Speaker 1: Afro Tech is back in Austin, Texas. This November is
Speaker 1: the place for all things black, tech and Web three.
Speaker 1: The in person afro Tech Conference experience is bridging the
Speaker 1: worlds of afro technologists, innovators, investors, corporations, musicians, and everyone
Speaker 1: in between. So pull up, grabbing crew and graphic tickets
Speaker 1: and join us at the largest black professional conference of
Speaker 1: the year. This experienced the afro Tech Dot Counter. To
Speaker 1: learn more, I'm with Lucas. This is Black Tech, Green Money.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna introduce you to some of the biggest names,
Speaker 1: some of the brightest violence and brilliant ideas. Feel black
Speaker 1: in building or simply using Texas Secure your back. This
Speaker 1: podcast is for you. Everett hartper CEO and co founder
Speaker 1: of Trust, a human center and software development company. He's
Speaker 1: also author of the new leadership book Moved to the
Speaker 1: Edge the Player in Center, which was published by Wiley
Speaker 1: earlier this year. He was previously director of Customer Acquisition
Speaker 1: and Community at Linden Lab. Make Your Second Life the
Speaker 1: CEO and technologist who also hits many stages around the
Speaker 1: world to talk about diversity, equity and inclusion. I asked
Speaker 1: Effort to speak on this I get it as a
Speaker 1: more imperative diversity, But is it also profitable to hire, fund, promote,
Speaker 1: and support black people. The great answer is yes and UH.
Speaker 1: There is a research um history, both in academia and
Speaker 1: in practice for the last decade. UH Cathy Williams, for example,
Speaker 1: Late Great Kathy Williams, Dr Cath Williams UH documented how
Speaker 1: that makes UM. Words that have diverse boards have higher returns.
Speaker 1: Diverse ship teams are returns the UM process of innovation.
Speaker 1: More diverse teams have better UH, they essentially less blind
Speaker 1: spots when coming up with a solution. So there's any
Speaker 1: number at different levels or the business case those things.
Speaker 1: And that's before saying, oh, if my customers are diverse,
Speaker 1: that we need to have representations. So UM, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of history. At this point, the ship has already sailed.
Speaker 1: So when you think about innovation, I remember I don't
Speaker 1: remember which of the founders of Twitter who talked about this,
Speaker 1: but there was a founder of Twitter who talked about
Speaker 1: when you're trying to get people, when you're trying to
Speaker 1: find a success in a startup, the best thing you
Speaker 1: can do is not trying to change what people already do,
Speaker 1: but make what they do more efficient because when you
Speaker 1: try to get people to change habits, you have an uphill,
Speaker 1: you know, battle to climb. And so can you talk
Speaker 1: about There was an article I head that you had
Speaker 1: broke this particular line. I'm going to read it back
Speaker 1: to you and you may remember writing it. It says,
Speaker 1: we have a culture of innovation quote unquote is a
Speaker 1: statement found on crumpled banners, rolled up posters, and trash brochures.
Speaker 1: Failed startups and shuttered businesses. Companies and investors have tried
Speaker 1: to shift fund or shock their employees into being becoming
Speaker 1: more innovative. Um. And then you went on to say,
Speaker 1: an infrastructure for innovation beats a culture of innovation. So
Speaker 1: those two concepts, the one that opposition and what you
Speaker 1: just wrote, how do we how should we think about
Speaker 1: innovation when we are black founders, when we have a
Speaker 1: unique perspective in the marketplace and we're trying to build something,
Speaker 1: hopefully that the world has never seen. That will you know,
Speaker 1: provide us some capital that we can build, you know,
Speaker 1: generational wealth. Yeah, yeah, good points. And I guess I
Speaker 1: was feeling spicy that day. Um, so I think, um,
Speaker 1: here's how we think about it now? Twitter's culture. I
Speaker 1: don't know enough in the detail of how they think
Speaker 1: about culture to be precise about what they did, because
Speaker 1: it may include an infrastructure that I don't know. But
Speaker 1: I do know is when you talk to BlackBerry, and
Speaker 1: you talked to Deck, and you talk to folks at
Speaker 1: companies that Xerox Park that had the innovations. However, they
Speaker 1: weren't able to put it in a system that enable
Speaker 1: those innovations to scale, or to be shared, or to
Speaker 1: be sustainable. And it's really the system part that I'm
Speaker 1: talking about to make innovations actually come to light. So
Speaker 1: a different way to think about it is that um,
Speaker 1: for example, when we with the with the pandemic and
Speaker 1: ple oh, we're gonna grit our teeth through this, and UM,
Speaker 1: we're gonna make it through by sheer will and hard work. Well,
Speaker 1: after a couple of months, that bill starts to drop.
