WEBVTT - EYL #215 Robert Smith on Being The Richest Black American, Wealth, HBCUs, & Private Equity 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:03.600 An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child 0:00:03.680 --> 0:00:07.480 in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:11.840 accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:15.840 filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.680 some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:23.320 Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:28.120 Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:31.680 crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:34.960 one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:38.920 are here illegally, your next you will be fined nearly 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:43.000 one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported. You will 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.680 never return. But if you register using our CBP home 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.120 app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally. 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:55.240 Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws, 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:57.400 border and families will. 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.000 Be protected sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security. 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:04.480 So it might take you ten years to figure out 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:08.679 what we've done forty five times already, right, and now 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:12.200 I bring that intellectual property into the company and say 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:14.800 here's how we're going to design this a little differently. 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:17.280 Here's how we're going to change your compensation plans for 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:20.840 your salespeople to actually incentivize them to give you more 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:25.320 stable revenues or or or you know, more visibility into 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:27.959 the future revenues and earnings of that business that you 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.039 may not have figured out or may not figure out 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:32.920 because you may not be in an environment a circle 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:36.240 of people who have dealt with that before. And so 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:40.720 that's why the expertise that we bring is often more 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:42.000 valuable than the capital. 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:49.559 My graduates from my school being forced bad drop drop 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:52.600 might drop bad drop drop. 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:05.520 All right, guys, welcome back, e y L. This is 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:07.240 a very special episode. 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:08.760 Let's call it the Icon Adition. 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:10.720 It's also the earliest episode that we never. 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:15.000 Oh, I thought it was your this early well, I. 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:17.440 Mean once we got the toime slot make it work 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:22.720 up twenty four hours so and I did get the memo. 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:28.840 Well you didn't get Brandy. 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:34.200 Yes, the blue blazer with the reepeace suit. 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:36.600 Look, yes, this is the brand. This is the new brand. 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:41.160 That's the new brand, This new brand, the Icon addition brand, rebrand. 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:43.240 It's called it's called rebrand. 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:48.360 So you know this this is it's a it's a 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:52.680 very full circle moment for us, because I think probably 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:56.360 three maybe four years ago, right, So a lot of 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:58.800 this started for us on social media on my Instagram, 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:02.200 and I used to write a lot like write like blogs, 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:04.919 but I put it on Instagram, so I would write 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:06.799 about a whole bunch of different topics. And one of 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:09.240 the topics that I wrote about was you. You had 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:13.680 an art you had a cover of Forbes and thinking, 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:15.840 my yet like three or four years ago, so I 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:19.040 put the cover up and then I wrote like a 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:24.120 three page, three paragraph description of the whole situation. And 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:27.440 then my whole point of it was at that time, specifically, 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:29.440 I didn't feel that enough people knew who you were. 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.160 I remember, I remember that, you remember it. I remember 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.400 that he said you got to meet this guy. 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.320 That's great, that's crazy. So so you know, I was 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:41.640 real passionate. I kind of like, you know, we put 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:43.920 too much emphasis on sports entertainment, and you know, but 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:48.320 this is the most wealthiest black person in American history, 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:49.640 and a lot of people don't know who is. 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.600 So long story short, fast forward. 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:55.440 Now I think a lot of people do know, especially 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:59.440 after the Morehouse situation. We'll talk about that, but still 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:04.600 and still and still. The wealthiest Black person in America. 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:06.560 Four years ago was true four years later, still. 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:08.760 And still. 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:15.280 That's an accomplishment and not through sports or entertainment. I 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:17.839 think that that's something that's extremely important, especially for young people, 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:20.640 to understand that, you know, you can reach levels of 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:23.960 success in our culture and our communities and not necessarily 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:25.719 do it through sports and entertainment. 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:27.200 I think that was one of the pillars that when 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:29.839 we started, was like, let's show everybody what they can be, 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:31.880 the possibilities in the realms of things, they can be 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:34.440 outside of those through things which we knew that we 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.480 could be great at. But let's show I'm somebody who's 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.599 doing something that's far beyond that and it's succeeding at 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:40.560 a different level as well. 