"We really want Apple here... Would you please call Tim Cook?" That's just one of the things Penny Pritzker, the 38th Secretary of Commerce has heard as she and the U.S. Department of Commerce engage in "commercial diplomacy" around the world. Their job is to help overcome trade barriers, represent the interests of entrepreneurs and drive administrative policy change as it relates to technology, and be on the frontline of helping small and medium-sized businesses in markets all around the world -- from Indonesia to Europe to Cuba. So what else have they found about how other countries perceive U.S. tech companies? Especially as they wrangle with issues such as immigration (and not just for high-education visas); E.U. Safe Harbor (which is more difficult for smaller companies) and its update, the transatlantic Privacy Shield agreement; and finally, the TPP or Trans-Pacific Partnership multinational trade agreement (for which some have expressed intellectual property concerns)? And then... since the previous policy of isolation didn't work, how is the U.S. government's policy of engagement with Cuba working out so far? Priztker shares perspectives on all this and more in this episode -- including views on focusing on advanced manufacturing; gathering data from weather sensors and census surveys; and counting the gig economy in GDP -- with a16z's head of policy and regulatory affairs, Ted Ullyot. The conversation took place at Andreessen Horowitz' inaugural Silicon Valley comes to Washington, D.C. tech and policy event in April 2016.

There's no question automation is taking over more and more aspects of work and some jobs altogether. But we're now entering a "third era" of automation, one which went from taking over dangerous work to dull work and now decision-making work, too. So what will it take to deal with a world -- and a workplace -- where machines could be thought of as colleagues? The key lies in distinguishing between automation vs. augmentation, argue the guests on this episode of the a16z Podcast, IT management professor Thomas Davenport and Harvard Business editor Julia Kirby, who authored the new book Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines. But the argument isn't as simple as saying humans will just do the creative, emotionally intelligent work and that machines will do the rest. The future of work is complex and closely tied to the need for structure, identity, and meaning. Which is also why linking the discussion of things like "universal basic income" to the topic of automation isn't just unnecessary, but depressing and even damaging (or so argue the guests on this episode).