RAND Corporation

This place was recently built. The think tank.
Nice venue, moved from the property near Pepperdine.

Rand Conference Center once again graciously opened its doors to host the SMC Associates Annual Membership Reception.
Keynote speaker Jason Nazar
, co-​founder and CEO of
, rocked the house, well at least me, for sure, with his talk, «21^st Century Entrepreneurship: Not Your Father’s Business».
An entrepreneur for nearly 30 years, it was reassuring when Jason reinforced my balanced usage of social media. Ya gotta tweet BUT real business is still done in person AND there’s nothing like a hand written letter to get noticed.
I especially liked his predictions for Entrepreneurship 2066:
1. Workforce will be 50% distributed, not in a physical location, remote workers.
2. ²⁄₅ workers in the U.S. will be entrepreneurs with the majority being minorities and women.
3. The office will be the classroom, with apprenticeships college/​trade school supplementation.
4. Entrepreneurs will be engineers.
5. Business will always get done face-​to-​face.
Wine and food was beyond fab! Mushroom filo puffs, skewered, grilled shrimp, Gruyère stuffed white rose potatoes, and the savory/​sweet hit of the evening, bacon wrapped apricots! Vegetarians were not forgotten with cilantro pesto, red bell pepper hummus and olive tapenade on pita triangles. Star of the sweet table was the quarter-​sized macarons, pistachio, coffee, berry and more!
Music by American Primitive

If you believe in the future, the future of education, the SMC Associates want you!

Pretty cool think tank. Somewhat interesting speaker when I went. (President of Princeton but can’t remember her name) She spoke from cards which I don’t care for but had a very nice voice.
Thinking of becoming a member but I’ll get back to you guys with a better review. :)