nothin Hey, Siri: Is This Our Next Governor? | New Haven Independent

Hey, Siri: Is This Our Next Governor?

Paul Bass Photo illustration

GOP candidate Steve Obsitnik at WNHH FM; inset: Siri.

Steve Obsitnik met Siri — and understood her potential — before the rest of the world did.

He also tried to start one of his successful tech business in his home state of Connecticut, then found he had to go elsewhere to find an ecosystem” to support it.

Now the 50-year-old entrepreneur and Navy vet has joined the growing pack of political pachyderms — both elected and first-time-candidate Republicans — seeking their party’s nomination for governor in 2018, a year analysts in both parties believe may well end with the GOP back in power.

Obsitnik’s experience launching successful tech companies makes him uniquely qualified to reverse Connecticut’s population loss and fiscal woes by creating a true urban ecosystem” to spawn new companies, he argued in an interview on WNHH FM’s Dateline New Haven” program.

I believe that our leaders in Hartford have never experienced what a true urban-centered ecosystem is. If you’ve never experienced something, you don’t know what it feels like. You don’t know how to bring the resources together,” Obstinik argued.

I know how the world competes outside of Connecticut, in China, Singapore, Siilicon Valley. I see why people move to those places to create opportunities and jobs. I felt Connecticut was stuck. We don’t have leaders in our state that know what’s going on outside our state, who know how to turn around those moving vans and keep people here.”

Destiny” Beckons

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A product of Stamford public schools, Obsitnik landed in tech after a seven-year stint as an engineer in the U.S. Navy. Stationed in Groton, he ran the nuclear power plant in the USS Ray. He spent up to six months at a time at sea, an experience that he said left him with life lessons relevant to a gubernatorial campaign.

When you deploy for months on end on a nuclear submarine and you go under a polar ice cap, you figure out what it means to accomplish your mission,” he said.

He recalled his first night at sea, when his captain woke him up at 2 a.m. to conduct an inspection. Steve, I’m going to give you the one leadership lesson you need to know in your life,” Obsitnik recalled the captain saying. Leaders set tone. Tone defines a culture. Culture is your destiny.” In 2017 Connecticut, Obsitnik argued, leadership set a tone about a new economic reality,” that we have fixed costs; we can’t manufacture anymore.” That in turn has created a culture of people who want to flee that or create jobs somewhere else,” in turn producing a downward spiral” that has become our destiny.”

After the Navy, Obsitnik earned an MBA at Wharton, then set out of Silicon Valley in 1998 to see what’s in their art and their dirt and their water” that was producing new companies. At first he worked as a product manager at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), seeking to turn new technologies into products that can change the world.”

In 2000, Silicon Valley was still recovering from the burst dot-com bubble. Obsitnik decided it was time to start a company of his own — sort of like deciding it’s time to seek to become governor of a state in fiscal crisis and few revenue solutions on the horizon. Obsitnik welcomed the parallel. He quoted Winston Churchill saying, A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

And he quoted Steve Obsitnik: ” I always run to the fire when I’m asked to.”

He became CEO of an artificial intelligence-driven SRI spin-off company called Discern Communications, which helps call centers get information faster for people seeking help. The company prospered; it became a consolidated subsidiary of Cisco Systems in 2003. Obsitnik moved to Minneapolis to run it for Cisco.

Obsitnik discovered Connecitcut’s missing ecosystem” after he returned here from Silicon Valley in 2005 to raise a family in Westport.

At first he linked back up with SRI, which was working on a speech recognition and interpretation interface to help people access multiple databases to find answers to questions. SRI called the product Siri.”

SRI hired Obsitnik to sell Siri to a company. Obsitnik pitched Siri to 80 potential licensees. I had 80 doors shut in my face,” he recalled. There was no iPhone yet. There was a lack of vision of what was possible with technology.”

So SRI decided to form its own company to market Siri. It asked Obsitnik to join the effort, but he didn’t want to have to move back to California or travel there every week.

He decided to stay in Connecticut and start a different company here. He called Quintel Technology, which made smart antennas” to help telecom operators like AT&T and Verizon power cellular networks. He wanted to locate the headquarters in the state. To do so, he said, he needed the ecosystem” of an applied research university, contract manufacturers and suppliers.” He couldn’t find it. So he ended up putting the headquarters in Rochester, N.Y. He ran the company from a distance for five years before selling it.

