Lisa Calhoun
Welcome to the Atlanta Startup Podcast. I’m Lisa Calhoun, your host for an exciting conversation today about venture capital and potential impacts on the industry from the Biden-Harris Administration. We’ve got quite a panel of experts with a lot of background and experience in various administrations. I’ll let them introduce themselves. How about we start with you, Jina?
Jina Sanone
Yeah, that’s great. Thanks so much for being here. I’m a partner with Valor and excited to talk to everybody today. I am the founder and president of Her Term We are a nonprofit that recruits women to run for office here in Georgia. And our tagline is, “When she wins, everyone does”. It’s a message about what women bring to leadership positions across the board. And I know I believe our organization is oriented around bringing people into the system. Because if you have more people, the more perspectives, the better outcomes that will have in government. And we’re very focused on women of color, more than half of our candidates and elected candidates are women of color. We’re very proud of that at Her Term. Prior to this, I’ve been involved in a lot of changes. My first political job was during the Bill Clinton Transition, and I helped start the program AmeriCorps in his administration. After that, I worked in the airline industry for 20 years, which is what brought me to Georgia. And I was always tasked with new initiatives and change in the leadership positions that I had. And most recently, I led the transition for newly elected representative Carolyn Bordeaux from Georgia’s seventh congressional district. So I spent the last two months helping her hire staff and get her office set up. But I continue on with Her Term. And I’m excited to be here today to talk about the change that might be coming with a new transition in government.
Lisa
Gary, if you wouldn’t mind introducing yourself, and I’ll bring up some of our slides.
Gary Peat
Sure, thanks so much for inviting me Lisa and organizing this event. [I’m] Gary Peat, General Partner, Valor Ventures, my career has been 20 years as a general partner, doing seed in early stage, principally b2b cloud software. About 80% of what I’ve done has been in the southeast United States, about 40% of what I’ve done, has been in the Metropolitan Statistical Area around Atlanta, and I’m a resident of Atlanta. What you see behind me is Piedmont Park and I live just off of Piedmont Park in Atlanta.
Lisa
I’m really excited to welcome my Congressman, my District Representative Kwanza Hall.
Kwanza Hall
Good afternoon, everyone. It’s great to be here. I’m Kwanza Hall, recently elected to serve out the remainder of Congressman John Lewis, his term I served for about one month in Congress. It was probably the most consequential month in Congress. We had $3 trillion in votes, including the COVID package, as well as the military funding and the Omnibus Budget, about 25 votes. And quite a number of other measures that all speak to moving our country in the direction of you know, growth, prosperity, economic expansion, I think. I served for 15 years elected in Atlanta representing the central business district two years on the school board and 13 on City Council. My district included kind of the core innovation zones of the city, Georgia Tech and Georgia State tech square. I watched it grow up from just the Bay Bubba environment to a full blown Innovation Zone and have been supportive of many of the businesses there I’ve watched so many go from two people, to 100, to several 1000, like MailChimp and just seeing them grow and seeing the various stages of support that they needed and seeing the venture community being here, but also not being as strong as it could be in Georgia and in the south for that matter, as always prompted me to want to be an advocate and a supporter. And I want to do as much as I can to push the agenda forward to help out. So glad to be here. And thank you so much.
Lisa
Glad to have you here. And last but not least, Tiffany McKenzie with Bryan cave.
Tiffany McKenzie
Hello, happy afternoon, everyone. I hope everyone’s doing well. And Happy Holidays! My name is Tiffany Mckenzie, I am a partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, I sit in our as we call it the private client group. So we help individuals, we help family offices, we help athletes, business owners with their high net worth, estate planning, tax planning and generation skipping tax planning. And as you can imagine, every four years we get very busy, when new presidents come in, and they put in or proposed new tax policy. So I’m very happy to talk to you all about that today.
Lisa
So as you can tell, we have really insightful, distinguished and experienced panels today. This is a Q&A format. So we’re going to share some insights with you. But we really do welcome your questions. So I look forward to getting those as well. And, to kind of set you up and give you some things to have perhaps questions about. Gary’s gonna walk through the role of venture capital in our economy a little bit and share some high level perspective.