Speaker 1: You can't sustain heroism like that. But if you build
Speaker 1: a system that enables more people to benefit from that
Speaker 1: system without the same amount of toil, then you're able
Speaker 1: to get the innovations or any kind of innovations out
Speaker 1: into the market where it can be tested in and
Speaker 1: with the customers. So I'm of the mind that you
Speaker 1: don't have to look far for ideas for companies, but
Speaker 1: that there are problems that exist all around us. And
Speaker 1: can you talk a little bit about how, if how
Speaker 1: do you admonish would be entrepreneurs to maybe look more
Speaker 1: at their story and what is going on in their
Speaker 1: world to help them come up with concepts or ideas
Speaker 1: or projects that could ultimately become businesses, to UM more
Speaker 1: authentically practice a new way of doing things that other
Speaker 1: people can employ. Also. Yeah, so what I tell entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: with regard to that question is, you know, you start
Speaker 1: with a problem that you know that your experience, but
Speaker 1: you're only one person for the next thing to do
Speaker 1: immediately is to test it with other people around you.
Speaker 1: Is this compelling? Is it UM memorable? Does it solve
Speaker 1: a problem? Doesn't accelerate your life? And be real honest
Speaker 1: about that. That's actually the thing I love to do
Speaker 1: most UM and UM. You'll get some people who will
Speaker 1: support you, that's still not good enough that takes you
Speaker 1: to the next level. Then it's people that you haven't
Speaker 1: met before, and that's where the iteration and you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's UM being start up principles or other iteration
Speaker 1: principles where you get out and you see whether your
Speaker 1: idea takes hold, whether people grab it, whether people are
Speaker 1: doing things on where you develop a platform for it. So, um,
Speaker 1: the tent with people that are around you is only
Speaker 1: the first step. It's validing that and then it's that
Speaker 1: might be a good idea, but is it a business?
Speaker 1: So you have to ask the other kind of topes
Speaker 1: of questions. Are people going to pay for it? Are
Speaker 1: they going to devote their time for it? Are they
Speaker 1: going to build on it? Those are the next level
Speaker 1: questions that frankly, I find more entrepreneurs step missed that
Speaker 1: boat than they do with ideas, because I think people
Speaker 1: are full of different deals. Um, I'll say the second
Speaker 1: thing that I tell people, everybody has same tend people
Speaker 1: the same idea you do right now, whatever it is
Speaker 1: six of those people, and those people will just be
Speaker 1: talking about it, thinking about it, whatever, won't even write
Speaker 1: it down. Seven and eight person might have done a
Speaker 1: little testing, might have like you know, explored some avenues,
Speaker 1: but they got busy, got distracted. The ninth person actually
Speaker 1: is is um doing something about it? Is actually testing it.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're using a little bit of money you want
Speaker 1: to be the tenth person who has done all of
Speaker 1: that and um gone and put the diligence in the
Speaker 1: time into that thing. So the idea is not the
Speaker 1: original part. It's whether you're able to turn it into
Speaker 1: something that's a repeatable practice that people will buy. There's
Speaker 1: this concept of um and I think it's like people
Speaker 1: like Peter Till who talk about this, like you have
Speaker 1: to have a unique perspective on things like what is
Speaker 1: your unique you like, why should you be doing this thing?