He decided to change his life’s course after suffering a pulmonary embolism on the return of a two-day business trip to India. He survived. Then he asked himself: What do I want to do with my life?”

The answer: Run for office.

He first took on Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Himes as the endorsed GOP candidate in 2012. He lost. He started a civic group called Imagine Connecticut. And began running this year for governor.

Obsitnik formally announced his campaign this month after months of fundraising and meeting people. He’s aiming to qualify for public financing, as opposed to two other Fairfield County businessmen seeking the GOP nomination: Greenwich hedge-fund manager David Stemerman, who has already sunk $1.8 million of his own money into his campaign, and Robert Stefanowski, who has bequeathed $250,000 to his campaign.

Roosevelt Island, Connecticut?

A self-described fiscal conservative and social libertarian, Obsitnik, like any Republican, would have a hard time capturing New Haven’s vote. A Republican last won a contested citywide vote in 1951; registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans here 16 – 1. And Obsitnik opposes immigrant-friendly sanctuary city” and state policies that enjoy such overwhelming support in New Haven that they’ve become practically an official political canon. 

I was trained by the U.S. military,” he said. I have a high regard for following the law. I don’t think we should reward people who break the law.” That said, he called on Congress to pass a coherent immigration policy so cities like New Haven” don’t have to make their own.

On his central plank of creating a tech-friendly ecosystem, Obstinik is navigating more hospitable New Haven waters. New Haven has built its grand list and created jobs over the past decade thanks to a focused tech strategy, filling up Science Park and 300 George St. And it has also benefitted from, then seen the limits of, the state’s current First Five” strategy of luring a handful of large companies to stay in Connecticut with tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks. The governor convinced Alexion Pharmaceuticals to build its 14-story headquarters in New Haven that way. Then Alexion announced 18 months later that it is moving its headquarters to Boston.

The resulting debate over the Alexion move tapped into a broader debate about why General Electric is also moving its headquarters to Boston and why Aetna is moving to New York. It also tapped into discussion over how best to compete for Amazon’s planned new second headquarters campus; New Haven and Bridgeport teamed up to submit a joint bid that Connecticut decided not to forward to Amazon.

In the WNHH interview, Obsitnik offered an alternative to the targeted First Five” strategy — a broader Roosevelt Island” plan to prepare the infrastructure to lure unidentified potential employers to places like New Haven and Bridgeport. He echoed state Democrats’ arguments that the state needs to invest in a better tech environment to compete with places like Boston, but he also echoed state Republicans’ arguments that Connecticut needs to lower taxes to keep companies here. He echoed, as well, a call from New Haven Mayor Toni Harp’s 2013 campaign (shown in above video) to push for a one-hour train to New York City. In fact, he suggested one day training to the Big Apple in 15 minutes.

An excerpt of that conversation follows:

WNHH: Is it intellectually honest for people to run for office to say it’s because of taxes we’re losing jobs?

Obstinik: Yes, it is intellectually honest. Right now the income tax rate in Massachusetts is 5.5 percent. Ours is 7.

Is it the only driver? No it’s not …

Is it even remotely a driver? Because there are other taxes, too, that are as high or higher in Massachusetts and New York …

It’s the whole picture. Humans and businesses make decisions based on three factors. Number one, as a worker, am I doing in my mind what I want to do for a living? What’s my passion? Am I making enough moeny to keep in pocket to Iive on and for retirement? Do I enjoy being around the people I work with and love?

If [corporations] can find better trained people somewhere else … if they can compete at a better quality of life at a better price point, or if there are certain situations that governments make you feel unwelcome —you go somewhere else.

On the RFP [requests for proposals] for Amazon, did you read that?

I did actually read that, because New Haven submitted.

Do you remember what the first requirement was on the RFP?

Flexibility,” correct?

A stable and friendly business environment.

That just means give us a lot of tax breaks so we can hold you together hostage.” But the truth is Aetna went to New York — where taxes are higher. When GE and Alexion went to Boston, they clearly — unlike the Amazon proposal, which is clearly getting communities to compete against each other for who can give the most tax breaks — they never mentioned [taxes]. GE was reinventing itself as a tech company. They wanted to be where MIT and Harvard and other institutions work together.

Doesn’t it take government investment to create that ecosystem? And how can you if you’re cutting taxes? 

Yes. I think it’s partnership. I will come back on the taxes in a bit. Let’s move over to that thread.

