Why do so many-government led efforts to build the next "Silicon Valley" in one geography or another fail? Is it misguided to even try? But then what does make such innovation clusters work? In this segment of the pod a trio of expert guests -- AnnaLee Saxenian, Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Information and a longtime researcher/observer of regional competitive advantage; VC Brad Feld and writer on startup communities; and entrepreneur and investor Christopher Schroeder, who covers startups rising in the Middle East and most recently wrote about the tech phenomenon in Iran -- tackle the question of how innovation ecosystems grow. The discussion delves into how innovation is being spurred differently (or stifled) in places like China and Iran; whether there are cultural differences in attitudes for failure or about entrepreneurship; and if regulatory arbitrage is one way for regions to get ahead.

It’s not just the likes of Google, Facebook, and Amazon that lean on a massive and growing corpus of data, today every company is a data-driven company. In this world, access to data -- and how you manage it -- is what matters, says Ash Ashutosh, founder and CEO of Actifio. In this segment of the pod, we get in the weeds with Ashutosh and a16z’s Peter Levine on how this data-driven world is changing the technology infrastructure that is the engine behind it, and the companies that use it. Ashutosh and Levine also discuss ramping sales teams, going international, and what’s driving the timing of IPOs – or really the lack of IPOs. Finally, Ashutosh offers his four-legged response to being referred to as a “unicorn.”