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:43.120 So definitely one of the pillars of Ernalisia. 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:43.640 Yeah. 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:48.400 So Robert Smith, CEO and founder of Vista Equity Fund. 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.640 He is actually a very prolific person because if you 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.800 read his bio, it's like forty five different things. He's 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:01.400 a chairman of Carnegie Hall. Yes, he's a family man. 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:03.840 That's probably the most That's what I should have said. 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:04.200 First. 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:07.599 He used to he used to do a variety of 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.120 different things. So he used to be an engineer and 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.080 then he used to actually work on the corporate side 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:16.240 for financing as well. So it's an extremely impressive background 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:20.280 because most engineers that that doesn't usually mix. That's like, 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:24.680 you know what I'm saying, a weird combinations. Yeah, yeah, 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:27.320 Wall Street and engineers, like at the same time, he 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:28.800 could build your house and give you finance. 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:31.280 It's a little it's a little closer than you think. 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:34.480 Unpack some of that, Okay, but this is going to 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.960 be a very dynamic conversation, something that you know, extremely 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:40.520 excited about. And I gotta tell this story. I told 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:42.919 this story in La but this is something that I 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:45.040 think is very important to tell because the. 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:49.200 First time that we met him was in Harlem and uh. 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:53.200 Guy Steve Harvey, So he invited us and you were 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:54.800 doing something for colon cancer. 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:59.000 I believe for African American man cancer. 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:02.600 So it was something that you know, I always remembered 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:04.760 that moment because it was in the projects and Wagnant 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:09.080 Projects in Harlem, and that's where he chose to actually 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:11.960 do that and educate and he brought a bunch of 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:14.680 celebrities out and that was something that was very impressive 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:17.880 to me because it wasn't on Wall Street, it wasn't 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:20.760 you know, in Times Square. It was you could tell 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:23.240 that it was really for the community, and it was 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:25.120 really a community based initiative. 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:26.400 And we'll talk about that as well. 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:29.880 And when we met him, you know, we obviously are 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:31.680 introducing ourselves and the first thing he said to us 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:32.440 is I love you guys. 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:34.640 So I don't even think we got to say who 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:34.920 we were. 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:36.120 Yeah, it was like. 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:43.039 So his his humility was infectious and still is and 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.920 you know, his charitable arms is just a million miles long. 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:50.240 So I wanted the public to know that because a 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:52.599 lot of times people don't know different things that happen. 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:55.560 And it's not for you to say that, but it 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.440 is for us to champion that, and that's that's important. 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:00.920 So that's important to me. Yeah, and us telling our 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:05.520 own story. So you you play a very important role 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.160 in part in our community. It's not just the education 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:13.200 of our community about our community, but helping us understand 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:16.240 how to uplift each other. And you know, our community 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:19.720 gets attacked from all sides for multiple reasons, but it 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:21.440 has to be it has to come down to our 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.640 community defending our community. In that context, you guys pay 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:28.119 a very important role. And as dynamic is the media 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.120 is today, your role is even more important. So keep 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:32.840 doing what you're doing and keep leaning in hard. 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:34.040 Thank you, Thank you. 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:35.720 So that was an amazing moment. 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:38.560 Thank you for joining us. Okay, we can get to it. 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:41.640 So you grew up in Denver, Yeah, in a very 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:44.640 diverse neighborhood. Is they call it the Harlem of the West? 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:46.880 Is that what they? Yeah? Five points? Yeah, can you 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:51.320 talk about that? Yeah? Sure. You know, we as African 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:55.960 Americans have had just an interesting journey and you know, 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:59.160 in points in time you can kind of frame where 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:03.800 different things happened to our community, and you know, things 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:06.600 that we did of our community. And the thing I 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:09.640 always point to is our not only resilience, but the 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:13.920 ability to create and create things new and influence and change. 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:17.440 I mean, a lot of American culture is coming out 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.800 of our experiences, and music, of course, is one of 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:24.440 the principal drivers of that. You know, I always say 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:26.320 I grew up in a beloved community, and you know, 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:28.320 it sounds like you guys grew up in that as well, 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:33.720 a place where in my case it was completely segregated community. 