Speaker 1: One Lucas Black Tech, Green Money. It's so good to
Speaker 1: be with you guys for another week. I am actually
Speaker 1: headed to Austin right now. So we have a throwback
Speaker 1: episode of Black Tech Green Money. This is one actually
Speaker 1: of the most downloaded episodes of Black Tech Green Money.
Speaker 1: This one surpasses almost every other episode that is out there,
Speaker 1: so I'm happy to bring it back to you. It
Speaker 1: is put yourself in a position to be successful. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you two stories today, and the topic
Speaker 1: of this particular podcast episode is something I firmly believe
Speaker 1: it and it's about putting yourself in a position to
Speaker 1: be successful. Because so often we want to be successful
Speaker 1: and we see success, whether we see it on social
Speaker 1: media or we see it in people around us. We
Speaker 1: see success, and we don't always believe that that success
Speaker 1: is either possible for us. Or we might believe that
Speaker 1: it's possible for us, but we don't know what to
Speaker 1: do in order to accomplish that success that we so desire.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to tell you two stories today, and
Speaker 1: this is these are my stories. And hopefully whenever I
Speaker 1: whenever I talk to people, you know, whether it be
Speaker 1: talks at conferences, whether it be keynote speeches or whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm really trying to give value. So if I'm telling
Speaker 1: you my story, it's not because my story is so great.
Speaker 1: It's because I'm hoping that there's something in my story
Speaker 1: that you can take and use for yourself in order
Speaker 1: to find your success. So the first story is a
Speaker 1: story about how I found at least the first few
Speaker 1: steps and do the career that I'm in today. Because
Speaker 1: I'm on preface my story with this, there's a quote
Speaker 1: by Steve Jobs, and you've if you're listening to this podcast,
Speaker 1: you've heard let me say this before, and it's a
Speaker 1: quote by Steve Jobs that I firmly believe in. It's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite quotes. I do have a couple
Speaker 1: of favorite quotes, but this one is among like the
Speaker 1: top three of my favorite quotes, and it says, you
Speaker 1: can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect
Speaker 1: the dots looking backwards. And what that means for me,
Speaker 1: at least I believe I know how he meant it.
Speaker 1: But what I get from.
Speaker 2: That quote is this is, if you look back over
Speaker 2: your life, you will find clues that dictate your present circumstance.
Speaker 1: So if you find yourself doing a particular job and
Speaker 1: you are like really really good at doing that job.
Speaker 1: If you look back at whether you were you know,
Speaker 1: a kid, or whether you had a particular job, or
Speaker 1: whether you had certain experiences, you will find, if you
Speaker 1: look hard enough, certain instances in your life that says
Speaker 1: you will be good at this particular thing. And that's
Speaker 1: what connecting the dots means. It's not something like, you know,
Speaker 1: super highbrow. It's not like, you know, it's not super deep.
Speaker 1: It's really a simple thing. If you look backwards, you
Speaker 1: will see things that connect to what you find yourself
Speaker 1: doing today. And it's hard to do looking forward, if
Speaker 1: not in some cases, very very very difficult. So we
Speaker 1: want to do certain things in the future, but we
Speaker 1: don't always know what, like, and I believe in like,
Speaker 1: what is the divine plan for you? Like, because if
Speaker 1: I would have told you at you know, sixteen or
Speaker 1: seventeen what I wanted to be doing, it's not what
Speaker 1: I'm doing today. But I'm really really happy doing what
Speaker 1: I'm doing today. But it's not something I could have articulated,
Speaker 1: you know, years ago. So anyway, all right, so let's
Speaker 1: you know, we've set the stage with that particular quote.
Speaker 1: You can't connect the dots looking forward, You can only
Speaker 1: connect the dots retrospectively looking backward. All right, all right,
Speaker 1: So there was a time when I wanted to be
Speaker 1: in the music business. I wanted to be a producer.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a music producer and a songwriter.
Speaker 1: And so I'm from Toledo, Ohio, which is you know,
Speaker 1: if you drive fast, it's like half an hour from Detroit,
Speaker 1: but if you like relatively close to the speed limit,
Speaker 1: it's like forty five minutes. It's a little bit south
Speaker 1: of Detroit. And you know, you know where it's at.
