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The 10 Ways Corporations Can Engage With Startups [Complete Guide]
UPDATED: January 28th, 2020
Engagement. Often a word that begins to lose its luster once it has been used time and time again within a given enterprise. Advertising agencies have engagements. Consultants have engagements. Even most contract and freelance workers are considered an engagement.
If you were to make an assumption about what kind of products and services were to exchange hands during one of these "engagement" examples listed above, chances are you would be correct.
Corporate Startup Engagement (CSE), however, takes on many forms.
Notably, this is due to the wide variety of stakeholders involved, the current landscape of challenges that each is looking to solve and their knowledge of what is (and is not) possible.
For some, it's about access to the ecosystem to explore the potential. For others, it's more about core business alignment.
Also, civic-pride, brand equity, and good-will make their way into the grouping as well.
In this article, I'll be sharing the 10 most common types of Corporate-Startup Engagement(s) and a few notes on the current state of each.
And there are actually 10 of them! It's not just a nice round number for click-bait. (This time?).
Lastly, we'll also share what to expect from each, best practices and a few case studies / examples.
Here is the current landscape:
1 - Events
Startup and entrepreneurship events offer an excellent opportunity to engage with a startup for a brief period and at a low-cost.
It allows executives to have eye-opening experiences, first-hand, by seeing innovation, culture, and growth from startups.
Considering the internal journey of corporate startup engagement grows in three phases (Insight, Integrate, Invest), events are a great way to dip the proverbial toe into Insight waters.
It allows executives access and exposure to entrepreneurs, talent, ideas and cultures that cannot be found elsewhere.
Naturally, a Hackathon is an event where technical individuals have an opportunity to solve a problem or tackle a challenge over a weekend.
Corporations or support organizations facilitate with the entrepreneurs to find possible alignment to challenges, core-business, innovation, trials or technologies.
Startups are then generally given some prize or, in some cases, a contract to work with the partner corporation on the new technology.
Companies such as AngelHack facilitate events for corporate partners such as MasterCard (below), Anheuser-Busch and Comcast.
Startup Competitions
Startup competitions are similar to a Hackathon, but generally with a business plan or prototype being showcased instead of lines of code.
In a startup competition, panels of judges are assembled, entrepreneurs are scored based on a predetermined criterion which has already been shared with the founders, and a reward of some kind is provided.
This allows the winning entrepreneurs to receive some access, awareness and (often) a small amount of operating capital or a contract deal.
Universities are well-known for their business plan competitions, including the global University World Cup competition (below), which took place in Copenhagen last year.
It received over 1,500 applicants from 32 different countries.
Other notable examples of startup competitions include Phillips Innovation Awards and Comcast Innovation for Entrepreneurs.
Sponsorships occur at any of the events listed above -- although not mutually exclusive.
Corporations looking to expand reach, prominence, access, and awareness into the local, regional or national ecosystem(s) can easily afford to make a small contribution.
However, sponsorship doesn't always align with goals. It's simply a notice to the entrepreneurship community.
Before doing any of these events, be sure to have a specific engagement mechanism or innovation leadership in place for harnessing the output -- otherwise what comes next will be far too chaotic for a startup, and they will likely lose interest.
Google sponsors Startup Weekend every year all over the world.
Ford, MasterCard, and WalMart were recent sponsors of TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon in SF.
2- Support Services
Support services are a corporation's internal resources and capabilities offered to startups.
Through these support services, corporations are looking to provide, wherever possible, an unfair advantage to the startup.
Generally, from an operational perspective, these services are designed to establish access between startups and corporations for potentially more significant, later-stage engagements.
Y Combinator and 500 Startups are offering free legal document templates for startups, respectively S.A.F.E. and 500 KISS.
Local law-firms often get involved with accelerators, incubators, and other entrepreneurship programs to provide counsel to early stage entrepreneurs.
KISS: Debt Version (which includes an interest rate and a maturity feature)
KISS: Equity Version (without interest or maturity)
This establishes excellent brand equity with the community and brand awareness to growing companies within the ecosystem.
Occasionally, corporations allow partnered startups to have access to the in-house counsel for guidance or contracts.
Services such as these can be a mixed-bag for startup founders.
On the one hand, the cost savings and connectivity to legal veterans can be attractive.
On the other hand, founders aren't free to throw around their trust when it comes to outsiders making their contracts -- especially when a corporate partner could stand to benefit from a grammatical error.
Google, AWS (Amazon) and SAP are offering technical services, respectively, via Experts, AWS Pop-up Lofts and SAP Startup Focus Program (below).
Through these programs, entrepreneurs become more familiar with the services that are offered by the corporation and have excellent access to any technical support issues that may arise from implementation.
Regarding resources, a large number of corporations have repositories of information available to entrepreneurs.
Most notably, OPEN by American Express (below), has been operating their forum and producing quality small business content for years.
Other examples include Standard Chartered's training toolkit enabling staff volunteers to deliver sessions on financial management to micro and small businesses, Saint Gobain via the Saint-Gobain Entrepreneurship Foundation and National Commercial Bank with Alahli Entrepreneurs Program.
Sometimes it's about providing startups with amplification or access.
Consider, for example, the tens of thousands of entrepreneurs who were able to launch their dreams by having a platform like the Home Shopping Network which allows them to have an immediate entry into the lives of potential customers.
Consider how eBay created a marketplace for people to sell their products.
Consider how Uber created a small army of freelance transportation providers.
At Unilever, Swiss Re, and Macy's via respectively Unilever Foundry, Swiss Re StartUp Academy and The Workshop at Macy's, all have programs which will allow for the same. LaunchPads provide new ways for startups to get their venture off the ground, and sometimes even idea inception itself.
The Unilever Foundry, for example, creates opportunities for external entrepreneurs to build upon concepts currently being explored by Unilever.
These programs de-risk the time and capital required for R&D labs to create something similar.
By offloading internal ideas, and meanwhile providing a springboard for entrepreneurs, a win-win is created.
Amazon, through their (literal) LaunchPad program (below), provides startups with tangible goods an amplified position on Amazon's marketplace.
Through exclusive Launchpad-only promotions and one-of-a-kind marketing services, Amazon has roped off a small part of their core business to ensure that entrepreneurs, and their products, have room to grow and thrive on their platform.
Mentorship / Connections
Although not always, through an accelerator or corporate accelerator program, corporate partners can offer guidance, insights, and assistance to entrepreneurs.
A great example of this would be Delta Airline's Delta Innovation Class (below).
Note that this is significantly more useful if (a) the mentor has direct industry experience within the same field as the entrepreneur or (b) if the mentor has a background, even if only a blurb, in startups.
Far too often individuals are assigned (not volunteered) to corporate / startup programs. This leads to founders smiling along and rolling their eyes later -- and their counterparts doing the same.
It's important to note during these type of engagements that startups have very different challenges, and unless it is market or vertical specific, prior entrepreneurs understand these challenges the best.
3- Benefit Programs
This is potentially one of the best ways to work at a very early stage with startups that could be a significant customer tomorrow, especially in industries where the churn rate is quite low.
The idea is to...
help startups grow into a substantial business with the help of a corporate partner,
get your service ingrained into their day-to-day business as they grow and
have a retention model in place at the end of year one.
Discounted Core Offering
A startup program is a package which includes support services and product(s) from the corporate at a discount.
Fees can be waived for few months or up to several years. For example, Paypal Blueprint (*formerly?) offered: free transaction volume up to 1.5 million USO (50,000 USO of PayPal fees for 18 months).
*editor's note: link for Paypal Blueprint could no longer be found. It may have migrated to a different program or was discontinued.
HubSpot, as another great example, has an entire program called HubSpot for Startups (below) where they offer a discount to qualified seed stage entrepreneurs (50% for Series A) to their core CRM offering.
Additional perks of this program include:
Startup onboarding
Dedicated sales and marketing strategy consulting
Access to exclusive HubSpot Academy training and education
Access to community of fellow founders and experts
Aside / disclaimer: At Gearbox, we have established many partnerships with corporations (and other mid-to-large stage startups) to offer an aggregation of these perks, including a generous partnership with HubSpot for Startups, through a program we call Gearbox Cargo (seen below). It has proven to be significantly useful for the new founders, the companies that are providing the service and even our corporate partners who engage with said startup.
4- Co-working Space
Co-working space is a venue where large corporations or integral support organizations host local startups to facilitate interactions among them.
Primarily, these interactions are guided to spur creativity, inspire ideas and add new chemistry to corporate culture.
But moving into coworking spaces is not only reserved for startups -- more and more corporations are seeing the benefit of becoming integrated into the local startup and innovation ecosystems.
HSBC, for one, recently staffed 300 employees inside a space run by WeWork in Hong Kong.
The move toward enterprise tenants is part of WeWork's long-term business strategy. Its current roster around the globe includes the likes of Microsoft, GE, Dell, Sales Force and Deutsche Bank.
And the rest of the world is taking nice. WeWork is now valued at more than $20 billion, according to CB Insights.
The company has gone from just 1,000 members between two locations in New York in 2010 to more than 130,000 members across 163 locations today.
From June 2016 to June 2017, the number of enterprise companies using WeWork grew by 90 percent, while the number of members from enterprise companies increased by 360 percent, according to a WeWork company spokeswoman.
A large part of WeWork's growth is also expected to take place in Asia, where it recently announced it had raised $1.4 billion in an investment led by SoftBank to expand in China, Japan, and Southeast Asia.
Innovation District
A new complementary urban model is now emerging, giving rise to what others are calling "innovation districts."
