Udayan Gupta is a New York-based writer and communications adviser, specializing in oral narratives and history. He is currently the Family Office columnist for WSJ Money and a contributor to Institutional Investor and Global Finance. As a journalist, author, digital entrepreneur, and consultant, he has been a commentator on entrepreneurship and venture capital in the United States. He also teaches entrepreneurship and venture capital in Fordham University’s MBA program. He is the author of “Done Deals: Venture Capitalists Tell Their Stories” and a number of other books, including “The First Venture Capitalist: Georges Doriot on Leadership, Capital and Business Organization,” “Mind into Matter: Arch Transforms Science into Sustainable Enterprise,” and “A Natural Way of Business: How Frank Rainieri, Theodore Kheel, Oscar De La Renta and Julio Iglesias Transformed an Island Economy.” He is currently working on a biography of Joseph M Cohen, the investment banker who was managing partner of Cowen & Co. until it was sold to Societe Generale in 1998.
Bio + Life Sciences
CellMax Life Is Changing the Rules for Cancer Screening
An unheralded Silicon Valley biotechnology startup is fundamentally changing the rules of cancer screening. CellMax Life, headquartered in both Mountain View and Taipei, is deploying a technology that can detect cancer cells at their earliest stages. It has the potential to decisively change the economics of cancer screening and impacting cancer outcomes worldwide.
Bio + Life Sciences
The Politics Behind Parkinson’s Research
Planned Parenthood’s problem with anti‐abortionists may have an unintended victim: research into Parkinson’s Disease. Much stem cell research has nothing to do with aborted fetuses. But the lack of clarity and public understanding about the term has meant that research involving all stem cells – embryonic or fetal – is jeopardized. The irony is that tremendous advances have been made in the research on Parkinson’s in the United States and abroad, especially Japan. But so much more is possible.
Cybersecurity
Despite Controversy, Creative Startups Seek Completely Secure Communications
The market for secure private communications—encrypted messaging—is exploding. And with an estimated 70 trillion consumer and business messages expected globally by 2018, a bunch of New York startups want to “manage” the messaging process—to find ways to make messages secure and private. Federal agencies want secure networks to prevent the massive cyber attacks they have been plagued by. Large corporations embarrassed by disclosures such as Sony’s want enterprise-wide security. But they also want access to individual communications as part of their overall plan to mine and monetize user data. Meanwhile, and controversially, the NSA wants “back door” access to all communications, ostensibly to monitor terrorism and oversee national security.
Affordable Care Act
The Unhealthy Truth About Obamacare’s Contractors
On July 16 of this year, Sarah Kliff posted a prescient piece on the Washington Post's Wonkblog. The post, “Meet Serco, the private firm getting $1.2 billion to process your Obamacare application,” reported that 90 percent of Serco’s U.S. business is with the federal government and that the 25-year-old firm pretty much owes its existence to government contracting. She also noted that Serco's experience is in paper pushing, not healthcare. Nonetheless, Serco won a contract that will pay it $114 million in 2013 and that eye-popping number of $1.2 billion over the next five years.
