Martin Babinec founded the HR services company Trinet in 1988, serving as its CEO for 20 years and as chairman for 10. Since he founded the company 32 years ago, Trinet has grown to annual sales of $4 billion and is now listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Martin founded and built Trinet in Silicon Valley while commuting from Upstate New York. After seeing the stark difference between these two startup ecosystems, he embarked on a ten-year journey to transform his talent-exporting community in Upstate New York to a talent-magnetic community to support the innovation economy. His journey included a run for congress in 2016, the creation of a new political party, and several experiments to create more innovation economy jobs in his region. He has just released a book entitled “More Good Jobs” about his experience.
In this episode, Martin offers timely advice on why and how VCs should engage politically, and how they can leverage opportunities outside traditional startup ecosystems.
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