These districts, are geographic areas where leading-edge anchor institutions and companies densely cluster and connect with start-ups, business incubators, and accelerators.
For example, The Cambridge Innovation Center (below) works with local partners to develop the networks that entrepreneurs need to grow effectively.
For almost two decades, CIC has focused on strengthening communities, building work environments, and creating programming to attract and support entrepreneurs and their teams.
5- Innovation Pilots
Recent studies and data suggest that corporate innovation is not working as much as it used to. According to the Harvard Business Review, the culprit is in the bottom line.
When corporations reach maturity, the measure of success is very different: it's profit. Once a business figures out how to solve its customers' problems, organizational structures and processes emerge to guide the company towards efficient operation. Seasoned managers steer their employees from pursuing the art of discovery and towards engaging in the science of delivery. Employees are taught to seek efficiencies, leverage existing assets, and distribution channels, and listen to (and appease) their best customers. - HBR
Indeed, R&D is expensive, time-consuming and often fruitless. PriceWaterhouseCoopers reports that half of all companies say they are only "marginally effective" (i.e., wrong) at converting R&D spending into actual products.
Because of this, more and more companies are looking to step out innovation.
Access to cutting-edge startups can solve a wide variety of problems, de-risk capital and create bodies of evidence for future opportunities.
Piloting with startups allows mitigating costly downstream endeavors such as acquisition, integration, investment and licensing.
While this is all well and good, there are often problems in..
(a) sourcing difficulties
(b) operational inefficiencies and
(c) lack of direction from key-stakeholders.
Venture Client
Popularized by the BMW Startup Garage, the venture client model consists of startups building or bringing) technologies to the core business of a given organization.
Naturally, BMW has cars and allows for startup founders an opportunity to have their <widget> placed inside of their vehicles.
Also, they offer a suite of services to the startup such as access to decision makers and influencers in the automotive industry. The startup, in turn, receives an early contract, complete with a small amount of compensation for the test run.
For BMW, sourcing is a bit easier with having such a program where these types of opportunities come to them directly.
Basically we asked, 'What can we offer to the best startup on earth with the best technology, lots of cash, and the most talent to get them to come to us and not to someone else?' The best thing we could offer is to be their first — hence, venture — client. No VC or accelerator out there would say they can achieve that value proposition because they are not clients, they are investors. -- Startup Garage co-founder Mathias Mayer
An academy model pairs corporations and startups together for pilots. The organization acts as an accelerator to startups, by providing them with services, mentorships, and perks and they serve as a facilitator for corporations by providing them with startups which directly match the areas that are looking to be explored.
Academies provides all of the benefits of an accelerator to an entrepreneur as well as a direct sourcing mechanism for corporations which is free from the portfolio bias of other organizations.
In this model, corporations and their academy partner, like Gearbox, for example, post casting calls to the entrepreneurial marketplace.
Startups that fit the interest of the challenge apply and are vetted using artificial intelligence for core-alignment.
Simply, if the pilot is then successful, the corporation is often given the opportunity to invest and perhaps even acquire downstream.
Corporate startup engagement is often launched to de-risk innovation gaps and establish access to entrepreneurs.
Through the academy model, there are significant cost savings versus an innovation outpost, corporate accelerator or corporate venture capital and additionally a more substantial benefit to the multiple departments which can source startups to solve challenges and explore opportunities.
6- Incubation Spin-Offs
A corporate spin-off, also known as a spin-out, or starburst, is a when a company "splits off" a section as a separate business.
Like R&D, spin-off incubation is a form of internal innovation. In the most common incubator model, ideas are generated inside the corporation, developed and then spun out.
Because the entity that owns the incubator plays such a prominent role in creating the new business, incubators often receive equity ownership stakes similar to those of startup founders.
Incubators typically recruit entrepreneurs to take ownership of the startup, although sometimes internal employees spin out along with the new company.
Not all internally incubated business concepts are spun out, in which case they are functionally similar to R&D.
Corporate incubators focus on sectors relevant to the parent company, and there are many examples of successful corporate incubation programs and startup spin-outs, including:
McDonalds's spin out of Red Box (acquired by Coinstar for $150-plus million)
Google's spin out of Niantic Labs & Pokémon GO (reportedly worth $3.5 billion)
Oracle Labs's development of the Java programming language
Amazon's Lab 126 creation of the Kindle, Echo and Fire products
According to New Markets Advisors, a significant portion of Fortune 500 companies — including Procter & Gamble, IBM, Walgreens and The Hershey Company — have some incubator efforts in at least one business unit.
On the other hand, incubation can be difficult. What's more, a study of 300 corporate incubators stated that only half deliver on their strategic goals, and only a quarter deliver on their financial goals.
7- Capital Investment
While there are several mechanisms for Corporate Startup Engagement via investing (Micro-credit, loans, debt, Limited Partner in a fund, etc..) the majority are easy to understand so here we're going to explore the "why" primarily.
Corporate venture capital (CVC), for example, is the investment of corporate funds directly in external startup companies for an exchange of equity.
With traditional venture capitalists, the primary goal of an investment is to own a stake in a fast-growing startup.
Corporations have an enormous added benefit of synergy to the core-offering or mechanisms that promote the success of new business horizons.
Not only that, they can add significantly more value to the startup than a venture capital partner through direct access to connections, customers, distribution, mentorship, production and other critical assets.
Financial investment is often done with the goal of a financial return whereas a strategic investment is done most of the time for a supplier, customer or competitor with the primary purpose of integration down the road (and integration is expensive).
A strategic investment could also be done from the perspective of diversification or being defensible.
For example, when the genomics revolution was transforming the pharmaceutical industry, Eli Lilly realized that its survival might hinge on its ability to catch up with this disruption.
So in 2001, the company launched a corporate venture-capital fund to engage with cutting-edge biotech firms when they were just startups.
By 2013, Lilly Ventures had been involved in more than 30 such collaborations, many of which gave its parent company valuable insights into the science of developing drugs by analyzing biological data.
Since its inception, 7 of the startups in their portfolio have achieved a successful exit. (below)
Innovation Investments
A corporate VC fund like Lilly Ventures can move faster, more flexible, and more cheaply than traditional R&D to help a firm respond to changes in technologies and business models.
This, in pharmaceutical technology, is a saving grace where deployment, approval and R&D processes can take upwards of 10 years.
To further de-risk and test relationships for culture alignment, innovation investments make the most sense once an experiment has already taken place between a corporation and a startup.
Directly -- if a pilot was successful, invest. If it was really successful, spend more. If it was transformational, do your best to acquire them. (See section 8).
St. Louis based Monsanto recently partnered with AgTech startup PairWise in a $100M collaboration to advance agriculture research and development by leveraging gene-editing technology.
This partnership is expected to drive new and needed solutions to help farmers produce better harvests, protect crops from evolving threats, and conserve resources in the face of mounting environmental challenges.
Through such a pairing, the overlap is significantly more clear than that of a venture capitalist, angel investor or even corporate accelerator.
Monsanto benefits from having an innovation partner in this niche and PairWise gains the benefit not only the investment and expertise but also integrating with a household name.
In some cases, such a fund can even help stimulate demand for a company's products.
Investments in a fast-growing startup can provide access to founders and inroads to untapped customer markets.
For example, the world found itself quite perplexed whenever Microsoft purchased Skype at the tune of $8.5b in 2011.
The same for Facebook's $19b acquisition of WhatsApp. (Although TechCrunch later took a step back on their position).
Both of these acquisitions fundamentally relied on the ability to integrate, capitalize and expand upon not only the purchase but the core offering of the acquiring corporation.
In the case of WhatsApp, Facebook gained large, immediate market share into low income, third world countries -- where the company had struggled to find sustainable acquisition and retention strategies.
Considering messaging is still the single most used app on a mobile phone, with the highest retention rate (and massive opportunities for integration such as payments, taxi-hailing, directions, advertising, etc..) it all begins to make more sense.
And for those worried if people would jump ship in opposition to the parent company, Instagram's pre and post-acquisition data tell a different story -- the users not only stayed but continued to grow.
At the same time, of course, investments may earn attractive returns—an added benefit for a tool that helps capture ideas that may ultimately shape an organization's destiny.
Startup investments would, again, be based upon core-alignment due to the downstream opportunities, but it's not uncommon for corporations to simply look at their potential to generate revenue.
Samsung (Samsung Ventures),
Ping An Insurance Group (Ping An Ventures),
Google (Google Ventures), and
BMW (BMW Group)
Investment Sourcing as a Service
Sourcing and procurement against a corporations business-alignment are often a difficult task.
There are several companies and organizations out there that can provide large corporations with a few early-stage companies with whom they may want to work.
Each comes with their own advantages and disadvantages.
Sourcing from accelerators and venture capitalists
CON: Startup sourcing from accelerators or venture capitalists is not "sourcing" at all.
They tend to only sell and promote the companies within their portfolio (and still charge corporations for the service).
This is the equivalent of your spouse asking where would you like to eat and then giving you a menu of all the places he or she enjoys.
PRO: They have invested serious cash into the startup and under the golden rule of putting your money where your mouth is they have vetted them with their dollars.
Not to say there can't be enormous opportunities for partnering with venture-backed companies, but be sure a diagnostic has taken place at the executive level, and not merely a startups sales packet before any of these introductions occur.
8- Mergers and Acquisitions
Vast cash reserves and opportunities in emerging markets may drive the deal activity in the next few years. In the past few years, companies many of the most innovative corporations have been very aggressive in M&A.