Speaker 1: Look on the map. If you don't know where's at,
Speaker 1: Google Google map it. All right. So I'm from Toledo, Ohio,
Speaker 1: not known for like a lot of things other than
Speaker 1: you know, we have i think, one of the top
Speaker 1: rated like minor league baseball teams in the country, and
Speaker 1: very rust belt, midwestern, you know, middle class, blue collar
Speaker 1: sort of city, you know, And I wanted to be
Speaker 1: in the music business. So being an ambitious kid, you know,
Speaker 1: I've always been super ambitious and always like strategizing about, Okay,
Speaker 1: I know what I want to do, how do I
Speaker 1: get there? I've always been that way. It's been my
Speaker 1: like it's part of my DNA. So I was thinking
Speaker 1: as a youth, like how how can I find my
Speaker 1: way to the music business in Toledo? And I found
Speaker 1: myself at a teen summit that at local radio station
Speaker 1: was putting on, you know, or at least the program
Speaker 1: director was on a panel at this teen summit that
Speaker 1: was happening at a particular library in my hometown. And
Speaker 1: so after the teen some I almost remember what I
Speaker 1: was wearing a day, which is like super woild because
Speaker 1: I don't remember like a lot of details about like
Speaker 1: my childhood and youth, but I remember, like almost verbatim
Speaker 1: what I was wearing today. But it has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the point of this story. Only that is
Speaker 1: like a like ad point in my life that obviously
Speaker 1: was like super critical to what I'm doing today. So anyway,
Speaker 1: so at this teen something, the local program director for
Speaker 1: the radio station was on a panel at the library
Speaker 1: that I'm in attendance of, and I'm with a friend
Speaker 1: of mine that I was going to high school with,
Speaker 1: and we were for some reason, we're at this teen
Speaker 1: summit and we were just there to hear about I
Speaker 1: don't even know what the teen someming was about, but
Speaker 1: I guess it was about teen issues because it was
Speaker 1: teen something. So the program director is talking, and in
Speaker 1: my mind at that teen Summit, I'm sitting like in
Speaker 1: the last row, and I'm thinking, like, yo, I want
Speaker 1: to be in the music business. And so I'm in Toledo.
Speaker 1: The closest thing to the music business is the radio station,
Speaker 1: and so this is how my money works, and my
Speaker 1: mind has always worked this way. So I'm like putting
Speaker 1: together the pieces. And so after the teen Summer is over,
Speaker 1: I go up to the program director, who's like in
Speaker 1: the only he's the program director, program director of the
Speaker 1: only hip hop and R and B radio station in town.
Speaker 1: There's only one at this stage, and so I go
Speaker 1: up to him. I say, hey, my name is Will Lucas,
Speaker 1: and I want to be in the music business. And
Speaker 1: so he says, well, the best thing I can tell
Speaker 1: you to do is find an internship somewhere. So matter
Speaker 1: of fact, matter of fact, because there was a lot
Speaker 1: of like teenagers like in line because it's tease something.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of teenagers in line waiting to talk
Speaker 1: to him, and so he said, just come out to
Speaker 1: the radio station like tomorrow or whatever, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: some more. Because it's a lot of teenagers in line.
Speaker 1: So I go out to the radio station. It had
Speaker 1: to be the next day because that's kind of the
Speaker 1: kind of guy was. So I go out to the
Speaker 1: radio station and he says, again, you know, we're sitting
Speaker 1: like in this I guess, like a little tiny three
Speaker 1: thousand watt radio station, like way out of town. Like
Speaker 1: it's I mean, I think Midwestern country, like no man's land.
Speaker 1: This is like pure flyover. So like the radio station
Speaker 1: is like in like places you don't go. So but
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, that's where the radio station was. So
Speaker 1: I'm out there, and you know, I'm sitting inside the
Speaker 1: radio station, inside the studio. And he says again, So,
Speaker 1: the best thing I can tell you to do is
Speaker 1: find an internship somewhere. And so as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: we need an intern here at the radio station. So
Speaker 1: I'm so my internship started that day at the radio station.
Speaker 1: So I would go out there every day after high school.
Speaker 1: Well I should say every day because it was like
Speaker 1: three days to the next point of in this story.
Speaker 1: So I would go out after school for the next
Speaker 1: several days directly out to the radio station in my
Speaker 1: Buick rivie. I would drive out there and I would
Speaker 1: see about like what he wanted me to do. So
Speaker 1: three days into my internship, which I really wasn't like
Speaker 1: doing anything, I was just watching him do radio. I
Speaker 1: was watching him b and on air personality. And so
Speaker 1: three days in he put me on the air with
Speaker 1: him during the five o'clock traffic jam. So mind you,
Speaker 1: he works from three pm to eight pm, like afternoon Drive,
Speaker 1: which is like beyond the morning show is the number
Speaker 1: one radio slot for radio personalities. Morning show is like
Speaker 1: the King of the Hill. Afternoon Drive is the next
Speaker 1: biggest time slot for radio personalities. So I go out there,
Speaker 1: I hang out with him during his shift. After I
Speaker 1: get out of school obviously, so I probably make it
Speaker 1: out there like three thirty four o'clock, and he puts
Speaker 1: me on the a with him during the five o'clock
Speaker 1: traffic jam. My third day into my internship, and so
Speaker 1: he did this five o'clock traffic jam, which is like
Speaker 1: when they do this, you know mix and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm will Lucas. I'm like, I don't know what to
Speaker 1: do is but I'm just like hanging out with him
Speaker 1: on the air, you know, from five to eight pm
Speaker 1: when his shift is over. So I did that for
Speaker 1: a couple of days, and we found some sort of
Speaker 1: chemistry obviously, because he let me continue to be on
Speaker 1: the air with him every day after five o'clock and
Speaker 1: so he signs my phone and so three days into
Speaker 1: it going to air, did that every day. I went
Speaker 1: through like it's so crazy to think about. I went
Speaker 1: through multiple you know, like radio names, like I like,
Speaker 1: because I was trying to find like, what was my
Speaker 1: name going to be for the radio. His name was
Speaker 1: Charlie Mack, and I'm like, okay, I gotta find a
Speaker 1: name for myself. So my name's Will Lukea. And so
Speaker 1: we was just like messing around with a bunch of names. So,
Speaker 1: you know, at one point in my you know, early
Speaker 1: early early, like the early weeks of my radio career,
Speaker 1: my name was like night Train for whatever reason, I
Speaker 1: have no idea. So then then there was a point
Speaker 1: where I remember being in the production room with him
Speaker 1: and we were talking about, Okay, what is my radio
Speaker 1: name going to be? And so he was like after
Speaker 1: we like probably threw out ten fifteen names, it's like
Speaker 1: the room is tiny. It's like a four by six room.
