1
00:00:00,720 --> 00:00:03,960
Speaker 1: Behind those warm and cozy knights at home. Thousands of

2
00:00:03,960 --> 00:00:07,760
Speaker 1: employees at BP go to work every day. People producing

3
00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:11,680
Speaker 1: more US natural gas, people building grid scale solar capacity,

4
00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:16,880
Speaker 1: people turning landfill waste gas into pipeline quality renewable natural gas,

5
00:00:17,200 --> 00:00:20,320
Speaker 1: and people delivering all of that power where it's needed.

6
00:00:20,680 --> 00:00:23,919
Speaker 1: They're part of almost three hundred thousand jobs VP supports

7
00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:27,600
Speaker 1: across the country. Learn more at VP dot com Slash

8
00:00:27,680 --> 00:00:29,000
Speaker 1: Investing in America.

9
00:00:30,200 --> 00:00:34,040
Speaker 2: Megan Host of Alexander is Well. She's at one of

10
00:00:34,080 --> 00:00:38,160
Speaker 2: the most successful VC firms of all time, Treacan Harwitz,

11
00:00:38,680 --> 00:00:43,640
Speaker 2: and she leads the firm's Cultural Leadership Fund CLF, which

12
00:00:43,640 --> 00:00:46,880
Speaker 2: is actually a very big deal. A lot of high

13
00:00:46,880 --> 00:00:52,559
Speaker 2: profile people are in there. Yeah, and you know, she's just,

14
00:00:53,360 --> 00:00:55,160
Speaker 2: you know, it's very interesting because there's not a lot

15
00:00:55,200 --> 00:00:57,560
Speaker 2: of black people in VC, and there's not a lot

16
00:00:57,560 --> 00:01:00,640
Speaker 2: of women in VC, so she's obviously a black woman.

17
00:01:01,040 --> 00:01:04,640
Speaker 2: So it's it's already, you know, a legendary situation just

18
00:01:04,680 --> 00:01:08,080
Speaker 2: to even be in her position, but just you know,

19
00:01:08,200 --> 00:01:12,760
Speaker 2: somebody that has killed in the game and is a

20
00:01:12,840 --> 00:01:16,240
Speaker 2: rising star in the world of VC. So I feel

21
00:01:16,240 --> 00:01:18,760
Speaker 2: like we haven't had a venture capital conversation in a

22
00:01:18,800 --> 00:01:22,160
Speaker 2: while since John Henry was on. Shout to John, who

23
00:01:22,240 --> 00:01:26,400
Speaker 2: always you know, gives so much great insight. These conversations

24
00:01:26,440 --> 00:01:30,040
Speaker 2: are very needed because you know, it's high level conversation

25
00:01:30,240 --> 00:01:33,200
Speaker 2: with my god nineteen keys will say yep, and it

26
00:01:33,319 --> 00:01:36,440
Speaker 2: kind of you know, gets people a information, but also

27
00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:39,320
Speaker 2: thinking outside the box where we're not just talking about

28
00:01:39,400 --> 00:01:41,280
Speaker 2: the same thing every single week, where it's like now

29
00:01:41,400 --> 00:01:43,120
Speaker 2: you can start to thinking on a much higher level

30
00:01:43,160 --> 00:01:45,800
Speaker 2: with talking about you know, billions of dollars and things

31
00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:50,600
Speaker 2: of that nature. So welcome, thank you for joining us, appreciate.

32
00:01:50,280 --> 00:01:52,960
Speaker 3: It, thank you for having me. I'm this is a

33
00:01:52,960 --> 00:01:54,920
Speaker 3: big deal. I got to call my mom and let

34
00:01:54,920 --> 00:01:55,800
Speaker 3: her know where I am.

35
00:01:57,280 --> 00:02:01,640
Speaker 2: That sixty mon on YouTube. She's watching it, no word,

36
00:02:01,760 --> 00:02:03,280
Speaker 2: hit the like one and if you're on YouTube, hit

37
00:02:03,320 --> 00:02:05,440
Speaker 2: the like one. Sixty three hundred people. This is all

38
00:02:06,280 --> 00:02:10,919
Speaker 2: the biggest show ever created when it comes to investing, fantastic.

39
00:02:11,160 --> 00:02:13,440
Speaker 3: I'm listen. I need to I need you to say

40
00:02:13,440 --> 00:02:14,920
Speaker 3: that number again so I can try to get on

41
00:02:14,919 --> 00:02:18,000
Speaker 3: the plane. I need to put in a.

42
00:02:21,080 --> 00:02:22,440
Speaker 4: I mean, we will be honest if you could be

43
00:02:22,440 --> 00:02:23,040
Speaker 4: an investors.

44
00:02:23,160 --> 00:02:25,720
Speaker 2: So oh yeah, you gotta be an investment.

45
00:02:26,520 --> 00:02:30,240
Speaker 3: I'm gonna try really really hard to make it. It's

46
00:02:29,320 --> 00:02:33,560
Speaker 3: a crazy weekend for flying stuff I gotta do, but

47
00:02:33,760 --> 00:02:35,880
Speaker 3: I'm gonna try to squeeze in one day. I promise,

48
00:02:35,960 --> 00:02:36,839
Speaker 3: I'm gonna trying real hard.

49
00:02:37,320 --> 00:02:38,560
Speaker 2: It would be I got a ticket.

50
00:02:38,600 --> 00:02:40,560
Speaker 3: I bought a ticket, not even knowing if I could come.

51
00:02:40,680 --> 00:02:43,079
Speaker 3: But I already have a ticket, and if I can't

52
00:02:43,080 --> 00:02:45,320
Speaker 3: make it, I'm going to give it to somebody can

53
00:02:45,320 --> 00:02:45,960
Speaker 3: come for sure.

54
00:02:46,680 --> 00:02:52,520
Speaker 2: Appreciate thank you, appreciate that. Okay, let's get into this conversation.

55
00:02:52,720 --> 00:02:53,520
Speaker 3: Let's do it.

56
00:02:53,919 --> 00:02:57,000
Speaker 2: I'm gonna jump right into it because I think you heard.

57
00:02:57,040 --> 00:02:59,480
Speaker 2: We was talking to Don Peebles, and one of the

58
00:02:59,520 --> 00:03:02,320
Speaker 2: things that he's said was, I don't want to quote

59
00:03:02,320 --> 00:03:05,960
Speaker 2: the wrong number, but it's something like sixty billion dollars

60
00:03:06,040 --> 00:03:08,600
Speaker 2: something like that. Venture capital money out there flowing on

61
00:03:08,639 --> 00:03:16,440
Speaker 2: a crazy amount of sixty six billion, less than point

62
00:03:16,760 --> 00:03:19,680
Speaker 2: like seven percent of one percent, like less than seventy

63
00:03:19,720 --> 00:03:25,840
Speaker 2: basis points. Yeah, one goes to black and women, minority

64
00:03:25,880 --> 00:03:29,680
Speaker 2: and women businesses combined. It's not even the number is

65
00:03:29,680 --> 00:03:31,480
Speaker 2: not even big enough to just say black businesses. So

66
00:03:31,480 --> 00:03:33,160
Speaker 2: they got to put women in there combined.

67
00:03:33,400 --> 00:03:36,560
Speaker 3: So it's a fraction of a percent, you are career.

68
00:03:36,720 --> 00:03:40,120
Speaker 2: A fraction of a percent. When from my understanding, also,

69
00:03:41,960 --> 00:03:46,280
Speaker 2: black women percentage wise started the most businesses last year

70
00:03:46,640 --> 00:03:49,480
Speaker 2: in America.

71
00:03:48,880 --> 00:03:51,440
Speaker 3: So what we do black women? We just do it

72
00:03:51,480 --> 00:03:53,480
Speaker 3: all everybody.

73
00:03:54,400 --> 00:03:56,880
Speaker 2: That's a fact. So that's a disturbing number. That's an

74
00:03:56,880 --> 00:03:59,560
Speaker 2: extremely disturbing number that nobody's talking about, because, like he

75
00:03:59,600 --> 00:04:01,800
Speaker 2: told us, he was like, imagine if it was even

76
00:04:01,800 --> 00:04:04,320
Speaker 2: proportional to the population where it's like, I think we're

77
00:04:04,320 --> 00:04:07,000
Speaker 2: like twenty percent of the population. So imagine if twenty

78
00:04:07,040 --> 00:04:11,240
Speaker 2: percent of that sixty six billion went to black businesses, Like,

79
00:04:11,640 --> 00:04:14,480
Speaker 2: imagine how that would change the landscape of things overnight.

80
00:04:14,560 --> 00:04:17,400
Speaker 2: Like the money's there, it's in circulation, it's just not

81
00:04:17,520 --> 00:04:21,280
Speaker 2: getting to us. But nobody's talking about that. But everybody's saying, like, well,

82
00:04:21,320 --> 00:04:23,640
Speaker 2: black businesses fell and different things in that nature. But

83
00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:28,800
Speaker 2: I mean there's underlying issues on why this is happening. So, okay,

84
00:04:29,080 --> 00:04:31,120
Speaker 2: how do we solve this problem with venture capital?

85
00:04:33,240 --> 00:04:36,600
Speaker 3: So first, it's way more than sixty six billion and

86
00:04:36,720 --> 00:04:41,360
Speaker 3: venture money out there working. I couldn't even tell you,

87
00:04:41,440 --> 00:04:44,719
Speaker 3: but you know, in Drees and Horwitz alone, we've got

88
00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:47,680
Speaker 3: about thirty billion under management. We're just one firm that's

89
00:04:47,720 --> 00:04:52,520
Speaker 3: only been in operation for the last ten to twelve years.

90
00:04:52,720 --> 00:04:56,560
Speaker 3: And so we're just one firm. There's hundreds of firms

91
00:04:56,560 --> 00:04:59,960
Speaker 3: out there, multiple that are big kind of multi stage

92
00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:02,920
Speaker 3: investment firms like ours. So so sixty six, I would say,

93
00:05:02,960 --> 00:05:04,119
Speaker 3: is a low a low number.

94
00:05:04,200 --> 00:05:07,360
Speaker 2: Maybe they think that every year, maybe sixty annually.

95
00:05:09,400 --> 00:05:11,760
Speaker 3: But at work, there's a lot of dollars at work

96
00:05:13,560 --> 00:05:16,440
Speaker 3: over time. But you're asking a big question and I

97
00:05:16,480 --> 00:05:18,800
Speaker 3: think is really hard to solve. But one of the

98
00:05:18,800 --> 00:05:21,599
Speaker 3: things that I've seen over the last few years is

99
00:05:21,800 --> 00:05:23,880
Speaker 3: people just got to put the put the money out there,

100
00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:27,360
Speaker 3: because you know, historically people have a way that they

101
00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:29,840
Speaker 3: look at companies. It's like you have to have, you know,

102
00:05:30,040 --> 00:05:31,880
Speaker 3: we want the founders to have a certain degree. We

103
00:05:31,920 --> 00:05:34,080
Speaker 3: want the founders who have a certain amount of experience

104
00:05:34,120 --> 00:05:37,200
Speaker 3: have worked at a certain set of companies. Right if

105
00:05:37,200 --> 00:05:41,000
Speaker 3: we've worked at you know, X, Twitter, it's Facebook, it's

106
00:05:41,160 --> 00:05:45,279
Speaker 3: you know, Yelp engineer, whatever the case may be. And

107
00:05:45,320 --> 00:05:47,800
Speaker 3: the fact is that you don't need all those things

108
00:05:47,800 --> 00:05:49,640
Speaker 3: to be a good founder. And so I think when

109
00:05:49,640 --> 00:05:51,680
Speaker 3: we can open up the scope to who can be

110
00:05:51,720 --> 00:05:55,200
Speaker 3: a good founder, we will likely get more dollars in

111
00:05:55,240 --> 00:05:59,280
Speaker 3: the hands of black folks and black women specifically. At

112
00:05:59,279 --> 00:06:00,960
Speaker 3: the same time, I think the other thing is really

113
00:06:01,000 --> 00:06:06,960
Speaker 3: important is putting black investors in place so they can

114
00:06:07,040 --> 00:06:10,640
Speaker 3: distribute the capital. Right because people a lot of times,

115
00:06:10,640 --> 00:06:14,640
Speaker 3: like for our for kind of the industries that people

116
00:06:14,760 --> 00:06:19,000
Speaker 3: like you usually can only like understand problems that like

117
00:06:19,040 --> 00:06:21,120
Speaker 3: you know or that you've seen. And so when we

118
00:06:21,240 --> 00:06:25,080
Speaker 3: ask white investors to understand black companies or black businesses,

119
00:06:25,120 --> 00:06:28,000
Speaker 3: if they're in a particular space, they don't get it right.

