Ben Roodman

MOVING CALIFORNIA FROM "AI CURIOSITY" TO "AI GOVERNANCE" IN 2026 The first business day of the year usually brings a flurry of new resolutions. For California’s public sector, the most critical resolution for 2026 must be the transition from AI pilots to enterprise-grade AI Governance. Having served as both the Operations Chief (managing a $250M state budget) and VP of Sales (orchestrating a $20M revenue quota), I have observed a consistent pattern: The tech is rarely the blocker. The blocker is usually the framework. As California moves to operationalize Executive Order N-12-23 (which establishes the state's roadmap for Ethical and Responsible AI), the priority shifts from "can we do it" to "can we secure it at scale." To move the needle for nearly 40 million Californians, we must focus on three Sovereign Account priorities: Responsible Scale: It is one thing to deploy an AI-enabled chatbot; the real challenge is scaling AI to handle high-stakes work. For the State, this means moving AI into a secure environment where it can safely analyze multi-billion-dollar budgets and help leaders decide which projects to prioritize first. Security-First Architecture: With the recent push toward cybersecurity modernization, AI adoption cannot outpace our risk mitigation strategies. In the public sector, trust is the primary currency. Outcome-Based Stewardship: In the CA government space, AI should not just be about efficiency; it must be about "Service Capacity." If we can handle 100,000 inquiries through intelligent automation, we are not just saving money; we are returning time to the people while enabling staff to perform more value-added work. Whether it is modernizing Health and Human Services, streamlining the digital experience at the DMV, or optimizing infrastructure data for Caltrans, the goal is the same: Leveraging innovation to solve our most complex social challenges. What is your agency’s or organization’s #1 AI priority as we kick off the new year? Let us discuss in the comments. Link to the full Executive Order in the first comment below. 👇 #SLED #DigitalTransformation #AIGovernance #SacramentoTech #PublicSector #Microsoft #Cisco #UCDavis #GovTech #StateOfCalifornia

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🎤I was fortunate to join a room of 100+ founders and VCs in a recent StartupValley event in downtown San Francisco and talk about DSALTA. After the general Q&A and my tens of 1:1s, it is now obvious that startups are more knowledgeable that they're not limited to choosing between extremely slow legacy players and newer fraudulent companies. 🏆NOW there is a THIRD option that delivers everything by rules & regulations in a fraction of the time compared to those legacy players. #ExitVanta #SOC2 #ISO27001 #NIS2 #AIUC1 #HIPAA #HITRUST #GDPR #FEDRAMP #DORA #PCIDSS #CMMC

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The latest Studio Stack newsletter dropped on Friday — and in it, I unpack why community is the most underutilized competitive advantage in most organizations but ESPECIALLY in the Venture Studio sphere. 💡 87% of leaders say community is critical to their company’s mission 📈 79% report it’s directly impacting business results Yet most studios still treat it like a side project. In the article, I break down what actually works in 2025: → Build where people already “play” → Force connection (because they won’t do it themselves) → Curate, don’t just collect 'If you’re serious about standing out in a sea of 1,000+ studios, this one’s for you. 📰 Read the full issue — packed with new frameworks, launches, jobs, and insights from Studio builders and thought leaders across the world. 👉 https://lnkd.in/eZ2AtsDy

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As a Stage 2 Limited Partner, I get to watch some exciting companies scale up close. One of our portfolio companies Letter AI, just announced their $40M Series B. Letter AI modernizes the First-Meeting-to-Closed-Won journey by creating custom buyer agents for pre-meeting practice, in-meeting agents for real-time coaching, and post-meeting automation of CRM updates, forecasts, and next-step actions. It's an intelligence layer that’s tuned to every call prep, embedded in every live interaction, and actively shaping next steps for each deal. Worth the read: https://lnkd.in/eg9kcqFu

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Great to see Anthropic’s commitment to the AI partner ecosystem. Having just spent two immersive days with Claude’s partnerships and product teams, I can tell you firsthand this will create significant, immediate impact for our customers. Stay tuned for more details.

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