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The Export of Grit

“I just hired my hometown rival.” When Mark Naufel, President of the University of Silicon Valley (USV), shared that update on LinkedIn, it signaled the end of one of the most productive rivalries in the Arizona tech scene. For years, Naufel and Robert Vera were on parallel tracks: Naufel leading the interdisciplinary R&D at ASU’s Luminosity Lab, and Vera building the venture-creation engine at GCU’s Canyon Ventures.
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When the Institution Is No Longer the Work

We didn’t sit down with Robert Vera expecting a turning point. The plan was straightforward: talk about what he’d built, reflect on Arizona’s startup ecosystem, ask what comes next. The kind of conversation that fits neatly into a familiar arc: progress, momentum, optimism.

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