Speaker 1: It's like super duper tight. So I remember he was like, well,
Speaker 1: whenever you figure out, let me know brother, and I
Speaker 1: heard him say Butter. He said brother, but I heard Butter.
Speaker 1: So my first radio name, my first official radio name,
Speaker 1: was butter because when he said whenever you figured out,
Speaker 1: let me know better, I heard butter. He said brother.
Speaker 1: So Buttera it was so my name on the radio.
Speaker 1: My first name on the radio was Butta, and that's
Speaker 1: what they call me for years in my radio career.
Speaker 1: So six months after doing the five o'clock traffic jam
Speaker 1: with him, he put me in this Saturday I gave.
Speaker 1: I got a Saturday night show. I was eighteen years
Speaker 1: old doing radio on a Saturday night in my hometown
Speaker 1: six to ten every Saturday night. And I had the
Speaker 1: number one radio show in the city on Saturday nights
Speaker 1: in Toledo. And mind you, this particular radio station, and
Speaker 1: this for some of you guys like this will mean nothing,
Speaker 1: so I'll try to make it like parallel to something
Speaker 1: that will make sense to you. Is this is a
Speaker 1: three thousand watt radio station. The biggest radio stations in
Speaker 1: town have one hundred thousand watts or more. So think
Speaker 1: of you know like this. Let's say we're talking about cars,
Speaker 1: and so I am driving a Nova, like a Honda Civic,
Speaker 1: like a Prius. I am driving one of those the
Speaker 1: biggest dogs in town. The biggest radio stations have like
Speaker 1: Dodge Rams, F one fifties or you get. So we
Speaker 1: are in the tiniest situation in town, the bottom of
Speaker 1: the totem pole with regards to the power of the
Speaker 1: radio radio tower that this particular radio station has. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm doing these Saturday night shows, but I have the
Speaker 1: number one show in the city. I'm like eighteen years old,
Speaker 1: and so he remember he was on the afternoon drive.
Speaker 1: Six months after I had the Saturday day night show,
Speaker 1: they moved him to the morning show and I got
Speaker 1: his afternoon drive show. So I was eighteen, just about
Speaker 1: to turn nineteen, and I'm doing drive time radio in
Speaker 1: my hometown three to eight. And so by this time
Speaker 1: I had graduated. So I'm doing three o'clock to apm
Speaker 1: Monday through Friday. And so I had the number one
Speaker 1: show in my demographic because I was My job was
Speaker 1: to target eighteen to twenty four, eighteen to twenty four
Speaker 1: years old, people who are in the listening audience, because
Speaker 1: that was a coveted demographic of people who listened to
Speaker 1: the radio because they spend money, so advertisers want to
Speaker 1: target that demographic. And so I'm doing that. And so
Speaker 1: suffice it to say, like all of those skills that
Speaker 1: I learned, again, I didn't want to do rap. I
Speaker 1: never wanted to do radio. Like, don't forget that point
Speaker 1: in the story. I happened to be good at something.
Speaker 1: I learned very quickly. How to be engaging. I learned
Speaker 1: very quickly. How to build production skills. I learned very quickly,
Speaker 1: you know, how to make things sound a particular way
Speaker 1: to make people want to listen to it, and just
Speaker 1: creating engaging content. And so I did this very early
Speaker 1: in my career with the intent of finding my way
Speaker 1: into the music business. And so story number one, the
Speaker 1: whole like crux of this conversation is talking about how
Speaker 1: I thought I was doing this particular thing to get
Speaker 1: to what I wanted, But there was another plan for
Speaker 1: my life, and so I found if you look at
Speaker 1: what I'm doing today, I have a podcast that's her
Speaker 1: all around the world, and I'm able to do this.
Speaker 1: I produce this podcast, I do the booking for this podcast.
Speaker 1: I obviously record myself. I'm in my basement right now
Speaker 1: recording this podcast. And I'm doing all of these things
Speaker 1: with the skills I learned at seventeen and eighteen years old,
Speaker 1: having taken an internship with the intent of being a
Speaker 1: music producer and songwriter. I couldn't have scripted this. I
Speaker 1: could not have scripted this because I was doing it
Speaker 1: with a particular intent. But I did it well because
Speaker 1: I knew if I did it well, it would put
Speaker 1: me in position. It's just a different position than I
Speaker 1: thought I would be in. But I'm living a dream today.
Speaker 1: I'm living a dream that I didn't know I had.
