Speaker 1: Pushkin Getting Even is produced by Pushkin Industries. Subscribe to
Speaker 1: Pushkin Plus and you can hear Getting Even and other
Speaker 1: Pushkin shows add free and receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign
Speaker 1: up on the Getting Even show page in Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or at pushkin dot fm. Anybody can invest their own
Speaker 1: money and be a part of this revolution and be
Speaker 1: a part of innovation in a part of the future.
Speaker 1: It belongs to every single one of us. That's Arlin Hamilton,
Speaker 1: founder of the Backstage Capital Fund. Breaking into Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: isn't easy, especially for a black woman in the United States,
Speaker 1: and an ordinate share of industry funding goes to white men.
Speaker 1: Hamilton was living in Texas working as a tour manager
Speaker 1: for musicians like Tony Braxton and Kirk Franklin, and then
Speaker 1: she got turned on to venture capital. I was thirty
Speaker 1: thirty one, and I started getting the bug a little bit,
Speaker 1: just seeing it here and there, learning a little bit
Speaker 1: here and there. And I did what I do when
Speaker 1: I get really interested in something, and I just devoured
Speaker 1: information because as broke as I was, you can't take
Speaker 1: away from me that ability to learn. Hamilton was relent bus.
Speaker 1: There were times when she didn't have enough food, and
Speaker 1: at one point she was homeless, but she never wavered.
Speaker 1: I was up against so much and it almost seemed impossible,
Speaker 1: and in fact, many people told me it was impossible,
Speaker 1: and many people laughed me out of rooms. But in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, she created Backstage Capital and Extraordinary Achievement and
Speaker 1: began her mission to invest in underrepresented funds and founders.
Speaker 1: I was talking to founders from all over the country
Speaker 1: who were building amazing things. And I don't think that
Speaker 1: the current investors that are out there would meet these founders,
Speaker 1: would even know where to find them. And that's why
Speaker 1: I knew for sure I needed to build this fund.
Speaker 1: I'm Anita Hill. This is Getting Even, my podcast about
Speaker 1: equality and what it takes to get there. On Getting Even,
Speaker 1: I speak with people who are improving, are imperfect world,
Speaker 1: people who took risks and broke the rules. In this episode,
Speaker 1: Arlen Hamilton and I discuss how she achieved immense success
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley, all the while challenging a system that
Speaker 1: excludes women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ community.
Speaker 1: There are some real basics that I want to hear about.
Speaker 1: It's sort of teach us a little bit about financing
Speaker 1: and venture capitalism one oh one. What is a venture capitalists? Well,
Speaker 1: a venture capitalist is someone essentially who takes a little
Speaker 1: bit of their money, but mostly other people's money, and
Speaker 1: that can be pension funds, could be high net worth individuals,
Speaker 1: family offices, etc. And they take that money and their
Speaker 1: job is to look for outstanding individual companies that are
Speaker 1: private and at different stages and hopefully turn that portfolio
Speaker 1: of investments into more for their limited partners, who are
Speaker 1: the ones that I just listed. And so their job
Speaker 1: is to hopefully see into the future a little bit
Speaker 1: and to make some really interesting bets. So you have
Speaker 1: to be a risk taker and you also have to
Speaker 1: be patient exactly, and I have an incredibly high tolerance
Speaker 1: for risk. And I also think in decades, not in quarters,
Speaker 1: and so that's part of what has made it possible
Speaker 1: for me to not only work in this industry, but
Speaker 1: to innovate within it. Wow. Well that's our first lesson
Speaker 1: thinking in decades, not in quarters. So you also have
Speaker 1: to learn some lingo. I know that there are certain
Speaker 1: terminologies that are out there that people refer to, like
Speaker 1: angel investing and impact investing. How did you get familiar
Speaker 1: with the language of this kind of enterprise. I read
Speaker 1: a lot. So I was in Parland in Texas, which
Speaker 1: is part of Houston, and I was thirty thirty one,
Speaker 1: and I started getting the bug a little bit, just
Speaker 1: seeing it here and there, learning a little bit here
Speaker 1: and there, and I did what I do when I
Speaker 1: get really interested in something, and I just voured information.
Speaker 1: Because as broke as I was, as much housing insecurity
Speaker 1: as I had and food insecurity as I had, you
Speaker 1: can't take away from me that ability to learn, and
Speaker 1: so it was it was almost kind of a power
Speaker 1: play for me too that I don't think I've ever
Speaker 1: really said. It was also this way of remaining in
Speaker 1: control having this information. So I thankfully had access to
Speaker 1: the internet, so I could read everything, you know, do
Speaker 1: all these searches and really not know what I was
Speaker 1: looking for, but kind of go through the vortex, you know,
Speaker 1: you get on YouTube where you go here or there
Speaker 1: and you just start looking. And then I would go
Speaker 1: to bookstores in the library and I would sit for
Speaker 1: hours and read. So I would just kind of learn
Speaker 1: that way, and I just paid attention to people too.