Gary Peat
The hard thing to fathom, is how such a small industry can have such a large impact. And if you say, well, 40% of the companies that are public companies around the world today were venture backed companies within the last 40 years. And so, we’ve essentially created half the value of the public sector equities globally, in the last 40 years. And so you’ve got, some pretty powerful forces are necessary for such a small thing to be so very impactful. If you said, “What is venture capitals percentage of investing capital, equity capital worldwide?” And actually doesn’t even come up on 1%. Then if you say, “What is the pipeline for the health of that 40%? It’s the IPOs. And what is the pipeline for the health of venture capital firms? It’s IPOs. But those come and go in cycles, the key thing is the next bullet. What do these companies do after they’ve been venture backed companies and become public? They, as it turns out, R&D factories worldwide, of the for profit public company sector. And then the United States, you could argue, is one of the places that originated what we call venture capital today in the ’70s. In Silicon Valley managers that had been foundational companies, like Fairchild Semiconductor, just were investing in their own people that were leaving to start their own companies. And at one time, we were probably 90% of organized venture capital worldwide, we’re now under 50%. And I think, the tax policy and interconnected economy policy has a lot to do with that change. And it can be improved upon, we don’t have to become 90% again, but we should probably reduce the rate at which the rest of the world takes innovation forward and leaves us behind.
Lisa
As we enter this administration, we have the first woman in the executive branch, we have a democratic legislature and executive branch. And we’re at a supercritical time, I don’t have to tell you this in innovation, for healthcare environment, and for education. And so, we believe that the new administration is actually more well versed than you would think on the surface in value in the venture capital industry, because of some of the appointees, that they are moving into office. And, because we’re at a very watershed moment, in the global venture capital innovation sphere. There’s a lot of excitement that we expect out of this administration and within this industry. So, in terms of venture capital ties, I wanted to highlight a few for you. Vice President Kamala Harris, a senator from California, of course, in her background, she’s worked very closely with the venture capital industry throughout her terms as Senator and brings that knowledge with her into the oval. Also, the Rhode Island Governor is a pick for commerce secretary and a former venture capitalist, Gina Raimondo. So that’s a person who also has a really large potential for impacting where we’re going in this administration. The incoming Chief of Staff, Ron Klain was an investor at revolution. Revolution is that venture capital firm famous for the rise of the rest, investing philosophy. And then our nominee for Secretary of State Antony Blinken is a partner at a private equity firm, Pine Island Capital Partners. So just to kind of set the perspective and give some background, we have an administration with a lot of very close ties. So I’d love to invite Jina, our Representative Hall, to jump in and share any thoughts or context around some of these moves and how they see the administration shaping up.
Jina Sanone
I’ll go ahead and I jump in on just overall, not necessarily about any of these specific items. But overall, I think because while democrats hold the House and the Senate, US Senate, both majorities are very slim, slim as possible in the US Senate. And I would expect there to be more bipartisan need for any passage of legislation. It’s possible that the things that will appeal across the aisle to both parties will be the most likely to be tackled and achieved. Of course, there will be other more partisan activities that are happening, but I don’t know how much progress we would make on any legislation that isn’t embraced by Republicans and Democrats alike?
Hon. Kwanza Hall
Yes, I’ll echo the same. Jina mentioned the one good thing is that there is a spirit of getting our economy back on track, that’s a bipartisan spirit out there. The margins aren’t the answer. It doesn’t, It shouldn’t be approached as a Republican or a Democratic bill. But it really should be approached as a bill for, or these are solutions for moving our country forward in all of the measures the Ignite American innovation Act, the American innovation and JOBS Act, the energy sector, innovation, credit act, the changes to the Volcker Rule, as well as the development in empowering our aspiring leaders, as they’ve been kind of held up a little bit primarily because of that those disconnects, I think some of this will be worked out whether they’re in these forms, or in new versions that speak to the change that needs to happen in the various sectors. But I think we’re in a really good place. And I’ve seen bipartisan support, industry support, even in the energy sector, where you’re seeing usual historic utilities like Southern Company here in Georgia being a little bit more standoffish to some of the changes, but being supporters now. So I think we’re, we’re in a place where the climate is one of unity, I think, in a spirit of cooperation, and I think that bodes well for the VC sector.