Speaker 1: But it's a better dream than the one I thought
Speaker 1: I had. Story number one, Story number two, let's talk
Speaker 1: about it. So afrotech and so I'm doing podcasts. So oh,
Speaker 1: I got this thing about podcasts. Man, I've slipped into
Speaker 1: the podcast game. So I've talked about this, maybe not
Speaker 1: on this podcast, but the one I'm about to tell
Speaker 1: you about. So a couple of years ago had to
Speaker 1: be what like five years ago. Now this is before
Speaker 1: this is pre me being involved with afrotech. So I'm
Speaker 1: talking to a friend of mine. He's an advisor. He's
Speaker 1: a white guy. He's an advisor to a startup that
Speaker 1: I'm founding. I'm trying to get going at this particular stage.
Speaker 1: And he comes to me and he says, you know,
Speaker 1: what would it take you Remember, he's a white guy.
Speaker 1: He says, what would it take to get more black
Speaker 1: kids interested in tech? And I said, well, they need
Speaker 1: to see a black Mark Zuckerberg, like somebody who looks
Speaker 1: like them and is realizing success. And because that's what
Speaker 1: I believed in that moment. And at the end of
Speaker 1: that conversation, I kicked myself because I'm like, yo, like,
Speaker 1: we have super successful black people in tech, we just
Speaker 1: don't know who they are. And so I went and
Speaker 1: after that podcast, after that conversation, I went, and I'm
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, like, what can I do to be
Speaker 1: a part of the conversation of elevating the names of
Speaker 1: black technologists? What can I do to be a part
Speaker 1: of the conversation of making sure that we have representation?
Speaker 1: So I said, Yo, I did radio for all these years.
Speaker 1: I did radio on teleto, I did radio in Detroit.
Speaker 1: I know how to do this, and so I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put together I'm gonna do a podcast and
Speaker 1: it's called Today. I mean, I'm kind of jumping ahead
Speaker 1: in the story, but I'm just for to save time.
Speaker 1: I did this podcast. It's called of ten Podcasts. It
Speaker 1: was white. I was only gonna do ten episodes. That's
Speaker 1: why it's called of ten podcasts. One of ten, two
Speaker 1: of ten, three of ten. You guys are smart. Thank
Speaker 1: you for following on. So I did this podcast called
Speaker 1: of ten Podcasts. It's still in iTunes, you can find
Speaker 1: it today. And the point was to highlight these super
Speaker 1: successful black people in tech, and I wanted to share
Speaker 1: their stories, and so I did this podcast. I was
Speaker 1: only intending to do ten episodes. Again, it's called of
Speaker 1: ten Podcasts, and that was gonna be it. And so
Speaker 1: I did these ten episodes. I had like fantastic people
Speaker 1: on there. I mean like Krim de La Crim, people
Speaker 1: who were at the top of the game in this
Speaker 1: podcast and in this season of Black Technology. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: the first episode was like my guy who's a friend
Speaker 1: of mine, Mack and Day at the EGBO. He was
Speaker 1: like one of the lead engineers at Facebook, friends with
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg. I mean, this guy's he's fantastic and he's
Speaker 1: actually founder of dev Color. He's founder of dev Color.
Speaker 1: I was about to google it, so sorry for the
Speaker 1: falls there. I was about to google it, but it
Speaker 1: just came to me. He's founder of dev Color, like
Speaker 1: a black kind of cohort or collective of black engineers
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley. So my guy back back and day
Speaker 1: add Yegro. So he was the first episode that I had,
Speaker 1: and I had like a run of ten episodes. Phenomenal
Speaker 1: people who were in this podcast that I did. And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna know about Like I'm a guy in Toledo
Speaker 1: in his basement doing his podcast, and people are saying, yes,
Speaker 1: I will do your show. And so I'll save another
Speaker 1: day to talk about how to get great people for
Speaker 1: your podcast, but for tonight we'll talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: putting yourself in the position to be successful. So did
Speaker 1: this podcast called up ten podcasts, fantastic series of highly
Speaker 1: successful black technologies. Put it out, and you know Twitter
Speaker 1: is like yo, people on Twitter, not Twitter, not actual Twitter.
Speaker 1: People on Twitter were like yo, fantastic run episode six.
Speaker 1: I love that episode fire. Remember when he said this
Speaker 1: episode like seven. She said that, and I was like, bars,
Speaker 1: So it was like, it's fantastic run. When is your
Speaker 1: next season? And I'm like, there is no next season,
Speaker 1: Like this is it? Like I'm working on other things.
Speaker 1: I did this to contribute to the conversation. Like I
Speaker 1: wasn't intending to do several several seasons, but I did it,
Speaker 1: and like this is like a gift to the world.
Speaker 1: I didn't even have any sponsors for this, Like I
Speaker 1: did it because I wanted to contribute to the conversation.
Speaker 1: So like we're five we were five seasons in. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of jumping ahead of the story, but we did
Speaker 1: more seasons. But the point is, after that first season
Speaker 1: of ten podcasts, I heard about this thing called afro
Speaker 1: Tech and I'm like, how did I not know? Oh,
Speaker 1: it was the first year of Afrotech, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: how did I not know that this conference happened? Because
Speaker 1: half the people I interviewed on the up ten podcast
Speaker 1: podcast were on the stage of the first afro Tech
Speaker 1: and I said, I'm never going to miss another afro Tech.
