oakland
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Jesús M. Vargas and the education of a small fish
A factory worker’s son took a structural engineering degree west, then built an Oakland consulting firm. Along the way, Jesús M. Vargas learned that a career depends on who helps you find your footing - and who you help next.
Bilen Mesfin Packwood and the business of being heard
She built Change Consulting to help racial justice leaders tell their stories. Now Bilen Mesfin Packwood is asking what happens when the machinery of attention gets in the way of listening.
Magnus Hillestad went upstairs. Then he went global.
At 35, Magnus Kongsli Hillestad began learning to code. An Oslo attic, an architecture project and a move to California help explain how the former private equity director became Sanity’s co-founder and CEO.
Matthew C. Levy and the art of choosing the next experiment
Before founding NobleAI, Matthew C. Levy studied what powerful lasers could make matter do. His next questions took him into scientific software, fusion investing and public life - with an unexpected place for artists along the way.
Rebecca Alvarez Story and the business of asking better questions
Before Bloomi reached Target, Rebecca Alvarez Story designed her own college major and shipped orders from home. Her company grew from a habit she had long before she became a founder: asking the questions other people hurried past.
Allison Kelly and the question hidden in a small business
At Oakland’s ICA Fund, Allison Kelly links investment to a practical question: who shares in the wealth a business creates? Her answer takes shape in coaching, patient capital and contracts that reward opportunity for workers.
Colin Behring’s two-block theory of a city
A Shanghai internship helped shape Colin Behring’s approach to Oakland: put homes, work and transport close together. His growing Uptown campus now faces a public test over the place of AI computing in the neighborhood.
Emily Kirsch and the power of an introduction
A solar-powered farm gave Emily Kirsch a glimpse of a different energy future. In Oakland, she built Powerhouse to help the people making that future find one another.
Outlier AI wanted to ask the questions your dashboard missed
The Oakland startup turned business data into a daily shortlist of surprises. Its seven-year experiment explains why finding the right question can be harder than finding the answer.
Sublime turned a sticky problem into Fuzzies
An Oakland cannabis maker found a product hiding inside a packaging nuisance. Its next chapter shows why a popular brand and the factory behind it can end up on different paths.
Resolute Direct Capital and the price of buying time
A commercial property deadline can be merciless. Resolute Direct Capital offers private credit for deals that can survive the scrutiny as well as the clock.
The Carbon Machine That Changed Its Address
A tax credit sent Noya’s carbon capture machines away from cooling towers and toward storage wells. The pivot made industrial sense; the company still wound down in 2025.
Joel Makower Found His Beat Before Business Found the Climate
He began with a paper newsletter, built a digital clearinghouse before the web had a business model, and spent three decades asking companies whether their green promises could survive contact with the balance sheet.
The Company That Sells One Word at a Time
A memorable name may be only six letters long. Catchword has spent more than a quarter-century building the machinery that makes those letters feel inevitable - and keeps them out of court.
The Worker Agency Makes a Protest Hard to Ignore
The Oakland firm does not merely pitch stories. It builds objects, coalitions and moments that make abstract fights visible - then gives organizers the language to carry them forward.
Before the concrete: VSCE’s other construction work
A bus depot needs somewhere to park the buses. It also needs a closed street, a public hearing, and people who can keep the paperwork moving. Oakland’s VSCE has made a business of connecting those jobs.
Change Consulting puts a good cause to work
A worthy mission still needs someone to make the calls, shape the message and get the story out. This Oakland agency has built its business around that unfinished work.
VR Research reads the fine print before you sign
A polished pitch can survive a meeting. Can it survive the county records office? VR Research turns public documents into pointed questions for investors, lawyers, and campaign strategists.
Message Lab asks: did anybody actually read it?
A client had 82,000 pageviews and a five-second problem. Message Lab at Orchestra builds editorial programs around the difference between attracting a click and earning someone’s attention.
A game needs a launch. It also needs someone to explain the delay.
ONE PR Studio brings publisher-side experience to the business of getting games understood. Its work lives between the reveal, the review, and the awkward update nobody wanted to send.
Winter goes looking for the people missing from the meeting
A Bay Area consultancy takes transportation planning to farmers markets, classrooms, and neighborhood conversations. Its work makes a practical argument: who gets asked helps determine what gets built.
Study Hall gives brands a life beyond the logo
A search bar enters the Upside Down. A security company learns to loosen its tie. Inside the Oakland studio that designs what brands do, as well as how they look.
Busse Design and the software that needed a translator
A recommendation engine that confused merchandisers. An accreditation process buried in text. Busse Design’s portfolio shows what happens when software starts speaking its users’ language.
Okay knows a good brand needs something real to stand on
A whale, a whiskey label, and a 50-pixel square: inside the design practice of Carl Bender, where the useful detail does the talking.
USA Marketing knows the joke has to arrive fresh
Avocado toast for new homeowners. Noisemakers delivered before the inning ends. Inside the Oakland company that makes promotional ideas work in the physical world.
Oakland had the talent. BRIDGEGOOD built the first assignment.
A furniture-store meeting became a nonprofit design studio with a practical answer to a familiar problem: how do you get experience when nobody has hired you yet?
Sunstone Strategies takes climate policy to the kitchen table
A gas stove, a truck route, a utility bill. Sunstone Strategies builds climate campaigns around the places where energy policy becomes personal.
CliffordMoss and the hard arithmetic of yes
A California political consultancy helps communities pay for schools, trains and public services. Its work reveals why a popular idea can still lose - and what has to happen before the campaign starts.
Wolf Den Makes the Ad. And the Parts That Keep It Moving.
The Oakland animation studio works behind campaigns for Pinterest, Cash App and Meta AI. Its most revealing work shows how a good-looking film becomes a practical system for brands with more than one screen to fill.
Rods and Cones Wants Your Next Print Run to Be Boring
Wrong colors. Repeated clicks. Another file sent back. Rods and Cones has built a business around removing the little production problems that make printing expensive.