Lisa
That certainly would be a new spirit out of the legislature. And so, we’re seeing some developments, especially in headlines around, possibly the Republican Party, which has been voting strongly as a block, fracturing a little bit into different subsections of the party. Do you think that the headlines have that right? Especially Representative Hall or Jina, do you think that that’s a little bit more media driven? Or is it an accurate reflection of the spirit of how our legislators are starting to evolve around the issues?
Hon. Kwanza Hall
Well, I think. parties go through regeneration or reverse all the time, and one star dies, then the new birth happens, as you see with the change in seasons, so to speak. And I think what’s happening on the Republican side, at the national level, there are some there’s some turnover. But the same as we were going into the election for the speaker, there were some disconnects, as well on the Democratic side. So I think it’s nothing wrong with having a variety of voices. They should be at the table, they should be honored. But at the end of the day, if you don’t win, in whatever, vote or whatever measures in front of you still have to be willing to come back together to move a collective agenda, for good sportsmen, like conduct, I would say is what we would be expecting. I think that is still there. But it’s gonna take a little while for some of the disconnects to shake out and I do think business and economic agendas, get more people moving forward collectively than anything else, because sometimes theologies can pull people further apart, but getting people back to work creating jobs, creating investment vehicles, Kwanza get everyone’s attention.
Lisa
Well, and the NVCA, the National venture capital association is strongly in favor of the legislation you see here, which is you’re not limited to, but just highlighting the Ignite American innovation Act, the American innovation and JOBS Act, The Energy Sector Innovation Credit Act, the Volcker rule, which is going to be allowing banks back into venture capital back what our industry was young, 50 years ago, banks did and could anchor venture capital firms and funds. And, that was actually out of favor for many years. And now it’s come back into the opportunity where banks, as a part of their growth, can put some of their capital to work in venture capital funds. And that’s supposed to be a lift for funding, just like some of these credits and drawbacks, and then the developing empowering our aspiring leaders have proposed legislation would allow VC funds to help angel investors get liquidity earlier if it’s desired. And that also could empower angels to feel like rather than having 15 to 20 year investment horizons, they might get liquidity sooner, which could motivate more angels to get involved. That sort of transitions a little bit, speaking of angels, to some of the proposed tax plan, and I’d like to turn this over a bit to Tiffany, and have her share some of her high level thoughts around tax and estate strategies under this administration.
Tiffany McKenzie
Thank you, Lisa. So often clients around this time of year, they’re saying, how is this new administration going to affect my personal bottom line? How is it going to affect my pocket? So currently, the highest income tax bracket rate is 37%. By the plans on increasing that top tax bracket to 39.6%, and changing the amount of income threshold to $400,000, which is currently at $518,000 for single or head of household. In addition, he proposed for the capital gains tax rates to increase. Currently, the short term capital gains tax rate is 37%. And the long term rate is 20%. Biden has proposed that those capital gains tax rates, tax rates would increase to 39.6% for taxpayers with over 1 million in income. So as you can see on this slide, it is a significant increase, especially for those who have appreciating assets. He’s also proposed that 1031 exchanges would be limited or even eliminated for taxpayers with income over $400,000. He’s also discussed reforming opportunity’s own investments which I know a lot of my clients have done in many instances. He said that these opportunities, own investments favor luxury apartments, over affordable housing and local entrepreneurs. So he’s hoping to reform it back to a place where it would fulfill its promise. And under that, he’s kind of just proposed three legs. He wants to incentivize opportunity’s own funds to partner with community organizations and local nonprofits. He wants to seek to have the Treasury Department review opportunity’s own regulations to ensure tax incentives have clear economic, social and environmental benefits to the community. And he wants to just create more transparency and require developers to utilize the opportunity’s own tax breaks, provide detailed reporting and public disclosures about investments, which is one of the biggest concerns about the current program. In addition, I want us to keep in mind when we’re talking about Biden’s proposals that Congress last year and just recently approved over $3 trillion in Coronavirus relief. And it’s possible