Speaker 1: So if I learned about a specific investor that was interesting,
Speaker 1: to me or said something, whether I agreed with it
Speaker 1: or not, I would follow that lead, almost like a journalist,
Speaker 1: and I would just continue really pulling at that thread
Speaker 1: and started reaching out to people. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of curiosity. Had you been that way since you were
Speaker 1: a child? Yes, yes, my mother would tell you, oh yes.
Speaker 1: I mean I think most children ask questions, But I
Speaker 1: was asking questions all day long from a very early age,
Speaker 1: and it was mostly what got me in a lot
Speaker 1: of trouble in school. Unfortunately. You know, when a tall
Speaker 1: black girl in the South is asking questions in school
Speaker 1: and disrupting class quote unquote, it's something different sometimes than
Speaker 1: it would be for others. But I would just question, Okay,
Speaker 1: I understand it's in the book. I understand that the
Speaker 1: books was written twenty years ago, but why is it
Speaker 1: necessarily still the case? You know, this is me in
Speaker 1: the fourth grade, you know, looking at why is it
Speaker 1: necessarily the end all be all? Just because it's in
Speaker 1: a book? Somewhere? I challenged and questioned everything. I questioned
Speaker 1: if someone was being treated poorly, why couldn't we make
Speaker 1: it different. It's just a constant throughout my life. I
Speaker 1: also wonder if you were thinking I want to find
Speaker 1: out those things that they're not teaching us, that maybe
Speaker 1: we're not even supposed to learn, which is why VC,
Speaker 1: you know, was interesting to you. Yes, No, you're definitely right.
Speaker 1: I just always had this sense of there's no room
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be allowed in. So if there's something that
Speaker 1: seems like it's really complex or it's for only a
Speaker 1: certain group of people, that's just a challenge to me.
Speaker 1: If I'm at all interested in it, that doesn't stop me.
Speaker 1: And it's my way of democratizing things. It's like having
Speaker 1: that information. Yeah, democratizing things means democratizing knowledge. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: So when you were doing your reading, were you thinking
Speaker 1: that you were going to become a venture capitalist? Where
Speaker 1: you thinking about a career shift at all? At the
Speaker 1: beginning of it, I was reading about venture capital so
Speaker 1: that I could know how to talk to venture capitalists
Speaker 1: once I started my own company. My original idea was
Speaker 1: to start a company in the tech space because I
Speaker 1: had always felt like an entrepreneur, and then when I
Speaker 1: learned about startups and venture capital and angel investing in
Speaker 1: all of those things, I thought, oh, this is where
Speaker 1: I have belonged my whole life, and didn't really understand
Speaker 1: it until now, and let me do the research to
Speaker 1: be prepared in these meetings that I'm of course going
Speaker 1: to have with venture capitalists. And so it was in
Speaker 1: that research when I came across these statistics after a
Speaker 1: little while, very early in the process, and I started
Speaker 1: reading more and learning about the beginnings, and I thought, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: so I probably can get into the room because I'll
Speaker 1: make a way, but I may not be welcome and
Speaker 1: I may not be followed by anybody else if I do.
Speaker 1: At least ninety percent of all venture capital in the
Speaker 1: United States goes to white men in a country where
Speaker 1: they make up less than one third of the country.