According to Pitchbook, the top 10 buyers of IT companies since 2010 are Google (Alphabet), Facebook, Yahoo, Oracle, IBM, Cisco, Twitter, Microsoft, Apple, and Salesforce.com.
Alphabet's acquisitions in 2017
CB Insights has listed several nontech companies in the top tech acquirers rankings which include: Publicis Groupe, Accenture, Walmart, WPP, and Canon.
This category also contains acquihires whereby an acquisition is made to acquire the team instead of the product or service.
9- Accelerators and Incubators
Accelerators & Incubators provide opportunities for corporations to support a small group of startups during a relatively short period (most of the time between three and six months).
The first such program was launched 12 years ago by Mountain View, California based Y-Combinator.
In the case of a corporate accelerator, corporations offer founding help, space and mentoring in exchange for equity.
However, accelerators have been under fire as of late due to their poor performance metrics.
Forbes columnist Brian Solomon writes:
only 2% of companies to emerge from even the top 20 accelerators have a successful exit.
Even less at the corporate accelerator level -- where the success of the startup makes less of a difference as pursuing the bottom line.
According to the Kaufman Foundation, accelerators are currently undergoing 3 trends of change in order to keep up with an evolving access to innovation
Evolving Upstream: Established accelerators, such as Y-Combinator and Rock Health, have evolved into seed funds.
Expanding Scope of Services: Accelerators are starting to establish side funds to do follow-on funding.
The Growth of Corporate Accelerators: Corporations have seen the value of being more connected to innovation and startups in their industry.
Traditional Accelerators
American startups are on the rebound, with approximately 310 entrepreneurs for every 100,000 adults in the U.S. today.
That translates into roughly 530,000 new business owners coming onto the scene every month.
The rate of failure for new businesses, however, still remains high.
It's that very failure rate that's led to the creation of an entire industry of startup support programs designed to help entrepreneurs beat the odds.
It's working–for some, anyway, even if they're not who you think.
Accelerators tend to take one of three broad approaches to generating income from startups:
Growth-driven: programs are primarily dependent on growing the startup as it generates revenue from equity
Fee-driven: plans charge clients member and service fees as well as rent
Independent: programs are supported not by income from startups, but by sponsors, public funds, and events
This table from the Nesta study outlines in further detail
Corporate Accelerators
Corporate accelerators currently represent a perilous strategy due to high cost, significant launch requirements (both time and personnel) and a tiny sample of startups with whom to engage.
In fact, research experts such as the Kaufmann Foundation have discovered over the last few years that we may be in the midst of an accelerator bubble.
With more than 200 independent accelerators around the world, it's nearly impossible for a single one to offer a value proposition that is unique and compelling enough to founders.
For the best of the best players who may be hesitant to give up equity in their companies in exchange for a short-term boost in resources and uncertain futures, corporations are scary.
Besides, startups know inherently that they couldn't compete if it came down to a legal arm wrestle so they may shy away.
Lastly, there's the matter of speed: new corporate accelerators are notorious for not having established rapid implementation protocols or experienced know-how that startups require.
Leaders of corporate accelerators need to ask the following questions:
(What) Proposition -- what the program offers;
(How) Process -- how to program is run;
(Who) People -- who is involved; and
(Where) Place -- where the accelerator is hosted.
10- Entrepreneur-in-Residence
The role of Entrepreneur in Residence, or EiR, has never been well-understood.
For our purposes, let's assume there are two types of EiRs: advisor EiRs and builder EiRs.
Advisors are there for insight to others, and builders are, well, building things.
At inception, it wasn't a big deal in the tech industry when EiRs (advisors) were found mostly at venture capital firms, but the role has expanded to educational institutions, governmental agencies, and increasingly, technology companies.
The transformation signals a new appreciation of the importance and opportunity presented by the startup economy.
Entrepreneurs in Residence originally came about as temporary roles for startup veterans who could help VC firms with high-level strategy and introduce other entrepreneurs and potential new deals.
In return, the EiRs (advisors) drew a salary between startups and could score a possible investment in their next venture (i.e., builders).
VCs that employ these kinds of (advisory) EiRs include Accel Partners, Foundation Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Greylock Partners, Venrock, Norwest Venture Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures and Trinity Ventures.
Beyond VCs, EiR's are also finding productive homes in academia.
Universities like MIT, Cornell, and Harvard Business School all have EiRs in advisory roles, helping students and faculty make the most of their ideas and turn breakthroughs into businesses.
In fact, Harvard has twenty of them listed on their faculty page.
The entrepreneur-in-residence will often wear many hats at a university.
These professionals may take on the role of in-class lecturer, mentor student startups on campus, serve as a coach to entrepreneurs, judge business plan competitions and serve on advisory boards.
Some universities will have their entrepreneur-in-residence support community outreach initiatives by advising small business owners and working with local high school students on special projects.
These talented men and women bring real-world expertise and entrepreneurial practice to students and academia, enhancing the business theoretical framework taught on campuses across the world.
Corporate EiR
The real EiR's action, though, is in the corporate world, where Dell's Ingrid Vanderveldt may be the best-known example. (With the possible exception of Craig Walker, who became an EiR at Google Ventures in 2010.)
When Vanderveldt became Dell's first EiR in 2011, there were only six or seven others in Fortune 500 companies, she recalls. "It's still not common," she admits, "but it's a trend."
Bringing the entrepreneurial mindset to the corporate world can sound a little touchy-feely, but execs who built their careers in large organizations may not even know what they don't know about entrepreneurs, the culture or the challenges they face.
Fundamentally different from both enterprise customers and consumers, entrepreneurs often don't get what they need from their tech vendors.
That makes it the corporate (advisor) EiR's job to tell their corporate counterparts what they don't know -- and to help them cut through the (abundance of) red tape to create products, procedures, and programs that are valuable and accessible to startups.
In sum: there's no point in having an EiR to work with startups if you're not going to implement what they say.
This, of course, doesn't give them a golden megaphone, but entrepreneurs often have a lot to prove and firsthand access to the most up-to-date trends and insights that frequently fall behind at the corporate level.
Internal Builders
To some organizations, the EiR is a de facto creator who will run a new business division -- generally a moonshot.
Occasionally, this individual will be given some equity in the spin-off.
Considering the majority of the risk is on the side of the corporation, these equity shares usually fall in the 5-15% range, although they are not subject to dilution, as the corporation would continue to fund the project if it became successful.
Internally sourced EiRs are then the individuals who work at a corporation but don't seem quite to fit in.
Intelligent, ambitious and driven, these people may have been more suited to the entrepreneurial lifestyle, but responsibilities, capital expectations or risk aversion got in the way.
If you find yourself with a squeaky wheel type, it may be an excellent fit to let them run a new business venture.
As recently as February, however, the Harvard Business Review and Scott Kirsner of Innovation Leader said There's No Such Thing as a Corporate Entrepreneur, citing five primary reasons:
Bureaucracy and politics.
Upside.
Fear of failure.
Persistence.
Private vs. Public.
External Builders
For corporations, sourcing EiR builders externally is a problematic and fruitless matter.
The goal would ultimately be to find someone who has firsthand experience in taking a venture and turning it from zero to 100.
Finding a seasoned entrepreneur who has already done this means that
(a) they've likely had an exit and made a significant amount of money -- thereby rendering disinterest for such an engagement,
(b) they could probably do much better off on their own or
(c) just would prefer to not have their future tied to a corporation with billions of dollars that could be put to legal fees.
That being said, the unfortunate situation for finding builder EiR's is thus: either sourcing people who don't have excellent credentials that will say yes or sourcing people who have excellent credentials that will say no.
While there are many kinds of corporate-startup engagement models out there, the primary functions remain the same:
Solving challenges.
Exploring opportunities.
Deploying capital.
Obtaining access.
Even with many options available, one thing is sure -- corporate-startup engagement is happening more and more each day, and the results are looking more promising than the older models of both innovation and entrepreneurship as a solo sport.
R&D isn't working like it used to for most companies.
Innovation is following suit.
However, new things are being developed all the time -- on the couches and in the garages of hungry, driven entrepreneurs.
Corporations will need to find their best route to match, add value and integrate if they wish to capture opportunities.
LEGAL DISCLAIMER: THIS REPORT IS PROVIDED FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD THE CONTENTS BE CONSTRUED AS LEGAL, BUSINESS, TAX OR INVESTMENT ADVICE.
About the Author: Anthony W. Richardson is Founder and CEO at Gearbox.AI. In his prior life, he was a hired gun for venture capitalists, an author, a speaker, an entrepreneur and an advisor to global accelerators with a focus on growth, finance, and scale.
About Gearbox: Gearbox.AI provides the leading corporate-startup engagement solutions designed to help innovation leaders, corporate development professionals, and strategic partnership executives master the art and science identifying and aligning with what's next. Through a unique combination of a membership community, AI-driven software, and cutting-edge expertise, Gearbox is focused helping corporations keep pace in an ever-changing digital world and providing startups with new avenues for growth. The result for modern innovators is unprecedented agility, risk management, and superior results. Headquartered in St. Louis, MO with offices in Denver, Chicago, and Los Angeles, Gearbox serves as a pivotal partner to large corporations and a champion to innovative startups.
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The Art of Coaching for Volunteer Retention guidebook is your go-to resource for volunteer retention best practices and tools to help your program become more volunteer centered. The exciting and new approach to case supervision described in the guidebook goes beyond traditional methods and emphasizes coaching, mentoring, supporting and actively cherishing CASA volunteers – all in the effort to fulfill our goal of a CASA volunteer for every child who needs one.