but there is more coming. And the question on everyone’s mind is where’s this money coming from to repay this? So when we talk about proposed tax changes, we need to keep in mind where the government usually likes to tax people, and it’s the wealthy. So it’s likely that taxing the wealthy is going to continue to gain traction. So I’d like to talk a little bit about transfer taxes, the state taxes, give taxes, things like that and some of the plans that Biden has proposed regarding transfer taxes. So over the last 10 years or so we have had a unified gift and estate tax exemption, and that exemption exclusion amount has only increased over the years back in 2009. Was $3.5 million that you could transfer without estate tax or gift tax. And now as we stand in 2021, that number is $11.58 million per person or a little over 23 million per couple. The current estate and gift tax rate is 40%. And this current exclusion amount of 11.5 8 million, which is the highest we’ve ever seen in history was put in place by Trump’s tax cuts and JOBS Act. But that is set to sunset in 2026, and revert back to the 2009 rates of $3.5 million and 45% tax rate. So honestly, again, keeping in the back of your mind, regardless of what Biden puts in place, and what Congress puts in place, these really high exemption rates are going to sunset in 2026. So we’ve been telling clients to use these exemptions while you can, make gifts while you can, before these rates go away. Because Biden has proposed to return the gift and estate tax to the 2009 levels of $3.5 million. He’s also proposed to be de-unified. So instead of having a unified gift and estate tax, it would be a 1 million lifetime gift tax exclusion. And then, to increase the gift tax rate, which is currently at 40% to 45%. He is also proposed to tax unrealized capital gains at death, and eliminate a huge estate planning tool that we use all the time now called this The step up in basis. So currently an individual’s basis, which is usually the original investment in the asset, gets to be stepped up or step down to fair market value at death, which often means that capital gains could be completely eliminated, which is a huge tool in our estate planning arsenal. And Biden has proposed to either eliminate it or limited significantly. He has proposed some carve outs. So, he stated that transfers to spouses and charities would be exempt. There would be about $100,000 per person exclusion, tangible personal property would be excluded, and any capital gains tax paid could be deducted against any estate tax liability. So now that I threw a lot at you quickly, but I just want to say overall, because so many things are likely to change, exemptions are going to decrease and tax rates are going to increase. We want to really accent and incentivize giving during life and rather than death. Making sure you’re completing any business transactions now selling appreciated assets now, realizing gains now. All I can say is now, now, now, now is the time. Now is the time to make, Yes! Big decisions. I’m sure a question that may come up in your mind is, well, how quickly could anything be passed? And I’m sure congressmen can speak that way better than I can. But obviously, as Lisa said previously, there’s a lot of things that are more priority, there’s Coronavirus, there’s climate, there’s things like that might pass before a huge tax change goes through. But it is possible that any tax policy could be retroactive. It has happened in the past how likely it is probably slim, but it is something that can be done.
Lisa
So while we’re seeing these tax policy changes, we’re also seeing more money flowing is kind of a word, how are we paying for these things, but 50 billion in investments of black and brown entrepreneurs through the new market tax credit as part of the Biden-Harris plan. Proposed $100 billion in new low interest loans through community development, financial institutions and Community Reinvestment Act. We’re looking at seeing $5 billion proposed to the Minority Business Development Agency, which is a new agency, and $10 billion from the Small Business Opportunity Fund to entrepreneurs specifically working in lower income, tribal or rural areas. And then, we’re looking at increasing the state small business credit initiative through 2025. That would create an additional $30 billion of potential private sector investment triggered by the federal investment. So it’s really interesting times I’m going to pause there before we continue talking about some of the legislation in the pipeline to see if there’s any questions from the audience, for a panel, around venture capital, around some of the legislation that’s in fact, impacting the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Robin Moriarty
This is Robin, I have a question. The previous slide where you were talking about some of the different funds that we’re getting to become available for different kinds of entrepreneurs. Do you think that will make venture capital more or less attractive in terms of pursuing funds? Or do you think it’ll sort of direct them into other sources of funds?