Speaker 1: So we got to change the whole system if I
Speaker 1: want to play in this arena. Wow. So that's a
Speaker 1: pretty big undertaking to think you having to change an
Speaker 1: entire system to be able to do what you wanted
Speaker 1: to do. But it sounds as though you were pretty
Speaker 1: clear that it was worth the risk, as you say,
Speaker 1: you're you have a tolerance for risk. Yeah, And when
Speaker 1: I think back on it now, I mean I was
Speaker 1: up against so much and it almost seemed impossible, and
Speaker 1: in fact, many people told me it was impossible, and
Speaker 1: many people laughed me out of rooms. There was one
Speaker 1: woman who told me in early twenty fifteen, after me
Speaker 1: working on this for like four years, I told her,
Speaker 1: I'm going invest in a hundred companies led by underrepresented
Speaker 1: founders by twenty twenty. I said that in twenty fifteen
Speaker 1: to her, she was in a place of privilege and
Speaker 1: I wanted to have a partnership with her. And she
Speaker 1: literally started laughing as she walked me out of her
Speaker 1: office and told me to come back when I was
Speaker 1: more realistic and skipping ahead just a bit. We reached
Speaker 1: one hundred investments in twenty eighteen. Right, and have you
Speaker 1: had a conversation with her? I couldn't pick her out
Speaker 1: of a lineup. I have no idea what her name
Speaker 1: was exactly, but I will bet that she could pick
Speaker 1: you out of a lineup today. Perhaps, what are the
Speaker 1: barriers that you faced when you were first trying to
Speaker 1: start your own VC firm and you'd moved from being
Speaker 1: a founder yourself to being someone who finances. I think
Speaker 1: a major part to understand is that not only was
Speaker 1: I trying to kind of walk into a place that
Speaker 1: wasn't bill for us, which most things weren't. I was
Speaker 1: also personally destitute. I don't mean that I was cute broke.
Speaker 1: I was broke broke. We you know, we didn't have
Speaker 1: money and it was a struggle for a long time,
Speaker 1: and every once in a while we get some money
Speaker 1: and you know, make that stretch for as long as
Speaker 1: we could. I ended up living essentially at the San
Speaker 1: Francisco Airport for a stretch in twenty fifteen and watching
Speaker 1: people walk by who I knew were investors. At the
Speaker 1: very beginning. Of course, people were brushing me off and
Speaker 1: kind of not really paying close attention. But I was
Speaker 1: also calling out the system, and in doing so, calling
Speaker 1: out various companies and firms. And even though I had
Speaker 1: this small platform, I started getting messages both direct and indirect,
Speaker 1: that I needed to shut up. And it was coming
Speaker 1: from someone who wanted to protect me and said, we
Speaker 1: don't do that. That's not how it works here. And
Speaker 1: it was also coming from people who thought that they
Speaker 1: could truly shut me up. They were making it very
Speaker 1: clear to me that, in their opinion, you don't go
Speaker 1: up against these titans of industry without their being a fallout.
Speaker 1: And they learned kind of earlier on that they couldn't
Speaker 1: silence me, but it did ruffle feathers and it I
Speaker 1: was just so surprised. I was honestly so shocked and
Speaker 1: surprised by it because I thought, all I'm doing is
Speaker 1: expressing my opinion. I don't have any power here. How
Speaker 1: in the world is it upsetting so many millionaires and
Speaker 1: billionaires that are successful, mostly white men, who could put
Speaker 1: their thumb down and kind of squash me. It was crazy,
Speaker 1: but I think it just showed just how fragile things
Speaker 1: really were. You know, there's a lot of money that
Speaker 1: flows in to Silicon Valley, and there are a lot
Speaker 1: of closed door decisions that are made that affect so
Speaker 1: many people. And I was sort of saying, you know,
Speaker 1: putting the spotlight and saying, hey, look over here, look
Speaker 1: what they're talking about, showing people like here, Okay, let
Speaker 1: me open up the blueprint for you. This is where
Speaker 1: you go, this is who you talk to, this is
Speaker 1: what this means. And if I'm able to do that
Speaker 1: without a college education, without any money, without any connections,
Speaker 1: homeless coming from nowhere, it must mean in their opinion,
Speaker 1: they're not as special as they've made themselves out to be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean so you were questioning the exceptionalism that they
Speaker 1: were trying to promote that was key to success. It
Speaker 1: seems to me that what you were doing was key
Speaker 1: to what you saw as the need for a systemic change. Yes,
Speaker 1: and so that's why you kept doing it. Oh. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I think if people hadn't been so against me doing it,
Speaker 1: I probably would have not proceeded. I probably would have said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've said my piece. I'm probably gonna go over here
Speaker 1: and I'll help a few people out and raise some
Speaker 1: money for my company. But when I started seeing people
Speaker 1: raging against it, in very powerful men writing to me
Speaker 1: or having their minions right to me or do whatever,
Speaker 1: I thought, Oh, there's something more here. There's definitely something
Speaker 1: that's being hidden. We're gonna keep going. I'm glad you're
Speaker 1: stuck in there. But you had, by that time moved
Speaker 1: from Houston to the Bay Area. Yeah. I had took
Speaker 1: a one way flight that I crowdsourced the money to
Speaker 1: get because I'd been accepted into a two week investor
Speaker 1: boot camp at Stanford and it was right before they
Speaker 1: were getting ready to like have a lot of women,
Speaker 1: you know, come out about things in Silicon Valley. But
Speaker 1: It was during a time where it was important to
Speaker 1: them to have more women represented at this boot camp,
Speaker 1: and so they took their twenty thousand dollars tuition down
Speaker 1: to ten thousand for women. So I found my way.