Speaker 1: I'm never going to miss another one. And so I
Speaker 1: knew then, like I was sold, Like I didn't I
Speaker 1: had I didn't go to the conference that year because
Speaker 1: I didn't know about it, but I saw pictures and
Speaker 1: I'm like, yep, this is my thing. I'm never going
Speaker 1: to miss another one. I'm here until they stopped doing it.
Speaker 1: I knew that the first moment I heard about Afrotech.
Speaker 1: So obviously I go to the second year of Afrotech
Speaker 1: and I knew. I absolutely knew I was going to
Speaker 1: have a life changing experience. I don't know why I
Speaker 1: knew it, I just knew it. And so again, I'm
Speaker 1: a content creator, so I said, you know what, I know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have fantastic experience. I'm gonna vlog every day
Speaker 1: of this conference. So I'm taking my camera and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna record, not with the intent of like putting out,
Speaker 1: you know, like a bunch of content, but I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna record. Put a bookmark there because we're gonna come
Speaker 1: back to that. I'm planned on doing a video, and
Speaker 1: I said, I'm gonna put out a video about my
Speaker 1: experience going to the first to my first Afrotech, which
Speaker 1: is the second Afrotech that ever happened. And so I
Speaker 1: was no, I was gonna have a good time. So
Speaker 1: I did it, So I took my camera recorded everything
Speaker 1: about my trip that getting on the airplane, I'm matter
Speaker 1: of fact, getting in the car, on the ways to
Speaker 1: the airport, getting to the airport, sitting in the airport,
Speaker 1: landing in San Francisco, first day, vibes like the whole situation.
Speaker 1: And I said, and remember I did this Upten podcast,
Speaker 1: so I was still doing the podcast at this moment.
Speaker 1: So I'm so I took and I come from radio,
Speaker 1: so I'm telling you the dots are connected. I come
Speaker 1: from radio, and I have this podcast that is called
Speaker 1: the of ten podcast, which is a tech based podcast.
Speaker 1: At this time, so coming from radio, I'm a DJ.
Speaker 1: I do club nights. So I said, I'm gonna print
Speaker 1: flyers to take with me to AFRO Tech and on
Speaker 1: these flyers is not a club night, it is promoting
Speaker 1: my podcast. So everybody, because I saw who was going
Speaker 1: to be speaking on stage because it was on the website,
Speaker 1: so I said, everybody who's going to be speaking on stage,
Speaker 1: I'm printing flyers about my podcast with their faces on
Speaker 1: and saying, hey, if you like Jessica Matthews Uncharted play
Speaker 1: Present Day Uncharted Power, check out my podcast because she's
Speaker 1: on my podcast. Hey, if you like Paul Judge, several companies,
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of patents, a whole bunch of money,
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of nights clothes, if you like Paul
Speaker 1: Judge and you and he's gonna be probably in the
Speaker 1: conversation because I don't think he's on stage, but he's
Speaker 1: gonna be in the conversation at afro Tech. He's on
Speaker 1: my podcast. You should check out my podcast. Here's a flyer,
Speaker 1: here's a link to go get it subscribed today. So
Speaker 1: I took this. These flyers probably printed five hundred flyers,
Speaker 1: and I'm recording video. So I'm the only person there.
Speaker 1: I'm the only person there at the second afro Tech
Speaker 1: who's passing out flyers for anything, because there's not even
Speaker 1: club people passing out flyers for the parties at night.
Speaker 1: There's only me passing out flyers, and people like, yo,
Speaker 1: where the party at? And I'm like, no, not a party,
Speaker 1: it's a podcast. So I'm doing that. So people all
Speaker 1: over the situation are, you know, taking my flyers because
Speaker 1: anything gets they're about to get turned out that night,
Speaker 1: but they about to subscribe. They don't even know it yet.
Speaker 1: So I do that. So I'm sitting the stage for
Speaker 1: some here, all right, So I'm recording every day and
Speaker 1: I'm passing on flyers. I decide the first night sitting
Speaker 1: in a friend of mine's apartment because he left because
Speaker 1: he said, you know what, you don't have to get
Speaker 1: a hotel come into San Francisco. I'm out of town.
Speaker 1: You just had the keys to my place. So he
Speaker 1: let me stay in this house, in this apartment or whatever.
