development, and Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing.

LinkedIn

• Partners with organizations that promote women in technology, including the Anita Borg institute; and sponsor development events such as the Grace Hopper Conference.
• Created and pioneered DevelopHer, an annual women’s hackday to engage and support women in tech.
• Partnered with Management Leadership for Tomorrow, an organization aimed at career development for black, Latino, and Native Americans.
• Sponsored the 2014 Out & Equal Workplace Summit to work towards an end to employment discrimination for LGBTQ employees.

Yahoo

• Supports a wide range of employee resource groups to create an inclusive workplace environment and engaged workplace environment.
• Yahoo!’s Women in Tech group hosts an annual Yahoo! Women Working Wonders event as well as partners with organizations such as Girl Geek Dinner that bring together female-identified technologists and aspiring women in tech for networking events around the world.

Facebook

• Hosts Facebook University, a program that provides undergraduate freshman from underrepresented groups with internships at Facebook.
• Partners with pipeline programs such as Girls Who Code, Code 2040, the National Society of Black Engineers, and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and Management Leadership for Tomorrow.
• Works with Yes We Code to help connect 100,000 youth to computer programming education programs.
• Provide unconscious bias training for employees to help staff recognize and stop racism and sexism they may unknowingly exhibit.
• Supports employee resource groups for staff from diverse ethnic, cultural, and contextual backgrounds.

With four of tech’s biggest players outing their diversity data, companies like Apple and Amazon are becoming more conspicuous in their discretion. Getting #diversity trending in the tech industry is one thing, but making it stick for the long term with lasting change is another. As companies become more transparent and vocal about what they are doing and hope to do to improve diversity in the workplace--best practices and ultimately, an industry standard are being set as we speak. Alongside sales and profits, a diverse workforce is now a priority and marker of a successful, forward-thinking company.

Education Startups File Net Neutrality Comments with FCC

As you likely know by now, this summer is key in the fight for net neutrality and an open Internet. It is crucial for stakeholders to take this time to file comments at the Federal Communications Commission explaining why an open Internet is essential to their life and  businesses. Today, with our help, four startups in the education space -- who work directly with students to help them acquire the necessary skills to compete in the very global economy -- did just that.

The comments, filed by Codecademy, CodeCombat, General Assembly and OpenCurriculum, all make the central point that harm to net neutrality is harm to startups. In this case specifically, harm to education startups is harm to the pursuit of knowledge and America’s ability to compete in a global technological marketplace. And all four believe that harm can be mitigated by reclassifying the Internet as a utility under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.

We’ll be working with more startups to file comments as the summer continues. We want to make sure that startups in every industry have a voice in this debate. If you are interested in filing comment for your business, and would like our help, email us at comms@engine.is for more information. We hope you’ll join the fight and help us preserve an Internet free and open for innovation.

The existing comments will be posted to the FCC’s comment intake page and are available below for you to read at length:

Overall, these education startups reflect a wider community belief that reclassification is the best (and only) way to achieve the necessary end goal of making sure the Internet does not devolve into a mess of paid prioritization -- or fast and slow lanes. Staying this result is critically important in the field of education, where margins are tight, business is seen as a service, and the outcomes may provide the best fix yet for our economy on the rebound.

From CodeCombat comments:

When CodeCombat first started, resources were scarce, and if we had to negotiate with and pay funds to ISPs, we would have been unable to do so. At that time, we also would not have been able to use the FCC’s standard of “commercial reasonableness” or even a public advocate provided by the FCC to protect our interests. We still may not be able to do so.

...

Almost a million people have learned to code using CodeCombat, including 343,000 students during Code.org’s Hour of Code, a campaign that both President Obama and Republicans encouraged and embraced.We’ve also helped thousands of more experienced programmers hone their skills with more advanced levels. In addition, we’ve translated our game into 40 languages so that students around the world can learn to program as well.

...

We firmly oppose the FCC proposal. We urge the FCC to reclassify ISPs as common carriers under title II of the Communications Act of 1934 to prevent technical discrimination, paid prioritization, interconnection disputes, and the host of other harmful issues which would arise as a result of the adoption of the proposal.

From General Assembly comments:

With national attention on the rising cost of higher education and the crippling debt for recent graduates, General Assembly offers an important outlet for students looking to receive a high return on investment from their education. Over 100,000 students have benefitted from our services, including our 10 - 12 week long immersive programs and our three-month apprenticeship program that provides students with a paid opportunity to further hone their newly-acquired skills on the job.

...

Clear rules are important in promoting innovative enterprise. The factors of the commercial reasonableness test are too vague to provide certainty. These standards include “harm to consumers” or “to competition” and evaluation of a totality-of-the- circumstances. Such a standard will only lead to expensive and time-consuming litigation that start-ups cannot afford and which will therefore curb entrepreneurial activity to the benefit incumbent players and their legal teams.