Speaker 1: I crowdsourced a third of that. I stayed in an
Speaker 1: airbnb for a few days, and then after the catered
Speaker 1: lunches at the boot camp, I found myself at the airport.
Speaker 1: You were physically sleeping at the airport, yes, How did
Speaker 1: you choose the airport? I was very specific about the airport.
Speaker 1: I wanted a place that was indoors for many reasons.
Speaker 1: I wanted a place that I thought, Okay, it's probably
Speaker 1: going to be embarrassing and I might have to explain
Speaker 1: myself a lot, but I also want to be safe
Speaker 1: as possible, and there's access to facilities, and so to me,
Speaker 1: I had to do this mentally. I said to myself,
Speaker 1: I am a traveler, the world traveler, and I've missed
Speaker 1: my flight, so I'm going to sleep on the floor
Speaker 1: of the airport tonight. And I said that to myself
Speaker 1: over and over again each day to make it possible
Speaker 1: to do. For most of us, two nights would have
Speaker 1: been about as much as we could do. But I
Speaker 1: guess when you're determined, you can figure out how to
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, it was a lot more than two nights,
Speaker 1: but I don't say the amount of time. I didn't
Speaker 1: count every day, but it was too long, so I
Speaker 1: don't really share it because I did have people rich
Speaker 1: people start to ask me, now, how homeless were you?
Speaker 1: Like literally, and I'm like enough, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: Like it was fun to find out or interesting in
Speaker 1: that way, and so I just started protecting myself and saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't know how homeless you This
Speaker 1: particular person needs me to be for it to be legitimate.
Speaker 1: But it was more than it needed to be, and
Speaker 1: it was for a long time, and it was alone.
Speaker 1: After the break, Arlin Hamilton and I discuss how she
Speaker 1: created her fund and grew it using her keen instincts
Speaker 1: and abilities to recognize great ideas and the innovative people
Speaker 1: behind them. You're listening to getting even. I'm Anita Hill.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking with investor Arlin Hamilton about how she started
Speaker 1: backstage capital of venture capital fund. Hamilton backs underrepresented and
Speaker 1: unlikely founders, democratizing who gets to be part of Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: So were you getting the information that you thought you
Speaker 1: would need to persuade investors that there were companies out
Speaker 1: there that could benefit from their money and that they
Speaker 1: could benefit from Yes. So I was talking to founders
Speaker 1: because I wanted to know my stuff. One of the
Speaker 1: first things I learned when I learned about venture capital
Speaker 1: was the phrase that deal flow is king, deal flow
Speaker 1: being what kind of companies do you have access to,
Speaker 1: who would let you invest in them? What are you seeing,
Speaker 1: what's the quality, etc. And that stuck with me and
Speaker 1: I said, well, if deal flow is king, I'm winning
Speaker 1: here because I'm seeing all of these companies. And I
Speaker 1: don't think that the current investors by and large that
Speaker 1: are out there would meet these founders, would even know
Speaker 1: where to find them. And I don't know if the
Speaker 1: founders would know how to get a call with the investors.
Speaker 1: So of course there's this really interesting gap that could
Speaker 1: be lucrative. So I was having those conversations. I was
Speaker 1: letting the founders know, Hey, I don't have a fund yet,
Speaker 1: but I'm raising one. So I was kind of establishing
Speaker 1: a track record a network and also realizing, oh, I
Speaker 1: have chops, I have a nose for this too, But
Speaker 1: you were doing all of this without the infrastructure that
Speaker 1: you now have. Correct So basically what was important was
Speaker 1: the work Exactly when you were first doing your work
Speaker 1: to find investors to find founders, were you experiencing any
Speaker 1: racism or sexism or both in those exchanges and finding founders. No,
Speaker 1: it was on the investor side, it really was. It's
Speaker 1: one of those things that it's hard to kind of
Speaker 1: show because it's all happening behind closed doors. But I
Speaker 1: remember getting a very late night phone call, probably two
Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen, after I had raised from a few
Speaker 1: interesting people, and this person was an early investor, a
Speaker 1: man with power, and he told me, Hey, I just
Speaker 1: want to let you know that I just left a meeting,
Speaker 1: like a closed door meeting, probably a poker game or
Speaker 1: something like that, and they were talking about you, and
Speaker 1: they were representing lots of different funds that you have
Speaker 1: to deal with, not only to raise from, but for
Speaker 1: your companies to raise from. And I want to say
Speaker 1: this as carefully as possible. They essentially put a hit
Speaker 1: on my fund. They put a no one's going to
Speaker 1: touch this fund. We're not going to let it succeed
Speaker 1: type of thing. Now, was that racist? Was that sexist?