Speaker 1: If you're going to an investor and they're like, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: we understand that there's an opportunity in the marketplace, but
Speaker 1: why are you the one to solve this thing? And
Speaker 1: when I talk to entrepreneurs, sometimes not not of you know,
Speaker 1: Black descent or African American descent or African descent, I
Speaker 1: should say, um, I find entrepreneurs who may be in
Speaker 1: wildly successful businesses, but they have no passion for the
Speaker 1: business that they're in. Maybe they do you know, street signs, right,
Speaker 1: whatever it is that they do. And I wonder if
Speaker 1: you could play the other side of that conversation, like
Speaker 1: when is it okay for us to just be opportunists?
Speaker 1: And see an opportunity in the marketplace and go do
Speaker 1: something about it. There's no argument against that, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: I think it's funny when you talk about why are
Speaker 1: you the person? If you're not the person, but you
Speaker 1: have a hundred thousand people saying that you are the person?
Speaker 1: Done a better with I think you're the person. Or
Speaker 1: where the investor things to your person. There's a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand people back there and they're buying my service who
Speaker 1: think I'm the person. They don't care about me. They
Speaker 1: care about the service. And so if you're trying to
Speaker 1: get funding and you have a whole bunch of tracks,
Speaker 1: you have a whole bunch of crazy fans. Um that's
Speaker 1: the volumes. Now they may be look other kinds of
Speaker 1: pattern matching, right, but results talk. So I think that
Speaker 1: that's the first thing I think about when you're when
Speaker 1: you were when you were saying um, And in terms
Speaker 1: of like taking opportunities, yeah, because sometimes you practice that
Speaker 1: this one fails, but you learn some things. You take
Speaker 1: another crack at it a little while longer, a little
Speaker 1: bit later, another and then it's the next idea that
Speaker 1: actually clicks. But if you're waiting for that perfect opportunity
Speaker 1: probably aren't going to ever start. So if you see
Speaker 1: something for it tested out and then hit that wall
Speaker 1: and say, Yep, this is not the business I want
Speaker 1: to be, that's much better than sort of waiting back
Speaker 1: and hoping for perfect situation, because that's not going to
Speaker 1: ever happen. Who describe what that wall could look like?
Speaker 1: How do you know when it's time to hang it up?
Speaker 1: How do you know when it's time that, yeah, I've
Speaker 1: been doing this long enough, I've been I've spend too
Speaker 1: much money, or I'm not getting this. How do you
Speaker 1: know what is the thing that says, yeah, just ain't it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great question because the entrepreneur wants to be
Speaker 1: persevering and wants to be diligent and like don't take
Speaker 1: no for an answer. At least that's the ethos, right,
Speaker 1: that's the story. The reality is um my. From my
Speaker 1: experience and talking to other entrepreneurs personally, there's like pragmatic things.
Speaker 1: You run out of money, right, that's it. And especially
Speaker 1: for our audience, you don't come with that like historical cash, right,
Speaker 1: So there's that. I think the more uh spiritual one.
Speaker 1: I think the heart of your question is when your
Speaker 1: kind of soul is no longer fed by this, you
Speaker 1: don't wake up energize to try and overcome the next obstacle,
Speaker 1: because there will be obstacles. UM. And the market is
Speaker 1: telling you, hey, na, I'm not buying this. I had
Speaker 1: a nice spike at the beginning and then it flattened out.
Speaker 1: You might try a whole bunch of stuff and if
Speaker 1: it's not moving the needle, then it's done. UM. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you a quick story. When I was starting this company, UM,
Speaker 1: originally doing a product company. It was. It was called
Speaker 1: tether Pad. It was about doing smart calendars for executive assistance,
Speaker 1: originally for travel, but you know, it turned into the
Speaker 1: business thing. And this is around two thousand eleven when
Speaker 1: smart calendars are starting to come out. And I had
Speaker 1: this prototype and I was like, people complicated travel arrangements
Speaker 1: or whatever. And I went to I said, where where
Speaker 1: do I find travel people? Where people travel stories when
Speaker 1: they actually existed? UM. And I went there and I
Speaker 1: had my little prototype. I went to the travel section
Speaker 1: and I asked people, hey, excuse me, would you use
Speaker 1: something like this? They were like pleasant and nice and
Speaker 1: interested a little bit, but no one said, oh my God,
Speaker 1: I have to have that. That is the greatest thing
Speaker 1: in the in the world. I knew that was not
Speaker 1: going to be a successful UM product because if I
Speaker 1: can't sell them face to the base, how am I
Speaker 1: going to do that when I'm competing with millions of
Speaker 1: other stides to do travel. Sometimes the business case and
Speaker 1: the lack of response tells you everything you need to
Speaker 1: know that you need to go back to a drawbood,
Speaker 1: which is what I did. How do you how did
Speaker 1: you know that it wasn't just another feature that you
Speaker 1: needed because we can get feature hungary and have scope
Speaker 1: creep really really easily, because okay, maybe my travel app
Speaker 1: doesn't you know, while the people. But if I added
Speaker 1: just this one other thing and then you find us
Speaker 1: another thing I had to add another thing, how do
Speaker 1: you know it's not just a feature? How do you
Speaker 1: know when is the feature is not gonna do it?
