The editors of UCLA Magazine and California, the university and alumni magazines of UCLA and UC Berkeley, collaborated to produce this special issue celebrating 25 brilliant California ideas that were either created or took off in the past 25 years. We polled our respective faculties—by email and phone calls to individual members or departments— to select ideas that were transformative in five broad but far-reaching categories: media & technology, culture & society, business, science & engineering, and the environment. We couldn’t canvass every member of the two faculties, but we did reach out to dozens of educators, researchers, and scientists at both universities. The final selection was made jointly by the editors in consultation with faculty leaders, and then the staffs of UCLA Magazine and California tailored the ordering, editing, and design for their respective magazines. Nominate your own California ideas and inventions on our blog, Bear Bites.