Business in America News

Celebrating Startups in the State of the Union

Ed note: In honor of the one year anniversary of Startup America, we invited Mike Krieger, the co-founder of Instagram, to contribute a post to WhiteHouse.gov. Instagram is the fastest growing social mobile startup in the U.S. today, and exemplifies President Obama's belief that "entrepreneurs embody the promise of America: the idea that if you have a good idea and are willing to work hard and see it through, you can succeed in this country. And in fulfilling this promise, entrepreneurs also play a critical role in expanding our economy and creating jobs." Mr. Krieger moved from Brazil to California to attend Stanford University, where he studied computer science and cognitive science. In 2010, he and a partner founded Instagram, which now employs a talented, growing team of designers and engineers. After graduation, Mr. Krieger worked for a year on his student F-1 visa, later applying for and receiving an H-1B visa as a high-skill worker. Mr. Krieger wants to permanently stay in the U.S. and has applied for a green card.

I was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and from an early age was interested in technology and engineering. When I came to the United States in 2004 to attend university at Stanford, I was instantly inspired by the stories and advice from startup leaders in Silicon Valley and beyond, who had endeavoured to create new opportunities and improve lives around the world. I was drawn to the idea of one day helping to create a startup, and last year, I was fortunate to be given the chance. In May of 2010, I joined Kevin Systrom, my co-founder, and we created Instagram, a mobile social network that today has over 15 million users. What began as a small, two-person startup working out of a pier in San Francisco has grown to a dozen employees, and our plan is to at least double that this year. There are few better sights than walking into an office full of talented, hard-working folks, working together to build a great company from the ground up.

Weekly Address: President’s Blueprint Includes Renewal of American Values

In his weekly address, President Obama discusses the blueprint he put forward this week in the State of the Union Address for creating an economy built to last.  After focusing on American manufacturing, American energy, and skills for American workers during each of the last three days, he used his weekly address to highlight his commitment to a renewal of American values. The President is challenging leaders in Washington, DC to follow the model set by our men and women in the military, end the gridlock and start tackling the issues that matter – without regard for personal ambition.

Transcript | Download mp4 | Download mp3

Learn more

• Watch the enhanced version of the 2012 State of the Union Address
• Read President Obama's Blueprint for an America Built to Last
• Take a deep dive into the data behind the President’s plan
• Find out how you can talk to Obama Administration officials about the President's plan
• Everything you need to know about President Obama's Blueprint for American-made energy
• Everything you need to know about President Obama's Blueprint for manufacturing

Vice President Biden: "America Is Coming Back"

Vice President Joe Biden speaks at Albany Engineered Composites during event on manufacturing in Rochester, NH, Jan 26, 2012. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)

Yesterday, Vice President Biden visited Rochester, New Hampshire to highlight the Administration’s plan to help businesses bring manufacturing jobs back to America. He made one central message clear: “America is coming back.”

As the Vice President emphasized, the policies the Obama Administration has put in place in its first three years are beginning to pay off—especially in manufacturing. The economy added 334,000 manufacturing jobs in the last two years, making it the strongest period of manufacturing job growth since the late 1990s. And now, instead of hearing about outsourcing, we’re finally starting to hear about insourcing as more and more companies realize that it makes real business sense to bring jobs back to America. 

Manufacturers are coming back because, while costs in China are rising rapidly, “American workers are the most productive workers in the world,” the Vice President said. And to reinforce that advantage, we need more partnerships between businesses and community colleges to train workers with the specialized skills employers need. 

Vice President Biden had the opportunity to see such a partnership in action in New Hampshire yesterday—a partnership that is reviving advanced manufacturing and bringing jobs back to the state. 

State of the Union Deep Dive

Americans who watched an online broadcast of President Obama's 2012 State of the Union address saw something a little different: a side by side display of charts, graphs and other visual representations of why the President's policies are so important for our country and our economy. You can see the slides here, or download them at slideshare

Celebrating Our Veterans With “Apps for Heroes”

Last Wednesday, we joined Dr. Jill Biden at the Code for America headquarters, a non-profit startup that has attracted dozens of civic-minded software developers spending a year building new products and services – powered, in part, by open government data – to improve the lives of everyday Americans.

Dr. Biden celebrated the convening efforts of Code and 10 apps developed by the private sector to improve the employment prospects for our Nation’s heroes – from apps that help veterans build new skills or a professional network, to a personalized list of open job postings. We observed the results of LinkedIn’s “Veterans Hackday” – two of the 44 apps built over a weekend; a collaboration between two tech companies that had never worked together before – Jibe and KMS Software – to deliver an almost-paperless approach to qualify for eligible tax credits; and the impressive work of a veteran entrepreneur, Fidelis, focused on the military to civilian transition.