120
00:06:28,040 --> 00:06:31,159
Speaker 3: So then they get into the investment committee meeting and

121
00:06:31,160 --> 00:06:32,360
Speaker 3: they got to do a vote, and they're like, well,

122
00:06:32,360 --> 00:06:35,280
Speaker 3: I don't understand. I don't get it. And so if

123
00:06:35,320 --> 00:06:38,040
Speaker 3: we have black investors that have dollars they can put

124
00:06:38,080 --> 00:06:41,640
Speaker 3: into companies, that also, I think will increase the amount

125
00:06:41,680 --> 00:06:45,840
Speaker 3: of dollars that go into black founders. At the same time,

126
00:06:45,880 --> 00:06:49,280
Speaker 3: it's not like black founders only found black companies. We

127
00:06:49,720 --> 00:06:53,240
Speaker 3: find you know, social media companies or consumer you know

128
00:06:53,839 --> 00:06:57,040
Speaker 3: e commerce companies too. But we do need to have

129
00:06:57,080 --> 00:07:00,200
Speaker 3: more folks in the room understand our community to make

130
00:07:00,240 --> 00:07:03,320
Speaker 3: the decision. So I would say probably those two things.

131
00:07:04,040 --> 00:07:06,440
Speaker 5: So VC is something that you know, it's not spoken

132
00:07:06,480 --> 00:07:08,720
Speaker 5: about in a lot of our communities, and so I'm

133
00:07:08,800 --> 00:07:11,240
Speaker 5: interested And what led you to the path of VC,

134
00:07:14,160 --> 00:07:15,080
Speaker 5: it's for sure.

135
00:07:15,200 --> 00:07:19,600
Speaker 3: So I just learned about VC in twenty sixteen, so

136
00:07:19,760 --> 00:07:22,240
Speaker 3: about six years and I was on a completely different

137
00:07:22,240 --> 00:07:24,920
Speaker 3: path in life. I went to Fark Atlanta undergrad shout.

138
00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:26,480
Speaker 2: Out to the path.

139
00:07:26,880 --> 00:07:30,800
Speaker 3: Shout out to the Panthers, and I was getting a

140
00:07:30,800 --> 00:07:33,560
Speaker 3: sociology degree. I was like, ooh, I love learning about

141
00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:35,600
Speaker 3: people and groups. And I had this idea that I

142
00:07:35,600 --> 00:07:37,960
Speaker 3: wanted to be an academic. I wanted to do research

143
00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:40,680
Speaker 3: full time and teach full time, dean of a school

144
00:07:40,680 --> 00:07:45,320
Speaker 3: and the president of a college. And I went through

145
00:07:45,320 --> 00:07:47,720
Speaker 3: this path, got my first masters, went to a PhD.

146
00:07:48,040 --> 00:07:51,680
Speaker 3: Hated dropped out. I was like, I got to get

147
00:07:51,720 --> 00:07:53,680
Speaker 3: out of here. This is this is not for me.

148
00:07:54,800 --> 00:07:56,960
Speaker 3: Moved to California, and you know they say to be

149
00:07:57,000 --> 00:07:58,760
Speaker 3: successful in Silicon Valley you got to have a good

150
00:07:58,800 --> 00:08:02,680
Speaker 3: dropout store. So I got my drag out store, moved

151
00:08:02,840 --> 00:08:05,640
Speaker 3: to Silicon Valley and it wasn't until I went to

152
00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:07,560
Speaker 3: business school. So I went to business school at Stanford,

153
00:08:08,160 --> 00:08:12,680
Speaker 3: and I didn't live on campus because by the time

154
00:08:12,720 --> 00:08:14,560
Speaker 3: I went to business school, I was much older than

155
00:08:14,640 --> 00:08:16,560
Speaker 3: you know, most of the people there, and I was like,

156
00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:18,080
Speaker 3: I'm gonna save my house. I'm not gonna move on

157
00:08:18,120 --> 00:08:21,080
Speaker 3: campus and all that stuff. So I was trying to

158
00:08:21,120 --> 00:08:24,480
Speaker 3: be tracked. Okay, when I was picking my classes, I

159
00:08:24,520 --> 00:08:26,600
Speaker 3: didn't want to be driving at nine o'clock in the morning.

160
00:08:26,600 --> 00:08:29,800
Speaker 3: I'm the one I want. It is very hectic. And

161
00:08:29,880 --> 00:08:33,960
Speaker 3: so there was a venture class that was like early afternoon.

162
00:08:34,000 --> 00:08:37,120
Speaker 3: I said, perfect, sign me up and didn't know what

163
00:08:37,200 --> 00:08:39,199
Speaker 3: it was. And so I get in there and it's

164
00:08:39,200 --> 00:08:42,200
Speaker 3: actually with Eric Schmidt. So Eric Schmidt is former CEO

165
00:08:42,240 --> 00:08:47,000
Speaker 3: of Google, former CEO chairman. Everybody calls to him, you know,

166
00:08:47,040 --> 00:08:51,480
Speaker 3: the first adult in the room at Google, and I

167
00:08:51,559 --> 00:08:55,920
Speaker 3: knew it. Got completely distracted by finance, that's the bottom line.

168
00:08:56,000 --> 00:09:00,320
Speaker 3: Went into that class, read everything, just started doing extra stuff,

169
00:09:00,360 --> 00:09:05,600
Speaker 3: extra reading. And one day we went for a walk

170
00:09:05,640 --> 00:09:07,760
Speaker 3: with Eric after class and he may or may not

171
00:09:07,800 --> 00:09:09,480
Speaker 3: remember this, but we did a little short walk around

172
00:09:09,520 --> 00:09:12,480
Speaker 3: the GSP and he's like, you know, maybe you're one

173
00:09:12,520 --> 00:09:14,280
Speaker 3: of my best students. I think you should try venture

174
00:09:14,360 --> 00:09:16,680
Speaker 3: for real. And I said, play people don't do that.

175
00:09:17,280 --> 00:09:18,680
Speaker 3: I said, now, why would you try to set me

176
00:09:18,760 --> 00:09:21,280
Speaker 3: up for failure? Knowing that there are not people who

177
00:09:21,360 --> 00:09:23,319
Speaker 3: look like me in this industry, and so I kind

178
00:09:23,320 --> 00:09:26,320
Speaker 3: of just brush it off. But after a while, I said,

179
00:09:26,320 --> 00:09:29,080
Speaker 3: you know what, mayan if Eric Schmiz says you should

180
00:09:29,120 --> 00:09:31,839
Speaker 3: try something, maybe you should try it. So then the

181
00:09:31,880 --> 00:09:33,600
Speaker 3: rest is kind of history. I spent my time running

182
00:09:33,679 --> 00:09:36,320
Speaker 3: up and down sand Hill Road the rest of my

183
00:09:36,400 --> 00:09:40,520
Speaker 3: time at business school, started doing internships. You're supposed to

184
00:09:40,520 --> 00:09:43,520
Speaker 3: do like one internship between year one and year two

185
00:09:43,720 --> 00:09:45,959
Speaker 3: in business school, and I think I did a total

186
00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:48,720
Speaker 3: of like four all throughout the year I was working

187
00:09:48,760 --> 00:09:52,080
Speaker 3: during school turned into a full time role, and I've

188
00:09:52,120 --> 00:09:53,079
Speaker 3: been doing it ever since.

189
00:09:54,160 --> 00:09:56,440
Speaker 6: Cool question for you for those who are interested in

190
00:09:56,520 --> 00:09:59,160
Speaker 6: getting into the VC space, what are some of the

191
00:09:59,200 --> 00:10:02,200
Speaker 6: most innovative ways you've seen people that look like us

192
00:10:02,520 --> 00:10:03,840
Speaker 6: breath into the industry.

193
00:10:05,080 --> 00:10:09,000
Speaker 3: Yep, So I would say that there's two ways, and honestly,

194
00:10:09,240 --> 00:10:13,240
Speaker 3: the most innovative that I think most successful thing I've

195
00:10:13,280 --> 00:10:15,959
Speaker 3: seen people do is start their own In the last

196
00:10:15,960 --> 00:10:18,920
Speaker 3: two or three years, we've seen more black founded venture

197
00:10:19,160 --> 00:10:22,400
Speaker 3: funds and firms than I've ever seen. It's been an

198
00:10:22,400 --> 00:10:25,880
Speaker 3: explosion and I love it. If you're looking for the

199
00:10:25,920 --> 00:10:28,040
Speaker 3: more traditional path, there's a couple of ways you can

200
00:10:28,080 --> 00:10:31,160
Speaker 3: do it. So working at a startup, people love seeing

201
00:10:31,320 --> 00:10:34,120
Speaker 3: that you've spent time on a product team, that you've

202
00:10:34,120 --> 00:10:37,120
Speaker 3: spent time in engineering or spent time in marketing, because

203
00:10:37,160 --> 00:10:40,000
Speaker 3: you have insight into what to look for in a founder,

204
00:10:40,080 --> 00:10:42,800
Speaker 3: right you understand like, oh, they need to set up

205
00:10:42,840 --> 00:10:45,880
Speaker 3: this piece of the company or this vertical. You have

206
00:10:45,960 --> 00:10:49,880
Speaker 3: insight into kind of what the needs are in the space. Also,

207
00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:51,960
Speaker 3: going to business school and kind of just getting an

208
00:10:51,960 --> 00:10:54,320
Speaker 3: extra business edge and how to think about you know,

209
00:10:54,720 --> 00:10:57,679
Speaker 3: technology and think about business and to think about startups

210
00:10:58,040 --> 00:11:00,440
Speaker 3: is important. But I say one of the easy ways

211
00:11:00,559 --> 00:11:02,680
Speaker 3: is going to a startup and actually spending some time

212
00:11:02,720 --> 00:11:06,080
Speaker 3: in it because you get kind of an extra edge.

213
00:11:06,400 --> 00:11:09,880
Speaker 3: And then actually probably the most important thing is having

214
00:11:10,640 --> 00:11:15,160
Speaker 3: a perspective about the future. So VC is a long game.

215
00:11:15,240 --> 00:11:17,440
Speaker 3: It is very different from the public market. It is

216
00:11:17,480 --> 00:11:20,120
Speaker 3: not like oh, I'll buy some stocks and the next

217
00:11:20,200 --> 00:11:22,320
Speaker 3: year I'm gonna cash out, or in two years I'm

218
00:11:22,320 --> 00:11:24,160
Speaker 3: gonna cash out, or in five years I'm gonna catch

219
00:11:24,200 --> 00:11:26,200
Speaker 3: cause I tell my I tell my investors in CLF.

220
00:11:27,080 --> 00:11:29,760
Speaker 3: You know, venture is an eight to ten year game.

221
00:11:29,920 --> 00:11:32,600
Speaker 3: Like it is a long view game. I say, if

222
00:11:32,600 --> 00:11:34,120
Speaker 3: you're gonna come to me in two years and ask

223
00:11:34,120 --> 00:11:36,640
Speaker 3: me where your money is, I don't have I don't

224
00:11:36,679 --> 00:11:40,240
Speaker 3: have it. And so investors you have a perspective on

225
00:11:40,280 --> 00:11:42,600
Speaker 3: what they think is going to happen in the future, like, oh,

226
00:11:42,679 --> 00:11:44,199
Speaker 3: I think you know, people are going to want to

227
00:11:44,240 --> 00:11:48,000
Speaker 3: start communicating through I don't know, bird calls it by

228
00:11:48,120 --> 00:11:51,040
Speaker 3: you know, by twenty thirty, right, And so you start

229
00:11:51,040 --> 00:11:54,679
Speaker 3: looking for companies in that space. You they just really

230
00:11:54,720 --> 00:11:57,880
Speaker 3: want people who are kind of thinking beyond the way.