Speaker 1: Because um, I was trying to ask the or value proposition,
Speaker 1: which was, do you have a problem traveling and arranging
Speaker 1: things for complex trabl or your you know, for your
Speaker 1: family or whatever. The representation of that was my app,
Speaker 1: But really it was the question about what the core
Speaker 1: problem was and what I got back was that it
Speaker 1: wasn't that important a problem to them. So I could
Speaker 1: add all the features in the world, but if it's
Speaker 1: not important to the buyer, it doesn't matter. So what
Speaker 1: I did was actually say, huh, maybe this is the
Speaker 1: wrong the right product, but it's the wrong audience who
Speaker 1: actually cares about this and is willing to pay for it.
Speaker 1: I went to give assistance because they are paid to
Speaker 1: do complex arrangements for their executives. When I presented the
Speaker 1: same prototype with a little bit of you know, be skinning,
Speaker 1: they were all over it because I nailed their problem.
Speaker 1: So that was the difference. I don't care about the
Speaker 1: features I'm adding until I understand the problem, and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to solve for the audience. In the audience's own
Speaker 1: uh words, or their own context, I would consider you,
Speaker 1: I'm you are a d e I expert and if
Speaker 1: you would call yourself that, but you're somebody who speaks
Speaker 1: on d E I and you know are paid to
Speaker 1: speak on d e I. Uh. What is interesting about
Speaker 1: the current conversation about D E I that we're having,
Speaker 1: particularly at the corporate level. Let's start there. Like some
Speaker 1: companies believe if they put some money into some inner
Speaker 1: city you know, youth programs. Then they're being diverse and
Speaker 1: and you know they're they're doing their job. Other other
Speaker 1: companies believe if they hired black d e I officer,
Speaker 1: they're doing their job. Um, what is interesting about this
Speaker 1: conversation to you? And how do we know if we're
Speaker 1: doing it right as corporate executives? Yeah, I would say spicily. Um,
Speaker 1: most of the the conversation interests me because it's a lot
Speaker 1: of window addressing UM. Which is not to say that
Speaker 1: investing in a playground sound in UM community is not
Speaker 1: a great thing. That's fantastic for the community. But that
Speaker 1: is not a sufficient d e I response for any
Speaker 1: corporation of any significant size. It's the initial draw in
Speaker 1: the bucket, for example. The reason I say that is
Speaker 1: the question I always ask people, And this is particularly
Speaker 1: after George Floyd and everybody's getting involved with you know,
Speaker 1: d I trying to figure out racial injustice and and
Speaker 1: and what it's supremacy, etcetera. The question I would ask
Speaker 1: when people would come to me and say, hey, what
Speaker 1: do I love your health? I said, well, what are
Speaker 1: you trying to do it for? How is this connect
Speaker 1: with your business model? This is a question you started
Speaker 1: with and then there's like often a silence. I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you need to figure out whether how it's connected to
Speaker 1: your business model. So that's the first thing is is
Speaker 1: it connecting your business model? And many people don't have that.
Speaker 1: Those that do start to start to make progress in
Speaker 1: ways that others do not. UM. I think the other
Speaker 1: thing that's interesting to me about the conversation at the
Speaker 1: moment is the impact of remote work and how the
Speaker 1: market changes if you are now not just located in
Speaker 1: particular place, but actually can recrute and expansively across the country.