Speaker 1: It was a basement in San Francisco, but it was
Speaker 1: somebody's basement. But he made an apartment, or they made
Speaker 1: an apartment. He's renting it way too in New East
Speaker 1: right now, So he let me stay there. He was
Speaker 1: not in town, so he's like, you can stay at
Speaker 1: my place while you're there. No reason for you to
Speaker 1: get a hotel. So I said, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: not at at one of the parties. I'm going to
Speaker 1: go back to the place and edit the video that
Speaker 1: I recorded. I remember, I think the first the first
Speaker 1: Apple Tech I went to was like a Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
Speaker 1: It could be Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I don't remember too
Speaker 1: many details that are not helpful to the story. So
Speaker 1: I record all day Thursday, record all day, and I'll
Speaker 1: get back to the room and I'm like, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna do like a big video. I'm gonna do a
Speaker 1: video every day. So I edited down all the video
Speaker 1: from that Thursday and edited down real quick. It might
Speaker 1: have been I could look on Google right now or YouTube.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna but I edit all the video down
Speaker 1: from that Thursday. Might have been five minutes long, might
Speaker 1: have been ten minutes. I don't remember. You can find
Speaker 1: it because it's still on YouTube right now. Afrotech twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: You can go see it and it might have been
Speaker 1: five minutes long. But it was the video that I
Speaker 1: took from that day and it was like my experience,
Speaker 1: my journey of being at the first Afrotech for my
Speaker 1: for myself, and edited the video down, put it up
Speaker 1: on YouTube that night. So on Friday, I'm walking into
Speaker 1: the conference and people are like, yo, I saw your
Speaker 1: video from yesterday. How would you do that? Cause that
Speaker 1: was yesterday? Like nobody, this is twenty seventeen. Nobody like
Speaker 1: this is no TikTok, there's no Instagram stories, there's none
Speaker 1: of that. Like, nobody puts out video that fast and
Speaker 1: quality video. Edit it like, not just like hit record
Speaker 1: and just play some stuff. Like I edited the videos
Speaker 1: that night, a bunch of video edited that night, put
Speaker 1: it up on YouTube Friday. People are like, yo, fire video.
Speaker 1: I saw your stuff from yesterday. How did you do that? Whatever?
Speaker 1: I did the same thing all day Friday. I recorded
Speaker 1: all day Friday, edited it when I got back to
Speaker 1: my guy's place, put it up on YouTube Saturday. People
Speaker 1: are like, oh my god, how you doing this? You
Speaker 1: are here, but then you on YouTube from being here fast?
Speaker 1: How so I'm like, this is what I do. So
Speaker 1: did that every day at a conference. Put it on
Speaker 1: YouTube asap, not playing around what I didn't know what was.
Speaker 1: What I didn't know what was happening was I was
Speaker 1: building a name in reputation for myself as being a
Speaker 1: content creator in this scene of black technology. I had
Speaker 1: no clue. All I knew was I went with the
Speaker 1: intent of giving people black technologists. Specifically, I wanted to
Speaker 1: give people FOMO For what reason, I don't know. Because
Speaker 1: I'd never been to Afrotech before. I just knew that.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm never going to miss another afro Tech.
Speaker 1: This is my first year going. I'm never going to
Speaker 1: miss another afro Tech, but I want to make sure
Speaker 1: anybody who should be here never misses another afrotech. I
Speaker 1: want to give you fomo like you missed out. I
Speaker 1: had no idea what it was going to be like.
Speaker 1: It could have been like aw smoking mirrors. I had
Speaker 1: no idea, but I knew in my heart of hearts
Speaker 1: that this was going to be a life changing experience.
Speaker 1: So I edited the video, put it up fast, built
Speaker 1: a name for myself. Didn't even know I was building
Speaker 1: a name for myself. So I went to the next
Speaker 1: afro Tech, which would have been twenty eighteen, and I
Speaker 1: took my wife because I'm like, yo, you've got to
Speaker 1: see this thing. Like there are thousands of black people
Speaker 1: in San Francisco, and there ain't that many black people
Speaker 1: in San Francisco. So I'm sure the airport was like
Speaker 1: security because why are all these black people coming in
Speaker 1: to sanfrans Like why all of it? Why are they here?
Speaker 1: But we're all like pulling up in San Francisco. So
Speaker 1: I took my wife and I said, you've got to
Speaker 1: see this thing. It's like thousands of black people, all
Speaker 1: of them are in tech, and they all talking about
Speaker 1: tech and they're talking about building million dollars, billion dollar,
Speaker 1: trillion dollar companies. They all talking about algorithms, they all
Speaker 1: talking about crypto, they all talking about like strange stuff
Speaker 1: to most people, you've got to come see it. So
Speaker 1: I took her and I didn't record this year. And
Speaker 1: so this is when I knew that I was building
Speaker 1: a name for myself, because everywhere I went, people was like,
Speaker 1: where's your camera? And so I'm like, oh, y'all really
Speaker 1: like on that? Like I didn't know. I didn't realize
Speaker 1: people were looking for me to be recording. And so
Speaker 1: this year twenty eighteen I'm specifically talking about, was the
Speaker 1: first time I realized that people wanted what I was doing.
Speaker 1: Because you see the comments, like you see the likes,
Speaker 1: you see the shares, but you don't really like see
Speaker 1: people and you didn't you don't really know that those
Speaker 1: likes were clicked by a person. I mean, content creators
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I didn't realize people
Speaker 1: would miss it. But I was putting out all this
Speaker 1: content about tech, putting out all this content on my podcast,
Speaker 1: putting out these videos by entrepreneurship and business, which you
Speaker 1: can still find on my on my YouTube page and
Speaker 1: I remembermember being back home. Actually, let me tell you
Speaker 1: this first before I duck out of here, because this
Speaker 1: is an important part of the story. And so because
Speaker 1: I'm like a big believer in like you got to
Speaker 1: see yourself there. Representation is so important and sometimes when
Speaker 1: you don't have an ecosystem around you, it's hard to
Speaker 1: have that reputation. And this and being an AFRO Tech
Speaker 1: season right now, we're like a couple of weeks from
Speaker 1: Afro Tech. This is why this particular episode is so
Speaker 1: important and why you cannot not be there, all right.