We saw these and other “Apps for Heroes” because Code for America made a commitment last August in response to the President’s call to action. We joined Code on this mission and engaged a broader voluntary collaborative of tech firms already active in the employment and training online market. They didn’t ask us for money. Rather, we brainstormed how government data, if released in a people-and-computer-friendly format, could serve as “rocket fuel” for their apps.

And then we went to work.

Inspired by President Obama’s Open Government Initiative and guided by the U.S. National Action Plan, we identified at least three areas where we might open up data that had previously been either in an inaccessible format, organized in a fragmented way, or largely unknown to the developer community:

1. Military Service Information:  Veterans today collect a form – the DD-214 – that captures their military “resume”; while it can be electronically accessed, the data within the form is protected and in a form that isn’t accessible for a computer to read. Building on the momentum of VA’s initiative, Dr. Levin expanded their “Blue Button” service - which enables a veteran to safely and securely download their personal health data in computer-friendly form - to include a veteran’s service history, training, and credentials. Launched just in the beginning of December, over 60,000 veterans have already downloaded a “Blue Button” file that can be shared with the products and service as they see fit, like the apps for heroes we saw last week.
2. Military Skills Translator:  The Department of Labor actively supports a non-profit, the O*Net center, to maintain a growing portfolio of tools and data sets that are freely available to developers or anyone for that matter.  The problem was that very few of the developers we engaged over the past several months were even aware of this resource.  When we showed them what we had they immediately went to work on “translating” military experience into skills that are relevant for their existing products and services.
3. Job Postings from Employers Seeking Veterans:  President Obama launched the“Veterans Job Bank” last November, which provides access to hundreds of thousands of job postings from employers actively committed to hiring veterans. Built on an open standard, the “JobPosting” schema – endorsed by a coalition of search engines (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo) through the schema.org community – empowers any employer to ensure its job postings are discoverable by the Job Bank.  The big idea is that instead of requiring every employer to update a centralized database, we can dynamically “search” for veteran-committed jobs.  Its faster, cheaper, and more reliable way to connect employers to talent. The Job Bank itself is accessible at the National Resource Directory and its search widget, built in an effort to support developers has offered an API that delivers search results straight to the app.  

Finally, I thought to share the power of Open Innovation @ Internet speed. At a Summer Jobs + event last Tuesday, Twilio CEO, Jeff Lawson challenged the Twilio developer community to build an “App for Heroes.” In about an hour – from concept to go-live – developer Tony Webster built HeroJobs.org, a text messaging app that sends job alerts to veterans every morning based on their preferences, experience, and zip code.

We were humbled and honored that so many innovative firms volunteered their time and effort to incorporate these – and other open government data sets – as an important ingredient for their innovate employment or training support service. Our visit inspired us to push even harder to release government data, celebrate its use, and to engage our veterans directly to ensure they have the support they need in this important life transition.

Aneesh Chopra is U.S. Chief Technology Officer and Peter Levin is Chief Technology Officer and Senior Advisor to the Secretary, Department of Veterans Affairs

Weekly Address: Helping American Businesses Succeed

President Obama discusses steps he's taking to ensure that more goods and products stamped "Made in America" are sold in the United States and around the world.

Transcript | Download mp4 | Download mp3

Regional Roundup: Insourcing American Jobs

Yesterday, the White House hosted the “Insourcing American Jobs” forum with business leaders from across the country to discuss one topic: bringing jobs back to the United States.  For too long factories have closed their doors and companies have shipped jobs overseas, where workers were cheaper. It’s damaged the economy and hurt middle class families all across the nation.  The President believes we can change that. 

Right now, we have a great opportunity for those jobs to come back – and the business leaders that joined President Obama yesterday understand that.  We’re seeing an increasing trend of insourcing, where companies are bringing jobs back and making additional investments in America. Over the past two years American manufacturers have now added 334,000 jobs. Manufacturing production has increased by 5.7 percent. That’s a good thing, but we need to do more. That’s why the President called on companies to follow this trend and invest in America.  

The President is working to restore the economic security for the middle class and those trying to reach it. He’ll continue to build an economy where hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded. He knows this is a make or break moment for the middle class, and he’ll continue to do everything he can to give folks a fair shot and a chance to succeed.  

He knows that America shouldn’t be a nation known for financial speculation and outsourcing. As he said yesterday, America should be known for making products and selling them all over the world stamped with three proud words: “Made in America.”  