Speaker 1: We've been promote since first since two thousand twelve. We
Speaker 1: wanted to have a diverse company. We're like, well, there
Speaker 1: isn't a full diversity here in the Bay Area, and
Speaker 1: those who are here are going to be heavily competed
Speaker 1: with UM for talent. And we have Oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: we have Google and Facebook who can PLoP a bonus
Speaker 1: um larger than someone's annual sale at our company. So
Speaker 1: we went to rest of the country and we have
Speaker 1: people in three states, and we have black folks all
Speaker 1: over and Hispanic or Latin and latinos UM and Mina
Speaker 1: and and and but the located where they and so
Speaker 1: that gets mucking or sustainable from mark perspective. Now we
Speaker 1: have to go to the next level because other people
Speaker 1: have discovered it as well, So we have to figure
Speaker 1: out the next thing. But we developed this network of community.
Speaker 1: I think they are going to be sustainable in the
Speaker 1: long run. I wanted to go deeper on the remote
Speaker 1: work thing in a second, but I do want I
Speaker 1: don't want to glance past something you just talked about,
Speaker 1: and that's that corporate commitment to being to actually making
Speaker 1: real lasting impact. How after you know, the sizzle is
Speaker 1: gone from that pen, after the immediate George Floyd you
Speaker 1: know impact or you know police shootings or elections that
Speaker 1: have real consequence, after those initial triggers, how do we
Speaker 1: get corporate commitments to black people, to minorities, to diversity,
Speaker 1: equity and inclusion, um, how do we get them to
Speaker 1: last past that moment in time? Yeah, So the way
Speaker 1: I think about the questions I would ask, and so
Speaker 1: is the dialogue that actually kind of starts to supper
Speaker 1: action One is is connected to your business model, to
Speaker 1: who's running it. If it is a initiative within a
Speaker 1: small marketing team, organization. I don't take it seriously. Why
Speaker 1: don't I take it seriously? Because so it was a
Speaker 1: budget cut. As soon as there's a downturn, budgets are tight,
Speaker 1: that discretionary program goes away. It needs to be led
Speaker 1: by the executive and needs to be led by the
Speaker 1: C suite, and needs to be led by the CEO.
Speaker 1: That person needs to come in front and say I
Speaker 1: believe in this. It's part of our business, even if
Speaker 1: we don't know specifically what our goals are. I am
Speaker 1: personally committed to making this happen. And then I have
Speaker 1: people who are going to execute, so it's got to
Speaker 1: come from them, and it's got to be on repeat.
Speaker 1: So that's the question. I would then ask the CEO
Speaker 1: involved how long is their support for that? And then
Speaker 1: how are you gonna rule that out as a project.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing in terms of in terms
Speaker 1: of asking is um I'll quote my friend Damian Hooper Campbell,
Speaker 1: who I interviewed for the book. He said, diversity is
Speaker 1: measured in quarters and years. Making a dent in diversity
Speaker 1: inclusion is measured in quarters and years, not days and weeks.
Speaker 1: And I absolutely completely agree with that, even for the
Speaker 1: well intentioned companies. If it was easy to recruit a
Speaker 1: bunch of black folks, they would have done it already.
Speaker 1: But we're heavily competed for, or the networks aren't there,
Speaker 1: or you're changing cultures internally. Anybody knows about culture change
Speaker 1: now that takes that text quarters and years, not days
Speaker 1: of being even if you're well intention So what's your
Speaker 1: plan executive for having a year's long strategy where you
Speaker 1: can actually move the needle? And that's where we get
Speaker 1: some agreement and some alignment of what's realistic. From my opinion, UM,
Speaker 1: you probably recognize that there is a quickly moving bt
Speaker 1: O resurgence. You're like, back to office companies are going
Speaker 1: back to office AP think Apple announced it yesterday or today,
Speaker 1: depending on when you're listening to this. Apple recently announced
Speaker 1: they want the people back in the office. Um is
Speaker 1: that dangerous to this conversation of UM, diversity in the
Speaker 1: in the workplace? I think it's really interesting. Um, there's
Speaker 1: a couple of different points to it. One, I think
Speaker 1: the cats out of the bag. Frankly, in terms of
Speaker 1: people saying, hunt, do I really have two hours of
Speaker 1: my day or three hours of my day to be
Speaker 1: commuting in an era where you have housing prices rising
Speaker 1: and folks can't afford to live near yor city center,
Speaker 1: that's even more of an issue. And it affects black
Speaker 1: books in particular. If I'm in Mississippi or if I'm
Speaker 1: in Georgia, if I'm in Atlanta, not only do I
Speaker 1: have an amazing Atlanta based companies, but I'm attracting attention
Speaker 1: from all over the country. Why would I want to
Speaker 1: leave Atlanta? Um? If you enjoy that community, I think
Speaker 1: the other side of it gets interesting is um. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: And what I think the other side of it is um.