Contact the Texas CASA training team at training@texascasa.org to request a copy of the guidebook.
The Art of Coaching for Volunteer Retention guidebook was developed over the course of two years by the Retention Workgroup Committee consisting of staff from local CASA programs in Texas.
Thank you to our generous sponsor Wells Fargo for making this guidebook possible!


Like a work of art, this Wall Clock Roman numerals will ask you constantly about the time that scrolls and fascinates you in all its splendor.
This large wall clock plays with the reflections of Roman numerals, needles and adapts over time.
- With this wall clock Roman numerals and its faces in acrylic mirror, dare to watch the time scroll and enjoy the decorative touch it emits in the room that will adopt!
- Quick and easy installation because without tools and without drilling your wall. This is thanks to the double-sided adhesive pads and the instructions provided.


Dig the new look. Good job guys!
what happened to the new posts drop down tool bar though ?
A new layout woulda been very welcome though..
yeah, nice forum upgrade but a new layout is definitely needed!
i am very confused. i have friends? odd.
i guess i have to read how this works.
i dont my space. and the multitasking is slowing be down. i guess i will adapt. pm worked fine for me!
I would like to see this return also. I always check the threads that I've posted in when I first log in.
Last edited by paulmasoner; 01-27-2009 at 11:37 PM.
i liked the todays posts option..
allows for a quick catch up.
Send the pic to smalljpg.com then post the result, easypeasy.


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Did Aliens Contact Us? Scientists Detect New Fast Radio Bursts
Posted By: Danica Simic Jan 10, 2019, 10:27 am
Image source: NRAO Outreach Vimeo/Screenshot
A group of scientists from the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research participated in research which was found to discover new fast radio bursts. Moreover, among the group of 13 FRBs, the team found the second repeating FRB ever recorded, using a new radio telescope.
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are short-lasting periods of radio waves which are located far from our galaxy. Astrophysicists who studied them believe that they originate from a powerful phenomena located billions of light years away, but their true origin has yet to be detected.
To detect the new fast radio bursts, scientists used results from the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), a powerful, revolutionary radio telescope which was completed in late 2017, and was developed in collaboration with scientists Kiyoshi Masui, an assistant professor of physics at MIT and Juan Mena Parra, a Kavli postdoc.
In fall 2018, a SETI project captured a few more new fast radio bursts, but CHIME uses a software which can be used to show the telescope where to look. The findings were described in two papers published in the journal Nature.
"The telescope has no moving parts. Instead it uses digital signal processing to 'point' the telescope and reconstruct where the radio waves are coming from. This is done using clever algorithms and a couple of giant computer clusters that sit beside the telescope and crunch away at the data in real time," Masui said in a statement.
It's expected that this type of software will become more common, as the power of quantum computers, and computing power in particular is becoming more effective.
The researchers also made a video of where in the universe the new fast radio bursts appeared.
It's worth mentioning that these flash-like signals don't cause an alarm for aliens or anything of that sort, but even if it were, given the billions of light years of distance, that advanced civilization is likely gone for good by now. Still, the true origin of the signals has yet to be determined. Scientists, however, believe that it's a large and powerful astrophysical object, such as a supermassive black hole, supernova or a quasar, which could be located in an area with "special characteristics."
The fast radio bursts are extremely rare, but what is even more of a rare find are repeating FRBs. Previously, the only repeating FRB was spotted via the massive Arecibo array in Puerto Rico.
Scientists believe that when only one FRB occurs, it indicates a powerful astrophysical event, which can occur only once, like a phenomenon. However, when two of them happen, it indicates that these events may not be as rare as previously thought. Nevertheless, further study will reveal more details on these mysterious bursts.
Scientist Claims Aliens Already Visited Us
CSIRO Almost Doubles Known Number Of Mysterious 'Fast Radio Bursts'
New Tech Allows Scientists To Detect More Signals From Alien Galaxies
Strange Infrared Signal Travels Through Space, But What is The Source?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Today we present to you the findings of our 5th season tracking bat usage in the MLB All Star Game. Since 2012 when WPW was founded, we've tracked the game's bat usage as an unofficial barometer of the pro wood bat industry. Correction: For the first time ever, Victus cracks the top 3, joining Marucci, Louisville Slugger, and Old Hickory as the top brands in 2016. There has been more fragmentation of the market thanks to strong competition from companies like Sam Bat, Victus, and MVP Eric Hosmer's Dove Tail Bats, among many others. Moral of the story—there's a lot of good wood out there.
Marucci rules again, leading all brands for the 4th consecutive season. This year was a little closer, however, with players like Mookie Betts (Victus Axe), Cargo (B45) and Addison Russell (Zinger) swinging newer brands. In total, 11 10 brands had at least two players swinging their bats, compared to five brands in 2015. Dinger brand made its first appearance at an ASG in the hands of Starling Marte who ripped a línea to right.
Despite the stiff competition, the top 3 contenders remain the same. Victus joins Marucci, the reigning champ, Louisville Slugger, the standard, and Old Hickory, a company whose players show as much loyalty to the brand as any other.
You'll notice that Marucci, Slugger, and Old Hick have all taken a slight hit based on the barrage of companies making great bats these days. With three four players this year, Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley, Odubel Herrera, and Jose Altuve, Victus threatened to matched Old Hickory for the 3rd most bats swung.
Also worth mentioning, the prevalence of Lizard Skins grips, used by at least 7 All-Stars that night. Buy those here.
Below you'll find every player and what they swung (if we have the bat in our database, we linked to it). Since Eduardo Nunez played but did not register an at-bat, we looked at what he normally swings, Marucci, and added that to the tally. Its important to keep in mind that this is not a scientific experiment, so if you disagree with the way we keep track, you can always do it yourself.
Victus JA27 33/31. From Victus: A custom built model with a flare knob, thin top hand and medium to large size barrel. Generates great bat whip for a 33" model while maintaining solid control.


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Charlee Remitz releases new album 'Sad Girl Music'
The frontwoman's sophomore full-length is available to stream now
by Chris Bound: November 20, 2018
Following on from a stunning array of singles including 'To Tell You The Truth', 'My Worst' and 'Forever Like This' throughout the year, frontwoman Charlee Remitz has now dropped her eagerly-awaited second studio album.
The new full-length 'Sad Girl Music' follows on from her 2015 LP 'Bright White Trims', and features eight tracks of glittering electro-pop that transports the listener to an alternate reality of long desert drives and Hollywood Halloween parties.
Speaking about her new release, she said, "In June, we broke my heart. It wasn't as simple as, "he did it." No. Because I did it too. I think he wanted to be let go. He couldn't do it himself. I grasped at his fingertips, bracing myself at the cliff's edge while he dangled into whatever void would swallow him should I decide to loosen my grip and set myself free. That's when I lost myself. Those final weeks, when I knew we were done, but I couldn't stand up, walk away, trust that if I let him fall, he won't come apart, or I won't jump in after him. Finally, I slipped my hand from his. That's where my story begins. Sad Girl Music isn't about him. It's about me. It's about drowning so you can become what you cannot possibly be when you stay above the surface. Sadness is not a weakness. Sadness is a triumph."
This isn't the last we'll hear from the Sad Girl saga, be on the watch in Spring of 2019 for the 'Sad Girl Music Vol. 2', which will feature an additional six now self-produced tracks. For now, have a listen to 'Sad Girl Music' in full via the player below.
Action Bronson announces new album 'Mr. Wonderful'
US rapper come internet culinary expert Action Bronson has announced his plans to release a new studio album in the coming months. The new full-... 4 years 5 months ago
Rae Morris unveils new single 'Love Again'
With her debut album 'Unguarded' due out next week, rising solo artist Rae Morris has unveiled another track from her forthcoming release. The... 4 years 5 months ago
Caribou releases new live album 'CVE Live 2011'
Having already built himself up as one of the most prolific artists of the last year, producer Caribou has now added another release to his almost... 4 years 5 months ago
The Vaccines return with new single 'Handsome'
After a few years away from the limelight, indie pop-rockers The Vaccines have returned with the first single to be taken from their next studio... 4 years 5 months ago
Giorgio Moroder shares new single 'Right Here, Right Now', featuring Kylie Minogue
Having already announced his first album in over 30 years, legendary producer Giorgio Moroder has now unveiled the first track from his forthcoming... 4 years 6 months ago
The Cribs announce new album 'For All My Sisters'
It has been nearly three years since The Cribs released their last studio album 'In The Belly Of The Brazen Bull', but it looks like the Wakefield... 4 years 6 months ago
Raury unveils new track 'Fly'
Having already landed himself a top 5 spot on the BBC's Sound Of 2015 poll, Atlanta-based singer Raury has kicked off the new year with a politically... 4 years 6 months ago
Björk announces new album 'Vulnicura'
We already knew this news was coming after Björk had to pull out of the London premiere of her latest concert film 'Biophila Live' to work on it, but... 4 years 6 months ago
Rough Trade announce multiple 'Best Of' compilations
Legendary indie label Rough Trade have announced their plans to release a number of 'Best Of' compilations later this year. The imprint, which... 4 years 6 months ago


text:
Q: Is there a way to get data from Oracle to a form stored on SharePoint 2007? I need the document or form to be automatically updated when the data in the Oracle database is updated.  If not possible, could anyone give me guidance to a solution similar to this?
Thanks for the help.

A: Oracle supports triggers in Java, so you could execute some code when data is changed in the DB. Sharepoint 2007 does support WebServices, so you could create a client which calls the web service to update the form.