The next generation of manufacturing jobs shouldn’t take root in countries like China or Germany – they should take root in cities across America. Some companies are already leading the way. Let’s take a look at news coverage of yesterday’s event from across the country: 

McClatchy/Charlotte Observer/Miami Herald - Rebuilding a business, bringing jobs back

WASHINGTON – North Carolina has lost tens of thousands of furniture-making jobs over the past decade. 

But Bruce Cochrane, who worked as a consultant in China and Vietnam after his family sold their furniture business in 1996, says rising Chinese wages and an increase in shipping costs have created an opportunity for him back home. 

Cochrane has invested $5 million and is hiring 130 workers to build middle- to higher-priced solid-wood furniture in the same sprawling Lincolnton, N.C., warehouse that his family once ran. He even moved into his dad’s old office. 

Now, President Barack Obama wants to know what Cochrane saw and why he’s taking such a chance in a region and industry battered by outsourced jobs. Cochrane stood Wednesday in the East Room of the White House as Obama said the Lincolnton man was proof that you don’t have to be a big manufacturer to make a difference. 

Resurgence of the American Auto Industry

Yesterday, the North American International Auto Show kicked off in Detroit, with companies unveiling their new vehicles and folks eager to get their first peek. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was on hand for the opening events, and Commerce Secretary John Bryson, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, and the Labor Department’s Director Office of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers Jay Williams are all taking part in auto show activities this week. 

The auto industry had a strong year in 2011. It’s easy to forget, but just a few years ago many people doubted whether there would even be an American auto industry in 2011.

When President Obama took office, we faced the worst recession since the Great Depression, and the American auto industry was hit hard. Hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost in the auto industry, and entire communities that depended on a dealership or a parts manufacturer were affected.   

Both GM and Chrysler faced the stark choice of seeking government support or facing almost certain uncontrolled liquidations, which would have had a ripple effect across the industry, causing at least one million more jobs to be lost. The President refused to let that happen.

In the face of stiff opposition, the President made a tough choice to help provide the auto industry the temporary support it needed to rebuild their companies and get moving again. This was a difficult decision, and came with significant risk. But the President was not willing to walk away from these workers and this great American industry.

Today, the American auto industry is coming back, creating jobs and moving cars off the line. Last month, the automotive industry added nearly 11,000 positions, bringing the total number of jobs added in the fourth quarter of 2011 to 36,000. The industry added 100,000 jobs over the course of 2011.

Since Chrysler and GM emerged from bankruptcy in June of 2009, the auto industry has added back more than 170,000 jobs, the best period of job growth in more than a decade. While there’s more work to be done, it’s clear the auto industry is moving in the right direction. 

In December, we saw auto sales climb for the seventh consecutive month. The Big Three -- Ford, GM and Chrysler -- all saw sale increases for December, and the year as a whole.

In addition, because of the President’s leadership, we have put in place historic higher fuel economy standards, which will save Americans $1.7 trillion in fuel costs and reduce oil consumption by 12 billion barrels. That means families will begin saving money at the pump this year.

But there’s a lot more work to do to get the American people back to work. The President will continue to fight to restore the economic security for the communities that were hit just a few years back, to strengthen the middle class and rebuild an economy where hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded.

Folks in Detroit and in auto communities across the country know what it takes to get the job done. They know a little something about hard work. They know what it takes to fight to rebuild their community and we’ll continue to stand right by their side every step of the way.

New Report: Investing in Innovation is Crucial to Economic Growth and Competitiveness

[Ed. Note: Watch Secretary of Commerce John Bryson unveil the report details live today from 10 am - noon]

Today, the Commerce Department and the White House sent to Congress the Administration’s plan on The Competitiveness and Innovative Capacity of the United States, fulfilling an important requirement under the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 which President Obama signed into law one year ago this month. 

As the report emphasizes, innovation has been a key driver of U.S. prosperity and competitiveness throughout our history. Government investments in the building blocks of innovation – basic research, education, and infrastructure – have helped fuel and sustain the ingenuity of the inventors and innovators.  Innovation-based economic growth has brought us higher paying, higher quality jobs as well as improved health and quality of life. Federally-supported research has led to world-changing advancements in a variety of fields, including laying the groundwork for the integrated circuit and computer industry; the Internet; advances in chemicals, agriculture, and medical science; and GPS. Millions of workers can trace their industries and companies back to technological breakthroughs funded by the Federal government.  

In the 20^th century, our schools turned out high school and college graduates at a higher rate than anywhere else in the world, creating a highly-skilled workforce and boosting innovation.  And Federal infrastructure investments helped electrify the country, make clean water widely available, make air travel more affordable, and construct an interstate highway system. These developments helped businesses compete by opening up new markets to sell their products and services, while keeping costs low.