General Assembly believes we need strong network neutrality rules that prohibit blocking, discrimination, and access fees. These require reclassification under Title II of the Communications Act. The Internet works well today; allowing ISPs to price discriminate will harm businesses like ours, the general public, and the economic well-being of our country.

From OpenCurriculum comments:

We want to spend our time and resources transforming education, changing the lives of teachers and students, with the awareness that such education will have lasting impact on today’s young people throughout their entire lives and benefit society in general. Asking us to negotiate for “commercially reasonable” deals in light of our larger competitors being willing to pay a premium to keep us out of the market is rigging the market so we (and other entrants) lose. “Comforting” us with the right to hire lawyers and expert witnesses, or wait years for an FCC Ombudsman to win or lose a case whose legal standards are also stacked against us, provides no comfort.

….

Even if we find ways to pay for premium tiers with different cable and phone companies, this is going to significantly eat into our capital ­ affecting the way we grow and our ability to allow more teachers in the United States and around the world to get access to better quality teaching materials for the future generations.

...

The FCC should instead reclassify access to the Internet as a common carrier service and forbid unreasonable technical discrimination, define pay­-for­-play deals as inherently unjust and unreasonable, define access fees as inherently unreasonable charges, and apply these rules to both mobile and fixed platforms.

From Codecademy comments:

Codecademy is an innovative solution for schools and students to save money. Our company also has an important impact on job creation. We're building the basic steps of competency to help people start their own companies, websites, apps, and products and get entry level jobs right now. The next big thing, or an innovative solution to a social problem, could be developed by someone who learned how to code using Codecademy.

But none of that may happen if the FCC adopts its fast-lanes proposal and abandons an open Internet.

Nashville's Vibrant Community is No Surprise

Before this trip, I was already one of Nashville's biggest fans. I was lucky to go to school here and spend time in this amazing city. But what struck me today is how the things I love most about Nashville -- its welcoming attitude, its strong sense of community, and its appetite for arts and adventure -- have come together to build a vibrant, engaged, and diversified startup community. And, even more, how that community is helping to cement Nashville's position as one of the nation's most exciting places to be.

It's obvious that the close-knit and supportive community that exists here is driving its success. But it's more than just the startup community's success: it's the success of the whole city. This was true in the other places we visited this week -- but especially so in Nashville. One need look no further than the Trolley Barns, home to the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, the exciting epicenter of what's going on here (thanks in no small part to the community's biggest cheerleader, Michael Burcham). The Trolley Barns, 1930s-era buildings that, yes, did house they city's trollies, have been redeveloped as a home for startups, artists, and now restaurants and businesses. Just a few years ago, they existed in a part of the city devoid of commercial and residential activity. Now it's buzzing.

This was consistent with what we saw at Marathon Village and the BowTruss Building - formerly deserted and underused structures that have or are being renovated to house exciting new businesses, and are making new communities safe and successful. Just more proof that good startups are more than just good business, they're good community.

It's no surprise that Nashville, home for generations to some of the country's best artists, would also be home to some of its most exciting and disruptive startups. It has the support of civic leaders, like Burcham, and elected officials, like Gov. Haslam, who joined us today. And, like most successful communities, it has members who are engaged, helping their compatriots rise to the top, and encouraging them to plug back into the larger cities and communities in which they live.

Nashville, I always knew you had it in you.

Cincinnati's Renaissance

Cincinnati is going through a renaissance in the traditional sense of the word. Leveraging longstanding expertise in brand development, and belief in the power of consumer products and local manufacturing, this accessible city is embracing its artistic roots and rebuilding neighborhoods.

With Proctor and Gamble headquartered in Cincinnati, the city has long been the capital of consumer branding. Now, P&G is deeply involved with the next generation of great consumer products via grants to startup incubator Centrifuse, and mentorship responsibilities for a host of other businesses. Between big businesses getting involved, and the world-class industrial design program at the University of Cincinnati, this truly American city is poised to take full part in the next wave of economic growth through serious innovation.

We started the day in the old brewery district visiting Roadtrippers - one of a few great success stories here. Having grown from 20 people to 140, the company (founded by an Englishman on a green card!) now occupies an entire building. But right down the road, there are still boarded-up homes and old warehouses -- fertile ground for community art projects, but also room for improvement!

Next we moved on to the infamous Over-the-Rhine district to visit The Brandery -- a successful incubator focused on -- you guessed it -- building great brands! As the story goes, the first time the Brandery founders came to tour the space, they took a bullet in their window. Here in Cincinnati, like Pittsburgh, deprived and dangerous neighborhoods are being reclaimed for widespread benefit. Jobs are being created, community services and social areas are being built, and the area is becoming more populated.