But that sounds more simple than it is. The documentation for the web services in Sharepoint ... uh ... could be better. Many installations of Sharepoint insist on domain logins, so you would need to figure out a way to run Oracle with a Windows Domain logon.
In the end, it's probably more simple to create an email when the data changes in Oracle and have someone manually update the form.
That said, you paid a lot of money to Microsoft for Sharepoint, so they are obliged to tell you which API to use and they can probably even provide an example in, say C#. If all else fails, you can run a little server in C# which updates the form and which listens to data packets sent by a Java trigger in Oracle.
[EDIT] [Here is a blog post]2 to get you started with Java, Apache Axis and Sharepoint. Post a comment if you have any updates. LuUnfortunately, I'm no longer working at a company which uses Sharepoint.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
The Great Eighty Road stretched on and on, gray and unwavering, day after day. Laura sometimes found herself despairing at its oppressive straightness, longing for the days when her way had meandered and detoured in all manner of surprising directions. Every day, from when the convoy embarked at dawn to when they made camp for the night, Laura's whole world was bound by that narrow corridor of creetrock.
It began to feel hypnotic. Relentlessly, the Great Eighty Road pulled them along, through a landscape so unchanging that Laura would have thought they were going in circles but for the fact that they never, ever seemed to turn.
The country through which the Eighty Road gouged its rigid path offered little to mark their progress. Each day since their departure from Hawkeye Crossing had brought much the same passing scenery. The Yowa's hills rolled by, steady, small, and featureless. Though spring was now well upon them, the land was far from lush. There were trees, but nothing like the vast woods where Laura had grown up. Instead, they stood in patchwork islands amid seas of pale grass.
Meanwhile, the only ruins to be seen seemed to be the Great Eighty Road itself. Rarely was there any other sign of the people who had laid down the endless trail of creetrock. The road stood as an isolated monument, all the more grandiose in its loneliness.
One day, Laura overheard Pa ask Captain Syed why there were no settlements in this part of the Yowa. The convoy had just finished fording a small creek and was passing through a rare woodland. The hills to the east had looked comparatively green. To Pa, the land seemed to have all the ingredients from which to make a living.
"There's some," Captain Syed answered. "Head up beyond them hills yonder and you'll run into folks here and there, farmers and shepherds and the like. Paying taxes to the Ortegas or supposed to. Most who try and make a go in the Yowa midlands, though, after a season or two they move along or… Well, or they just don't stay long-term, I'll leave it at that. I heard a man tell me once the soil's no good in these parts. Used up. I wouldn't know anything about that. Never been one much for settling down and raising crops. But soil or no, this ain't the easiest country to set down roots. You've got Cooley's Army and all them other gangs of rascals running about, not to mention raiding parties from the north whenever one of the caudillos up that way starts feeling their oats. The supervisory garrisons don't offer no protection you can count on. Clan Ortega don't have it in 'em to pacify the Yowa this far west, and they don't try."
Pa nodded, as if satisfied with the explanation, but Captain Syed kept talking.
"Only reason the Clan Council mans outposts so far west is to keep the Eighty Road open to Lildaka. And they ain't doing such a fine job of that lately neither, not if you ask me. Too busy squabbling 'mongst themselves over this so-called succession crisis to mount proper patrols. I'll tell you one thing, they're going to find themselves in a right fix if they let the Great Eighty get cut off. Where do they think their graycoats' wages come from? Davenport might be where the decisions get made, but it's the trade coming through the City of Mounds what keeps the wheels of their little empire greased. Stop that silver flowing and you'll see the whole blasted supervisory system collapse by next winter, mark my words."
Laura might not have understood every word of Captain Syed's discourse on Ortega trade networks, but she knew that the City of Mounds was another name for Lildaka. It wasn't the first time Laura had heard Captain Syed talk about the frontier town that lay at the end of the Eighty Road. Lildaka was home for Captain Syed, as it was for Bucky Malla and for the Khan cousins, Janice and Oprah. Laura supposed that made them partial. Still, she listened with interest whenever the town was mentioned.
According to Captain Syed, nearly everyone there lived underground. Even the town's meeting hall and its supervisory were dug straight into the earth. Captain Syed described hundreds of underground houses pimpling the landscape. And, on a clear day, you could see the ruins of the Ghost City of Oma looming in the distance.
Lildaka was remote, kims and kims from any other settlement. According to Captain Syed, it was located at the very center of Old Merica, the exact middle point between the western and eastern oceans.
"The town was founded by Deshi displacees," Laura had heard her explain more than once. "Round about the time of the Great Bust. I can trace my family right back to them. Barsha Syed—that was my pa's gran—she was Lildaka's first mayor. Story goes they came from a land that was sinking beneath the sea. After watching those floodwaters swallow up their old homes, it's said our great grandmothers and grandfathers wandered about til they found a place just as far away from any ocean as it was possible to get!"
Captain Syed admitted she didn't know how much truth there was to that old story. But however it was that those Deshi pioneers came to choose that remote spot to settle down, it had proved to be a good one. Over the years, Lildaka had grown to become an important crossroads where several important convoy routes came together. The Great Eighty Road connected it to Davenport and the Illinoy. The Suri River brought down timber from Wolf Point and further up in the Northlands, while grain and soy flowed in the other direction from the Southern Yowa. Precious metal from Deseret and textiles from the Occupied Territories came by way of the Suri's smaller tributaries or else by the straighter but more perilous convoy routes overland across the Wastes.
To hear Captain Syed tell it, goods from all over the world found their way to Lildaka. Laura listened with fascination to her description of the Lildaka Market, which stood just outside the town proper. She told of colorful stalls, packed shoulder to shoulder. There, you'd find all manner of traders, Desereti and Lakota and even Tang, all haggling and shouting.
It all sounded quite exotic and fantastical to Laura. She could hardly believe that she would soon get to see such a place for herself.
And so, as Captain Syed continued to lecture in Pa's general direction, Laura hurried her steps to stay apace. Captain Syed barreled forward from topic to topic in her distinctively assertive patter, pausing only long enough to stuff another wad of chewing leaf into her cheek.
"Marius Ortega—Wolfdog we call him out west—he's been the local supervisor for ten years now or close enough," she was now saying, "I barely remember myself, but there was hard feelings for quite some time after the annexation. Wolfdog Ortega, though, he's always had a light touch. Long as the silver keeps flowing back to Davenport, the Wolfdog's mostly been happy to leave things to the old Deshi families who run the Merchants Guild.
"These days, though… Well, I ain't never seen relations with the supervisor so tense as they been lately."
Captain Syed looked back along the convoy's procession. Her gaze seemed to linger on Caleb the Ortega guardsman, who was walking a few paces back, chatting with Bill Keo. For some reason, Laura expected the woman to lower her voice, but Captain Syed just spit beside the road and continued talking at the same volume.
"Losing the Illinoy's been mighty bad for trade. You ain't heard it from me, but I'd be surprised if there ain't folks in the Merchants Guild asking themselves just what exactly they need Clan Ortega for anyway. And that was before Old Man Ortega took sick. If this succession crisis don't get sorted out, who can tell which way the old Deshi families are likely to bolt?
"What do you suppose is behind these land claims they're so keen to dole out? You think Davenport cares two beans about cultivating the god-forsaken Wastes? No sir. Wolfdog Ortega, he feels his grip on the City of Mounds slipping away. He means to surround Lildaka with homesteaders, all carrying Ortega papers, all loyal clients of the supervisory. Something to balance out the power of those stubborn Deshi tradesmen."
Pa said nothing to all this, but Laura could tell that Captain Syed's words had troubled him.
Later that evening, when the convoy stopped to make camp, Laura saw Pa pull out the parchment map from the handcar. Map in hand, he approached the clearing beside the bisox wagon where Hector Chavez was chopping onions for supper.
It wasn't the first time the two men had sat down together. Pa often tried to engage the bisox driver in conversation whenever the opportunity presented itself. Captain Syed might be a fine source of information about Lildaka and the Great Eighty Road, but she seemed to know little about the lands west of the Suri River.
It was Mr. Chavez who had actually seen the Wastes firsthand, and Pa was keen to learn all he could from the old man's recollections. What was the weather like in the Wastes? How hot was it in summer, how cold in winter? What kind of game could they expect? Was the better unclaimed land to be found to the west or to the south? Unrolling his map, Pa would point to locations along the parchment's leftmost edge.
Unfortunately, Mr. Chavez's approach to conversation could not have been more different from Captain Syed's. Where the convoy's captain volunteered a dizzying abundance of observations and opinions without prompting, the bisox driver was inclined to answer even direct questions with little more than a smile and a shrug.
Sometimes, though, Pa's pipeleaf could loosen up the man's words enough for Pa could shake a few of them out. That evening, Laura watched Pa produce his wooden pipe from a coat pocket and offer Mr. Chavez a smoke. They began talking. Under pretense of gathering firewood, Laura gradually made her way close enough to listen.
Mr. Chavez was telling Pa about a dust storm that his convoy had once weathered while crossing the Wastes. He described a wall of dark clouds had appeared suddenly on the horizon, rolling towards them. When it finally crashed down upon them, the world around had vanished. Mr. Chavez hadn't been able to see his hands held out in front of his face. The dust storms sometimes lasted days, he said, showering brown grit that would choke a man's lungs and threaten to bury him neck deep.