Speaker 1: How do companies that used to be in office and
Speaker 1: who are going hybrid or fully remote, how are they
Speaker 1: managing the mentorship and sponsorship of new employees, particularly black
Speaker 1: and brown employees. Here's how it works. If it's always
Speaker 1: if it had been in an office and it's a
Speaker 1: little bit of dry by and so forth, meetings or
Speaker 1: lunches or whatever. Hey, I'd love to get like a
Speaker 1: coffee with you and you get some informal mentoring and
Speaker 1: so forth. That's awesome. If you move to hybrid, how
Speaker 1: does that happen? It doesn't just automatically has to have
Speaker 1: an intention, and so a company would have to say,
Speaker 1: we understand that, and we're committed to either having identifying
Speaker 1: our star folks or emerging talent and getting them back
Speaker 1: in that office for a week a quarter so that
Speaker 1: we can kind of get that that trust building that
Speaker 1: happens person to person or a place to space to
Speaker 1: face um, or we do some other rotation system. If
Speaker 1: there was a remote person who isn't getting that kind
Speaker 1: of mentorship and the culture supports it face to face,
Speaker 1: they are at a deficit. So what I would have
Speaker 1: to be thoughtful about setting that up. So what do
Speaker 1: you say to employ you know, black and brown employees
Speaker 1: who want to work at the biggest companies in the world. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's you know, all to live in the Bay
Speaker 1: is not the chiepest place in the world live, you know,
Speaker 1: But I may be talented enough an engineer. Um. And
Speaker 1: then now you know, six months ago I had this opportunity.
Speaker 1: What happens when I want to work in some of
Speaker 1: the biggest places to have some of the biggest impact
Speaker 1: on the world via the technology perspective, and now they
Speaker 1: want me to uproot my family and I got to
Speaker 1: bring all of us to the Bay, or to New
Speaker 1: York or you know, think of a place. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: What I would say is to broaden actually the landscape here.
Speaker 1: You said, we want to work at the biggest companies.
Speaker 1: I'd say, why do you want to work at the
Speaker 1: biggest companies? There are lots of amazing companies with great
Speaker 1: brands that don't have to be the fan companies. And
Speaker 1: in fact, I think there's probably many, many opportunities that
Speaker 1: go under the radar for making impact, for propelling your
Speaker 1: career to having a great sense of culture. So I
Speaker 1: would broaden the broadens the scale to other sorts of companies.
Speaker 1: The second thing I'd say is negotiate um enable Sorry,
Speaker 1: first create optionality. Right, that one company wants you to move,
Speaker 1: that's a great time to look are other companies may
Speaker 1: be looking for me and allowing me to to to
Speaker 1: stay at home? I bet there are. Now you have
Speaker 1: some negotiating leverage. UM. And I think the other thing
Speaker 1: is Upgrooting your family is a big deal, and that
Speaker 1: support from a family is a big deal to one's happiness.
Speaker 1: UM to that serious consideration. The last thing I didn't
Speaker 1: say is they're definitely conversations I've had with folks, and
Speaker 1: the market is now kind of a little soft, right,
Speaker 1: there's some some layoffs happening, slowing down hiring. I think
Speaker 1: it's an opportunity to sort of take stock and say,
Speaker 1: what is it that I'm trying to do with my career,
Speaker 1: and how can certain companies advance the ball in this situation,
Speaker 1: because sometimes it might be great to take that one
Speaker 1: year thing up your family for a year, get the brand,
Speaker 1: get the money, and then go to another company. UM.
