Entrepreneurs need to make rapid decisions and act quickly in order to thrive. But those suffering from anxiety — which affects around 40 million Americans a year — actually make decisions with less clarity. MORE

Faraday Future may cut electric car racing team to save cash, alt-right social media network raises $1 million on StartEngine, and X Prize extends contest to land on the Moon MORE

San Diego-based private equity investor JMI Equity has made an investment in Foster City, California-based Arena Solutions , the two said this morning. Size of thee investment was not announced. Arena said the strategic growth equity investment will further its growth. Brian Hersman, General Partner at JMI, as well as Suken Vakil, Principal at JMI, will join Arena's Board of Directors as a result of the investment. MORE

San Diego-based mobile broadband equipment maker Inseego is continuing to reshape its executive team, after a major shift in direction, saying today that it has named Chris Lytle as its new Chief Strategy Officer. Lytle was most recently President of Vavulus, a provider of cloud-based marketing, sales, and compliance software for the healthcare industry. Lytle was also previously at Morgan Stanley and a portfolio manager at hedge fund RCL Capital. MORE

Playa Vista-based networking equipment maker Linksys --which is part of Belkin--has rolled out a new Ethernet router specifically aimed at the gaming market. According to Linksys, its new WRT32X gaming Router has a new "prioritization engine" which optimizes high speed gaming and provides low latency to videogame traffic. MORE

Private equity investors have more capital at their disposal than at any time in more than a decade, which could boost prices for companies seeking acquisitions. As of Aug. 1, private equity firms in North America and Europe had secured $212.6 billion in new commitments this year, on pace to eclipse the “already stellar” fundraising year they had in 2016, according to a new report and analysis out Thursday from Seattle-based PitchBook. MORE

Southern California technology veteran Ross Levinsohn , best known for his efforts as Interim CEO at Yahoo! and his work at Fox Interactive Media, has been appointed CEO and Publisher of the Los Angeles Times , according to the LA Times' parent company, tronc. According to tronc Levinsohn will oversee the Los Angeles Times' operations, and look to expand its journalistic endeavors, product and content initiatives, global footprint and business and revenue opportunities. MORE

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA ), the Santa Clara, CA-based maker of specialized graphics processing chips that have become workhorses in artificial intelligence, has joined a group of investors that put $20 million into TuSimple, a Chinese startup developing self-driving technology for long-haul trucks. In a blog posted Wednesday, Nvidia says TuSimple has used Nvidia GPUs, the Nvidia Drive PX 2 computing module, and other devices and technologies to develop its autonomous navigation system. MORE

Finding potential customers continues to be a huge challenge not only for established marketing and sales teams but also for startup executives and solo entrepreneurs. A study in 2013 showed that 61 percent of marketers found it hard to generate high-quality leads. MORE

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has been very public in expressing his desire to provide increased competition and greater choice to American consumers in a bid to drive down prices of prescription medicines. MORE

The stakes of the grocery delivery wars have just been raised. German discount grocer Aldi Inc. announced Monday that it plans to debut a grocery delivery service through Instacart in Los Angeles, Dallas and Atlanta later this month. Aldi, which mainly sells products with its own label, has almost 1,700 stores in 35 states, according to a press release. About 15 of its stores are in L.A. County MORE

Santa Barbara-based property management software developer Yardi said Friday that it has signed up Cortland Capital Market Services LLC, as a new customer. Financial impact of the win was not announced. Cortland Capital Market Services, which is based in Chicago, provides investment servicing, and is using Yardi's Investment Management software. READ MORE>>. yardi cortland capital market services real estate software MORE

Pasadena-based people search site Spokeo has named longtime Los Angeles technology veteran Tom Fuelling as its new Chief Financial Officer, the company said today. Fuelling was most recently CFO over at Laurel & Wolf, and also has served at such companies as OpenX and Hulu. Spokeo said Fuelling will help support its growth and ongoing innovation, and will oversee its accounting and finance teams. Fuelling also previously served at ARTISTdirect, SegaGameWorks, and Village Roadshow Pictures. MORE

View the Slideshow The finalists in the Young Innovator category of the 2017 Xconomy Awards show that it’s never too early in life to start a company or invent a new technology. MORE

Tronc and Investor’s Business Daily to launch paid newsletter on mutual funds, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak joins Mojiit as advisor and retail inventory software company NuOrder raises $8 million MORE