Mr. Chavez shook his head at the memory and took another deep pull from Pa's pipe. He was silent a moment, gazing thoughtfully at his half-chopped onion as the smoke trailed from his nostrils. Seeing Laura lingering nearby, Pa gave her a look but said nothing. Already, this was an unusually detailed account by Mr. Chavez's standards, and Pa seemed afraid to disrupt the old man's momentum.
He hadn't seen the Wastes in a good many years, Mr. Chavez finally continued, letting more smoke leak from his mouth alongside his words. He reckoned the land was a good deal changed if the stories were to be believed.
There were no settlements in the Wastes in his day, he said. No farms. No homesteads. The only people were the small gangs of nomads that the Deshi traders called the Yaya and the Deseretis called Zoramites. No one seemed to know who they were or where they had come from. The Yaya had no permanent homes. Instead, they roamed from place to place across the vast Wastes, following the wastebird flocks. A savage folk, Mr. Chavez told Pa. They were known to attack convoys, and it was said that they ate human flesh.
When Mr. Chavez said this last part, Pa spit his pipe out, right in the middle of inhaling. Coughing violently, he looked over to where Laura was milling about, barely concealing her eavesdropping.
"But this was all some time ago," Pa said between coughs. "Before the rains returned."
Mr. Chavez smiled and shrugged.
After Pa shooed her away from his conversation with Mr. Chavez, Laura wandered about the camp. In every corner, the convoy was unburdening from the long day's journey. They took stock, tended to their equipment, and prepared for the arrival of darkness.
On some nights, the convoy stopped right alongside the Great Eighty Road. Other times, they would turn down a side trail and might walk for near an hour to reach their endpoint. Either way, Captain Syed always seemed to know just what she was aiming for. Inevitably, just as dusk was threatening to creep upon them, the convoy would find itself standing on the perfect campsite. Some flat place sheltered from the wind. A place with high enough ground to give them vantage over the surrounding area. And there always seemed to be a stream or a source of groundwater nearby. As often as not, these places bore the signs of past convoys. Carvings on the trees or rings of stones enclosing old firepits.
That night, the convoy had camped uphill from the Great Eughty Road, in a clearing in the shadow of a little sandstone bluff.
Sitting atop the bluff overlooking the camp, Laura spied Bucky Malla. The big man squatted, resting his thighs against his calves, with his rifle balanced across his knees. When he saw Laura looking up at him, he smiled and waved.
Laura knew that he was on lookout, watching for any sign of bandits. The convoy had to be careful as they ventured further and further away from any settlement, out where the guardsmen of Clan Ortega seldom patrolled. Laura had heard Captain Syed warn the others about Cooley's Army, which was not an army at all but just the name for some bandit gangs that roamed in those parts. They were mostly small gangs and didn't have much to do with one another, except they all claimed to follow some man named Cooley who everyone seemed to all agree had died a long time ago if he ever existed at all.
Captain Syed didn't seem very worried about Cooley's Army. They were poorly armed and even more poorly fed, Laura had heard her say, and more like to attack one another than a properly defended convoy. That was no excuse not to be careful, though, and so Bucky Malla kept a watchful eye on the surrounding hills as the other travelers bustled about below him.
Laura was accustomed to the routines of life on convoy by now. Making camp each night was a much livelier business than when it had been just Laura and her family on the road, for there was always much to do. Whenever Captain Syed called a halt to the day's journey, it seemed to release a sudden burst of activity, like a long-simmering pot suddenly boiling over, as everyone hurried to make use of whatever precious daylight remained.
They all had their own cargo to tend to, but the fellow travelers also helped one another. Everyone pitched in, seeing to the things that needed to be done for the convoy's common safety and comfort, making sure that the whole group would be ready to move again the next morning.
At one edge of the camp, Janice and Oprah Khan were fretting about their hives, counting up their bees to see how many had gotten lost along the way. Laura stopped and watched them for a moment. It must be very confusing for the little bees, she thought, to have their home moving all the time.
Nearby, Caleb the guardsman was helping Mr. Aguilar patch some of the boards on his handcar that were rotting away. Pa, who had apparently gotten all the information he could out of Mr. Chavez, came over to join them, offering his opinion on how best to fix the joints of the car's cargo box.
After watching them for a time, Laura turned and began to make her way back to her family's corner of the camp. Along the way, she stopped to pay a visit to the bisox. She was becoming good friends with the two beasts. The one with the white patch was named Pretty, she'd learned, and the chestnut brown was Penny. It could still be frightening to stand close to the big, horned animals, but their deep black eyes were never threatening. They were gentle creatures, though Pretty could be stubborn when she wanted to be, snorting and stamping her hooves when Mr. Chavez tried to turn the wagon. The bisox even tolerated Jack, who now trotted over to greet Laura, before turning to Penny to snuffle at her shaggy legs.
Laura chatted for a moment with the animals. Then she called Jack to her, and together they made their way back to Ma. They found her scrambling over the handcar, retying bundles and shoving barrels that had jostled loose back into place.
When Ma looked down at Laura, she frowned at the meager bundle of branches tucked under her arm. Laura had forgotten that she was supposed to be looking for kindling. Ma sent her right back out to join Mary and Devonte Aguilar, who were gathering firewood in the thicket downhill from the campsite.
As she made her way down the trail, Laura heard Devonte explaining something to Mary in a very self-important voice. Suddenly, Mary let out a loud girlish laugh. It sounded unnatural to Laura, and she doubted that anything Devonte Aguilar had said could possibly be that funny.
Laura's sister had started acting funny around the older boy, always changing her voice as if to make herself sound more grown up. A few days previous, Mary had asked Laura if she thought Devonte was handsome. Laura had made a face and said she guessed he probably was, but he was also stuck up and a know-it-all.
When Laura reached them, Devonte turned to her. Placing a hand to his chest, he bowed low. That made Mary fake laugh again. Laura just rolled her eyes and set about scooping up kindling.
When they had all they could carry, Laura, Mary, and Devonte returned to camp. They set down their firewood next to Mr. Chavez, who was preparing the cookfire. Mr. Chavez made a show of surprise when Laura dropped her armful of branches, raising his bushy eyebrows and remarking on her strength. Laura knew he was only teasing her, but it made her feel good anyhow.
Before long, the aromas of supper were wafting across the camp. Mr. Chavez was always in charge of the cooking. Soon after leaving Hawkeye Crossing, though, Ma had started assisting him, and each night she seemed to assert herself more around the convoy's makeshift kitchen. Meals were richer for their collaboration. By agreement and tradition, most of what supplies people had brought with them on convoy were pooled together, and Ma and Mr. Chavez made the most of the varied ingredients. For Laura, each supper was a revelation, flavors new and familiar overlapping one upon the other.
After the sun had gone down, Captain Syed and the other Deshis unrolled their mats and went off to say their evening prayer. By the time they returned, the rest of the convoy was gathered around a roaring fire, and Mr. Chavez was ladling out bowls of a rich, sweet stew with barley from the stores in the back of the bisox wagon, apple leathers that Ma had pulled out of one of their barrels, and even a touch of honey from the Khans' hives.
Now was the time when the convoy would truly come alive. On some nights, there was singing. The others had been delighted when they learned that Pa played the two-string, and, if there was fuel enough to keep the fires glowing after supper, they would often convince him to bring it out, shouting requests as he adjusted the two tuning pegs that stuck out from the instrument's skinny neck.
Other nights, they told stories. Some told stories about their lives. Others just told story stories.
Bill Keo told second type. The wispy-bearded bachelor was cagey about his life and his travels. But he was an enthusiastic teller of showtales.
"I don't reckon a couple sensible young ladies like you is interested at all in stories about the Batman," he said that night, as Laura and Mary passed by on their way to sit down beside the fire, bowls of apple barley stew in their hands.
He had seen Laura's carrysack and knew very well she was interested.
"I know all the Batman stories," she told him. "Pa's told them to me."
"Oh I see. Well then," said Bill Keo, shrugging in disappointment as he tucked his legs beneath him and blew theatrically across his bowl. "Don't mean to bore you. Suppose you know all about how the Batman saved the whales with help of his space friends."
Behind her, Laura heard Captain Syed snort.
"Saved the whats?" she said. "Bill, what nonsense are you telling those girls?"
As Bill Keo cackled to himself and slurped his stew, others gathered closer to listen. The Khans pulled their stools around to Bill Keo's side of the firepit. Bucky Malla and Caleb, who had been standing nearby eating their stew, both turned. Even Devonte Aguilar, whose parents seemed to disapprove of showtales, sat down beside Mary and Laura.
"Saved the whales, Priya," Bill Keo was saying. "Why, everybody knows it was the Batman that brought whales back to the sea after they'd all died out. How else do you think he calmed the Storm God's furies? Though, if you ask me, he couldn't have done it without the help of his space friends: Mighty Prime, the Lectric Man, and a clever moon goblin by the name of Spok. Those two don't get near their share of the credit, that's always been my view."
Space friends? Storm gods? Moon goblins? This didn't sound like any of the Batman's adventures that Laura knew about.
"There's no such thing as whales," Laura heard Devonte whisper to Mary in his know-it-all voice.
Bill Keo must have heard it too.
"Well there weren't until the Batman brought some back in his moonship," he said, waggling his spoon in Devonte's direction. "I can't believe not one of you has heard the story of the Batman and the whales. Don't you folks out west have any culture? Well, sit back a spell, and let Ol' Bill tell you how it goes."
HOW THE BATMAN AND HIS SPACE FRIENDS SAVED THE WHALES
"It was a time of great storms," he began.