Lisa
I think it’s a terrific tailwind for venture capital that invests in seed stage or invests inclusively. So, one of the issues in the developing economy with early and first stage entrepreneurs, is how are they being funded. And when you’re the venture capital money at the table, you want to de-risk that investment with other pockets, other types of capital at the table. And so if the federal government through some of these programs is going to put additional money at the same table, it is a huge tailwind for early stage investors. It just continuing with some of those opportunities, clean energy rebates proposed up to $400 billion, a qualified small business stock exemption increase with 0% on capital gains, they’re held for more than five years. Policies like these and some of the others we’ve been discussing, are going to help the earliest stage investors do more with what they have invested. And so I’m really compelled by it as an early stage investor, especially in a region such as the southeast. Great question! Before we move on, did any of our panelists want to add additional context to that?
Hon. Kwanza Hall
I just like to add a little bit, just to say to everyone, the COVID package included some of these measures. And when we spoke about it, there was a lot of conflict. But we called it a down payment on the future, a future that would include much greater investment. So we did do $12 billion in CDF by and MDI funding, and $25 billion for the new market tax credit credit extender, which gives it another five years but one place that I think sometimes, there’s a challenge with government, and getting VCs and getting the smaller shops connected, is the place where we need some type of intermediaries, you know aggregators, who can help make the pipeline actually work. Because the government is big and very bureaucratic. VCs tend to want to do bigger deals. But what the government wants to see happen is dollars get all the way down to the smallest concerns that can ultimately grow. So if there’s any way and I just challenge the industry to think about how we can add those extra layers to get all the way down to the bottom, especially in this period when we need to see a pivot out of COVID. And the challenge is that so many firms have had who started with one business model, now they need another, but it’s an opportunity they’re trying to capture out of the pivot.
Gary Peat
So if you think about, I don’t know, Congressman, if you’ve spent much time thinking about qualified small business stock, but what that does is it brings an economic benefit of a tax policy way down to a very specific place, seed and startup. And that can be written into the policy, that you can’t go invest in the buyout, a $50 billion buyout, and get a zero capital gains tax on that deal. But you can make it very specific. And it’s been very beneficial. It gives an angel and the tax policy only kicks in when it really works. So for example, a company has become successful as 1000 employees is worth a billion dollars. And you’ve got a small group of angel investors that are able to take more of those dollars back because the concept that you dealt with was, what’s the economic benefit of 1000 employees were the startup that became 1000 employees entry level at that startup as a college graduate is into middle class in America, the richest nation in history. And so you can see the economic benefit to the economy in spades. And then you provide an incentive for having been there to fund that company in a capital gain that’s truly targeted. And that policy is a very, very small part of capital gains, but it’s very impactful on startups.
Hon. Kwanza Hall
Yes, makes a lot of sense.
Lisa
So, you know, speaking to that challenge to which I really appreciate you bringing up Congressman Hall, you’re right, you’re so exactly right. That there is a lot of challenge in reaching to the grassroots level of entrepreneurship, where there’s so much upside for the entire country. And it’s what’s interesting is by backing entrepreneurs especially women and entrepreneurs of color, we’re finding so many strategies that merit kind of a double look of attention. And I do believe that’s going to give us a bit of a tailwind and strategies like Valors under this administration. And let me give you one example. Our latest investment is GoodFynd. And GoodFynd is an entrepreneur, African-American female out of DC, fantastic CTO, they’ve built their own platform. And what does it do? It is a payments platform specifically for food trucks. Food trucks, who would have thought it’s over a billion dollar industry in the United States. And there’s not that many pieces of research around it. But one piece of research we found quite compelling was out of Chicago, that found that 80% of food truck owner operators, or are women or people of color, so here we have an entry level entrepreneurship, opportunity food trucks, period. We’ve all hoped to eat at a food truck, it’s delicious, and you should try it if you have. But here we have this entry level business that doesn’t have the technical tools to support a cashless economy, or the types of ordering the types of menu services that they need, and payment services. And so the entrepreneur herself out of this background building for that, we want to see that type of entrepreneurial energy replicated 1000 times across the region. And some of the policies we’re seeing proposed by the Biden-Harris Administration, seem to speak to that, and that, and so that is exciting for us. We’re also really excited about the opportunity for more of America’s talent on the table proposed by the Biden-Harris Administration. And I just wondered if perhaps, Jina, if you might want to take on some of this or Representative Hall, if you have any thoughts around some of the Congressional priorities around talent.