Speaker 1: Was that very specific to meet? What was it? I
Speaker 1: don't know. And this person was telling me, and he
Speaker 1: was giving me a heads up because he had invested
Speaker 1: in I guess he just stayed silent in the room
Speaker 1: and I didn't ask him why he didn't say anything.
Speaker 1: But you know, it is what it is, and those
Speaker 1: types of things happen. And talking to the founders, people
Speaker 1: would tell me incredible things. Women would tell me about
Speaker 1: what male investors would dare say to them. I think
Speaker 1: people in public don't say as much to me blatantly
Speaker 1: because they know that I do have a platform. But
Speaker 1: founders will tell me that male investors have said things like,
Speaker 1: will invest in you if you don't get pregnant for
Speaker 1: the next couple of years so that you can focus
Speaker 1: on your company. You know, I've been in rooms with
Speaker 1: black women who have PhDs, who have all the chops
Speaker 1: in the world, who are generating revenue when there are
Speaker 1: some young white man who can raise ten million dollars
Speaker 1: off of an idea. And I've listened to the questions
Speaker 1: asked of these women. I've given a quick example. There
Speaker 1: is a woman who at the time I was in
Speaker 1: my early thirties and she was in her early forties.
Speaker 1: She was an adjunct professor at Stanford. I sent her deck,
Speaker 1: her pitch deck, which talks about her company, and I
Speaker 1: sent another They're from a white man and the guy
Speaker 1: had an idea, and she had a full fledged company,
Speaker 1: an invention with patents and was making money. And I
Speaker 1: got several emails back and with over a week's time
Speaker 1: from the people I sent it to, because I was
Speaker 1: sending it to mostly white men because that's who was
Speaker 1: writing checks, and almost all of them said, I'll take
Speaker 1: the meeting with this company, which was led by the guy,
Speaker 1: and for this company. They would say, I don't understand
Speaker 1: the market, so that I'm going to pass on this one.
Speaker 1: Now the market this was a product that was for
Speaker 1: hearing loss, so the market is for people who can
Speaker 1: hear and for people who cannot hear. It was for everyone.
Speaker 1: So you know, those subtle things add up. I call
Speaker 1: them papercuts. You know they add up. So my reaction
Speaker 1: to all of that was creating more success for myself
Speaker 1: and for the company. You seem very secure in who
Speaker 1: you are, but I wonder if you see a number
Speaker 1: of people who are kind of changing who they are
Speaker 1: to be more appealing. In some ways, it's code swishing
Speaker 1: or changing your personality or being something that you aren't
Speaker 1: in order to appeal to this very very limited thinking
Speaker 1: about who will be successful in business. Yes, absolutely, I've
Speaker 1: definitely seen it the entire time I've been in this industry.
Speaker 1: I see it today. I rail against it, and I
Speaker 1: often implore people not to do it. Especially in the
Speaker 1: early days. I thought, am I supposed to change the
Speaker 1: way I talk? Am I supposed to be quieter? Am
Speaker 1: I supposed to change the way I dress? Because I
Speaker 1: certainly don't dress the part. Am I supposed to do
Speaker 1: this or that? Or even aligned myself with certain people
Speaker 1: who I don't really respect but who can get me
Speaker 1: there faster. And even if I had a small inkling
Speaker 1: of this, I would reset and say, oh, no way
Speaker 1: on Earth, because it's just going to take longer and
Speaker 1: be more difficult. But I'm going to get there, and
Speaker 1: once I'm there, I have to be able to face myself.
Speaker 1: I've turned down lots of money, for instance, because I
Speaker 1: didn't think it was right to be in business with
Speaker 1: certain people, and so many people came before me and
Speaker 1: before us to make it, so so we should we
Speaker 1: owe it to them. We will owe it to ourselves.
Speaker 1: We owe it to the future generations not to do that.
Speaker 1: So let's they are a point where you've gotten maybe
Speaker 1: your first big VC inside or on your side, and
Speaker 1: you realize that the company's going to happen. Was it
Speaker 1: a moment or a series of things that happened that
Speaker 1: convinced you, Yeah, it was. It was a series of things.