"Deep in his bunker, Wane, the Batman of Gothim, was safe. But he knowed that up above people were suffering. Well, Wane the Batman, he brooded on that. He'd defeated countless enemies. Bandits and fiends and corrupt caudillos. But even a batman can't fight wind and rain, can he?
"He's just about fixing to despair. Those tall old towers of Gothim are sure to blow right over any moment, he figures. And then one day there's a knock at his bunker.
"Who could that be with these storms a-raging as they are? he thinks. Well, danged if it ain't the Batman's old friend, Spok. Now, Spok, if you ain't heard of him, he's from a people that live in a city up on the moon. Goblin I said? Well, fine, goblin if you like. He don't look like a regular fella, that's for sure. Like all moonmen, he's pale and short of stature, with pointy tips to his ears, sharp as daggers, and naught but three fingers on each hand.
"Well, the Batman knows it must be something important if old Spok's come all the way down from the moon. And sure enough it is. Turns out Spok knows just what's been causing these terrible storms. Seems that something's got Thor in a right foul mood, he says.
"'Of course!' thinks the Batman. Why hadn't he thought to go see Thor sooner? He's the god of storms and such after all! If anyone's responsible for this calamitous weather, it'd have to be Thor.
"There's no time to lose, says Spok. He tells the Batman they ought to hop aboard his flying moonship right away, sail up to Thor's castle in the sky, and make him knock it off with the storms before he floods the whole blasted world.
"Right you are as always, my friend, says the Batman. Only this Thor, he's a tough character. Stronger than twenty men. And he's got a magic hammer what shoots lightning. We need help, says the Batman, and I've a notion just where we can find it.
"Now who do you suppose the Batman went to see next? Why, who else but his old friend, Prime the Lectric Man!
"You girls have heard of Prime, sure. No? Why, he's one of the greatest heroes of Old Merica! No sense of culture out west, and that's a fact.
"Mighty Prime! The Lectric Man! As tall as a house and made of solid iron. He looks like just a lectric wagon but with great brawny arms and legs and a pistol what shoots beams of white-hot flame, straight as arrows. Now does that sound like the kind of warrior Spok and the Batman want at their back when they fly up to Thor's castle? You bet your bottoms it is.
"Prime's from space too, legend goes. Some star or other. But in those days he lived here on Earth, in a cave on top of a mountain. And that's where Spok and the Batman find him. Meditating. Just a-waiting to be called to adventure.
"Prime! says the Batman when they get to the cave. We've got to get that rascal Thor to quit making these storms! Will you help us? I will, says Prime. And he grabs his flame pistol and off they go.
"So the three friends, they fly Spok's moonship up into space, straight towards the storm god's castle. It's a sight, that castle. Made of gleaming silver and hardmold as white as pearl. And it floats through the sky, circling the whole Earth round and round. On clear nights like this, if you know what to look for, sometimes you can still see it pass overhead, a-blink-blinking as it passes.
"When they get there, sure enough, there's Thor, standing right there on top one of the space castle's silver towers, whipping up those awful storms with his magic hammer. He's got a furious look on his face and just the craziest of crazy eyes. Right away, the heroes set down their moonship, and Prime rushes at Thor, thinking to tear that hammer away from him.
"But Thor's too strong! He swats the mighty lectric man away like he was a child and not a giant iron wagon with arms and legs and a flame pistol and all. Oh no, thinks Spok and the Batman, and they get ready for Thor to come for them too. Only, when the storm god turns towards them, he doesn't look angry. More sad-like. He doesn't attack them. He just kind of hangs his head and walks away.
"The three heroes, they watch him, wary. Thor climbs to the tip of a spire what juts up from the castle tower, just a-hanging out among the stars. There he sits. He sets his hammer down and pulls a flute from his cloak, and he begins to play.
"Now, the song that comes out, it ain't like a normal flute. Beautiful and sad, it was. It seemed to come from everywhere at once. Well, something about that sound tickles at the back of the Batman's mind. So he pulls his lectric handscreen from his belt. That screen knows everything or nearabouts. The Batman asks the screen, 'Screen, what is that song that Thor is playing?'
"'Why, that's the whale song,' the screen answers. 'When whales swam the oceans, the sea was filled with their song. It soothed the world and kept all nature in harmony.'
"Suddenly, the Batman thinks he knows what's got Thor in such a blasted rage. Screen, he asks, didn't these storms start just after the whales disappeared, right about the same time the oceans went silent? Sure enough they did, says the screen.
"The Batman calls out to Thor. 'God of thunder! If my friends and I can return the whales to the seas, will that quell your fury? Will you then forsake these terrible storms and let mankind once more live in peace?'
"'You have my word,' says Thor.
"So the heroes climb back aboard their moonship. That was some quick thinking, says Prime, but where are we going to find some whales from? I thought they all died a long time ago.
"I've got an idea, says Spok. We'll fly the moonship backwards! All the way around the Earth, so fast that we'll fly back through time. Then we'll scoop up a couple of those whales, fly forwards to right now, and plunk them back into the ocean.
"What are you grumbling about back there, Priya? You heard me. Backwards through time. You ever flown in a moonship? Then how do you know that's not how they work?
"Anyway, that's just what they do. They fly backwards around the Earth. Faster and faster, until finally Spok reckons they've gone back far enough. Then they sail back home, back to Gothim. Only when they get there, it's all changed. The towers are all aglow with lectric light. The streets are full of lectric cars and wagons, just driving around all by themselves. Why, it seems the Batman and his space friends have gone and flown themselves all the way back to Lectric Times.
"Prime decides he ought to try to blend in, so he tucks his arms and legs into his body so he looks like just a regular lectric wagon. Spok and the Batman climb inside, and together they drive around Old Lectric Gothim looking for someone who can tell them where to get ahold of some whales.
"Well, it ain't long before the Batman sees something what makes him tell Prime to hit the reins quick. There's a set of gates up ahead. The Batman, he recognizes this place. They're standing in front of the entrance to Zoo, a great big old palace what the Mericans built, full of gardens and a famous menagerie with two of every kind of animal thre is.
"Now, the Zoo of Gothim was abandoned during the Hard Years, and the Batman, he knows it only from the ruins. But back in Lectric Times, rich Merican folks would all pour into Zoo to spend their leisure days, strolling the gardens and gawking at beasts brought in from the farthest corners of the Empire. The Batman and his friends watch the crowds swarming all about. There's all sorts of activity. And what's this Zoo got out front but a great big painting of a whale!
"So in they go, through the gates of Zoo. They pass tigers and monkeys and unicorns and all sorts of strange animals what you'd never even have heard of. Finally they find the place where they keep all the fish and other water critters. They've got this pool, see, big as a lake. The Batman and his friends step up to the edge of the pool to take a closer look. And wouldn't you know it but there's a pair of whales swimming around down there!
"Now there's only two problems. For one, Zoo is crawling with guards. How are they going to sneak those whales out without anyone's notice? For two, whales are big. Real big. No way they're going to fit inside Spok's little moonship.
"So the heroes get to planning. They leave and wait for dark. Then, late that night, Prime races back to Zoo, still pretending to be just an ordinary lectric wagon. The gates are closed and locked now, but Prime just drives himself straight into them and busts them right down. The Zoo guards on nightwatch all start shouting and chasing Prime around, but they can't catch him. The Lectric Man's too fast.
"Meanwhile, out hops the Batman, and he goes about opening cages. Pretty soon there's bears and monkeys and all the rest running loose all over, and you've never heard such a ruckus. The guardsmen, they're having a time of it, trying to round up those animals, so Prime and the Batman manage to sneak off to the whale pool. There, the Batman opens a door in the back of Prime's wagon, and he pulls out the giant net that the three friends have spent all day weaving.
"The Batman dives into the pool, trailing the net behind him. Beneath the water, he can hear the whales' song, rising and falling. He swims up to them. 'Mankind needs your help,' he says to them. The song changes pitch, and the Batman knows the whales have understood. He swims in circles around them, wrapping them in the net. Then he grabs a corner and swims back to the surface.
"The Batman pops his head out of the water. There in the sky, it's Spok in his flying ship. Spok sails down to the Batman. The Batman attaches the net to a hook on the bottom of the moonship. Then he and Prime get aboard, and the ship sails away. Now, if you can picture a sparrow who's caught himself a trout, then you can begin to imagine what Spok's little moonship looked like, climbing into the air with that net dangling beneath it, holding as it did two giant whales!
"Back up into space they fly. Then around the Earth. Forward this time. Faster and faster. Until they arrive back into their own time, whales and all.
"The Batman and his friends drop the whales into the sea. They watch the two mighty beasts swim away, singing their whale song all the while. And then, from somewhere up above, another song rises in answer. The Batman looked up to see the blinking light of Thor's castle passing overhead, like a shooting star in slow motion. The notes from the sea and the notes from the sky came together in harmony.
"From that day forward, the storms grew quieter. And whales once again roamed the oceans, protecting mankind from the heavens' wrath. All thanks to the Batman and his amazing space friends."
Tags: batman, climate change, optimus prime, post electric, post-apocalyptic, scifi, startrek, thorCategories: fiction, post-apocalyptic, serial fiction
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Ex-Cops Being Pulled Out of Retirement to Enforce Austrian COVID Rules
Storms on Friday?
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Ex-officers up to 70 years of age are being pulled out of retirement in Upper-Austria to help enforce national lockdown rules in the province.
Previously retired officers up to 70 years of age have been asked to return to active service in order to help enforce lockdown rules in the province.
The state police department — under the instruction of Governor Thomas Stelzer — wrote to around 700 officers late last year to request they return to active duty.