Speaker 1: So I think brought in the opportunities is the is
Speaker 1: the message and broaden your options so you're not just
Speaker 1: locked into one way of advancing your career. There are
Speaker 1: many ways to advance career. Um. A couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: you guys embraced UH salary transparency and and one I
Speaker 1: want you to talk about why, why that's important or
Speaker 1: was important for you guys, and steps to doing that
Speaker 1: well because I imagine there's um a large opportunity there
Speaker 1: to cause more ruckis in the beginning, you know, especially
Speaker 1: in the beginning, but what are the lasting implications of
Speaker 1: doing that both on the positive hie and negative side
Speaker 1: and steps to doing it well? Yeah, So just for context,
Speaker 1: we did it in two thousand secent team. So it's
Speaker 1: been in place since then. The reason we did it
Speaker 1: was for equity, for racial and gender equity. Lots of
Speaker 1: great companies, lots of bad companies. We're paying people different
Speaker 1: depending on their gender. Lots of well intentioned companies didn't
Speaker 1: want to do that, but they allowed for some negotiation.
Speaker 1: And so for example of you are are if you
Speaker 1: negotiate a five percent higher salary than I do, right
Speaker 1: for the same position, same work. Five years later, you've
Speaker 1: done fantastic work, You've both got on promotions and both
Speaker 1: got a tent bump every single year. That difference than amplifies. Right,
Speaker 1: that's the problem. And then five years later you have
Speaker 1: a company that says the employee says, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I'm being paid how much less? Now the company has
Speaker 1: lost a valuable employee with all the institutional memory that problem.
Speaker 1: So we want to avoid that, And the quickest way
Speaker 1: we wanted to do it was say, let's make it transparent.
Speaker 1: Let's make internally transparent, and then let's go through a
Speaker 1: process for engaging our employees to make that happen so
Speaker 1: that there isn't a ruckus. So what we did, basically,
Speaker 1: I just it's it's actually in the book fairly explicitly.
Speaker 1: There's a step by step process that we use that
Speaker 1: anybody can follow. But the first thing we did was
Speaker 1: really simple, are you gonna leave if we make our
Speaker 1: salaries transparent? At nine don t? People said no, well
Speaker 1: not and one person I'm a little uncomfortable, but let's
Speaker 1: go for it, right, So that's the first thing. The
Speaker 1: second thing was we involved them in the solution. So
Speaker 1: there's lots of reasonch to do. Is this the right solving?
Speaker 1: Are there other alternatives? What other companies are doing this?
Speaker 1: But we had a committee based on leadership and employees
Speaker 1: that participated. Why does that matter because they're gonna bring
Speaker 1: different perspectives than I would and whatever solution we come
Speaker 1: up with they're going to participate in. That's going to
Speaker 1: enable people to feel like, yeah, I designed this. Finally,
Speaker 1: the big actually the big part of the work. We
Speaker 1: didn't have our leveling and we didn't have our rubrics
Speaker 1: very well laid out. That took of a seven month process.
Speaker 1: That took about four and a half months to do that. Right,
Speaker 1: any come you should have that anyway, regardless of whether
Speaker 1: good salary transparent or not. By the time we announced
Speaker 1: it for seven months. The reaction was basically a whole
Speaker 1: hump because we brought everybody along for the ride. Um.
Speaker 1: We also did one other thing that is a fun piece.
Speaker 1: It's called the pre Mortem. I talked about it in
Speaker 1: the book as well, and it's basically a technique to
Speaker 1: basically it's a technique to enable you to project into
Speaker 1: the future and try and avoid problems. So the quick
Speaker 1: question you ask is we did this, okay, team, it's
Speaker 1: three months, three weeks before launch. I want you to
Speaker 1: project nine months down the road. The thing is launched,
Speaker 1: It reached all the people, etcetera, etcetera. In nine months.
Speaker 1: It is a complete disaster. Everything's gone wrong. Everybody hates us,
Speaker 1: We've lost customers. Blah blah blah blah blah. What went wrong? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I usually start by saying, yeah, it was me.
