Santa Cruzian Ed Colligan — Palm, Handspring, Treo, Pre — just entered the Computer History Museum's Hall of Fellows alongside Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky. The smartphone in your pocket owes him a royalty check.

Affordable housing isn't a vibe — it's a formula. Here's how the 30% rule, hidden $1,160 studios, and a slow-motion machine called filtering actually decide who gets to live here.

Localfit, now in closed beta, matches Bay Area and Santa Cruz makers with vendor events that fit their products, budget, and goals — scoring markets transparently, organizing applications, and making local market access more equitable for small businesses and communities.

Santa Cruz Works members now get access to $3.2M+ in additional startup perks through Startup Science, adding 45+ vendor discounts on top of SCW’s existing $1M+ member benefits.

Three billion-dollar companies, two IPOs, and one Tesla merger later, Toby Corey is spilling what it really takes to build a venture-backed business that lasts, join us July 29th for the CEO Works Luncheon.

Three accelerator wins in seven days, $85K in non-dilutive funding, and a Santa Cruz-born startup working to make childbirth safer just got a whole lot closer to the delivery room.

Santa Cruz County's Hephaestus Robotics team captured its first world title, winning the Ranger Class at the 2026 MATE ROV World Championship in Newfoundland — besting 47 high school teams from 13 countries after back-to-back third-place finishes.

Everyone "knows" Santa Cruz's new housing sits empty. The occupancy data would like a word: it's basically all full — mostly with people who already lived and worked here. Whoops, myth busted.

Our July 1 New Tech closed out the season with a new rotating format, six standout presenters, riverside networking, raffle prizes, and a packed house at River Row. See you September 9!

Venture capital has funded some of the most transformative companies in modern history. It has also torched billions of dollars on businesses that looked brilliant on a pitch deck but collapsed in the real world. The difference between the two outcomes is rarely about the idea. It almost always comes down to execution, discipline, and leadership.

A story about how a former Wall Street derivatives trader finally got the decision intelligence system her manufacturing company needed.

Professor Daniel Kim at UCSC has announced a partnership with Oxford Nanopore Technologies to advance RNA liquid biopsy for early cancer detection.

A ten-day California × Netherlands exchange brought global mobility leaders to the Central Coast to explore advanced air mobility, clean energy, infrastructure, and workforce development. The visit highlighted how Santa Cruz, Monterey Bay, DART, Joby, UCSC, Hartnell, and regional partners are helping build the systems needed to move next-generation flight from concept to real-world deployment.

Joby Aviation and Toyota are joining forces in a new joint venture to bring electric air mobility to the skies.

A team of 20 Santa Cruz County high schoolers just won the MATE ROV World Championship in Newfoundland — the latest chapter in a five-year run that's turned a sunny beach town into a global robotics dynasty.

A new Civil Grand Jury report reframes Santa Cruz County's 40-year corridor fight: the failure wasn't choosing between rail and trail, but making generational decisions without grounding them in engineering and financial reality.

X Academy's Team Hephaestus is competing at the 2026 MATE ROV World Championships in Newfoundland.

The fear is that AI replaces the artist. The better read is that it replaces friction — the blank page, the first draft, the forgettable middle. What it can't replace is judgment.

Frish Brandt—Letter Midwife and founder of Lasting Letters—leads "I Miss You," a guided letter-writing workshop at Tumbleweed Found on July 11th, 10 to noon. Slow down, reflect, and write the words you've been needing to say. Registration is limited.

At our latest CEO Works Luncheon, Kelsey Manne of Little Pineapple Collaborative reframed workplace conflict as a spectrum of opportunity—and gave leaders a practical toolkit for navigating it. Here's why you'll want to watch the full recording.