Speaker 1: So I took my wife, I told y'all twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: and at the end of the conference on the way home,
Speaker 1: I'm like, we're in the airport and I'm like, wasn't
Speaker 1: that fantastic? Like that was like thousands of people black
Speaker 1: people and we all in tech doing this thing. And
Speaker 1: She's like, yeah, it's beautiful, fantastic conference. That was amazing.
Speaker 1: You should not come back unless you on stage. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: how I'm gonna get on stage? I don't know. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't understand, like because I'm thinking, like if the
Speaker 1: people that I'm looking at on stage are people who
Speaker 1: should be on stage. You know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 1: the people who are on that stage like doing things
Speaker 1: like you know, cause you know, you know how it is,
Speaker 1: like you just feel like you know everybody's got it,
Speaker 1: but like you're trying to qualify yourself and it's difficult
Speaker 1: to do that. So I'm like, how am I gonna
Speaker 1: get on that stage? Do you see that credentials? Do
Speaker 1: you see their resumes? Do you see the money they raise?
Speaker 1: Do you see the exit you know back? Do you
Speaker 1: see like all of that? And I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: know how I'm getting on that stage. But you know,
Speaker 1: I'm talking to my wife. I'm like, I right, challenge accepted,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know how I'm gonna do it. I
Speaker 1: got a podcast, I got a couple of startups. I
Speaker 1: got one, two, three, four, five six that failed, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna figure it out. So that's obviously November twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: So I said, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm
Speaker 1: a big believer in vision boards because like you need
Speaker 1: to see it. So I put a picture. I still
Speaker 1: have the picture because I took it down off my
Speaker 1: vision board, but it was a picture I found on Google.
Speaker 1: I just googled Afrotech and I found a picture Anwar Bay.
Speaker 1: He's a designer for like video games Black Dude, and
Speaker 1: he spoke at Afrotech that year. So I found this
Speaker 1: picture because it wasn't particularly that I was looking for
Speaker 1: a picture of anwar speaking to Afrotech. I just googled
Speaker 1: Afrotech and I've looked for pictures and that was the
Speaker 1: picture I chose. So I took this picture of anwar
Speaker 1: on stage and I put it on my vision board.
Speaker 1: So you got to remember, every single day, I'm looking
Speaker 1: at this picture and others about you know, what I
Speaker 1: want to bring into my life. And so I put
Speaker 1: this picture on my vision board and I'm looking at
Speaker 1: it every day. And I said, the next time that
Speaker 1: they open up a call for speakers, I'm going to apply.
Speaker 1: Don't know if I'm getting on stage, but I'm gonna apply.
Speaker 1: Don't got tell you drink. So I take this picture,
Speaker 1: put it on my vision board. I see it every day.
Speaker 1: I said, next year, when they open up call for speakers,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna apply. Don't know how I'm getting on but
Speaker 1: you know, I gotta do what I gotta do. So
Speaker 1: around the time that they make the call for speakers
Speaker 1: just had to be like February, March, April May. I
Speaker 1: don't know, somewhere around there, but it's around that season.
Speaker 1: I'm driving down. I remember exactly where I was, And
Speaker 1: y'all don't live where I live, so I won't give
Speaker 1: you like exactly, you know, coordinates, but I remember exactly
Speaker 1: where I was. And I'm sitting at a red light
Speaker 1: and I get an email from somebody who works for Blavity,
Speaker 1: which owns Afrotech. Obviously if you didn't know that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's like the black BuzzFeed, like it's the biggest black
Speaker 1: millennial website in the world. Chauttham, Morgan Deborn. So I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there and I get an email from somebody at
Speaker 1: Blavity saying, Hey, my name's Da Da Da. And I
Speaker 1: was talking to Morgan because we're going on or going
Speaker 1: in a new direction for Afrotech, and Morgan said, we
Speaker 1: should talk to you about running it, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't what, like, hold on, you're going in a
Speaker 1: new direction for afro Tech and you want me to
Speaker 1: run it. The guy who says, howard in the world
Speaker 1: am I going to get on this stage? How like
Speaker 1: I don't feel qualified, is what I was really saying
Speaker 1: to myself. I never cognitively said that to myself, but
Speaker 1: that's what I was saying along the whole line of thinking,
Speaker 1: if you if you look back, if you hit rewind,
Speaker 1: that's what's happening in my story. I'm telling myself you
Speaker 1: aren't worthy of that. So I'm sitting at this red light,
Speaker 1: get this email saying we're going in a new direction
Speaker 1: for Afro Tech, and Morgan says we should talk to you.
Speaker 1: Do you have time to talk? And I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, this this is the thing because you got
Speaker 1: to realize I come from radio, and so I've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of celebrities, some of the biggest celebrities in
Speaker 1: the world, been to all the concert all the things.