231
00:11:58,240 --> 00:12:00,480
Speaker 3: So if you can kind of formulate, you know, an

232
00:12:00,520 --> 00:12:03,560
Speaker 3: idea around that, I think you're likely setting yourself up

233
00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:04,359
Speaker 3: for success.

234
00:12:05,360 --> 00:12:10,400
Speaker 2: Let me let me ask you this, ask me this. Okay,

235
00:12:10,480 --> 00:12:13,920
Speaker 2: how do you get the money? So if how do

236
00:12:14,840 --> 00:12:19,440
Speaker 2: companies position themselves to attract venture capital money?

237
00:12:20,200 --> 00:12:26,000
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. So different vcs like different things. All vcs

238
00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:28,040
Speaker 3: are not the same. And the first thing is that

239
00:12:28,160 --> 00:12:31,959
Speaker 3: people would You're gonna put yourself in a good position

240
00:12:32,080 --> 00:12:34,600
Speaker 3: if you find the vcs that are looking for what

241
00:12:34,679 --> 00:12:38,840
Speaker 3: you have. So, if you're building a consumer product, a

242
00:12:38,880 --> 00:12:43,000
Speaker 3: social app, necessarily going to talk to enterprise investors or

243
00:12:43,040 --> 00:12:46,079
Speaker 3: fintech investors or the biotech investors that's not going to

244
00:12:46,120 --> 00:12:48,880
Speaker 3: serve you. You're gonna waste everybody's time, your time and

245
00:12:48,920 --> 00:12:51,760
Speaker 3: their time, and neither you know, neither party is gonna

246
00:12:51,840 --> 00:12:55,360
Speaker 3: like that. So identify who the investors are that are

247
00:12:55,400 --> 00:12:58,320
Speaker 3: in your space and not just like your vertical, but

248
00:12:58,720 --> 00:13:04,240
Speaker 3: you're your size range, right, So are you raising a

249
00:13:04,240 --> 00:13:04,920
Speaker 3: pre c round?

250
00:13:04,960 --> 00:13:05,080
Speaker 4: Right?

251
00:13:05,120 --> 00:13:07,880
Speaker 3: Are you raising five hundred thousand dollars? You're raising five

252
00:13:07,920 --> 00:13:09,840
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars. You don't want to go to a

253
00:13:09,840 --> 00:13:13,439
Speaker 3: growth fund, right. They're looking for companies that are much later,

254
00:13:13,640 --> 00:13:15,520
Speaker 3: have a ton of revenue. You have a ton of

255
00:13:15,640 --> 00:13:18,720
Speaker 3: you know, staff already. So make sure you're not only

256
00:13:18,800 --> 00:13:20,760
Speaker 3: in the right vertical, but also in the right size

257
00:13:20,880 --> 00:13:25,040
Speaker 3: range of you know, what you're trying to raise. You know,

258
00:13:25,400 --> 00:13:28,600
Speaker 3: early stage vcs tend to be looking for folks who

259
00:13:28,920 --> 00:13:32,160
Speaker 3: great ideas. What it's you know, it's usually pre traction,

260
00:13:32,640 --> 00:13:36,640
Speaker 3: sometimes pre products before you have anything. So if you're

261
00:13:36,760 --> 00:13:39,680
Speaker 3: your early stage, it's really about the team that's building it, right,

262
00:13:39,720 --> 00:13:42,160
Speaker 3: what is your background? Why are you the best person

263
00:13:42,840 --> 00:13:46,000
Speaker 3: to build this particular company? And then as you grow

264
00:13:46,040 --> 00:13:48,520
Speaker 3: it kind of changes, Right, how much traction do you

265
00:13:48,559 --> 00:13:50,880
Speaker 3: have if you have an app? What's the engagement looking

266
00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:52,960
Speaker 3: like you know, how often are people on your app

267
00:13:53,040 --> 00:13:56,520
Speaker 3: and for how long? So whatever the kind of key

268
00:13:56,559 --> 00:13:59,480
Speaker 3: performance indicators are for your business, that's really what you

269
00:13:59,520 --> 00:14:00,440
Speaker 3: should lean named you.

270
00:14:02,240 --> 00:14:05,440
Speaker 5: I think this conversation is extremely important. We all have children.

271
00:14:05,480 --> 00:14:08,040
Speaker 5: I have a daughter, and Megan, obviously you are somebody

272
00:14:08,040 --> 00:14:11,800
Speaker 5: that is extremely It's inspirational, right, And so I wonder

273
00:14:11,880 --> 00:14:14,199
Speaker 5: what the experience is like coming into the space obviously

274
00:14:14,240 --> 00:14:15,959
Speaker 5: that we're not familiar with in our community a lot

275
00:14:15,960 --> 00:14:18,839
Speaker 5: of times as a black woman coming into the space,

276
00:14:18,880 --> 00:14:21,360
Speaker 5: what has that experience been like for you over the

277
00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:23,440
Speaker 5: past six or seven years?

278
00:14:24,080 --> 00:14:27,880
Speaker 3: Totally? So first, I have two kids. You're you, You're

279
00:14:27,880 --> 00:14:31,680
Speaker 3: getting mom life right now. Because here's a crib. You

280
00:14:31,720 --> 00:14:33,640
Speaker 3: see the paw Patrol.

281
00:14:35,600 --> 00:14:39,240
Speaker 2: Been there, Chase is on the case.

282
00:14:39,560 --> 00:14:43,720
Speaker 3: Okay, in the chat, I need you to say something

283
00:14:43,760 --> 00:14:46,840
Speaker 3: if paw Patrol has a choke hold on your child

284
00:14:47,240 --> 00:14:51,960
Speaker 3: like it for two years for two right, it's a thing.

285
00:14:53,040 --> 00:14:56,160
Speaker 3: But for me as a mom, I'll say And I

286
00:14:56,160 --> 00:14:58,360
Speaker 3: think venture in general has a long way to go

287
00:14:58,400 --> 00:15:03,120
Speaker 3: when it comes to women in our role in this industry.

288
00:15:03,200 --> 00:15:05,960
Speaker 3: And I think there's a lot of learning to do

289
00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:07,360
Speaker 3: and a lot of role to do. But what I

290
00:15:07,400 --> 00:15:09,880
Speaker 3: can say is that you know, at Andres and Horwitz,

291
00:15:09,920 --> 00:15:14,480
Speaker 3: I've had a really fantastic experience as my own. I'm

292
00:15:14,520 --> 00:15:18,400
Speaker 3: actually on maternity right now. I have a two months

293
00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:22,400
Speaker 3: those I have a two month hole, and I am

294
00:15:22,640 --> 00:15:26,920
Speaker 3: a technically not you know, technically not working. But I

295
00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:31,960
Speaker 3: really do love, you know, my role, and I love

296
00:15:32,080 --> 00:15:36,240
Speaker 3: my firm so much that I'm happy to share about

297
00:15:36,240 --> 00:15:38,560
Speaker 3: them any any chance I get. But I think the

298
00:15:38,680 --> 00:15:40,640
Speaker 3: key is people making sure that they have really great

299
00:15:40,640 --> 00:15:44,200
Speaker 3: maternity policies, people making sure that women feel supported in

300
00:15:44,200 --> 00:15:46,120
Speaker 3: the workplace. And it's not like, oh, if you have

301
00:15:46,240 --> 00:15:49,280
Speaker 3: kids and you can't work until two am and you

302
00:15:49,320 --> 00:15:53,320
Speaker 3: can't drop everything and get on a flight in Whateur

303
00:15:53,680 --> 00:15:56,520
Speaker 3: that that doesn't mean you're any less committed to your role.

304
00:15:56,560 --> 00:15:58,760
Speaker 3: And I think one of the things, and I hope

305
00:15:58,760 --> 00:16:00,880
Speaker 3: this is okay for me to share, one of my

306
00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:04,920
Speaker 3: favorite things about our firm is our leadership has been

307
00:16:05,480 --> 00:16:09,920
Speaker 3: really phenomenal from a maternity le perspective and just supporting

308
00:16:09,920 --> 00:16:14,320
Speaker 3: women at work. And when the pandemic first started, you know,

309
00:16:14,360 --> 00:16:17,360
Speaker 3: everybody was like, oh, we're going remote, but we think

310
00:16:17,360 --> 00:16:19,560
Speaker 3: we're going to come back. We might do hybrid like no,

311
00:16:20,280 --> 00:16:21,960
Speaker 3: like companies were really trying to figure her out what

312
00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:24,720
Speaker 3: they were going to do. And I'll never forget Our

313
00:16:24,760 --> 00:16:30,360
Speaker 3: founder Ben Horwitz got on our all hands and told us,

314
00:16:30,680 --> 00:16:32,880
Speaker 3: you know, it just happens every Friday. And he says,

315
00:16:32,920 --> 00:16:35,520
Speaker 3: you know, I was talking to lots of staff about

316
00:16:35,520 --> 00:16:37,200
Speaker 3: what they want to do, and you know, trying to

317
00:16:37,200 --> 00:16:39,720
Speaker 3: get opinions on like what should happened first. That's the

318
00:16:39,720 --> 00:16:41,520
Speaker 3: first sign of a good leader, is like asking people

319
00:16:41,520 --> 00:16:44,920
Speaker 3: what they actually want to do. And he said, I

320
00:16:45,080 --> 00:16:48,960
Speaker 3: was speaking to a woman and she said, this pandemic

321
00:16:49,000 --> 00:16:50,840
Speaker 3: has been the first time that I felt like I

322
00:16:50,840 --> 00:16:54,240
Speaker 3: could be a good mom and a good employee. And

323
00:16:54,280 --> 00:16:56,680
Speaker 3: he said, I'm not taking that away from people. I

324
00:16:56,720 --> 00:16:58,720
Speaker 3: can't take it away. So he said, we're not going back,

325
00:16:59,080 --> 00:17:00,640
Speaker 3: you know, no matter what we do, we're not going

326
00:17:00,680 --> 00:17:03,280
Speaker 3: back to you know, fully in office culture because I

327
00:17:03,320 --> 00:17:05,080
Speaker 3: can't do that to the moms. And I'm just like,

328
00:17:06,080 --> 00:17:09,639
Speaker 3: sign me up, you know. So I really really appreciated that.

329
00:17:09,840 --> 00:17:12,800
Speaker 3: But I think overall the industry does have a really

330
00:17:12,800 --> 00:17:14,600
Speaker 3: really long way because it's not a lot of women.

331
00:17:15,280 --> 00:17:17,879
Speaker 6: Yeah, to tell in to what you were talking about, Like,

332
00:17:17,960 --> 00:17:20,280
Speaker 6: as a parent, I have won seven year old. He's

333
00:17:20,280 --> 00:17:23,800
Speaker 6: in there playing Fortnite. Now, how do you balance everything?

334
00:17:23,960 --> 00:17:27,040
Speaker 6: So being a woman, African American woman and the super

335
00:17:27,080 --> 00:17:31,359
Speaker 6: competitive space, how do you manage that family life while

336
00:17:31,480 --> 00:17:33,199
Speaker 6: trying to be the best at your craft in this

337
00:17:33,320 --> 00:17:34,359
Speaker 6: VC space.

338
00:17:34,640 --> 00:17:35,000
Speaker 4: I don't.

339
00:17:35,280 --> 00:17:38,040
Speaker 3: I don't balance it here. I'm gonna be agree with you.

340
00:17:38,040 --> 00:17:39,800
Speaker 3: I don't balance it here with I do my best,

341
00:17:39,960 --> 00:17:42,560
Speaker 3: but I try to put like a couple of little

342
00:17:42,640 --> 00:17:45,200
Speaker 3: rules in play. So for me with my first son

343
00:17:45,320 --> 00:17:46,920
Speaker 3: was I have a three year old and two months old.