While those who accept the request will not be given a police uniform, according to a report by Kronen Zeitung, they will be considered to be in active service, and are to be deployed for 39 hours per week.
The state is now in the process of attempting to return some of those contacted to active duty.
"We have received feedback from 37 police officers who have been contacted, and they are now receiving their documents," the governor's office told the publication. "Nobody has signed it yet, and admissions interviews have to be held."
Retired state officials have also been contacted regarding their potential interest in becoming a COVID rule inspector in Upper Austria, while the state has reportedly hired an additional 375 external employees to help deal with the crisis caused by the Chinese Coronavirus.
Undercover Police Officers to Inspect Vax Pass Papers as Austria 'Considerably' Intensifies Crackdown https://t.co/vnRrZ8zCtX
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 11, 2022
Austria is currently operating a lockdown regime described by one critic as "Corona Apartheid", where those who are unvaccinated are under lockdown restrictions, and barred from accessing a number of amenities in the country.
While this system has been in operation since last year, the nation once again tightened rules even further on Tuesday, mandating that every person entering a shop must be checked for proof of vaccination or recovery, in order to prevent those not permitted to avail of the services from accessing them.
The mandatory wearing of FFP2 masks outdoors was also introduced for areas where social distancing cannot be maintained.
Police forces in the European country have taken the enforcement of COVID rules quite seriously, recently announcing the deployment of plainclothes officers in the hopes of catching out those looking to get around the measures.
"The controls will… continue to be intensified, above all out of fairness towards those who support the necessary restrictions in solidarity," Austria's Interior Minister, Gerhard Karner, told Kronen Zeitung.
"It's about taking action against those who do not adhere to the rules. And taking action with fairness towards those who support the measures," Karner also said.
Senate Reapportionment Committee advances congressional map
Breitbart News Daily Podcast Ep. 50: Is the Tide Turning Against China, Biden, and COVID? Guest: Texas AG Ken Paxton
President Joe Biden expressed his frustration at being trapped in the White House on Wednesday, unable to travel and speak directly to the American people.
The president spoke with reporters for 112 minutes during a rare solo press conference at the White House.
Biden was confronted by NBC News reporter Kristen Welker who said during a visit to South Carolina, black voters she spoke to had written off his efforts on voting rights as a "last-minute PR push"
The president was disappointed to hear the news, lamenting he had been trapped in the White House during the first year of his presidency.
"Part of the problem is, as well: I have not been out in the community nearly enough," he said. "I've been here an awful lot."
He lamented that the coronavirus pandemic and Washington politics prevented him from interacting with the people.
I find myself in a situation where I don't get a chance to look people in the eye, because of both COVID and things that are happening in Washington, to be able to go out and do the things that I've always been able to do pretty well: connect with people, let them take a measure of my sincerity, let them take a measure of who I am.
Biden has previously spoken about his frustrations of being trapped in the White House, despite his frequent weekend trips home to Delaware.
"It's a little like a gilded cage, in terms of being able to — but walk outside and do things," Biden lamented in March during a CNN town hall.
The president said he had good working relationships with members of the black congressional caucus, but admitted he could still do more to communicate directly to the people.
"I think that's a problem that is my own making by not communicating as much as I should have," he said.
Biden expressed a vision of him escaping the White House in 2022 to connect directly with the people.
"I'm going to get out of this place more often," he said. "I'm going to go out and talk to the public. I'm going to do public fora. I'm going to interface with them."
Biden suggested the long days as president were taking a toll and would do more to bring in outside experts to advise his presidency and offer "constructive criticism."
"I'm not complaining. It's, you know, 12, 14 hours a day," he said. "No complaints. I really mean that sincerely."
Biden spoke positively about traveling to funerals with members of Congress and having discussions about the problems facing the nation.
"I learned a heck of a lot," he said, fondly recalling the hours spent with members of congress. "But as President, you don't quite have that ability to do that as often as I'd like to be able to do it."
Biden said he was used to negotiating with members of Congress to move forward on legislation, citing his success as a senator.
But he acknowledged he was in a different role, cited polling showing the public did not want him to spend more time with members of Congress.
"The public doesn't want me to be the 'President Senator,'" he said. "They want me to be the President and let senators be senators."
Jobless claims unexepectedly jumped last week, suggesting that omicron has begun hitting the labor market.
Initial filings for the week ended January 15 totaled 286,000, up from the previous week's 231,000. Analysts surveyed by Econoday forecast claims would fall to 207,000.
The total was the highest since mid-October. Jobless claims have been on an uneven climb since falling to the lowest level in 50 years in early January.
Continuing claims, which are released with a week's delay, climbed 84,000 to 1.64 million.
Real time indicators of travel and leisure activity, including airport foot traffic and restaurant bookings, have recently indicated declines as new case numbers have surged.
Left-wing billionaire and Democrat donor George Soros has turned his attention in recent years to local races for prosecutor, using his money to elect "progressives" who push "criminal justice reform" and support the Black Lives Matter movement.
The rise of these Soros-backed prosecutors has coincided with a massive surge in murder and crime in many Democrat-run cities, including many where these prosecutors have implemented radical policies toward policing and incarceration.
Most recently, for example, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón has faced criticism for his radical reforms in the year since he took office, while murders soared. "The city last year experienced 397 murders, up 11.8 percent from the 355 the previous year, and a 53.9 percent increase from the 258 in the pre-pandemic year of 2019," Los Angeles magazine noted.
These murders included the shooting death of Jacqueline Avant, a black philanthropist and the wife of legendary music producer Clarence Avant, who was killed during a robbery in her home. Gascón blamed the "system" for her death.
More recently, a young woman, Brianna Kupfer, was stabbed to death in broad daylight in the furniture store where she worked. Her alleged killer was out on bail for a 2020 arrest in Los Angeles and a 2019 arrest in South Carolina. Her father blamed politicians who had let criminals roam free — a growing sentiment in cities where Soros-backed prosecutors rule.
Many of the candidates Soros has backed have received support, directly or indirectly, from a network of groups with names like "Justice & Public Safety PAC." The Influence Watch website describes Soros's organizations as the "'Safety and Justice' network, a project of left-leaning billionaire George Soros that used a network of similarly named state-level PACs to finance the campaigns of progressive Democratic candidates for district attorney in more than a dozen of America's cities."
Soros-backed prosecutors include:
Supported by Soros through spending by political action committees (PACs) and super PACs:
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón – Elected in 2020, he ousted incumbent D.A. Jackie Lacey, the first black woman to hold the job, and has prided himself on reducing prison sentences, even as violent crime has soared in L.A.
(Chicago) Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx – Foxx became notorious for her intervention in the Jussie Smollett case, dropping charges against the actor for a hate crime hoax. (Smollett was later convicted.) Chicago hit 800 homicides in 2021.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner – Soros supported Krasner with nearly $1.7 million in spending in 2017, more than five times as much as Kranser spent himself. Philadelphia set a new record for homicides in 2021, with 562 in total.
(Houston) Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg – Ogg is considered one of the more moderate of Soros's prosecutors, and had to overcome opposition from even more left-wing prosecutors in 2020. Houston's homicide rate rose 71% in 2021.
Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot – Cruezot dropped prosecutions for thefts of "personal items" valued at less than $750, among other radical reforms, and was reduced to reminding residents that theft was still against the law.
(San Antonio) Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales – Gonzales has been described as "one of Soros's favorite DAs," presiding over a stunning 52% increase in homicides in San Antonio since 2019, though violent crime was down overall.
(Phoenix) Maricopa County District Attorney Paul Penzone – Soros spent millions to defeat Joe Arpaio and support Penzone, who gained national attention in 2020 when he resisted efforts by Republicans to audit the ballots in the 2020 election.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner – Gardner has faced ethical complaints over the prosecution of former Governor Eric Greitens, as well as that of Mark and Patricia McCloskey. She was kicked off the latter prosecution after using it to fundraise.
(East San Francisco Bay Area) Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton – Becton famously charged a couple with a "hate crime" for painting over a "Black Lives Matter" mural that was painted on a public road in Martinez, California.
Supported by Soros indirectly:
(New York) Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg – Bragg was elected with help from the Color of Change PAC, to which Soros donated $1 million. He has banned pre-trial incarceration and prison for all but homicide and a few other cases.
Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby – Mosby, one of the original "Black Lives Matter" prosecutors, reportedly took a trip abroad sponsored by a Soros-backed group. She was recently indicted on federal charges of mortgage fraud and perjury.
(Orlando) Ninth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Monque Worrell – Worrell succeeded Soros-backed Aramis Ayala, whom Gov. Ron DeSantis kicked off a murder case for declining to seek charges in a murder because she opposed the death penalty.
A further list of Soros-backed prosecutors, current through 2019, is available through Influence Watch. These include prosecutors such as Loudoun County Commonwealth's Attorney Buta Biberaj – Biberaj came under scrutiny after a parent was arrested for speaking out at a school board meeting against district policies after his daughter was sexually assaulted. Another list is available through the Capital Research Center, including descriptions of Soros-backed prosecutors' records.
Not every left-wing prosecutor is directly backed by Soros. San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin was not backed by Soros — but he received $100,000 from a PAC controlled by Soros-backed George Gascón to fight a recall election effort.
In 2018, the Los Angeles Times reported that Soros had funded at least 21 local prosecutorial campaigns, though it noted that the full extent of his influence on such races was unknown, because some of his contributions flowed to non-profit organizations and "dark money" groups rather than directly to campaigns. He has continued and expanded his role since.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Politics12 mins ago