Speaker 1: I wasn't paying attention. I didn't answer that phone called
Speaker 1: us slator. Spot right. It loosens people up a little
Speaker 1: bit because what you're trying to do is have people
Speaker 1: to be creative. Dan, it starts to come out, well,
Speaker 1: we didn't that stay colder, We didn't talk to this person,
Speaker 1: We didn't talk to oh, we forgot this step. Once
Speaker 1: you gather a bunch of those, you work backwards. So
Speaker 1: how could we mitigate that possibility? It is amazing how
Speaker 1: many things come up that you, even the most diligent
Speaker 1: person did not think of because they didn't imagine the
Speaker 1: failure case down the road. So that's what we did
Speaker 1: with the salary recordees. But I'm sorry, I pay transparency
Speaker 1: as well. UM. So we tested this thing and we
Speaker 1: iterated it, and we continue to iterate to this day. UM.
Speaker 1: I liked what you just brought up, but the pre
Speaker 1: mortems because it blans very well into this next question.
Speaker 1: Is you know you guys were remote even before COVID
Speaker 1: you talked about twelve you guys were fully remote, Um,
Speaker 1: and there was obviously some forward thinking there and so
Speaker 1: others can be f We're thinking, what was the insight
Speaker 1: you had back then about being fully remote hiring people
Speaker 1: from all over the world so that other people can
Speaker 1: try to figure out ways they can be UM successful
Speaker 1: when they actually write that pre mortal Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great question. Um, we decided to go fully
Speaker 1: remote to solve a problem. Kind of going back to
Speaker 1: your entrepreneur opportunity question, My first co founder and I
Speaker 1: Mark invited our third co founder, Jem be part of
Speaker 1: the team to be official co founder. She gave us
Speaker 1: an answer that we didn't expect. I'd love to join,
Speaker 1: but my husband just got a fellowship to be in
Speaker 1: the Balkans and in Western Europe and in Scotland for
Speaker 1: the next eighteen months on a fellowship. Can we work
Speaker 1: that out? And I like that is that what I expected?
Speaker 1: But okay, let's start to figure it out. The solution
Speaker 1: we came up was really straightforward, Um, show up on time,
Speaker 1: get a get an airbnb or a place you're renting
Speaker 1: that has great WiFi, and make our work transparent. Those
Speaker 1: are three things, and then we just said let's roll
Speaker 1: with it and see what happens from there. We started
Speaker 1: to develop, oh, okay, here's better ways to display the work,
Speaker 1: and then we started to say, how can we involve
Speaker 1: other people in the solution. Well, all of those things
Speaker 1: are scalable, so but show up on meetings sometimes. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're using Pivotal tracker display or work. Now there's mirror,
Speaker 1: and there's all this Asana and all these other places. Um,
Speaker 1: and get good WiFi. So it was sort of a
Speaker 1: problem solving exercise that we then could scale and that
Speaker 1: we can share and it's sustainable, and that's really where
Speaker 1: it started from. And we've had to build things of
Speaker 1: course in the meantime, but I think that's what the
Speaker 1: corporate So I think the message entrepreneurs is, what are
Speaker 1: problems that you can solve simply and quickly and make
Speaker 1: them experiments And it could be anything from HR to
Speaker 1: remote to a product idea and then just try it
Speaker 1: out and then learn and trash it and do the
Speaker 1: next thing if if that doesn't work. Black Tech Green
Speaker 1: Money is the production of Black Vity Afro Tech on
Speaker 1: the Black Effect podcast Network and i Heeart Media. Is
Speaker 1: produced by Morgan Dubon and Me with Lucas, with additional
Speaker 1: productive supported by Love Beach and Rose mc lucas. Especially
Speaker 1: thank you to Michael Davis if neces Serrano. Learn about
Speaker 1: my guests and other tech this focus and innovatives at
Speaker 1: afro tech dot com. Video version of this episode. We'll
Speaker 1: drop the Black Tech Green Money on YouTube next week,
Speaker 1: so tap in, enjoy your Black Tech Green Money, share
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Speaker 1: four