344
00:17:47,200 --> 00:17:51,760
Speaker 3: I was like, he's he's coming everywhere with me. I

345
00:17:51,800 --> 00:17:53,640
Speaker 3: don't care if it's work, I don't care if it's

346
00:17:53,680 --> 00:17:57,439
Speaker 3: for play. Up until he's two, I'm gonna takehim with

347
00:17:57,440 --> 00:17:59,920
Speaker 3: me because if I'm traveling for work, even if I'm

348
00:18:00,080 --> 00:18:01,760
Speaker 3: on for two nights, I'm all stressed out, like I

349
00:18:01,840 --> 00:18:04,400
Speaker 3: miss him and I gotta FaceTime. But if he's if

350
00:18:04,440 --> 00:18:07,200
Speaker 3: he's with me, I can stay somewhere for two weeks

351
00:18:07,240 --> 00:18:09,040
Speaker 3: and not be worried about it because whenever I get

352
00:18:09,040 --> 00:18:12,080
Speaker 3: off for I'm going to be back with him. So

353
00:18:12,359 --> 00:18:14,600
Speaker 3: that's kind of the first thing that I do. And

354
00:18:15,800 --> 00:18:21,479
Speaker 3: I think that having women kind of food have been

355
00:18:22,680 --> 00:18:26,040
Speaker 3: my superiors over time when they have children, they really

356
00:18:26,119 --> 00:18:29,120
Speaker 3: lean into two women who are in the same position.

357
00:18:29,280 --> 00:18:31,840
Speaker 3: So I try to provide that for people who are

358
00:18:31,840 --> 00:18:33,840
Speaker 3: on my team as well as much as I can, Like,

359
00:18:34,040 --> 00:18:36,359
Speaker 3: you need flexibility, your child is sick, un feel bad

360
00:18:36,359 --> 00:18:39,080
Speaker 3: about your childhood and sick? Why should Why should be

361
00:18:39,080 --> 00:18:40,920
Speaker 3: scared to tell your boss? Right? And so I try

362
00:18:40,920 --> 00:18:44,600
Speaker 3: to create that type of environment for everybody around, and

363
00:18:44,640 --> 00:18:46,600
Speaker 3: I hope that people try to do it for me too.

364
00:18:47,840 --> 00:18:51,800
Speaker 3: And we just gotta stop explaining ourselves like, oh, I

365
00:18:51,800 --> 00:18:53,879
Speaker 3: gotta leave early because I gotta take my kids to

366
00:18:53,920 --> 00:18:57,240
Speaker 3: the you know, the they gotta basketball game, and just

367
00:18:57,280 --> 00:19:00,159
Speaker 3: say I gotta go leave early, don't you know. We

368
00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:02,720
Speaker 3: don't have to do all of explaining and hoping that

369
00:19:02,760 --> 00:19:05,720
Speaker 3: people will like say, okay, it's all right saying what

370
00:19:05,760 --> 00:19:07,600
Speaker 3: you never do.

371
00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:09,000
Speaker 4: You think that's an African American thing or a woman thing?

372
00:19:09,680 --> 00:19:09,920
Speaker 2: Yeah?

373
00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:11,240
Speaker 4: Both?

374
00:19:12,359 --> 00:19:14,359
Speaker 3: Both? Both?

375
00:19:16,600 --> 00:19:19,919
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, all right, So let's let's talk about this.

376
00:19:20,359 --> 00:19:22,719
Speaker 2: How do you pitch yourself to companies with VC, Like

377
00:19:22,800 --> 00:19:25,720
Speaker 2: if you if, what what should what should? Like, what's

378
00:19:25,760 --> 00:19:29,240
Speaker 2: the uh one on one kit that somebody should have

379
00:19:29,960 --> 00:19:32,840
Speaker 2: if they're interested in getting VC money? And at what

380
00:19:32,920 --> 00:19:36,920
Speaker 2: point should somebody even entertain trying to get VC money.

381
00:19:37,720 --> 00:19:42,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, so REASONA. People can disagree, but I think that

382
00:19:43,240 --> 00:19:45,760
Speaker 3: it really just depends on how ready you want to be.

383
00:19:46,520 --> 00:19:51,760
Speaker 3: But venture tech startups is very much a fail fast

384
00:19:52,359 --> 00:19:55,480
Speaker 3: type of mentality. You rather try early figure out what

385
00:19:55,480 --> 00:19:58,120
Speaker 3: you're doing wrong, and then come back again after you've

386
00:19:58,200 --> 00:20:00,000
Speaker 3: fixed all your mistakes. If you're trying to get every

387
00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:02,199
Speaker 3: being perfect, like, oh, my company has to be perfect

388
00:20:02,280 --> 00:20:05,399
Speaker 3: and we have to have all these details right, et cetera,

389
00:20:05,520 --> 00:20:08,280
Speaker 3: you're probably gonna spend too much time trying to get

390
00:20:08,320 --> 00:20:10,240
Speaker 3: that right and actually not know what you need to

391
00:20:10,280 --> 00:20:13,280
Speaker 3: fix because you haven't shown anybody right. You're building in

392
00:20:13,400 --> 00:20:15,639
Speaker 3: secret and you're like, oh, this has to be perfect,

393
00:20:15,720 --> 00:20:17,520
Speaker 3: and then at the end of the day you go

394
00:20:17,680 --> 00:20:19,560
Speaker 3: do your pitch and they're like, oh, all these things

395
00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:21,400
Speaker 3: are wrong and you could have fixed them far earlier.

396
00:20:21,480 --> 00:20:23,479
Speaker 3: So again, if you want to raise at the pre

397
00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:27,560
Speaker 3: seed level, a lot of people don't have a product.

398
00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:30,119
Speaker 3: It's just an idea and a pitch dick and you're

399
00:20:30,160 --> 00:20:32,239
Speaker 3: walking somebody through what you think it can be. A

400
00:20:32,240 --> 00:20:34,840
Speaker 3: lot of investors on the VC side are just we

401
00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:37,600
Speaker 3: care about magnitude, right. It's like how big can this

402
00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:40,359
Speaker 3: idea get? Have you identified a really really big market?

403
00:20:40,440 --> 00:20:42,119
Speaker 3: Is it a really really great team, and do I

404
00:20:42,160 --> 00:20:45,760
Speaker 3: think that they can execute and you can get money

405
00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:46,520
Speaker 3: with nothing?

406
00:20:47,200 --> 00:20:49,200
Speaker 2: Well, so let's let's let's let's break this down a

407
00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:51,960
Speaker 2: little bit. Yeah, So, because I want to talk to

408
00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:54,680
Speaker 2: people that that's not really familiar with the space. So

409
00:20:54,720 --> 00:20:57,359
Speaker 2: the team is the team is very important, right, So

410
00:20:57,560 --> 00:21:02,080
Speaker 2: putting together a team like senior leadership, all the people

411
00:21:02,080 --> 00:21:04,600
Speaker 2: that have already had success in the space, that's going

412
00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:09,280
Speaker 2: to be helpful, right, And then like putting together like

413
00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:12,879
Speaker 2: the pitch deck of the idea of kind of like

414
00:21:12,920 --> 00:21:15,919
Speaker 2: you said, just even if it's not fully there yet,

415
00:21:16,080 --> 00:21:20,600
Speaker 2: like yeap what it can potentially do, and convincing somebody

416
00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:24,760
Speaker 2: that you have the capability of actually making this happen.

417
00:21:24,640 --> 00:21:28,240
Speaker 3: Right for sure? For sure? And I would say even

418
00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:31,359
Speaker 3: beyond getting to senior leadership, when you're at the really

419
00:21:31,400 --> 00:21:35,600
Speaker 3: really early stage, it's about the founding team, right, who

420
00:21:35,680 --> 00:21:37,400
Speaker 3: are the people who are founding this company.

421
00:21:37,440 --> 00:21:41,920
Speaker 7: If it's like, oh, say it's an education tech company

422
00:21:42,560 --> 00:21:47,280
Speaker 7: and it's about teaching kids how to xyz whatever, and

423
00:21:47,320 --> 00:21:51,440
Speaker 7: you're a former teacher, right, that's really interesting to investors

424
00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:54,159
Speaker 7: because you know the space, you understand what the need is,

425
00:21:54,240 --> 00:21:56,520
Speaker 7: or you're a former principal or a school board member,

426
00:21:56,880 --> 00:21:58,000
Speaker 7: and then you partner.

427
00:21:57,760 --> 00:22:01,600
Speaker 3: Up with say an engineer who was at whatever other

428
00:22:01,800 --> 00:22:04,479
Speaker 3: ed tech company. Right, we're looking at are these puzzle

429
00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:07,560
Speaker 3: pieces in place for this idea and this team to

430
00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:08,520
Speaker 3: actually work.

431
00:22:13,119 --> 00:22:17,040
Speaker 5: So you're leading the Cultural Leadership Fund. Can you talk

432
00:22:17,040 --> 00:22:20,560
Speaker 5: about what it is it's important and how unique it

433
00:22:20,600 --> 00:22:22,800
Speaker 5: is to the tech space.

434
00:22:23,920 --> 00:22:27,159
Speaker 3: I can, I can so Cultural Leadership Fund, So it

435
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:29,840
Speaker 3: probably starts. Let me started what Inreas and Horwitz is

436
00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:32,400
Speaker 3: because that will make Cultural Leadership Fund make even more sense.

437
00:22:32,480 --> 00:22:33,120
Speaker 2: So do it.

438
00:22:33,720 --> 00:22:37,600
Speaker 3: In Treason Horowitz, we are a venture capital firm. We've

439
00:22:37,640 --> 00:22:40,040
Speaker 3: got again about thirty billion dollars under management, and we

440
00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:43,160
Speaker 3: do early stage and growth stage investing, so the full

441
00:22:43,280 --> 00:22:46,679
Speaker 3: kind of scale of a venture capital h and we

442
00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:49,160
Speaker 3: do so through a number of funds. So we've got

443
00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:53,360
Speaker 3: a venture funds, We've got crypto fund, we've got growth

444
00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:58,480
Speaker 3: we have a biotech fund. So all of those funds

445
00:22:58,520 --> 00:23:01,040
Speaker 3: exist at our firm. And then Culturallyadership Fund is this

446
00:23:01,119 --> 00:23:05,800
Speaker 3: other fund that is a strategic co investment vehicle inside

447
00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:08,880
Speaker 3: of Injuries and World with so we invest alongside those

448
00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:12,160
Speaker 3: other ones that I just mentioned. But the thing that

449
00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:14,800
Speaker 3: is really interesting and really cool about what we do

450
00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:17,760
Speaker 3: at CLEFT is that we do those co investments with

451
00:23:17,920 --> 00:23:21,359
Speaker 3: two main missions in mind. So the first is connecting

452
00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:24,800
Speaker 3: the world's greatest cultural leaders to the best new technology companies,

453
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,480
Speaker 3: and the second is getting more young African Americans into technology.

454
00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:31,520
Speaker 3: So that first mission, you guys actually kind of talked

455
00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:37,040
Speaker 3: about it earlier. When we say getting cultural leaders into

456
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:41,320
Speaker 3: technology companies, we mean the world's greatest athletes, entertainers, musicians,

457
00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:45,840
Speaker 3: cea level executives, all of whom are excited about technology.

458
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:48,640
Speaker 3: They're interested in innovation, they want to play a role

459
00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:51,240
Speaker 3: in the things that are being built across this industry.

460
00:23:51,440 --> 00:23:53,159
Speaker 3: And c LEFT gets to be an on ramp for that.

461
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:55,440
Speaker 3: And I think for so many you know, we call

462
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:59,520
Speaker 3: them cultural leaders. You know, in the past it's been

463
00:23:59,520 --> 00:24:02,960
Speaker 3: about like getting a sponsorship deal with a company after

464
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:05,760
Speaker 3: they've gotten big, or figuring out how to monetize on

465
00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:10,359
Speaker 3: X platform. But for us, it's about getting ownership on

466
00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:13,239
Speaker 3: the cap table of these companies. And again, these are

467
00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:16,959
Speaker 3: companies kind of pre public, so before the average retail

468
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:19,880
Speaker 3: investor can get into a company, we're taking it back

469
00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 3: to the private space and making sure that we get

470
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:26,200
Speaker 3: black dollars onto the tables of these companies.

471
00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:29,439
Speaker 6: Cool question for you, So what are like three or

472
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:33,920
Speaker 6: four key traits that an entrepreneur can have that will

473
00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:37,360
Speaker 6: make your fund or one similar to it go crazy

474
00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:39,960
Speaker 6: like once you see their pitch deck or presentation.