Speaker 1: So like celebrities don't improbab like black Tech people like
Speaker 1: winners are like, that's my rock star too, that's me.
Speaker 1: So when I walk in the room and I'm hanging
Speaker 1: out with Dave Salvant, you know from Squire, or I'm
Speaker 1: with Rodney Williams, or I'm with you know, Morgan, or
Speaker 1: I'm with Jessica Matthews, or I'm with whoever, like Paul
Speaker 1: judge Ryan Glover, Like, when I'm with these people, those
Speaker 1: are my rock stars. And so you're asking me to
Speaker 1: steer the ship of the most important thing to me,
Speaker 1: the thing that makes my eyes glittered, like you asking
Speaker 1: me to run it. And so I'm trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how I'm getting on the stage to give a
Speaker 1: two minute talk and you're asking me to steer the
Speaker 1: ship of the brand. I'm trying to tell y'all, like,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that about I'm not saying that to
Speaker 1: glorify me. What I'm saying is, if you look back
Speaker 1: at the things that I did before getting that email,
Speaker 1: it's set me up to get that email. So don't
Speaker 1: despise small beginnings, Like there are things that you are
Speaker 1: doing today that put you in a position. If you're diligent,
Speaker 1: if you treat it with respect, if you get the
Speaker 1: education you're supposed to get out of it, if you
Speaker 1: don't take it for granted, if you actually do the work,
Speaker 1: if you do it with integrity, if you don't cut
Speaker 1: corners but you learn the lesson, if you go all in,
Speaker 1: if you disciplined. I was putting out content when nobody
Speaker 1: was paying me. I was putting out content because I
Speaker 1: loved the content. I wanted to hear the stories. And
Speaker 1: so now the people that I interviewed a lot of
Speaker 1: these like may my friends. Now there are people like
Speaker 1: I text with them, I talked to them. When I
Speaker 1: see them, it's what up. We get a drink, we
Speaker 1: got to eat, we hang out. The people who are
Speaker 1: like my rock stars, those are the people that you know,
Speaker 1: I can rub shoulders, where I can stand next to,
Speaker 1: I can sit beside and we all good. I'm getting
Speaker 1: the bag, they getting the bag and we all get
Speaker 1: in the bag. Because I didn't really is it at
Speaker 1: the moment. But again, you can't connect the docs looking forward.
Speaker 1: So when I was doing the podcast, I thought I
Speaker 1: was doing it for X week reason. I thought I
Speaker 1: was doing it for reason X. But reason why why
Speaker 1: was around the corner and I didn't even know it.
Speaker 1: But I treated it with respect because I gave to
Speaker 1: the community. I wanted y'all to have something that didn't
Speaker 1: exist before. I wanted y'all to see yourselves in the
Speaker 1: people that I represented put on the platform. Gave a
Speaker 1: pedestal to uplifted on that podcast, which put me in
Speaker 1: a position to touch more people. I could I couldn't
Speaker 1: have scripted that out. I couldn't have dictated how it
Speaker 1: was going to happen. So today I sit in a position,
Speaker 1: you know, a privileged position, a position I worked for,
Speaker 1: or a position of honor, a position to be able
Speaker 1: to serve you. And that's really what it's all about.
Speaker 1: But I did that work, and what I do this
Speaker 1: work for continually is to show you that you do
Speaker 1: this work. These are the rewards because the stories that
Speaker 1: we highlight on this podcast, the stories that you will
Speaker 1: see at afro Tech twenty twenty one, the people that
Speaker 1: you're gonna meet at this conference coming up, which I
Speaker 1: mean I did the whole podcast just now trying to
Speaker 1: get you to see why you need to be there.
Speaker 1: You can't miss this. You cannot miss this. It's virtual.
Speaker 1: So what this virtual world that afro Tech builds is like,
Speaker 1: it is this aint zoom fan. This ain't go to meeting.
Speaker 1: You don't build the whole world for y'all, and you
Speaker 1: meet people from all across the World's people I met
Speaker 1: last year from Tanzania. It's people I met last year
Speaker 1: from the UK. It's people I met last year from
Speaker 1: all from Tennessee. It's people I'm met from all over
Speaker 1: the world, and they all look like I mean, they
Speaker 1: all pretty for the most part, look like us, and
Speaker 1: they're trying to do the thing, and they doing the thing.
Speaker 1: They want to hire you, they want to fund you,
Speaker 1: they want to buy your stuff, and they're at this conference.
Speaker 1: So that's my story. I hope you got something out
Speaker 1: of that. You never really know why you're doing what
Speaker 1: you're doing. You might think you know why you're doing
Speaker 1: what you're doing. You might have real intentions on the
Speaker 1: reasons that you're doing specific things that you're doing, but
Speaker 1: sometimes they don't work out like you planned. That's just
Speaker 1: a fact. Sometimes the outcome isn't something that you prescribed.
Speaker 1: But if you're in there and you're doing the work,
Speaker 1: there will be opportunities that open up to you that
Speaker 1: you could not have asked for, that you couldn't have
Speaker 1: imagined would be possible for you put yourself in a
Speaker 1: position to be successful. That's my story for today. Oh
Speaker 1: y'all enjoyed this episode.