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Speaker 1: My audience is in the biggest audience. Our social media

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Speaker 1: numbers are the biggest, or what have you. It's like

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Speaker 1: I try to hyper focus on value and distinctiveness. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I may not have an audience size of like a

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Speaker 1: million people, right, but the people who are here interact.

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Speaker 1: Every single email that I was sending, folks were responding back,

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Speaker 1: and so for me, it's like I can demonstrate like

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Speaker 1: our engagement is going to be better than someone who

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Speaker 1: has a large audience and they're just kind of one

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Speaker 1: of many.

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Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of butter Nomics. I'm

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Speaker 2: your host, Brandon Butler, found and CEO of Butter atl And.

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Speaker 2: Today you got somebody special in the building.

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Speaker 1: I love I love that. I love to be considered special.

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Speaker 1: Feel good.

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Speaker 3: You are special. You got the one, the only, Miss

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Speaker 3: Sharill Dorsey Sherill. How are you doing today?

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Speaker 1: I am I'm doing so well. I am so excited

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Speaker 1: to be here. We like go way back you do,

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Speaker 1: and to watch how you have evolved Butter and all

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Speaker 1: of the just representation of atl and beyond has been

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Speaker 1: amazing to watch. So it's really dope to be here

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Speaker 1: with you.

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Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate that I appreciate. I also appreciate the coast.

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Speaker 2: I like, let people know I didn't just start doing

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Speaker 2: this stuff yesterday, you know.

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Speaker 1: Not this true to this.

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Speaker 2: We've been around portion and all that kind of stuffs,

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Speaker 2: big tangs.

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Speaker 3: I was like, that was a couple of years ago.

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Speaker 3: Time just flies.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and pandemic time especially.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, fast forward everything a couple.

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Speaker 1: Of years right, Oh my gosh.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I always said, I feel like the pandemic like

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Speaker 2: moved us forward like three or four years. People didn't

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Speaker 2: realize it because like even when you think about it,

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Speaker 2: like my mom, you know she didn't She literally would

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Speaker 2: never get on a zoom call to save her life.

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Speaker 2: Now she's on a zoom call with her church groups,

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Speaker 2: her friends too.

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Speaker 1: She's like, my friends, we got our little cocktails and

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Speaker 1: zoom call. But I'm like, oh okay, girl, like faithful.

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Speaker 1: They've been faithful for years. I'm here for it.

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Speaker 3: Fancy with it.

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Speaker 2: Well, for those that don't know you are a a journalist,

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Speaker 2: the author, and investor. You've done a lot of amazing things.

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Speaker 2: Some people may know you from TP Insights, the plugs.

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Speaker 2: Something might need you from the other projects. But how's

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Speaker 2: everything going though?

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Speaker 1: Things are good and things are really good, you know,

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Speaker 1: as you know, just being in the media space, especially

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Speaker 1: as a you know, black founder CEO, especially within the

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Speaker 1: media landscape. You know, sometimes we're out here fighting for

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Speaker 1: our lives yep. And so you know, I truly, truly

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Speaker 1: appreciate all the people who were with me from the beginning,

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Speaker 1: from the very first newsletter. Just the idea of hey,

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Speaker 1: black tech and innovation and the innovation economy within the

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Speaker 1: spaces that we're creating deserve good coverage, deserve more answers

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Speaker 1: versus just what does it look like to be black

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Speaker 1: or how does it feel to be black? Right? But

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Speaker 1: more about like what are you building? Like what how

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Speaker 1: does this move the future forward?

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Speaker 3: What have you?

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Speaker 1: And so just being able to build up the plug

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Speaker 1: over a seven year period, be the first black tech

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Speaker 1: news you know, publication to send decal the Bloomberg terminal,

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Speaker 1: get licensing deals with business Inside or Wired, all of

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Speaker 1: the above, vice news like you seem flex and just

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Speaker 1: a little bit a little bit. And then in twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty three, you know, we were able to sell to

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Speaker 1: Impact Alpha, which is an amazing impact investing platform. It's

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Speaker 1: like a must must you know, subscribe to for all

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Speaker 1: of the kind of things that I'm doing now, particularly

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Speaker 1: looking at the climate tech space and who are making

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Speaker 1: the biggest investments in those spaces and really changing the world,

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Speaker 1: you know, with finance and capital, and so since then,

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Speaker 1: it really has just been this kind of journey back

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Speaker 1: to my sort of original work on how do we

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Speaker 1: make the planet better? How do we make the planet

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Speaker 1: great for everyone, but particularly those who are tremendously underserved,

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Speaker 1: and right now, I mean, we're dealing with a major

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Speaker 1: climate crisis. So a lot of my work in this

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Speaker 1: last year since you know, since acquisition, has been hyper

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Speaker 1: focused on how do we start to create more green jobs,

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Speaker 1: get people trained up, how do we help entrepreneurs that

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Speaker 1: are building these jobs like by like focusing on climate

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Speaker 1: things like green energy or sustainability. How do we get

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Speaker 1: them to expand and scale right because they're the job creators,

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Speaker 1: they're going to kind of help move a lot of

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Speaker 1: that commerce. I also have a column on INC called

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Speaker 1: Power Up, so I cover women in the climate tech space,

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Speaker 1: particularly women founders in climate tech. There's so many cool

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Speaker 1: things that are happening amid all the chaos that's happening

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Speaker 1: in the world, but it has been such an incredible

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Speaker 1: road that really started with TP Insights formerly known as

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Speaker 1: the Plug in which just amazing folks who rocked with

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Speaker 1: me throughout that entire process of building it up and

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Speaker 1: getting all of our major wins, Like, I really owe

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Speaker 1: that to our community, an audience who'd follow the work

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Speaker 1: for years before we even got any kind of like

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Speaker 1: national recognition.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and we didn't mean good. That's all amazing. I

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Speaker 2: think we're gonnafinitely unpack a lot of that to this conversation.