475
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:41,280
Speaker 2: Yep.

476
00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 3: So the important thing to know there's CLF is a

477
00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:46,879
Speaker 3: co investment vehicle, so we don't do direct investments. We

478
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:51,080
Speaker 3: invest alongside the other fund. But I think that's an

479
00:24:51,119 --> 00:24:55,000
Speaker 3: important piece to bring up though, because in this concept,

480
00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:57,880
Speaker 3: I think about black generational wealth and I think there's

481
00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:00,679
Speaker 3: a few really key ways to do it. When we

482
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:04,639
Speaker 3: think about technology and technology companies. The first is obviously

483
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:08,640
Speaker 3: investing in black founders, right, It's making sure you put

484
00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:10,520
Speaker 3: dollars in their hands so they can put into their

485
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:13,639
Speaker 3: companies and grow. The second is getting black dollars on

486
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:17,680
Speaker 3: cap tables, so getting black investors into whatever tech companies

487
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 3: that are out there. And then the third is getting

488
00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:24,040
Speaker 3: black talent into tech companies, so being an employee at

489
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:26,800
Speaker 3: the seed or the Series A or the Series B stage,

490
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 3: because that early employee equity can potentially be very very

491
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:32,520
Speaker 3: valuable down the road. Right, We've all heard the stories

492
00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:36,960
Speaker 3: of Facebook or Twitter making people millionaires overnight, and so

493
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 3: I think those are the three ways to really build

494
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 3: generational wealth for the black community. I think technology has

495
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:44,880
Speaker 3: proven that time and time again. And see A Left

496
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:47,680
Speaker 3: focuses on those last two. We focus on black investor

497
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:50,120
Speaker 3: dollars on the cap table, and we focus on black

498
00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:52,440
Speaker 3: talent into technology companies.

499
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:58,520
Speaker 2: Dame Dash on the FaceTime call during Mark on Monday,

500
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 2: A man, A man, what's up? Bro? Look say what's up?

501
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 4: Everybody?

502
00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:12,360
Speaker 2: One of the most powerful people in in venture capital,

503
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:19,199
Speaker 2: this is Dame Dash. Say that we're only doing a

504
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 2: live show right now.

505
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 3: Bro, you're on the live show.

506
00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:26,359
Speaker 2: What did you say? Is that the cara skills you're

507
00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:30,480
Speaker 2: showing me as a curtain? Yo, We're on a live show.

508
00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:33,920
Speaker 2: I'mnna call you. I'm gonna call you right back. Yeah, Man,

509
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:35,080
Speaker 2: Actually make an announcement.

510
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:38,560
Speaker 3: Actually, what do you think about? Bring him?

511
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:42,960
Speaker 2: Let's dang, dang. I wasn't you gotta break the good?

512
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 2: I wasn't good. I wasn't planning on this. But everything

513
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 2: happens for a reason. So Dame Dash is one of

514
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:52,680
Speaker 2: our favorite people on Earth. A cultural icon. He reminds

515
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:55,000
Speaker 2: us every single time he speaks to us how much

516
00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:57,480
Speaker 2: he's helped our program, how important he is to us.

517
00:26:59,760 --> 00:27:01,399
Speaker 4: Without I remind you.

518
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 2: How much I have to help my program. That's too

519
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:10,359
Speaker 2: so so, Dame I called you the other day. I said, look,

520
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:14,040
Speaker 2: we got this big thing invest Fest. We need you there.

521
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:18,959
Speaker 2: And after about five minutes, Dame Dash will be out

522
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:20,679
Speaker 2: in Vestfest. Confirmed.

523
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 4: You better not let me get around Dames. You think

524
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:23,679
Speaker 4: I am crazy?

525
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:28,399
Speaker 8: Now, boy, Dave Dash, Ladies and Jail will be in

526
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 8: Atlanta August seven.

527
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 2: I'm gonna make sure you that I must. I'm gonna

528
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 2: call you every single day to make sure you that

529
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:39,960
Speaker 2: that's a fact that.

530
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 5: This episode is brought to you by P and C Bank.

531
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 5: A lot of people think podcasts about work are boring,

532
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:52,280
Speaker 5: and sure, they definitely can be, but understanding of professionals

533
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:55,639
Speaker 5: routine shows us how they achieve their success little by little,

534
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:59,640
Speaker 5: day after day. It's like banking with P and C Bank.

535
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:02,920
Speaker 5: It might seem boring to save, plan and make calculated

536
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 5: decisions with your bank, but keeping your money boring is

537
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:09,399
Speaker 5: what helps you live or more happily fulfilled life. P

538
00:28:09,520 --> 00:28:14,359
Speaker 5: and C Bank Brilliantly Boring since eighteen sixty five. Brilliantly

539
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 5: Boring since eighteen sixty five is a service mark of

540
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 5: the PNC Financial Service Group, Inc. P and C Bank

541
00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:23,400
Speaker 5: National Association member fdic.

542
00:28:26,040 --> 00:28:26,320
Speaker 8: Erners.

543
00:28:26,359 --> 00:28:26,719
Speaker 2: What's Up?

544
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 5: You ever walk into a small business and everything just

545
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:32,640
Speaker 5: works like The checkout is fast, the receipts are digital,

546
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:36,119
Speaker 5: tipping is a breeze, and you're out the door before

547
00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 5: the line even builds Odds are they're using Square? We

548
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:43,000
Speaker 5: love supporting businesses that run on Square because it just

549
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:46,280
Speaker 5: feels seamless. Whether it's a local coffee shop, a vendor

550
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 5: at a pop up market, or even one of our

551
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 5: merch partners, Square makes it easy for them to take payments,

552
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 5: manage inventory, and run their business with confidence, all from

553
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 5: one simple system. If you're a business owner or even

554
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:03,320
Speaker 5: just thinking about launching something soon, Square is hands down

555
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:06,400
Speaker 5: one of the best tools out there to help you start, run,

556
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 5: and grow. It's not just about payments, it's about giving

557
00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 5: you time back so you can focus on what matters

558
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:15,920
Speaker 5: most Ready. To see how Square can transform your business,

559
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:20,840
Speaker 5: visit Square dot com, backslash, go, backslash, eyl to learn

560
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 5: more that Square dot com backslash, go, backslash, eyl, don't wait,

561
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:29,200
Speaker 5: don't hesitate, let's square handle the back end so you

562
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:30,880
Speaker 5: can keep pushing your vision forward.

563
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 9: Buying a car and Carvana was so easy. I was

564
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:36,680
Speaker 9: able to finance it through them.

565
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 1: I just, oh, wait, you mean finance.

566
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 9: Yeah, finance, got pre qualified for a Carvana auto loan,

567
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 9: entered my terms and shot from thousands of great car options,

568
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 9: always in my budget.

569
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 1: That's cool that financing through Carvana.

570
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 9: Was so easy, financed, done, and I get to pick

571
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 9: up my car from their Carvana venue machine tomorrow by nanced.

572
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 6: Right, That's what I said.

573
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:56,760
Speaker 9: You can spend time trying to pronounce financing or you

574
00:29:56,800 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 9: can actually finance and buy your car today on the

575
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 9: financing subject of credit approval.

576
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:03,280
Speaker 3: Additional terms and conditions were apply.

577
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:06,600
Speaker 2: Fact yes, breaking bread, Dame, I'm gonna call you. I'm

578
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 2: gonna call you after this is over. Brother, You got

579
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 2: your bedline.

580
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:27,960
Speaker 6: Oh it's uh always always, always got jokes, jokes.

581
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:34,400
Speaker 2: Truth and true, challeng killing alright, Uh, Dame Dash will

582
00:30:34,440 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 2: be at investments ladies and gentlemen. Yes, market Monday's exclusive.

583
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:40,520
Speaker 2: I was gonna wait till till next week to drop that, but.

584
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:44,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm glad I'm on this episode because all the

585
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 3: big announcements are coming in these episodes, is the fact,

586
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:53,160
Speaker 3: right At first, it's funny. I I think we were

587
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 3: supposed to do a different day, but I ended up

588
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:56,360
Speaker 3: on the biggest announcement.

589
00:30:56,920 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 2: That is true. That's true, Tyler Perry, ask it just

590
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 2: it just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and we're not done.

591
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:03,160
Speaker 4: Yeah.

592
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I couldn't resist

593
00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:09,520
Speaker 2: myself Dan. Anytime Dan calls that's what you know, that's

594
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:12,959
Speaker 2: a legendary moment we grew up on, like music like Rockefeller,

595
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 2: like you know. So it's still kind of weird to

596
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 2: me that Dan Dash calls me FaceTime like it's blessings.

597
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:23,440
Speaker 2: It's surreal. It's weird. Yeah, you know what I'm saying.

598
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:26,640
Speaker 5: Like the numbers that come through. I'm like, yeah, okay, yeah,

599
00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:27,440
Speaker 5: this is our life now.

600
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:30,200
Speaker 6: Yeah, and ask any question real quick?

601
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 2: Yes please.

602
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 6: So Ben is one of my favorite entrepreneurs of all time.

603
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 4: Can you share maybe like three or four big.

604
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:39,880
Speaker 6: Lessons you've learned from him since being there?

605
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 3: Oh, take the time. Yes, that's a good question. You

606
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:48,840
Speaker 3: put me on the spot. I have learned actually a

607
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 3: lot of lessons from being my favorite. I'll give you

608
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 3: my favorite. So our firm is really active venture firm,

609
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 3: doing a life of stuff all the time, and I

610
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:04,720
Speaker 3: think there are a lot of opportunities that come our

611
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 3: way that could be quick and easy. But then as

612
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 3: this phrase and we have this value at the firm

613
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:14,600
Speaker 3: that says we take the long view on relationships. And

614
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:19,520
Speaker 3: what that means is is we're we're in a relationship business.

615
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:23,400
Speaker 3: But what that means is that we don't sacrifice relationships

616
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:25,960
Speaker 3: for a quick book. You don't have to when people

617
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:27,880
Speaker 3: come into our firm. You don't have to worry about

618
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 3: us going and running and tell somebody else about your

619
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 3: business or all your secrets, or you know that we'll

620
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 3: steal something or switch up something up like, we are

621
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 3: very loyal to the relationships that we build, and that

622
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:43,800
Speaker 3: is just dangerously critical to me because I think that

623
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 3: loyalty is really important, and I think trust is really important.

624
00:32:49,320 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 3: But we take the long beyond relationships. Nobody had forever

625
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 3: has to worry about us, you know, flipping and dipping

626
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 3: for a million here or five million there or ten

627
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:00,960
Speaker 3: million here. We are we really try to be about it.

628
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 2: Let me ask you that you spoke about the series

629
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:07,720
Speaker 2: a series BB here like seed round. We just spoke

630
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 2: to Pinky from Floody Big and she just got twenty

631
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 2: five million dollars in her seat.

632
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 3: Pinky my heart. That is my bag.

633
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:18,520
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, thinky.

634
00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 3: That's my bag. We went to college together. She is

635
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:26,920
Speaker 3: my Sto Roars. She brought me into Delta. She was

636
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:29,960
Speaker 3: Miss the Au the year before me, and then I

637
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 3: was Miss c Au but she was Miss Junior and

638
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:34,120
Speaker 3: I was missing. We've been living up on each other

639
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:36,880
Speaker 3: for a long time for a long time. She's everything

640
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:39,240
Speaker 3: and I'm always following in her footsteps. So this is.

641
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:40,960
Speaker 8: Old.

642
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 2: She has a one week old.

643
00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:48,960
Speaker 3: Yeah that is my sister for sure.

644
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 2: Shout out to Pinky. But yeah, can you kind of

645
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:54,479
Speaker 2: talk about that like seed rounds, round a round, Like

646
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 2: what does that mean?

647
00:33:56,600 --> 00:33:56,800
Speaker 4: Yep.

648
00:33:56,880 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 3: So that's just about the stage that you are in

649
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:03,080
Speaker 3: the company. And I tell people to think about fundraising

650
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:06,240
Speaker 3: rounds as like a step function. It's not like a

651
00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:08,799
Speaker 3: lot a linear you know, relationship like this, it just

652
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:11,400
Speaker 3: goes to It's not like that where it's like you

653
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 3: do your valuation grows and it doesn't work like that.