Jina Sanone
I think that we have seen over the past years more focus on inclusive policies, the Obama administration put out some things that were more specific during their term, and of course, Biden as part of that. So we’ll see what happens. But a lot, as I mentioned before, because of the slim majority in Congress, I think a lot of what the Biden-Harris administration will be able to do is in the realm of executive actions. So we know they’re putting forth what they hope to be the most diverse administration in the cabinet and of course, many of them will need to get appointed, but they’re working on that. And then the executive actions could take the form of carrots, probably, but maybe some sticks around companies and organizations becoming more diverse boards becoming more diverse. I think that one of the things I want to point out in Congress, and this is what I do is track the progress of women in elected office. But, we’d seen most of the diversity around race and gender in Congress on the Democratic side. And this year, we saw it much stronger on the Republican side. And there were 14 seats that Republicans won in Congress that they took back from Democrats. So these are generally swing districts. And those candidates that one of the 14, at 10 were women and 2 were men of color, and that some of the women were women of color, as well. But that’s going to be a strategy going forward, I believe in Republicans because it helps them win seats in swing districts to put up quality candidates that weren’t the traditional candidate. So I think we’ll continue to see more diversity on the Republican side of the aisle because it was a winning strategy, this election cycle. And those priorities aren’t as strong on the Republican side as they are on the Democratic side around inclusion. Just the life experience that those new people will bring is really great on top of that, I don’t think a lot will change with the Georgia General Assembly, this new session because the leadership is the same, the people are generally the same, not a lot of change in elections there. But we are seeing a lot more corporate led initiatives, which existed in the past, but we’re really pushed forward by the Black Lives Matter. Activism, important activism last year, culminating in the summer and continuing and I just read about Apple being very specific about a $25 million investment they are going to make in Atlanta around HBCUs in the city, and they’re spending a lot more than just that, but that was their specific initiative with HBCUs in Atlanta, around a Learning Hub. So I think a combination of the carrots and sticks, the legislation, the incentives, and all of that will create one more important thing, which are role models. So the more that people see themselves, the more encouraged they are to run for office or innovate, maybe start a new company. So it’s all quite exciting.
Hon. Kwanza Hall
Yes, and I’ll just add one thing on the diversity and inclusion, I think VCs need to think about that as well. The capital sources coming with partners and or leaders of their organizations who are from diverse backgrounds, I think also will help to open doors and provide new opportunities across the board. And one little thing on the states that the SSBCI projects that were here in Georgia were somewhat used, but not used as much as they could have been, I think that does pose an opportunity for states around the country where VCs could slide in and do some special things in partnership with their local governments, state governments.
Lisa
Excellent point, given our time, and we know that your time is extremely valuable. Everyone on this call, you made time for the conversation, want to make sure you have the time to be a part of the conversation, and open it up to a dialogue with our panelists. And we’d love to entertain questions or thoughts. And just please be very free with what you’d like to share. I believe that, Ronald, you had a thought and I’d love to call on you first.
Ronald Batiste
Well, thank you. I’m Ronald Batiste and I’m what you call a Brownsville developer. I like contaminated sites and getting them back to revitalization in the community. And my question is about opportunity zones. Can you talk more about, what you think the changes are going to be? This is a fairly new program anyway. So I would like to hear more about the refinement and some of the changes that are going to happen in the Biden – Kamala program.
Tiffany McKenzie
I’m happy to take that. So Ronald, the changes haven’t been implemented yet. And as you said, there have been so many changes along the way, because it’s just such a new program. And rules and regulations are literally coming down the pipeline, every other month or so. But from what I’ve read that Biden and Kamala stated is they just want to make sure that they’re bringing these programs, these programs and communities that need them the most. I think some of the issues that we’ve seen thus far is that these programs have really favored wealthier areas, even though they’ve been deemed as opportunity’s own investments and high return projects. So just trying to bring it back to local communities, to entrepreneurs, especially entrepreneurs of color, and women that need these investments the most.
