One is targeted at two Pleasanton officers who were cleared by former DA Nancy O’Malley in December after a 10-month investigation. Pamela Price’s announcement said the newly created Public Accountability Unit would handle the cases.
Her statement is cause for significant concern.
"We have seen many thoughts and prayers being bandied about the police murder of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee. The people of Tennessee want accountability -- and so do the people of Alameda County. I promised accountability. This unit and its work are the start of the reckoning Alameda County has asked for holding people accountable for their misconduct."
The implication in her statement is that O’Malley and police departments may not been holding them accountable previously. For the officers involved, it must feel like double jeopardy after getting cleared and then another investigation starts.
The Pleasanton officers union president said they were confident that the shooting of a knife-wielding man by officers Brian Jewell and Mario Guillermo would again be found necessary.
Stay tuned, but what’s clear is there’s a different agenda in the DA’s office.
Here are the final two Tri-Valley Ventures spotlighted companies from last week’s gathering.
Apton Biosystems, based in Pleasanton, manufactures huge machines that are designed to combine artificial intelligence, with extraordinary optics and engineering and physics to evaluate DNA and proteins at the molecular level. CEO Jack Hanna said they’ve built six generations of machines and accumulated vast amounts of data with these machines that are designed to help researchers evaluate the entire body. Please forgive me for lack of details—it flew over my head---you can check the website, but it’s a life science/technology company operating in similar space to 10X Genomics and Unchained Labs by building diagnostic machines.
The fourth spotlighted firm, Rezolve.ai, is developing a solution that could make millions of workers happy. The goal is to automate the first level help desk call—new password, locked out of system, new employee onboarding, etc. CEO Saurabh Kumar estimated that employees make about 1 billion calls monthly and each call costs about $20 to resolve by sending an email or making a phone call plus the time lag. Their automated solution is working for companies—their run rate crossed $2 million this year and they expect to double this year. What’s interesting is they’ve done this by referral without a sales and marketing effort.
Service Now, which has a major facility in Dublin, does that on an out-source basis and has about $5 billion annual revenue, so there’s plenty of room for Rezolve to grow by taking care of the first layer of support.