Speaker 1: It wasn't one big moment. We had this moment where
Speaker 1: I went from the airport to actually being able to
Speaker 1: be in business, which was in September of twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: An angel investor named Susan Kimberlin stood up and gave
Speaker 1: me the first fifty thousand to get started after spending
Speaker 1: a few months getting to know me, not knowing about
Speaker 1: my personal situation. Another thing that does continue to stand
Speaker 1: out to me, which is Stuart Butterfield, the CEO co
Speaker 1: founder of Slack. He reached out to me on social
Speaker 1: and he said, hey, you know, I see what you're doing.
Speaker 1: We developed a quick friendship and he made an investment
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, put my name on the
Speaker 1: deck on the presentation, put my face on there. Whatever
Speaker 1: you need. Aaron Levy did the same thing from Box.
Speaker 1: They're definitely in this story some really interesting upstanding men,
Speaker 1: especially that I would have been surprised by. But the
Speaker 1: thing is they were founders who were successful, massively successful,
Speaker 1: who themselves work their way up, and I think that
Speaker 1: they got me. They saw me as a founder, they
Speaker 1: saw me as an entrepreneur more than anything, and maybe
Speaker 1: they saw that the system didn't need to be changed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I believe so. So you have Backstage Capital, and how
Speaker 1: did you come to name it Backstage Capital? My mother,
Speaker 1: missus Arline Butler Sims, she came up with her name.
Speaker 1: I just mentioned to her one night while we were
Speaker 1: in Periland and again broke. I said, I had this
Speaker 1: fund I'm putting together and it needs a name. And
Speaker 1: she didn't ask me, how are you gonna have a
Speaker 1: fund that doesn't make any sense? She said, oh, let
Speaker 1: me think about it. And she came back within ten
Speaker 1: minutes and said, how about backstage because you work with
Speaker 1: musicians on tour, you know, for concerts, and you help
Speaker 1: them get on stage, and maybe you can do that
Speaker 1: for the people you're working with here. And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's brilliant. I'm not gonna let her know how brilliant
Speaker 1: it is. But I said, oh, that's great, that's good.
Speaker 1: And then you know, every other week she's asking me,
Speaker 1: where's my fifteen I came up with a name, where's
Speaker 1: my fifteen percent? Well good, She'll keep reminding you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about the founders that you
Speaker 1: have helped. You call the people you support underestimated founders.
Speaker 1: How do you choose them? It's a gut reaction. It
Speaker 1: is a shift in the atmosphere when I see it.
Speaker 1: There's something called pattern matching right in VC and other
Speaker 1: places where a lot of times these are men pattern
Speaker 1: matching for Zuckerberg or Bassos or whomever. I'm doing pattern
Speaker 1: matching two. It's just a different pattern. So I'm looking
Speaker 1: for someone I call being hungry, not thirsty, and I
Speaker 1: want to back that person who can combine that with
Speaker 1: an incredible vision. If I can find something that is
Speaker 1: like game changing, and it would take me a decade
Speaker 1: or more to figure it out on my own, you're
Speaker 1: going to have my attention because I get to live
Speaker 1: through you. In that moment, my life gets to be fuller.
Speaker 1: In that moment, I have the best seat in the house.
Speaker 1: To innovation and you can want to grow exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you do something different from what other vcs do
Speaker 1: for your founders. I've had early conviction for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. I've seen the potential really early for a
Speaker 1: great deal of people, and I think that's what you're
Speaker 1: seeing now is like the fruits of that. And whether
Speaker 1: I had money at the time or not, I invested
Speaker 1: my belief in them. I believe that people are so
Speaker 1: capable of so many things. I represents hope for people
Speaker 1: that their current situation doesn't have to be what they
Speaker 1: are for the rest of their lives, or there is
Speaker 1: more for them. Yeah, I believe in them, which you
Speaker 1: encourage the people to throw the route that you do.
Speaker 1: What advice could you give? My thing is like, it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily the big deal is to become a venture capitalist.
Speaker 1: I never thought that that was the big deal and
Speaker 1: I still don't, right. The big deal is that over
Speaker 1: the next few years, people are going to become founders,
Speaker 1: and they're going to become entrepreneurs and start companies which
Speaker 1: are going to be amazing, and there are also people
Speaker 1: who will be able to invest in those companies as
Speaker 1: part of the crowd, not necessarily being a venture capitalist,
Speaker 1: but putting one hundred dollars fifty dollars a thousand dollars
Speaker 1: of their money into companies. So I say, anybody can
Speaker 1: be an angel investor. And I love angel investors because
Speaker 1: in groups, they are very powerful, and they're very savvy,
Speaker 1: and they have a perspective that most venture capitalists will
Speaker 1: never have. They just won't have that. So if you
Speaker 1: want to get into investing, there are many, many ways
Speaker 1: to do it, but just to know that, like the
Speaker 1: world is your oyster. When it comes to this, there's
Speaker 1: nobody standing at a gate telling you, Okay, you get
Speaker 1: to go do this as you're from this city, or
Speaker 1: you went to this school, or you're this race. There's
Speaker 1: no one there. It is yours for the taking. And
Speaker 1: just be intentional about the research and say why why
Speaker 1: would I want to do this? Is it because I
Speaker 1: think I'm going to get rich really fast? Because you won't.