654
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:16,759
Speaker 3: It's like this right, And what that means is like

655
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 3: if you're at a seed round, there's all the stuff

656
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 3: that you need to do before you can raise a

657
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:25,400
Speaker 3: series series A, and then when you raise a series A,

658
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:28,279
Speaker 3: you just stay flat. There's all the stuff you need

659
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:30,560
Speaker 3: to do and accomplish and achieve from attraction and a

660
00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:33,360
Speaker 3: profit and a revenue perspective before you can raise a

661
00:34:33,400 --> 00:34:35,839
Speaker 3: series B, and then you jump up to the next round.

662
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:39,560
Speaker 3: It's not kind of this like constant ticking, but essentially

663
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 3: usually like a seed round is maybe you've got a

664
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 3: rough version of your product. You are, you know, working

665
00:34:47,680 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 3: on a beta. Maybe you've got a couple of people

666
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:53,360
Speaker 3: testing it out. By series A, you you found a

667
00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 3: little bit of product market fit you're starting to think

668
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:59,600
Speaker 3: about you know, you've got a repeatable process for acquiring

669
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 3: customer or users. Right, there's all these kind of uh

670
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 3: T traction and benchmarks that that firms are looking for.

671
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:11,440
Speaker 3: And every firm is different. Right, Some firms might say, well, no,

672
00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:13,760
Speaker 3: let seed that you said is more of a serious

673
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:15,399
Speaker 3: age to me, and for other people like, oh, that's

674
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:18,360
Speaker 3: totally a serious be So every firm is different. But

675
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:21,279
Speaker 3: the idea is that there's kind of these benchmarks that

676
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:23,200
Speaker 3: you have to meet to get to each ground.

677
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:28,359
Speaker 5: So obviously the fund, you've had a lot of people

678
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:32,960
Speaker 5: invest You've had obviously celebrities, you've had cultural leaders You've

679
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:37,359
Speaker 5: had athletes. I'm wondering from your side, how encouraging it

680
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:40,440
Speaker 5: is to see this type of diversity coming into the space,

681
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:43,719
Speaker 5: or if it's not at the pace that you you

682
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:45,920
Speaker 5: know that is fulfilling to you, What can we do

683
00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:48,799
Speaker 5: to encourage people to look at this as a way

684
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:51,960
Speaker 5: to actually put into your portfolio as a way to

685
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 5: generate generational wealth, Like, yeah, what are your thoughts on that?

686
00:35:56,360 --> 00:36:01,560
Speaker 3: Yep, for sure, so I we The insight that kind

687
00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:05,480
Speaker 3: of started Cultural Leadership Fund was this idea that when

688
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:08,319
Speaker 3: it came to the things that were cool, what people wore,

689
00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:11,040
Speaker 3: what people liked to do, what they talked about, it

690
00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 3: was black Twitter and Instagram and in black TikTok. It

691
00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:17,320
Speaker 3: was black people and what we were doing that everybody

692
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:21,360
Speaker 3: wanted to do. So but again, so often we weren't

693
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:24,760
Speaker 3: capturing any of the value of these companies right Again,

694
00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:27,319
Speaker 3: we'd be real popping on there and then maybe get

695
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:30,160
Speaker 3: a sponsorship later or whatever the case is. It came

696
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:33,359
Speaker 3: to owning the company as they grew and your kind

697
00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:37,160
Speaker 3: of relationship growing proportionately, you know, and your wealth growing

698
00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:40,360
Speaker 3: proportionately to the company, it just didn't exist. So Cleft

699
00:36:40,480 --> 00:36:42,879
Speaker 3: was created in order to kind of alleviate that, where

700
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:46,040
Speaker 3: it's like, Okay, these black culture creators, people shaping, shifting,

701
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:48,319
Speaker 3: creating culture. If we can get them on the cap

702
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:51,360
Speaker 3: tables early, then they can really truly capture the value

703
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:53,239
Speaker 3: of what it is that they're bringing to the platform.

704
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 3: And so I love it because our investors have become

705
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 3: some of the most savvy, thoughtful, you know, investment partners

706
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:07,319
Speaker 3: in these companies that that I've ever seen. So this

707
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:10,040
Speaker 3: whole concept of like a dumb athlete, this whole concept

708
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 3: of like a spacey you know, actress or whoever business leader,

709
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:17,000
Speaker 3: it's those days are over. These are some of the

710
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:19,839
Speaker 3: most thoughtful and kind of intricate people that that I've

711
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 3: ever met in portfolio company like working with them. They

712
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:23,600
Speaker 3: don't want to work with people who are just going

713
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:26,480
Speaker 3: to drop a couple of dollars and disappear. That's that's

714
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:29,920
Speaker 3: completely useless because money is abundant when it comes to

715
00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:31,640
Speaker 3: the venture capital space. It's like they don't have to

716
00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 3: save your money. They don't have to take your money.

717
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:37,359
Speaker 3: They're getting money from you know, entries and Horrwitzer's choir

718
00:37:37,440 --> 00:37:39,239
Speaker 3: or whoever else. If you're you know, when you're a

719
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:41,520
Speaker 3: coach or leader, it's not about your money. It's about

720
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 3: the value that you can help bring to help the

721
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 3: company succeed. And so I've seen people really come into that,

722
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 3: you know, into their own as investors through through the cleft,

723
00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:53,319
Speaker 3: and I think that's only going to grow. I think

724
00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 3: it's an insight that other people are starting to catch

725
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:59,080
Speaker 3: on to and try to create kind of similar similar vehicles.

726
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:02,160
Speaker 3: But we're really proud that we get to be the

727
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 3: first you you.

728
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 4: Talk about the impact is.

729
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:07,799
Speaker 3: It?

730
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:11,200
Speaker 6: Can you talk to us about the impact that attending

731
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:13,560
Speaker 6: c AU had in your life, because sometimes I think

732
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:17,319
Speaker 6: is after the Americans, we think HBCU isn't as good.

733
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:20,080
Speaker 6: But the guy who actually uh introduced me to investor

734
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:21,360
Speaker 6: went to Clark.

735
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 2: You mentioned why would you not?

736
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:25,439
Speaker 3: Why would he go anywhere else?

737
00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 4: Shout at him? Doctor pleasant? Right?

738
00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 6: Can you talk about how important and what an impact

739
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 6: Attendant Clark had on you in your career?

740
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:42,600
Speaker 3: Was everything? Again, I was from I'm from Alabama, Montgomery.

741
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:44,200
Speaker 4: Wow, I got a family in Midway.

742
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 3: You've been over there, come on family in Bidway. Yeah, Okay,

743
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:51,440
Speaker 3: that's the.

744
00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 2: Country, country country, but it's okay.

745
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 3: My people are from Pigeon Creek and Greenville and yeah,

746
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:01,480
Speaker 3: and people try to let me. I'm gonna come back

747
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:03,560
Speaker 3: to your question. But people try to play me because

748
00:39:04,200 --> 00:39:07,520
Speaker 3: all the people from California and New York be like,

749
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:10,279
Speaker 3: I'm from New York, I'm from California, and like where

750
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 3: do your grandma from? Where's your grandmother from? And they'd

751
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:19,840
Speaker 3: be like, Mississippi, Ala, all these othern states. You're welcome,

752
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 3: You're welcome, drinking out of a mason jar, like it's

753
00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:29,240
Speaker 3: my life, it's my life. But remind me really quickly,

754
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 3: what was the question of Clark Atlanta. Yes, but I

755
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 3: think when it came to experiencing people from lots of

756
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:39,719
Speaker 3: different places, it's I think places like Clark Atlanta that

757
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:44,240
Speaker 3: bring together students, particularly because it's it's a private aheb

758
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:47,239
Speaker 3: see you, it's really small, and so people come from

759
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:51,640
Speaker 3: different states, which I really enjoyed. Our whole model find

760
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:54,319
Speaker 3: a way or make one. It is on my whiteboard

761
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:56,759
Speaker 3: I live by every day. I learned that I have

762
00:39:56,840 --> 00:40:00,200
Speaker 3: a choice in the way that I respond to things

763
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:01,719
Speaker 3: and when I want to give up and when I

764
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:05,320
Speaker 3: want to keep going, really really good at just figuring

765
00:40:05,680 --> 00:40:11,200
Speaker 3: stuff out, figuring it out. And I think this concept that,

766
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:13,719
Speaker 3: like people say it all the time, so I don't

767
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:16,120
Speaker 3: mean to sound cliche, but like, it's a lot of

768
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 3: types of black people out here. We are not all

769
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 3: the same, we are not all We don't talk the same,

770
00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:24,400
Speaker 3: we don't dress the same, we don't think the same.

771
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 3: And I think I learned to appreciate the full diaspora

772
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 3: of of black folks and who we are, you know,

773
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:36,040
Speaker 3: regardless of where we're from. But Park Atlanta is not

774
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 3: We are hustlers also music, everybody's working on something. Listen,

775
00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:45,360
Speaker 3: you can't go to Caalculanta. There's musician, somebody's producing, doing

776
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 3: hair wrapping, it's popping, and everybody wants to come hang

777
00:40:51,719 --> 00:40:56,279
Speaker 3: out on cak Atlanta's promenade and we we It just

778
00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:59,240
Speaker 3: really is a beautiful space of community. And I'm so blessed.

779
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:01,840
Speaker 3: And I'm because I come from a family of just

780
00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 3: HBCU people and I'm I'm praying, I'm hopeful that my

781
00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:07,359
Speaker 3: kids will go to an HBC they go wherever they

782
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:11,960
Speaker 3: want but it is a beautiful, beautiful experience.

783
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:16,320
Speaker 2: Shout all the HBCUs. We might have something social HBCUs

784
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:18,279
Speaker 2: to the city Atlanta. Let me ask you this as

785
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:22,000
Speaker 2: far as the VC world is concerned, Yeah, what is

786
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:25,520
Speaker 2: what's the rate of returns that you guys look for,

787
00:41:25,719 --> 00:41:29,320
Speaker 2: like when you're investing, like in your portfolio, like what

788
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:32,840
Speaker 2: the you know ten years like down the line you say, okay, this,

789
00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:35,200
Speaker 2: this was good. It's a two part question, but that's

790
00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:35,759
Speaker 2: the first part.

791
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:40,239
Speaker 3: So first you're trying to get it go to jail.

792
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 3: Then SEC is gonna be after me. I got about

793
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:46,319
Speaker 3: what I say. I don't want them knocking on my door.

794
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 3: But I'll actually point to something that Steve Harvey said

795
00:41:50,160 --> 00:41:52,120
Speaker 3: when he was on with you guys. He talked to

796
00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:57,600
Speaker 3: you guys about banning average, and I remember y'all being like, ooh,

797
00:41:57,640 --> 00:41:59,759
Speaker 3: that's the first time we heard that this, friends, Dang it.

798
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:03,480
Speaker 3: So I can't brand that is Like the VC metric

799
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 3: that we love talking about is VC is about batting averages.

800
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 3: But the piece that I would add to what Steve

801
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 3: said was batting average is important, but also even more

802
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:18,360
Speaker 3: important is your slugging percentage. Right, So what is the

803
00:42:18,400 --> 00:42:22,800
Speaker 3: magnitude of the hits that you're making, because your batting

804
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:26,399
Speaker 3: average could be X. Right, you hit three out of ten,

805
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 3: But I think everybody would rather, you know, hit a

806
00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:34,320
Speaker 3: home run with you know, bases loaded and knock it

807
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 3: out of the park. And so we think a lot

808
00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:40,400
Speaker 3: about what is the magnitude of the investments that we're making.

809
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:43,600
Speaker 3: We love, you know, we can hit a single or

810
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:46,360
Speaker 3: a double, but we really, really really love home runs,

811
00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:48,880
Speaker 3: you know, whether we get ten X or fifty X

812
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:51,359
Speaker 3: or one hundred X or a thousand X. We really

813
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:54,399
Speaker 3: do try to make investments into companies that we think

814
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:57,440
Speaker 3: are we're going to return the fund.

815
00:42:58,360 --> 00:42:59,920
Speaker 2: So let me let me ask you this if I can.

