Deadline gone for Amazon’s HQ2. I was in London at Trafalgar Square when that city won the bid for the 2012 Olympics. Bedlam. Given all the hype in Round One of the ‘Amazon Games,’ one can expect the winners to be dancing in the streets like Londoners in 2005. But Where? Great Park? Broadway Plaza? ‘Amazon Sand’? FivePoint’s Emile Haddad has three chances to do a jig—his co. owning swaths of entitled land here, in Newhall and San Francisco, part of separate bids for HQ2.
Amazon only says it will decide by late 2018. Irvine Co. Chmn. Donald Bren sweetened the city’s offer to Jeff Bezos with $5B in financing, “spectacular beaches” and sunshine. Bren can deliver. Can Bezos?
Business Celebs on ‘Tour’… They’re not Donald, The Henrys or Jannard—yet. But two emerging business stars were on a mini-tour this week, one stop. Newth Morris headlined a “Coffee at the Cove” at UCI and Rob Lilliness held a fireside chat at Smartlabs’ new HQ in Irvine.
Morris recounted taking his Aliso Viejo software firm from startup to cleaning up with a $900M sale to Verizon last year. The past OC Business Journal Entrepreneur of the Year was patient with Telogis, studying GPS in its infancy, starting it with a few friends in 2001 and “funding it largely with credit cards.”
In 2013 Morris finally brought in Silicon VCs enticed by an impressive client base using Telogis’ SaaS platform. Morris is a Verizon VP today and sees a startup ecosystem here in OC that can foster the next Telogis: “It’s growing. It’s much better.”
Rob Lilliness is back. After a successful run at Universal Electronics in the mid 2000s marked by a five-fold pop in value, he returns as boss of Smartlabs and its suite of IoT subs, Insteon and Smarthome, in the white-hot IoT market. Lilliness snatched SmartLabs this summer with his Seattle VC startup Richmond Partners. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed …our tech editor, Chris Casacchia, pegged Smartlabs sales at $200M in 2016 … colleague Peter J. Brennan noted at the time: ‘This is big. I smell it.’ Brennan whiffed no less than four of Tech’s Big 5 in some way connected to the Richmond/Smartlabs deal. Peter J. has good olfactory senses. After Thursday night’s Techtoberfest talk at Eureka Creative. Lilliness delivered on Brennan’s hunch. Friday morning Microsoft announced Insteon is a core partner for Cortana Home—Microsoft’s bid to be THE IoT platform from the home—competing with Amazon Alexa, Google Home and Apple. “Very exciting,” ‘Mr. Big’ said.
Inspiration Point: Please join the The Best Days Foundation at Newport Dunes Resort this Sunday morning … Best Days helps folks with special needs build confidence through adventure activities … kayaking, paddleboarding. Volunteers welcome.