Speaker 1: This is not a magic peal. But if you have
Speaker 1: conviction around certain things, if you have skill, if you
Speaker 1: have curiosity like I did, anybody can invest their own
Speaker 1: money and be a part of this revolution and be
Speaker 1: a part of innovation and a part of the future.
Speaker 1: It belongs to every single one of us. I really
Speaker 1: love your story. But I'm sure there are people who
Speaker 1: are out there who will argue that you're the exception,
Speaker 1: and you are, but they will also say that we
Speaker 1: can't expect that everybody's going to be able to do this,
Speaker 1: And it sounds to me like what you're saying is
Speaker 1: that you don't want everybody to have to go the
Speaker 1: route that you went. Oh no, nobody should have to.
Speaker 1: I have invested in personally in about twenty five funds
Speaker 1: now over the past three years that have a similar
Speaker 1: mandate and thesis to Backstage Capital my firm. Twenty four
Speaker 1: of them did not exist in twenty fifteen when I
Speaker 1: started Backstage, which means that we have in some way
Speaker 1: influenced dozens, if not hundreds of new firms to pop up.
Speaker 1: And that's amazing. And I know them because I've invested
Speaker 1: in them. Not each of them had to go through
Speaker 1: what I did. There's a little bit easier, to call
Speaker 1: it loosening the pickle jar. It's a little bit easier
Speaker 1: each time. So I think that there's a lot to
Speaker 1: look forward to. We have some more surprises up our sleeve.
Speaker 1: Oh god, I'm sure you do, and I'll be curious
Speaker 1: to hear about them. The name of the podcast is
Speaker 1: getting even. How would you define parody in venture capitalism?
Speaker 1: Oh well, I mean, I think the idea of walking
Speaker 1: into a room or being on a cap table, which
Speaker 1: is like a list of investors and a fund, being
Speaker 1: in a deal and it just looking like the demographics
Speaker 1: of the country, you know, I think that would in
Speaker 1: itself be parody, that it was effortless rather than so
Speaker 1: labored just to get into the room, just to get
Speaker 1: into the deal, just to have exposure, because it just
Speaker 1: feeds on itself over and over again. The PayPal mafia
Speaker 1: then goes on to invest in Facebook, then goes on
Speaker 1: to invest in this, and that feeding onto itself. I
Speaker 1: just want to see that more spread out, more democratic. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: why should people outside of Silicone Valley care about venture
Speaker 1: capital firms? So many of the biggest companies in the country,
Speaker 1: in the world are VC backed, and there were very
Speaker 1: specific people who made a decision to invest in them,
Speaker 1: who win off of their winds, and then there are
Speaker 1: very few people who are those founders who are backed.
Speaker 1: We have the opportunity to change the face of innovation.
Speaker 1: To add to it that in itself. If you're talking
Speaker 1: about generational wealth, you're talking about today's wealth, like that's
Speaker 1: really important too. We talk about generational wealth, but I
Speaker 1: talk about right now. You also talk about influence and
Speaker 1: power comes from money a lot of times, and I
Speaker 1: honestly believe that if there are more rich black people,
Speaker 1: for instance, I don't think we would be seeing public
Speaker 1: executions of black men on television. And then down to
Speaker 1: the other side of the spectrum, which is there is
Speaker 1: a video that many of us have seen of two
Speaker 1: black hands under a soap dispenser, and the soap dispenser,
Speaker 1: which is like automated, does not recognize the black hands.
Speaker 1: This is happening in autonomous vehicles and other types of things. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I want the cars
Speaker 1: to see me at the sidewalk when I'm walking across
Speaker 1: the street. I want autonomous vehicles of the future, which
Speaker 1: there will be there already are some. I want them
Speaker 1: to see me. And the reason that these things happen
Speaker 1: is because who was in the room when it was
Speaker 1: being built. We need to be in the rooms when
Speaker 1: this is being built. We need to be making decisions.