816
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 2: The second part of that question is the harsh reality.

817
00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:04,160
Speaker 2: Chris Lyon, somebody who you're familiar with.

818
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:08,120
Speaker 8: Y if I know that guy, shout out to our guy.

819
00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:18,960
Speaker 2: So I was talking to him in l A. Mike went, low,

820
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:25,160
Speaker 2: you hear me? Now? Yes here you are back in business,

821
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:27,520
Speaker 2: all right? So he was talking. I was talking to

822
00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 2: him in l A a few a few a while ago,

823
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:36,960
Speaker 2: and he was saying that the greatest wealth opportunity in

824
00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:40,880
Speaker 2: history is happening right now and will be happening for

825
00:43:40,920 --> 00:43:45,360
Speaker 2: like the next decade in tech startups, and he was like,

826
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:48,000
Speaker 2: the vast majority of black people is not going to

827
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:49,640
Speaker 2: be able to benefit from it and then not going

828
00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:51,839
Speaker 2: to be able to make any money from it. And

829
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:55,120
Speaker 2: we talked about this show is about stock market investing

830
00:43:55,200 --> 00:44:00,560
Speaker 2: right public trumpets, but we understand that massive amounts of

831
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:05,320
Speaker 2: wealth is made on the private side VC before companies

832
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:09,120
Speaker 2: go public yep. So like that's where you get a

833
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 2: ten thousand x return and that's when you can turn

834
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:17,280
Speaker 2: fifty thousand to five million. Of course those that doesn't

835
00:44:17,280 --> 00:44:22,360
Speaker 2: happen every day, but it's possible, yeh's. But you need access,

836
00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:26,600
Speaker 2: you need relationships, you need money. So that's something that

837
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:30,640
Speaker 2: nobody's talking about because billions of dollars are being generated

838
00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:33,400
Speaker 2: with these tech startup companies and it's going to continue

839
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:37,480
Speaker 2: to be generated. But not only do black people hardly

840
00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:41,239
Speaker 2: get any money from venture capital, they don't really they

841
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 2: don't have the opportunity or the resources actually invest in

842
00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:46,600
Speaker 2: venture capital. So that's a whole another set of problems.

843
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 2: So how do we get more people into actually the

844
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:53,840
Speaker 2: opportunity to invest in the private market as opposed to

845
00:44:53,880 --> 00:44:56,239
Speaker 2: only investing in public markets.

846
00:44:56,360 --> 00:45:01,360
Speaker 3: Yep, so who there's a lot there. So, first, private

847
00:45:01,400 --> 00:45:07,319
Speaker 3: market investing and specifically venture capital is dangerously risky. It

848
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:11,000
Speaker 3: is the riskiest asset class that you can get involved in.

849
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 3: And I say that knowing that in the public market,

850
00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:16,040
Speaker 3: by the time a company goes public, let me just

851
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:19,640
Speaker 3: tell you what going public means. Going public means that

852
00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 3: you've already got a board in place. It means you've

853
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:24,959
Speaker 3: got a certain amount of revenue, you've got compliance things,

854
00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 3: but you've got all these systems in place in order

855
00:45:28,160 --> 00:45:31,520
Speaker 3: to go public and sell your stock to a retail investor.

856
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:35,279
Speaker 3: That it's already been adjusted for risk. It's already been

857
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 3: checked for risk. When you are betting on two guys

858
00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:43,440
Speaker 3: in a garage and I'm gonna say Montgomery, Obama. Just

859
00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:47,560
Speaker 3: from two guys in garage and Montgomery, you know they

860
00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:50,880
Speaker 3: could be complete total clowns, right, there's a huge amount

861
00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:55,600
Speaker 3: of risk that you're taking that is just simply not

862
00:45:55,680 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 3: there in the public market. And so, and the reason

863
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:02,000
Speaker 3: why it's so risky again, it's because venture is a

864
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:03,880
Speaker 3: long game and it's eight to ten years before a

865
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:07,719
Speaker 3: company will go public or be bought. So that's ten

866
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:11,239
Speaker 3: years of risk you're taking up front, and we all

867
00:46:11,280 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 3: know and investing, the people who take the biggest risks

868
00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 3: are the ones that are going to get the biggest reward.

869
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 3: And so that's why venture returns are so huge or

870
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:22,920
Speaker 3: can be really huge, because we're paying pennies on the

871
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:25,560
Speaker 3: dollar for you know, a stock that's you know, thirty

872
00:46:25,600 --> 00:46:28,880
Speaker 3: dollars when it goes public. Most VC firms you know,

873
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:32,839
Speaker 3: six years later, seven years later before, sorry, sixty seven

874
00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:36,799
Speaker 3: years before paid a dollar and fifty cents for sure, right,

875
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:40,840
Speaker 3: So but we had to wait you know, ten years

876
00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:43,120
Speaker 3: for it to go public and to actually get liquidity,

877
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:45,120
Speaker 3: so your money is locked up for a really, really

878
00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:49,640
Speaker 3: long time. So with that being said, it's very, very risky,

879
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 3: and the government doesn't want people taking that kind of

880
00:46:52,160 --> 00:46:56,480
Speaker 3: risk as individuals, right because you know, that's why we

881
00:46:56,520 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 3: got those classifications of accredited and and unaccredited investor, And

882
00:47:02,160 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 3: that's because they don't want people to spend in their

883
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:08,120
Speaker 3: you know, retirement on some random idea that they heard

884
00:47:08,160 --> 00:47:11,440
Speaker 3: from a person to be an investor. So it started

885
00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:14,000
Speaker 3: as a means of protection, but I do think it

886
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:15,719
Speaker 3: needs to be loose in because I think there's a

887
00:47:15,719 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 3: lot of you know, well qualified, very able people who

888
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:23,719
Speaker 3: can make investment decisions, but it's really tough and people

889
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:25,400
Speaker 3: need to be protected from that. So there has to

890
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:29,520
Speaker 3: be some balance around private and public investing. And the

891
00:47:29,560 --> 00:47:33,240
Speaker 3: last thing I'll say is, yes, black people haven't historically

892
00:47:33,239 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 3: been involved, but like the firms that are coming up

893
00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:38,240
Speaker 3: the last couple of years with these black general partners.

894
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:41,480
Speaker 3: I know you mentioned John Henry earlier and the guys

895
00:47:41,480 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 3: that he works with there are I mean, I've known

896
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:47,880
Speaker 3: of at least twenty to thirty, you know, black lead

897
00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:51,560
Speaker 3: or black GP funds in the last two years. So

898
00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:54,479
Speaker 3: I'm really really optimistic about it. And like I said,

899
00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:56,160
Speaker 3: the other way that I think people are going so

900
00:47:56,239 --> 00:47:59,520
Speaker 3: black black people investing is one way to get money.

901
00:47:59,520 --> 00:48:01,319
Speaker 3: And I'll actually talk about like how we make money

902
00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 3: because I think that's probably important to describe to people

903
00:48:05,239 --> 00:48:07,760
Speaker 3: black people investing the dollars is when you invest the dollars,

904
00:48:07,760 --> 00:48:11,360
Speaker 3: you get the money back. Black people on the cat

905
00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 3: tables at either as the GP or as an investor

906
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:17,880
Speaker 3: in a GP, and then black people working at the

907
00:48:17,920 --> 00:48:21,200
Speaker 3: tech companies. Right, Entrepreneurship is not for everybody. I say

908
00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 3: that all the time, and I have one thing that

909
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:25,759
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get people to stop saying, is that,

910
00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:29,200
Speaker 3: like people who work at companies aren't betting on themselves.

911
00:48:29,239 --> 00:48:32,960
Speaker 3: What that's crazy, Like that's ridiculous, Like just to leave

912
00:48:33,000 --> 00:48:35,000
Speaker 3: the company and bet on yourself. I don't want to

913
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:39,239
Speaker 3: be an entrepreneur, Like I have no desire to build

914
00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:42,280
Speaker 3: a company, right, So for the people who are interested

915
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:44,480
Speaker 3: in a particular you know, problem that they want to

916
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:46,120
Speaker 3: work on or company they want to be a part of,

917
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:48,560
Speaker 3: getting in at the early stage is really important. How

918
00:48:48,600 --> 00:48:50,920
Speaker 3: you can cash in on that that will.

919
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:54,680
Speaker 5: Yeah, so one of the I'll just add to well

920
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:57,440
Speaker 5: what what Shad said from it, that's from an investment standpoint,

921
00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:01,480
Speaker 5: but sometimes you know, having the educational process is even

922
00:49:01,480 --> 00:49:04,120
Speaker 5: more beneficial when your hands on you're actually in the space.

923
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 5: And so what are some of the opportunities and roles

924
00:49:07,520 --> 00:49:10,960
Speaker 5: that come within being in a VC firm, Like how

925
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 5: do people even apply or what are the qualifications that

926
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:15,480
Speaker 5: they need to even be in a firm right, and

927
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 5: what are the roles because like obviously you're you're leading

928
00:49:17,640 --> 00:49:20,480
Speaker 5: a role, but there's other opportunities for people to be

929
00:49:20,520 --> 00:49:22,520
Speaker 5: employed inside of it, right where they can get hands

930
00:49:22,520 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 5: on knowledge.

931
00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:27,720
Speaker 3: So there's space for employing and inventure and employee intake.

932
00:49:27,840 --> 00:49:31,239
Speaker 3: So inventure, if you're you know, firms like Indres and Horowitz,

933
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:35,520
Speaker 3: you know, we we need all kinds of people, right,

934
00:49:35,640 --> 00:49:39,000
Speaker 3: We need investors, we need marketing people and Dreas and

935
00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:42,520
Speaker 3: Horowitz has been a huge kind of marketing and content

936
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:44,719
Speaker 3: you know machine for the last several years. One of

937
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:47,920
Speaker 3: the things where most is our content, right, so editors,

938
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:51,120
Speaker 3: podcast people. We have to go to market folks. So

939
00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:55,960
Speaker 3: if you've done sales and customer success, we support our

940
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:59,319
Speaker 3: portfolio companies with those things. So we need folks who

941
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:03,000
Speaker 3: have those those skill sets. And so I think at

942
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:06,440
Speaker 3: the larger stage firms or the larger you know size firms,

943
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:09,480
Speaker 3: there's like a range of jobs that you could do,

944
00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:12,319
Speaker 3: similar to tech. To be in tech, you don't need

945
00:50:12,360 --> 00:50:14,360
Speaker 3: to be technical, you don't need to know how to code.

946
00:50:15,080 --> 00:50:17,920
Speaker 3: You could be in HR, you can be in marketing,

947
00:50:18,320 --> 00:50:21,320
Speaker 3: you can be in sales. So it really is just

948
00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:24,520
Speaker 3: about making that transition into the technology space because like

949
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:27,760
Speaker 3: you said, I agree with Chris one thousand, technology is

950
00:50:27,800 --> 00:50:32,160
Speaker 3: the biggest wealth driver that we have today. And so

951
00:50:32,239 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 3: we were very very like hardcore about it. And I'll

952
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:39,520
Speaker 3: say it over and over again that it is one

953
00:50:39,520 --> 00:50:44,360
Speaker 3: of the clearest largest ways to build wealth over a

954
00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:45,000
Speaker 3: period of time.

955
00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:49,480
Speaker 6: What are the three books and three conferences you think

956
00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:52,400
Speaker 6: people should attend or read to learn more about angel

957
00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:53,800
Speaker 6: or venture capital?