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:36.480 But you know the needs of the children in that 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:39.800 community were being satisfied by the adults in that community. 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:43.599 In those needs of love and guidance and instruction and 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.320 everything from learning how to play at the piano to 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:50.000 learning about science and in my case like rocketry and 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:52.640 in learning sports. I mean that came from the members 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.880 of our community. But you also saw the adults in 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:59.520 that community defend the community and also try to make 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.280 more progress. And the Five Points area is the area 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.920 one of the first areas that was settled by African 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:13.760 Americans in Colorado as we moved across this country, and 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:16.559 typically it was you know, at the end of you know, 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:24.960 the emancipation period. My family, many of them went into Pueblo, Colorado, 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:28.720 but they came from you know, Oklahoma or Tennessee, right, 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:31.880 and you guys are all familiar with Greenwood, and part 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:34.240 of our family tree comes out of there. Some of 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:37.000 them actually owned the you know, one of the pool 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.640 halls and one of the one of the hardware stores. 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:42.520 And as that happened in the early nineteen hundreds in 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:46.160 that massacre, they moved into Pueblo, Colorado and then from there. 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:49.360 So I'm fourth generation from Colorado, and so my family 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:54.240 are families of teachers and educators and nurses and doctors. 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:58.280 Think about that, right, you know, providing I'm the fourth 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.600 generation of my family to go to college. Wow, right, 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:04.400 There's very few families in America where it's fours generations 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:08.000 that have gone to college. And so what I saw 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:11.240 growing up was a community that had a lot of 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:14.000 wholeness but was again being attacked on any size. But 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.280 I saw the adults like my parents, my father and 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:20.920 my mother, you know, pulled together organizations not just a 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:23.480 fan to defend, but to advance. And one of the 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:26.720 most important areas of advancement was of course education. You know, 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:31.880 being educated it was critically important to success and to 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:37.160 creating you know, financial opportunity and to frankly create stability 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:41.360 in the community. Both my parents were teachers, elementary school teachers. 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:43.880 They both ultimately ended up getting doctorates in education, both 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:47.560 in them being principles. But I look also to the 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.520 work they did civically in our in our in our family. 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:52.679 Back then, it snowed a lot in Denver. You know, 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:54.679 it's the whole climate change dynamic. I don't think we're 0:10:54.800 --> 0:11:00.080 addressing in this. We can do another. And so so 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:03.559 we as kids always got excited about snow days, right 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:07.440 and stay home. Our parents didn't why because at that time, 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.000 our neighborhood wouldn't get the snowplow to come through it 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:14.160 for three or four days after it's snow. Now you 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:16.960 think about it, where your parents are trying to go 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:19.520 to work, but they can't even get down the street. 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:21.400 They can't get to the bus stop, they can't. You know, 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:23.920 for those of us who had cars, you couldn't even 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.040 drive because it was just snowed in. So I saw 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.760 my father lead an effort and it created a civic 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:35.280 association and they literally went and campaigned and lobbied so 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:38.360 that we at least got snowplows the same day as 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:43.080 other communities in you know, in our city. I remember, 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:45.520 and then they put one stripe. They'd come down and 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.400 do one stripe down the main street, and we still 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:49.640 had to get to the main street and you would 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:52.440 get out and then okay, great, we got on a 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:55.120 bus to go across town because they were desegregating schools 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:58.480 using bussing, and we'll talk about that in a minute. 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:01.120 And you'd go to the neighborhood where the better resource 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:04.680 school inner streets were clean and dry, snowpiled up on 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:06.840 the side are gone, and are still had just one 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:12.439 strip down the center. So when you talk about economic disadvantage, 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:19.920 systemic economic oppression, these are the things that you don't 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:23.040 think about on the one hand, but if your community 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:26.080 can't get to work, it has a major impact. And 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:28.240 we had a lot of wage workers, so it wasn't like, oh, 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:30.040 everybody was on salary. You were wage workers. If you 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:31.960 didn't show up that day, you didn't get paid that day. 