business

In Kolkata Starbucks is not just coffee, it’s clearly cachet. 

This weekend African entrepreneurs and innovators are converging in Mountain View to talk business.

All week long, we've been playing this sound and asking you to guess what exactly it is and where exactly in the Bay Area we recorded it.

Robin Chase changed the way we think about transportation

Christina Stembel is disrupting the male-dominated and mostly imported flower industry with her company Farmgirl Flowers. She tells us how it all began.

Is America's embrace of the free-enterprise system a practical matter – an effective way of organizing resources and the distribution of goods – or does it rest on deeper principles? 

It seems like running a business and respecting the environment are at odds. Is it possible to do good for the planet and have a successful business? 

It seems like running a business and respecting the environment are at odds. Is it possible to do good for the planet and have a successful business? 

This week on KALW's showcase for the best stories from public radio podcasts and independent radio producers...

"Can't a girl get a break" 71% of fortune 500 companies provide mentorship programs that help women get ahead--but are they done well?  And more and more women own their own business, but they still lack confidence. We talk to Lauren Mosenthal and Eileen Carey, the founders of Glassbreakers, a peer-to-peer mentoring site; and to Sharon Miller, the CEO of Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center.

What does it take for women to succeed in the restaurant business in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most competitive restaurant markets in the country? In a $683 billion industry across the US, less than 5% of restaurant owners and chefs are women.

Meet Tanya Holland of Brown Sugar Kitchen in Oakland, CA and Ann Wheat of Millennium Restaurant in San Francisco--named the number one vegan restaurant in the world. The grit required of women to succeed in the restaurant business.

That's our inflection point.

Suddenly the peace is broken.

A mountain shoots out of the Earth and Planeswalker Mike Escalante begins amassing his army. A pack of goblins surf towards Planeswalker Matt Wilcox, but he is unfazed. He summons a demon - Archfiend of Depravity. Escalante’s reinforcements arrive on horseback just in time, squawks with pride, and Wilcox admits defeat.

It all started a couple of years ago, when a happy-go-lucky guy I swim with named Joe Omran showed up at Aquatic Park one day in a foul mood. Thirty years ago, he bought a small grocery and deli on the western edge of Nob Hill called Le Beau Market. Now he wanted to open a café nearby. Just a little one.