Speaker 1: A lot of the decisions come from the founders and
Speaker 1: from their backers, and so you just wonder if there
Speaker 1: had been a dark scanned person like myself in the room,
Speaker 1: who could have been in there, who would have asked,
Speaker 1: have you tested this for all scan colors exactly? Do
Speaker 1: you have questions for me? Ah? Oh my god? How
Speaker 1: much time do you do? I have questions for Anita here.
Speaker 1: Do you believe that you've been able to understand the
Speaker 1: impact that you've had on women black women, especially over
Speaker 1: the decades, or does it feel a little detached from you?
Speaker 1: It is who I am, And I like your phrase
Speaker 1: hungry not thirsty, because the more I hear, the hungrier
Speaker 1: I get. I would say that I probably started out
Speaker 1: more detached because it was just so odd for me.
Speaker 1: Right now, I feel completely responsible and I'm happy to
Speaker 1: be here. I never would have seen myself as a
Speaker 1: person to do podcasts, But when someone explained to me
Speaker 1: this is how you get ideas out, and this is
Speaker 1: how you can get an idea about what equality looks
Speaker 1: like and where it needs to be examined and pursued
Speaker 1: in the way that you're doing it, then I was on,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll figure it out. I mean that'd be great,
Speaker 1: but I'll figure it out. The more I work and
Speaker 1: I think and I hear from people like yourself, the
Speaker 1: hungry yet and the more I feel that it is
Speaker 1: a part of who I am and always will be incredible.
Speaker 1: I love what you're doing. I love the work. I
Speaker 1: love the way that you've figured out, You've carved out
Speaker 1: exactly where you wanted to go with it, and I
Speaker 1: love the idea that, just in terms of what this
Speaker 1: program is about, you are a be the change story.
Speaker 1: I like to say people talk about the change, what
Speaker 1: they want to actually live it and be it and
Speaker 1: do it is very exciting. So I want to congratulate
Speaker 1: you on that. Can I just say it is surreal
Speaker 1: for me to hear those words from you. I met
Speaker 1: you once a few years ago, just very very briefly,
Speaker 1: and the only thing I said to you was thank
Speaker 1: you because of your bravery and your outspokenness and being
Speaker 1: a blueprint for so many others. So I appreciate that. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, and I know I don't have to convince you.
Speaker 1: You will always be who you are and we are
Speaker 1: so grateful. Thank you very much. Arlin Hamilton's story shows
Speaker 1: the world the value of including people who are left out.
Speaker 1: Hamilton has navigated through hostile systems to identify and invest
Speaker 1: in the products that will further social justice. Her book
Speaker 1: About Damn Time is a guide to how she found
Speaker 1: her calling and achieved her vision. As Hamilton said, we
Speaker 1: stand on the shoulders of those who come before us.
Speaker 1: To stand on Hamilton's shoulders is a particularly special perch.
Speaker 1: Through example, she shows the way for each of us
Speaker 1: to be part of the change we want to see.
Speaker 1: In the final episode of Getting Even, I speak with
Speaker 1: two of my friends and co conspirators in social justice,
Speaker 1: law professor Emma Coleman Jordan and feminist scholar Beverly Guyscheftall.
Speaker 1: We talk about the value of friendship and creative collaborations.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever said this to you publicly
Speaker 1: or even privately. Meeting you in nineteen ninety two, when
Speaker 1: I saw you standing up there talking, I said to myself,
Speaker 1: one of these days, I'm going to speak publicly about
Speaker 1: my experience with sexual assault for the first time. I
Speaker 1: call myself for Survivor. Getting Even is a production of
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries, and it's written and hosted by me Anita Hill.
Speaker 1: It is produced by Mola Board and Brittany Brown. Our
Speaker 1: editor is Sarah Kramer, Our engineer is Amanda kay Wang,
Speaker 1: and our showrunner Issha Matthias. Luis Gara composed original music
Speaker 1: for the show. Our executive producers are Mia Lobel and
Speaker 1: Letal malad. Our director of Development is Justine Lane. At
Speaker 1: Pushkin thanks to Heather Fane, Carly Migliori, Jason Gambrel, Julia Barton,
Speaker 1: John Schnarz, and Jacob Weisberg. You can find me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Anita Hill and on Facebook at Anita Hill.
Speaker 1: You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at pushkin Pods,
Speaker 1: and you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin
Speaker 1: dot Fm. If you love this show and others from
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Subscribe to Pushkin
Speaker 1: Plus and you can hear Getting Even and other Pushkin
Speaker 1: shows add free and receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up
Speaker 1: on the Getting Even show page in Apple Podcasts or
Speaker 1: at pushkin dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like
Speaker 1: to listen