The State of Golden State Innovation
At “What Makes a Great California Idea?,” Panelists Discussed the Big Ideas—Good and Bad—That Originated Here
At the opening night of the inaugural CalMatters Ideas Festival, a two-day event in Sacramento dedicated to discussing solutions to the Golden State’s greatest challenges, Zócalo convened a panel around what’s long been a point of California pride: innovation.
But as Zócalo’s California columnist and democracy editor Joe Mathews, who moderated the event, reminded the audience, the ideas that come out of the state aren’t all good. Sure, some are “earth-shatteringly great”—like the earthquake early warning system—but others are “apocalyptically dangerous”—American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer spent many years at UC Berkeley …