People (like Roadtrippers founder) moved to Cincinnati specifically to join the Brandery. In fact, half of the room at the Brandery fireside was made up of Cincinnati transplants. In addition to new faces, more people are staying who might have left a few years ago, and more people are moving back to be a part of what’s going on. All of this is just another testament to the power of entrepreneurship to revitalize the landscapes of our cities and bring jobs back to the rest of the country.

Strength Begets Strength in Startup Pittsburgh

Much like Detroit, Pittsburgh is an historic industrial city. And like Detroit again, when American manufacturing went into decline, so did the steel city. But Pittsburgh also has a long history as a center of advanced learning; with over fifty major university research departments in the city, focusing on topics from Information Technology to Life Sciences, Robotics, and Physics, the steel city’s new economy is being powered by academic research, and advanced manufacturing.

Despite these assets that prepare this city to be a leader in the next wave of technological innovation, Pittsburgh’s humility makes its people charming but can be one of its economy’s worst enemies. The story of what’s happening here is just not getting out.

Luckily, some success speaks for itself. Carnegie Mellon University spins out the most businesses per research dollar spent than any other university in the country; thirty companies have been started by faculty and students this year alone. Alongside the University of Pittsburgh, and others, the wealth of knowledge here -- seasoned academics, professionals, and young graduates -- provides the expertise to support the youth startup revolution spreading across the country. Pittsburgh is wisely using what already makes it strong.

At the working spaces we visited, and the pitch competition hosted by AlphaLab, we saw well-developed companies, many of which were involved in making and manufacturing tangible things. Pittsburgh’s tech scene is not about software. Positioning itself apart from  Silicon Valley, and not as an imitator, has been Pittsburgh’s strength.

There’s also a human story here. In the midst of their rising success, community members are working hard to make sure that the city’s growth benefits everyone in Pittsburgh.

We met Urban Innovation21, an unparalleled public-private partnership that supports entrepreneurial growth, while also connecting that growth to underserved communities. It’s exciting and inspiring to see the innovation economy being used to revitalize deprived and underrepresented constituencies. 

We also visited StartUptown, an incubator space that is helping Uptown grow from an historically disadvantaged neighborhood to an area known for its community and entrepreneurial culture. By thinking about how growth affects the broader community, and actually using the new economy to make the city better, StartUptown is a crucial piece of Pittsburgh’s future.

If Pittsburgh can tell the story of what’s being built here, it can only help accelerate their growth. And if Pittsburgh can tell the story of how they are using their talents to make their city better for everyone, they might just be able to redefine people’s perceptions of what “tech” means, and what it’s capable of doing.

Senator Markey: FCC Already Has Power to Save the Internet

UPDATE 7/15/14: Sen. Markey has rallied fellow Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer, Al Franken, Ron Wyden, Richard Blumenthal, Jeff Merkley, Elizabeth Warren, Sheldon Whitehouse, Ben Cardin, Kristen Gillibrand, Cory Booker, and Barbara Boxer, as well as independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, to sign his letter telling the FCC they already have the power to save the Internet and reclassify under Title II. Here is a draft of the letter. Sen. Ron Wyden also backed the push for Title II "common carriage" regulation in a comment to the FCC. Wyden wrote that the FCC should call the Internet what it is: a "telecommunications service."

The last time Congress took up the issue of how to regulate telecommunications (telephones, broadcasting etc.), the Internet was but a dream, haltingly emerging into reality. It was 1996. At the time, then-Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts was the lead Democratic co-sponsor of the Telecommunications Act in the House of Representatives; he shepherded the bill through various committees and the floor of the House, ultimately becoming a leading champion for the Internet along the way before the bill was signed into law by President Clinton.

Fast forward to today, and the Internet as we know it, shaped in large part by the 1996 Act, is under direct assault. Now-Senator Markey is still an advocate for the power of the Internet and is working to protect the needs of consumers and businesses nationwide.

The Senator is asking his fellow Senators to sign a letter urging FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to make use of the power they believe is already afforded to him by the Telecommunications Act to reclassify the Internet as a utility under Title II. Only with reclassification under Title II can the FCC ban paid prioritization (fast-lanes) on the Internet.

As we’ve documented extensively, we agree with this sentiment and urge the Chairman to do exactly that. You too can help by urging your Senators to contact Senator Markey’s office and sign the letter. This battle must be fought on a number of fronts, and this is one where we have an opportunity to exert pressure.

Call your Senator today, and tell them to sign on with Ed!  Tell Chairman Wheeler to do what he has the power to do: reclassify the Internet under Title II.