I think one of Mayor Bloomberg’s legacies in New York is the creation of Roosevelt Island. He didn’t give away billions of dollars to people. He set it up pretty simply: He put out a request for expression of interest to the world. He said, Who wants to be in an applied research university in the greatest city in the world? I’ll put out dirt and $100 million. You all bring a billion dollars. OK?”

Well, Technion moved from Israel. Cornell moved from the suburbs to the city. Google, Facebook and Uber sat on top of those universities to train people and hire people. Six years later, I don’t know if you’ve been to Roosevelt Island, it’s like putting an epipen to your side. The energy feeling of young people there, old people, restaurants and hospitals, hotels — it’s a vibrant urban ecosystem.

We have some of those same advantages here.

They have high taxes in New York. That’s why Bloomberg was able to give them that dirt.

They have high taxes there. But one of the straws that broke the camel’s back for GE was the unity tax, that said, We’re going to tax your global income at a Connecticut rate.” And that is one of the key things GE did mention.

You mentioned Roosevelt Island as one of your key campaign platforms … 

I think we have potentially three projects in Connecticut but I’ll take just one. We are the gateway to New England. We have location. We are an hour and half from Boston, an hour and a half from New York.

We don’t coordinate well. Fairfield County does what it does. Hartford does what they do. How do we take those assets and mobilize better?

We have three Roosevelt Island possibilities. The no-brainer is the town we’re in [New Haven]. Life sciences and health-care delivery ….

The state gave Alexion tens of millions of dollars [to locate here] but they still left …

We have to understand: How do you anchor ecosystems? You anchor ecosystems around applied research universities, comrporations that want to move and be involved with those corporations there, not just lifting technologies out, as we’ve seen … It’s then also creating an environment where you don’t pick five winners and give tens of millions of dollars away. [Gov.] Dan Malloy has this little magic box, and if you can squeeze into the box you get tens of millions of dollars.

People always question whether that money goes to companies that wouldn’t have left anyway …

So this is how you create an ecosystem. I’ll give you an example Last week there was something in New Haven called the Connecticut Venture Clash. They gave away I think $5 million to about three companies with about 10 employees with the hope that they’re going to grow. $5,000 a job.

I believe that the size of our economic development box can’t be five companies. It can’t be three cities. It has to be the size of the state of Connecitcut.

So here’s my deal. This what I’m looking at. If you create a job in the state of Connecticut, you get a $5,000 tax credit for, say, five years. I don’t care if you’re the New Haven Independent, Minuteman Cleaners, or ESPN. If you’re going to commit to a worker, how do we get every entrepreneur, small and medium and large business, to benefit? I don’t know, if I’m fortunate to be governor, who the winner or loser is or who is actually going to commit to Connecticut. Those days are over. We do need to invest in our urban ecosystems. How do we get applied research universities here who aren’t here today?

If we do transportation correct … [it takes] two hours and five minutes from New Haven to New York [by train]!

They say because of aging cables and tracks], you physically can’t make the track faster …

If we have to change the track, let’s change the track. If we have to get the feds to put in positive train controls to speed up the trains back up to 2005 levels, let’s have leadership that takes the cholesterol out of the system …

So you’d like to see a one-hour train to New York?

I’d love to hyper-loop there and get there in 15 minutes. Is that going to happen in our lifetimes? We didn’t know self-driving cars were going to be here As leaders, we have to challenge the assumptions. We have to push hard where the friction is in people’s lives.

So you think we could actually have an hour train ride to New York, and that could transform our competitiveness?

If you’re able to do that, you take three population centers — Stamford, New Haven and Bridgeport — all of a sudden you have 330,00 people. You can move people around into the city [New York] or into Boston. All of a sudden you’re the third largest city” in the Northeast.

For 30 years, it appears to me we’ve been on a road to ruin. I represent the passion, the energy of the job creator. We can’t just sit with mediocrity and sit with the status quo.

Click on the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below to hear the full episode of WNHH radio’s Dateline New Haven” with GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Obsitnik.

Click on or download the above audio file to a previous WNHH Dateline New Haven” interview with GOP gubernatorial candidate Mark Boughton on WNHH radio’s Dateline New Haven” program; and click here to read a story about that interview.

Click on or download the above audio file to hear a previous WNHH Dateline New Haven” interview with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Drew; and click here to read a story about the interview.

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