Teri Olle

Teri Olle is the Vice President of Economic Security California at the Economic Security Project, where she leads the organization’s California-based campaigns on economic power, anti-monopoly policy, and public investment in AI infrastructure. She is one of the most prominent public advocates for CalCompute and served as a co-sponsor of both SB-1047 (2024) and SB-53 (2025).

Olle was among the first advocates to identify CalCompute as a transformative public-interest provision within SB-1047 and has been the most visible and quoted spokesperson for the initiative throughout its legislative journey. Her framing of the compute monopoly problem — that Amazon, Google, and Microsoft collectively control two-thirds of the global cloud market, effectively picking the winners and losers of the AI race — has become the standard public case for CalCompute.

In February 2024, when SB-1047 was introduced, Olle articulated the core rationale: “The vast majority of computing power in the large models are all being run and decided by for-profit commercial companies. That corporate concentration really drives what we’re seeing in the world, in terms of innovation and research.” She argued that CalCompute would open access to AI development for startups, UCs, and community groups currently priced out of the market: “With a public cloud like CalCompute, we can open up the doors to harness the potential of AI for good.”

Following Governor Newsom’s signing of SB-53 in September 2025, Olle offered one of the most pointed responses from the advocacy community: “Until today, Big Tech execs have had full control of AI, they’ve had no guardrails to prevent widespread harm, they’ve not had to consider AI’s benefits beyond their own profits or growth. I am thrilled that with the signing of SB-53, we can offer a new path forward.”

The Economic Security Project, where Olle serves, is a founding coalition partner of CaliforniaCompute.org and one of the lead organizations supporting the CalCompute initiative. The organization advocates broadly for economic power, guaranteed income, anti-monopoly policy, and public investment — and has positioned CalCompute as a flagship example of public-option infrastructure policy for the AI era.