It’s Morning in Detroit

This week we’re traveling with Steve Case on the Rise of the Rest road trip to celebrate entrepreneurship, in all its forms, across America. Every day we’ll post dispatches from the cities we’ve seen. Stay tuned for updates from Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Nashville.

Almost a century ago, Detroit was home to the transportation revolution and pioneering entrepreneurs like Henry Ford, but over time the city lost its way. Now this famous city is coming back with a new revolution focused on reimagining the city as the best version of itself: better infrastructure, stronger businesses and tighter communities. This story is one of regeneration, renewal, and rebirth.

We spent the morning touring spaces filled with great talent from Michigan’s universities (and across the country), and bursting with great passion for rebuilding this city. From the M@dison Building to Quicken Loans, DIME (Detroit Institute of Music Education), Detroit Labs and Bizdom, it’s clear how much energy Detroit has for its next incarnation. And then at Shinola -- a local company that produces watches, bicycles, leather goods, and journals -- we saw that the manufacturing heritage that once made Detroit is again making it a world leader.

As recently as 60 years ago, Detroit was one of the top high-growth cities in the nation. Now it has an incredible opportunity to take its heritage, to inspire and retain the skilled individuals that are coming out of Michigan’s universities (Michigan has more engineers per capita than any other state in the nation), and to play leapfrog.

Ironically, one of Detroit’s great strengths is that everyone had given up on it; the stories have been so bad that it’s galvanized America’s interest. The fact that it got so bad here has created a platform for an unusual level of excitement and a boundless sense of possibility.

Had the city not lost 60 percent of its population and gone bankrupt, if Detroit did not have the chance to start again from the beginning, and rebuild from the ground-up, we might have seen a very different city today. Cities like Austin have already been through this sort of rebirth; we know that this looks like.

Today Detroit looks like a very different place. We met with Gov. Dan Snyder, Mayor Mike Duggan, and civic leaders like Dan Gilbert. We toured co-working spaces and met investors and startups that are growing quickly – bringing jobs and excitement to Detroit. People are staying in the area, and moving back to Detroit from San Francisco and New York City to be a part of what’s happening here. The energy is palpable, and the dynamics of Detroit’s story are changing.

Detroit has a long history of innovation, and today we saw a vibrant community working hard to bring that tradition back to life. What remains is the task of bringing the automotive industry back into the fold. The industrial giants have the experience to help build a new Detroit, and this new Detroit has the power to breathe new life into these incumbent industries.

 The future is bright in Motor City. Good morning Detroit! 

New Legislation Revives JOBS Act Intentions

When I sat in the Rose Garden in April 2012 watching President Obama sign the JOBS Act into law, I remarked to myself, and anyone who would listen, just how far “the Internet” had come in terms of polished political activism and policy coherence in such a short amount of time: The JOBS Act was passed in six weeks. As originally intended, JOBS Act would have opened up new avenues for investment in early-stage startups, providing new ways for entrepreneurs to secure the funding they need to turn their ideas into reality.

But, just two years later, there are many within this community who have been left disheartened by the haphazard implementation of such an important law, and have also become hamstrung by the limitations put on them by the Securities and Exchange Commission -- in stark contrast to the spirit of that legislation.

The crowdfunding for equity provisions have yet to become a reality. And, perhaps more importantly, provisions on general solicitation aimed at making it easier for startups to widen their investor base in a more rational way, as opposed to the previous, wink-and-nod style capital formation, have made the situation worse to the point of being untenable for many early-stage companies, especially those who grow through accelerator programs.

Luckily, news from Washington this morning signals the beginning of a solution we hope will make the JOBS Act work for startups, angel investors and all those who wish to join their ranks. Dubbed the Helping Angels Lead Our Startups, or HALOS, Act (clever, because they’re supporting angels!), this important legislation, offered in a bipartisan manner in both houses,but led by Illinois Democrat Rep. Brad Schneider and Ohio Republican Rep. Steve Chabot, would change the Regulation D rules governing General Solicitation to once allow “Demo Days” to continue once again.

Demoing early stage startups and their products has been a key way for companies to accelerate growth, but the unintended consequences of JOBS Act’s rulemaking at the SEC have complicated the process by which these startups can present their groundbreaking ideas. The current status quo stands in total contrast to the original intent of the legislation, and unfortunately we need a further fix.

Luckily, Reps. Schneider and Chabot have been joined by Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT), Patrick Toomey (R-PA) and John Thune (R-SD) to provide that legislative fix in the form of the HALOS Act. You can read the (short) bill in its entirety here. We encourage you to reach out to the co-sponsors and thank them for their foresight here, as well as to your own representative and Senators urging them to pass this important legislation.