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:33.360 If you didn't get paid that day, you were now 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.640 trying to figure out how to you know, make groceries 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:38.760 and pay pay you know, ensure that your kids ate 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:42.640 or clothed and those sort of things. And I saw 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:44.960 the community say this, we're that's not going to stand 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:47.360 right and make take a stand of that. I saw 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:52.680 my father also pull together resources so our local y MCA, 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:56.840 our kids had a chance to go to summer camps 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:00.240 and to go into the mountains, and we raised money 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:03.200 to build a gym so we could actually have a place, 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:06.280 you know, where our kids could actually you know, recreate 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:10.480 in peace and also with facilities. But it was them 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.320 taking that on and making a community project in us. 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:16.400 You know, going out and selling candy and all that, 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:19.079 you know, to to ensure that that happened. And it 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:23.000 was i'll call it a spirit of self determination that 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:27.480 very much was part of the fabric of that community. 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.640 And you saw people looking out for the kids. That 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:35.800 wasn't perfect, like everything, you know, nothing is perfect, but 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:39.640 you felt loved, you felt cared for it, you felt protected, 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:43.840 and you saw adults coming together for the betterment of 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:49.880 that community, not episodically when something bad happened, but on 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:54.000 a regular basis. And that's what I remember, and those 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:57.200 are the things that really inform how I like to 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:00.199 live my life. And I have an opportunit do it 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:04.439 a little bigger platform than growing up there. But it's 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.560 also i'll call it rich with community life. You know, 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.280 the music, the you know, we'd have the Friday night 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:12.199 fish fries and you guys too young members. We used 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:15.720 to do these people take slide pictures on slides and 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:17.400 slide projector you guys left. 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:20.160 You don't know, I know, I know, I feel like 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.520 that happened in elementary school slide projected. 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:24.479 Yeah. 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.240 Well yeah, but but but people would go to people's 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:32.440 homes and you know, bring food and pot lucks and 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:36.800 watch slide projectors of people's what they did that summer, 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:40.200 and and then of course play cards and you know, 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:42.920 you know, drink whiskey and soda, pop it all but 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:46.600 and play music. And I mean that's it was very vibrant. 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:48.760 And I just remember that. And that wasn't like, like 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:51.400 I said, episodic. That was kind of just the way 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:53.480 we lived. So it was actually it was actually pretty cool. 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:56.920 It sounds like I mean, just having the foundation set, 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:00.040 like you said, most of us don't come from, you know, 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:02.920 families that went to college. You had two educators in 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:05.600 the home. You spoke about that, the impact your dad had. 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.280 I remember hearing the stories about the impact that your 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:11.880 mom writing the checks to the United Negro College Fund 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:13.920 and what that profound impact had on you. 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:15.600 I want to talk about that a little bit. 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:18.160 And Bus thirteen, like you kind of alluded to it, 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:21.720 but the importance of that and how you know, having 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:24.160 one bus in the community and the impact that that 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:27.520 had on you, and also the future of some of 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:29.960 the people that were on that bus and how you 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:31.760 know they excelled as opposed to the people who didn't 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:31.920 make it. 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:32.560 Can you tell about that? 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:34.680 Yeah, And it's you know again, it's kind of the 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:41.280 great segue into you know, the importance of resources in 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:46.120 a community and the importance of guidance in that context. 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:48.080 You know, we were at a time it was a 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:53.640 dawning of uh call it the civil rights movement in action. 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:55.760 So you know, there were there were you know, we 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:57.720 spilled a lot of blood, and a lot of our 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.200 blood was spilled in the streets. And one of the 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:02.760 things we got out of it was Brown versus Board 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:05.480 of Education. And now I was like, okay, now we're 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.240 going to desegregate schools. How are you gonna do that 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.680 when everybody lives in segregating neighborhoods. So it was in 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.840 Denver many other places. It was a thing called bussing, right, 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:17.400 they called it force bussing, but it was bussing. And 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:20.400 so now you know, the cities took here. They bought 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.800 a bunch of busses, started figuring out, Okay, who from 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.480 this community, who goes to this local school? My dad 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:29.080 was a principal at the local school, and now you're 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:32.800 going to rebust across town to another school. All right, Well, 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.640 right before this was to happen, some racists didn't think 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:38.800 This was a good idea and burned like a third 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:39.720 of the buses. 