958
00:50:57,719 --> 00:51:01,319
Speaker 3: So our founder Ben Horwitz has a book called The

959
00:51:01,320 --> 00:51:04,000
Speaker 3: Hard Thing About Hard Things. I think it was a

960
00:51:04,040 --> 00:51:09,560
Speaker 3: great book about company building and the whole space. And

961
00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:13,160
Speaker 3: actually Scott Cooper, Scott Cooper does not get the shine

962
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:15,319
Speaker 3: you know he deserves. Scott Cooper is one of the

963
00:51:15,320 --> 00:51:19,799
Speaker 3: four managing directors at Injuries and Horwitz, and he has

964
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:22,360
Speaker 3: a book called The Secrets of sand Hill Road. And

965
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:24,560
Speaker 3: for the folks who don't know, sand Hill Road is

966
00:51:24,640 --> 00:51:28,040
Speaker 3: considered kind of VC land, right, All of the largest,

967
00:51:29,360 --> 00:51:34,400
Speaker 3: kind of most active VC firms at least from years past,

968
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:38,879
Speaker 3: are on sand Hill Road. It's in Menlo Park. All

969
00:51:38,920 --> 00:51:40,960
Speaker 3: of them are, you know, kind of side by side

970
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:43,399
Speaker 3: all down this road. And it's called Secrets of sand

971
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:48,239
Speaker 3: Hill Road. And you can get the insight into what

972
00:51:48,360 --> 00:51:51,759
Speaker 3: it's like, how people think about investing in companies, how

973
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:54,960
Speaker 3: the firm thinks about it. It's one of my favorite books.

974
00:51:54,960 --> 00:51:58,120
Speaker 3: That's a solid one. And then one of the first

975
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:00,399
Speaker 3: ones that I read it's like a little sin book.

976
00:52:00,719 --> 00:52:03,359
Speaker 3: It's called breaking the VC. And I'm sure y'all can

977
00:52:03,400 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 3: agree one of the when it comes to things you

978
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:08,319
Speaker 3: don't know about, if you get the vocabulary downpack, you're

979
00:52:08,360 --> 00:52:10,839
Speaker 3: probably seventy to eighty percent there if you just learn

980
00:52:10,920 --> 00:52:13,000
Speaker 3: the language that people are speaking and it breaks down

981
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:20,840
Speaker 3: the words like investment and like carried interest and you know, arr,

982
00:52:21,080 --> 00:52:23,879
Speaker 3: whatever the case may be, just so you can get

983
00:52:23,960 --> 00:52:29,200
Speaker 3: knowledgeable about about the space and how it works. And actually,

984
00:52:29,560 --> 00:52:31,560
Speaker 3: can I go back? I mean, I sorry, go head

985
00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:34,959
Speaker 3: a shot. I was gonna say, I brought up careed

986
00:52:35,000 --> 00:52:37,480
Speaker 3: interest again, and I feel like I should probably tell

987
00:52:37,520 --> 00:52:40,439
Speaker 3: people about what that is and how vcs make money,

988
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:43,040
Speaker 3: because I think this show is about how it all

989
00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:45,880
Speaker 3: works and how to get people to make more money.

990
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:50,960
Speaker 3: So the way that venture firms make money is we

991
00:52:52,040 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 3: take money from outside investors. They're call it limited partners,

992
00:52:55,320 --> 00:52:57,919
Speaker 3: and their hope essentially is that will flip it. They

993
00:52:57,920 --> 00:52:59,920
Speaker 3: hope to give us money and then we'll flip it.

994
00:53:00,440 --> 00:53:04,080
Speaker 3: And you know, we have feed carried interest. And I

995
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:07,560
Speaker 3: think it actually comes from like old schools like shipping,

996
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:10,200
Speaker 3: like actual ships, where it's like, well, carry your load

997
00:53:10,280 --> 00:53:12,680
Speaker 3: from one place to the next. But we're going to

998
00:53:12,880 --> 00:53:15,280
Speaker 3: keep twenty percent of either whatever it is you're shipping

999
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:17,719
Speaker 3: or the money that you make off of shipping or

1000
00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:21,960
Speaker 3: get carried over to venture capital and investing. And essentially,

1001
00:53:22,080 --> 00:53:24,759
Speaker 3: so say we raised, you know, get one hundred million

1002
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:31,040
Speaker 3: dollars from outside investors, and we three exits, So three

1003
00:53:31,120 --> 00:53:33,680
Speaker 3: hundred million dollars we've made from the investments that we

1004
00:53:33,800 --> 00:53:37,160
Speaker 3: made with that original hundred million. One hundred million dollars

1005
00:53:37,239 --> 00:53:39,640
Speaker 3: is going to go back to the investors, right, you

1006
00:53:39,640 --> 00:53:42,200
Speaker 3: get your money back first, and then at the two

1007
00:53:42,280 --> 00:53:45,520
Speaker 3: hundred million dollars it's left, we're going to divide that out.

1008
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:49,360
Speaker 3: Some firms take as little as twenty percent. Some firms

1009
00:53:49,440 --> 00:53:53,200
Speaker 3: take thirty percent if they you know, at least three exit.

1010
00:53:53,320 --> 00:53:56,120
Speaker 3: Like if there's a range, let's just say thirty percent,

1011
00:53:57,120 --> 00:53:59,719
Speaker 3: So one hundred goes back to you, and then the

1012
00:53:59,719 --> 00:54:03,239
Speaker 3: two hundred million you get to keep seventy percent, and

1013
00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:06,160
Speaker 3: then the venture capitalist keep thirty percent. So if there's

1014
00:54:06,160 --> 00:54:09,280
Speaker 3: two hundred million dollars of profit, will keep sixty million.

1015
00:54:09,400 --> 00:54:12,560
Speaker 3: And that's how we make money.

1016
00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:13,800
Speaker 2: Yes, very important.

1017
00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:16,000
Speaker 3: So when we get when we get our black investors

1018
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:20,160
Speaker 3: on the cap table, that one was it one additional

1019
00:54:20,360 --> 00:54:20,759
Speaker 3: goes to.

1020
00:54:20,760 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 2: Them And I think I had to ask you this before,

1021
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:30,120
Speaker 2: but the ultimate goal for you guys is investing in

1022
00:54:30,120 --> 00:54:34,360
Speaker 2: a company, and the company either has to go public

1023
00:54:34,440 --> 00:54:37,759
Speaker 2: on a stock market like Uber or one of these,

1024
00:54:39,320 --> 00:54:44,000
Speaker 2: or it has to be purchased acquired like Ring which

1025
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:45,320
Speaker 2: got acquired by Amazon.

1026
00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:45,719
Speaker 3: Ye.

1027
00:54:45,880 --> 00:54:51,040
Speaker 2: Those are like the two way two main ways that

1028
00:54:51,160 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 2: you guys would make money, right.

1029
00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:55,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, those are called liquidity events, So our money is

1030
00:54:55,560 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 3: locked up until the company goes through a liquidity event

1031
00:55:00,360 --> 00:55:06,000
Speaker 3: of going public or being purchased. And like when you

1032
00:55:06,040 --> 00:55:09,960
Speaker 3: when you think about like the batting average, slugging percentage,

1033
00:55:09,960 --> 00:55:13,200
Speaker 3: et cetera, when it comes to like how many companies

1034
00:55:13,239 --> 00:55:15,560
Speaker 3: really do fail? Right you said earlier like, oh, I've

1035
00:55:15,600 --> 00:55:18,600
Speaker 3: heard or a lot of people, a lot of other

1036
00:55:18,600 --> 00:55:21,359
Speaker 3: people were saying that black women companies fail or black

1037
00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:24,719
Speaker 3: companies sail. Most companies fail. You don't have any lack,

1038
00:55:25,120 --> 00:55:27,400
Speaker 3: you know, like I want to say, like eighty to

1039
00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:31,480
Speaker 3: ninety percent of startups fail because it's a tough it's

1040
00:55:31,480 --> 00:55:33,759
Speaker 3: a tough industry. It's a really tough thing to do,

1041
00:55:35,320 --> 00:55:37,680
Speaker 3: and founders have to be really resilient and have a

1042
00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:39,960
Speaker 3: great idea and build the right team and get the

1043
00:55:40,040 --> 00:55:42,160
Speaker 3: right coade. Like there's all these pieces that need to work,

1044
00:55:43,000 --> 00:55:45,040
Speaker 3: and so it venture a lot of times. If you

1045
00:55:45,120 --> 00:55:49,239
Speaker 3: invest in ten companies, maybe you know, probably seven of

1046
00:55:49,280 --> 00:55:52,319
Speaker 3: them are going to go to zero and then two

1047
00:55:52,560 --> 00:55:55,000
Speaker 3: might be singles or doubles, but you're praying that one

1048
00:55:55,040 --> 00:55:57,279
Speaker 3: of them. Right. Is that one hundred x that you

1049
00:55:57,360 --> 00:56:00,760
Speaker 3: talked about with shy yea or more?

1050
00:56:02,600 --> 00:56:06,759
Speaker 2: Yeah? I like that percentage? Yeah yeah, yeah, let's go

1051
00:56:07,280 --> 00:56:09,120
Speaker 2: before go ahead. Yeah yeah.

1052
00:56:09,200 --> 00:56:11,840
Speaker 6: My final question, what's the one piece of advice that

1053
00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:15,319
Speaker 6: you wish you would have known sex years prior when

1054
00:56:15,360 --> 00:56:16,760
Speaker 6: you entered into the venture space.

1055
00:56:18,280 --> 00:56:21,440
Speaker 3: The power of relationships. I didn't know if that was

1056
00:56:21,480 --> 00:56:25,320
Speaker 3: as important as it is, and it's probably more important

1057
00:56:25,320 --> 00:56:29,000
Speaker 3: than it should be. So even from applying to jobs

1058
00:56:29,120 --> 00:56:34,360
Speaker 3: to you know, building your house to what get it

1059
00:56:34,840 --> 00:56:37,440
Speaker 3: sending your kids to school, like who you know and

1060
00:56:37,719 --> 00:56:40,600
Speaker 3: and the relationship that you can build is just really important.

1061
00:56:40,600 --> 00:56:42,839
Speaker 3: And when it comes to like finding new companies and

1062
00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:46,680
Speaker 3: sharing deals and spending time with each other, like networks

1063
00:56:46,680 --> 00:56:50,520
Speaker 3: are just really really important. And I learned that the

1064
00:56:50,560 --> 00:56:53,439
Speaker 3: hard way because I used to you know, really think

1065
00:56:53,440 --> 00:56:56,000
Speaker 3: that like if I just I used to think I

1066
00:56:56,040 --> 00:56:58,360
Speaker 3: could do everything on my own, and you just can't.

1067
00:56:59,040 --> 00:57:01,480
Speaker 3: You cannot, And that is into so many different ways,

1068
00:57:01,600 --> 00:57:04,279
Speaker 3: in different parts of life that you just can't do

1069
00:57:04,320 --> 00:57:06,959
Speaker 3: it all on your own. So building networks is really

1070
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:07,680
Speaker 3: really important.

1071
00:57:08,800 --> 00:57:10,640
Speaker 2: It's the most it's actually the most important thing in

1072
00:57:10,680 --> 00:57:14,280
Speaker 2: the world. Relationships is I agree to everything.

1073
00:57:14,920 --> 00:57:18,840
Speaker 10: You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday.

1074
00:57:19,320 --> 00:57:24,080
Speaker 10: How can you find amazing candidates fast easy? Just use Indeed.

1075
00:57:24,480 --> 00:57:27,200
Speaker 10: Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other

1076
00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:31,000
Speaker 10: job sites. With Indeed sponsored jobs, your post jumps to

1077
00:57:31,040 --> 00:57:33,560
Speaker 10: the top of the page for your relevant candidates, so

1078
00:57:33,640 --> 00:57:36,640
Speaker 10: you can reach the people you want faster. According to

1079
00:57:36,680 --> 00:57:40,640
Speaker 10: Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have forty

1080
00:57:40,680 --> 00:57:44,560
Speaker 10: five percent more applications than non sponsored jobs. Don't wait

1081
00:57:44,600 --> 00:57:48,040
Speaker 10: any longer, speed up your hiring right now with Indeed,

1082
00:57:48,480 --> 00:57:50,720
Speaker 10: and listeners of this show will get a seventy five

1083
00:57:50,800 --> 00:57:54,000
Speaker 10: dollars sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility

1084
00:57:54,120 --> 00:57:59,800
Speaker 10: at indeed dot com slash pod Katz thirteen. Just go

1085
00:57:59,840 --> 00:58:02,720
Speaker 10: to indeed dot com slash p O d k A

1086
00:58:02,880 --> 00:58:06,280
Speaker 10: t Z thirteen right now and support our show by

1087
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:09,240
Speaker 10: saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast, Terms and

1088
00:58:09,280 --> 00:58:12,600
Speaker 10: conditions apply. Hiring, indeed, is all you need