Los Angeles-based hosting provider Dreamhost has scored a big legal win, after the U.S. Department of Justice retreated on its original request for the IP addresses and information for every visitor to the anti-Trump website, DisruptJ20.org. According to Dreamhost, the DOJ has now asked the court to exclude the HTTP access and error logs for the website, as well as unpublished text and photographs which had not been published by the owner of the site. The filing by the U.S. MORE

The CEO of a major U.S. pharmaceutical company was in the news this week, but for a change not because of the cost of drugs. Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier (pictured) was the first of what quickly became a line of CEOs to exit President Trump’s manufacturing council, leading to its dissolution altogether. MORE

A new bill is expected to be introduced this week by local Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), to target incidents of sexual harassment in the venture capital industry. Jackson--who represents Santa Barbara the 19th Senate District, which includes all of Santa Barbara County and western Ventura County--said that she will introduce legislation when the California Legislature returns from summer recess, today, to specifically prohibit sexual harassment in the venture capital industry. MORE

Facebook predicted to lose teens to Snapchat and Instagram, Uber and Lyft drivers protest their pay at LAX, and FreedomPop launches $49 per year mobile phone plan MORE

Los Angeles-based emoji startup Mojiit said on Wednesday that it has added Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak as an advisor to the company. Mojiiit--which has yet to launch its product--says it is developing 3D "hologram emojis" which can be projected and shared via smartphone. The startup is led by Jeremy Greene. According to Mojiit, the Woz w‎ill help the company assemble its engineering team, as well as bring in new investors and partnerships. MORE

Thursday, August 24, 2017 -- XMAS In August/ Get in front of LA media in one amazing night of demo's at XMAS in August. Early bird registration ends on July 13th. See [link] (more MORE

Wednesday, August 23, 2017 -- An evening with CTO Mixers on a Yacht with Blockchain Luminaries. CTO Mixers. CTO Mixers is a highly curated, invite only event. Geared at C-Level and SVPs in Enterprise and high quality Startup Execs and entrepreneurs. See [link] (more MORE

Steve Bannon returns to Brentwood’s Breitbart News, CNN launches daily Snapchat news show and SpaceX to unveil spacesuits next week MORE

NBC's daily Snapchat show reaches 29 million views in first month, Fisker Emotion to debut at CES 2018, and Q&A with Sophia Amoruso about new startup GirlBoss Media MORE

Tired of forking over what amounts to nearly a car payment worth of dollars for your mobile phone plan every month? Los Angeles-based FreedomPop has rolled out a new, annual mobile phone plan which costs a mere $49 for an entire year, including 1,000 minutes, 1,000 texts and 1 GB of data per month. According to FreedomPop, it's looking to move the mobile phone industry to an "internet-centric' model similar to Dropbox, LinkedIn, and others with the move. MORE

Los Angeles- and Vancouver-based Ground Control , a new startup led by LA technology veteran Mike Macadaan, said on Wednesday that it has launched with the backing of the Creative Artists Agency. According to the startup, is is developing "voice-activated entertainment experiences" and interactive audio technology, which will tape into well-known personalities across entertainment, sports, politics, music and beyond. MORE

San Diego-based biopharmaceuticals developer Sorrento Therapeutics announced on Monday that it has invested in a newly former company, Celularity , focused on treatment of cancer, inflammatory and degenerative diseases, and functional regeneration using placental technology. Sorrento said it will make a capital investment, and also provide certain immuno-oncology and cellular therapy intellectual property and assets to Celularity. Celularity will be headquartered in Warren, New Jersey. MORE

Santa Barbara-based venture investor Rincon Venture Partners is one of the backers in a funding round for LiftIgniter , a developer of machine learning software used for personalization. The funding was led by Storm Ventures, and also included Rincon Venture Partners, Revel Partners, and NTT DOCOMO Ventures, along with angels Tom Chavez (Krux) and Bruce Falck (Twitter). LiftIgniter is based in San Francisco. READ MORE>>. rincon venture capital ventures liftigniter personalization software MORE

It’s been a tough year globally. Many feel the division in our families and societies. It has been heart-breaking to see progress reversed and social & racial tensions exacerbated unnecessarily. MORE

Close. Let’s examine the relationship between time, quality and competitiveness. If you are getting the impression from these many insights that complex relationships cause simple problems, you are right. We have heard the “haste makes waste” ditty since childhood. MORE

Irvine-based Numecent , the developer of cloud virtualization and application delivery software, said today that it has added Bernard Harguindeguy to its board as Chairman. Harguindeguy previously served as Chairman, President, and CEO of Atlantis Computing, and also served as Chairman of Green Border, WorldTalk, Booshaka, Norskale, and BorderWare, and was a board member at Sygate Technologies. READ MORE>>. MORE