Ronald Baptiste
I appreciate that. I do have my thoughts about it, and how it could be certainly better.
Lisa
Thank you so much. And thanks for that answer. Tiffany. What else is on your mind? What else would you like to discuss?
Patrick Henshaw
I’ll go next. I’m Patrick Henshaw, the managing director for Render Capital. And I’ll couch my question in a given ask. So at Render, we’re one of the 2020 build scale capital challenge recipients built specifically to provide early stage risk capital and enduring community support with mentorship of large corporates towards diverse and inclusive founders, specifically in the Louisville, Southern Indiana region where we’re at. So my give would be if anybody needs or wants help on getting to unlock some of those EDA or some of those grant dollars, I’m happy to help jump in and kind of walk you through what we did. But the question, that I would have kind of Lisa’s in line with what you just said, what are the best avenues or channels to plug into, in order to find out when, where and how these changes and future ones could, would, should come into play?
Lisa
Great question, Patrick. I’m going to ask if Representative Hall has any thoughts about, how people like ourselves and investors can really stay on top of the legislation that affects us the most?
Hon. Kwanza Hall
Great question. You know, I never watch C-Span as much as I’ve watched in the last month. It was the most boring piece of media out there. But I have to tell you, C-Span does a lot of stuff out that you should pay attention to. I think in particular for this, you can sign up for updates. And you can sign up to be on the committee mail list. So you can kind of keep up with the particular committees, I think that are going to impact this. This industry our ways and means for the tax pieces, financial services, and appropriations will be where money is spent, and that is being spent out in the community. So those three areas will be the ones that we should be all paying attention to. I was thinking about as a result of my last 30 days, beginning to aggregate some of the most pertinent information on a weekly basis and getting it out to the community. Because I recognized it was such a huge disconnect. Even for me, as a former elected official at the local level, very little of the information gets out the door, and everyone there in Washington kind of talks to themselves. So they don’t know that we don’t really know what they’re talking about until this a year later. So I’m going to try to help to aggregate some information. And I’ll share some links back to the group on where you can get updates on bills and the bills that we already spoke about as well.
Patrick Henshaw
Awesome. Thank you very much.
Lisa
That is a great answer. Let me add to that also that the lobbying arm of the venture capital community is the NVCA. They build themselves as more than a lobbying arm, but I think they are best at lobbying. And while I don’t always agree with every position that they take, they certainly do have their ear to the ground. And so watching the government affairs group out of NVCA can be a really interesting way to keep your ear also to the ground. We have time for probably one or if it’s really short, two questions. Who would like to go next?
Amanda Ratliff
This is Amanda Ratliff with our health care in Columbus, Ohio. We’re sending out a certification. And we’ve been primarily focused in the healthcare sector, and looking to advance some technology. We were just awarded some business doing clinical staffing for the operation warp speed testing of vaccinations. And so I do think that, you all kind of get the money on the head, if that’s the right term. With really integrating the public community and the community based folks to get them engaged. I heard I was sitting yesterday. And there was a woman that said that her daughter was laid off in California from the restaurant industry and so, repurposing those people into other areas. And so I just want to say that was something I lessons-learned coming out of COVID is, how do we repurpose and kind of shift service lines to meet the market where it’s at. So, thank you guys for your input there.
Jina Sanone
It was really interesting and I enjoyed it.
Lisa
I really, really appreciate that. And I want to share our appreciation with our panelists, Jina Senone, Executive Director at Her Term, Congressman Kwanza Hall thank you so much for your time. Gary Peat, always a pleasure, love to have a colleague from Valor here. And also partner at Bryan Cave, Tiffany McKenzie, we will circulate the deck to the attendees. And we really look forward to the additional dialogue with you as we go into an exciting new administration, new era for venture capital and entrepreneurship, especially in the southeast. Thank you all for joining us.
Lisa Calhoun
Well, I want to thank our panel for a really great conversation. We touched on a lot and yet there’s so much that is still quite unclear and still developing. I look forward to having you back on the Atlanta Startup Podcast to tell us a little bit more as plans develop. Thanks for listening and please bookmark the Atlanta Startup Podcast so you can catch our next weekly episode.