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:45.000 Ernes what's up, look Cardier, Rolex, Gucci, Prouda, Jordan, Adidas, 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:48.800 Potega Veneda at eBay. It's real or it's getting the 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:52.160 fake out ebased team of luxury authenticators and making sure 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:56.680 you never get faked over again. Watches inspected by watch officionados, 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:01.240 sneakers checked by legit sneakerheads, handbags of zam by handback connoisseurs, 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:06.040 and jewelry in the scopes of expert gemologists. 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Everyone deserves real physitebay dot com 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:44.879 for terms. 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:48.840 Okay, so now all of a sudden, fewer people are 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:51.040 going to get busted, just as real nature. So rather 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:55.240 than my whole neighborhood getting bussed, only one bus came 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:58.200 to my neighborhood, and so just so happened to hit 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:01.000 on a corner down the block for me. And so 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.000 the kids in that four block radius were the first 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:07.800 ones to go to desegregated schools. Okay, and I got 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.560 talked about better resource schools. And when I look at 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:15.880 the kids who were on that bus versus the kids 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.880 who were two blocks away, okay, when it was bus 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:23.960 number thirteen, like I say, ironically right, it was those 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:30.720 kids have a higher percentage of professionals went to Ivy 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:36.720 League schools became you know, doctors and professors and scientists 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:40.040 versus a blocks of just a few blocks away. How 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:42.400 much down there were some professionals that came out of there, 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:45.480 but a much lower percentage. I mean, it is a 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:50.000 stark contrast. And it's because that K in that case 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:55.199 K through six education was so different than what you 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:58.479 saw in our local neighborhoods and because they were still 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:01.800 you know, separate, equal, but it wasn't you see, to 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:05.880 mean the teaching, the capacity, the care, you know. And 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:11.439 we had some phenomenal teachers in our community, and some 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.639 of the teachers through that also ended up in those 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:17.000 better resource schools because it was that as well. And 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:20.720 I remember Missus Olivier third grade teacher, African American woman 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:23.760 and you could only after American teacher in that school, 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:28.760 but she looked at for every kid of color in 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:31.199 that school. And I'm telling you that's one of the 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:35.639 most important things that made a huge difference in our 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.760 educational upbringing and gave us a chance to launch and 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:41.240 go into the high schools and go into the colleges 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:43.920 that we ended up in because we had great fundamental 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:45.040 education K through six. 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:49.240 So I want to get into how you've actually built 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:51.840 what you have acquired, but I want to start with 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:55.199 your engineering career. So you was at Craft and you 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:57.679 were at Goodyear as an engineer, yeah, and then you 0:19:57.760 --> 0:19:59.240 transitioned to go them in sex. 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.320 So can you talk about that, like how did that? 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:03.280 How did you go. 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:06.120 From being an engineer from Craft and Goodman and Goodyear 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:10.439 to being an investment banking world of Goldman Sex. 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:14.639 Yeah, and a point to the importance of media. Okay, 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:17.960 So I will get into later kind of what this 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.200 is and how the engineering informs all that we do 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:26.720 and has created the enterprise that it is that can 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:31.320 grow at scale sustainably because of the engineering background, mindset 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:36.600 and design points. But the transition came from media. Okay. 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:40.199 So at the time, I was an engineer working in 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.720 a plant in upstate New York for Goodyear Time Rubber Facility, 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:49.080 and I had a collection of friends and we would 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:52.160 get together. We'd read I mean, like, okay, we weren't 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:55.000 just watching football because you know, we had a book club, 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:57.480 but to African Americans, you know, we had a book 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:02.240 club back then, reading different things. And one of the 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:06.480 guys brought to kind of the book club a Black 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:11.960 enterprise magazine and on that were a bunch of blacks 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:14.800 on Wall Street the first time, like, well what is 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:16.760 Wall Street? Because I was I had no idea what 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:20.399 Wall Street was. And they had all these guys on 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:22.359 Wall Street and it had you know guy you know, 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.399 John Newton Dahl, this guy you know, Ray McGuire and 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:29.640 Stan O'Neill and George Vanantum and and I'm like, well, 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:32.080 who are these cats, and what's this Wall Street all about? 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:34.159 And why are they undercovers this magazine? Right? What's that? 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:38.080 And so we start reading and understanding and talking about it. 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:40.760 I mean that's importance of community too, where you can 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.879 kind of bounce some ideas off and what's this all about? 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:47.439 And started really understanding that there was a whole different 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.840 world outside of engineering, which is what I thought the 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:55.080 world was, right, And so I started thinking about, well, 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:58.280