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Speaker 2: Let me let me take it back tough, Like, what

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Speaker 2: was the original insight that helped you start the plug

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Speaker 2: like in TP Insights.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, honestly, it was accidental quite you know, I just

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Speaker 1: I was sick and tired of like I worked in tech.

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Speaker 1: I worked for companies like Uber, Google, Fiber in high school.

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Speaker 1: I'm from Seattle originally. And yes, there are black people.

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Speaker 3: I've met all. I've met a couple of.

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Speaker 1: So and I worked at Microsoft in high school, and

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Speaker 1: you know, tech was such a tremendous part of my life.

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Speaker 1: And I was fortunate that all of my mentors were

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Speaker 1: from all kinds of backgrounds. But I had amazing like

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Speaker 1: black engineer family members and cousins and friends and you know,

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Speaker 1: getting like the blacks and Microsoft scholarship. Everything about my experience,

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Speaker 1: even my cousins who went to Clark and who went

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Speaker 1: to Morehouse and you know, became you know, software engineers

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Speaker 1: and engineers and working for like GM and Expedia and

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Speaker 1: all of these companies. For me, the idea that are

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Speaker 1: media publication, our business publications weren't talking to black folks

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Speaker 1: in the tech space about technology, not just like what's new,

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Speaker 1: what's the latest gadget to purchase? But where is this

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Speaker 1: technology going? Black media was missing that mark, and mainstream media,

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Speaker 1: for damn sure wasn't talking to black and brown folks

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Speaker 1: in this space. And it just got really frustrating because

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Speaker 1: I'm like, I know all of these talented, amazing people,

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Speaker 1: like why are they not included in the igey stuff?

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Speaker 1: Where the future is going and who's building it? Right?

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Speaker 1: And so so I just started I started like publishing

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Speaker 1: pieces on a like kind of on a freelance side

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Speaker 1: thing for like Fast Company, Black Enterprise, you know, really

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Speaker 1: just pushing folks to say, like, let's ask a different

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Speaker 1: kind of question. I even like pushed for black media

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Speaker 1: to be represented at south By Southwest like Stark twenty fourteen.

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Speaker 1: I just went to south By Southwest and I was like, hey,

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Speaker 1: the route, Like there's literally no black media down here

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Speaker 1: talking about what's happening in the roans and the electric

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Speaker 1: cars and all these kinds of things, Like why are

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Speaker 1: we not bringing this into the conversations we're having within

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Speaker 1: our communities. Everything can't just be like political rage bait.

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Speaker 1: There has to be some information that allows us to

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Speaker 1: connect to what people are building. So at a certain point,

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Speaker 1: the stories I was pitching they weren't being received by editors,

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Speaker 1: and I was like, somebody, just give me a column,

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Speaker 1: like I want to talk about I'm talking to these

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Speaker 1: amazing innovators, Like this should be a regular thing, you know.

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Speaker 1: And so with that, I was like, well, if there's

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Speaker 1: something that doesn't exist in the world, it's up to

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Speaker 1: me to create what frustrated doesn't exist, right, So a

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Speaker 1: little ten dollars domain name, little mailchimp account, you know,

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Speaker 1: And it was like, all right, I'm off to the races,

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Speaker 1: and you know, I'm working full time at like a

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Speaker 1: major tech startup and just sharing my experience at conferences,

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Speaker 1: really covering you know, black and brown founders as best

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Speaker 1: as I could and also sharing just some of my

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Speaker 1: own opinions and insights as well. And as I just

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Speaker 1: stayed consistent in doing that, getting up at like five

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Speaker 1: six am to get that done before work, more people

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Speaker 1: started sharing and it started expanding, and like I had

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Speaker 1: companies start reaching out like Yo, this is like really dope,

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Speaker 1: you know, can we sponsor? Can we do X, Y

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Speaker 1: and Z? And from there I was like, Okay, I

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Speaker 1: think I think I have something here, you know, and

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Speaker 1: and let me let me see how far this can go. No.

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Speaker 2: I mean again, I remember that launch. You know, I

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Speaker 2: was a big fan. It was definitely a subscriber I remember,

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Speaker 2: like you know that, and you know, I remember I

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Speaker 2: used to read The Hustle and all, like all these

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Speaker 2: kind of different newsletters and news this whole era which

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Speaker 2: is all that stuff. I mean even with Butter, like

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Speaker 2: we spun up kind of a Atlanta version of one,

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Speaker 2: and we learned a lot of stuff, you know, from

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Speaker 2: the things we saw the people out there doing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, when it came to brands.

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Speaker 2: Starting to reach out and partnerships, like how did you

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Speaker 2: kind of figure out the way to like price you know,

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Speaker 2: your your services and what you all were doing.

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Speaker 1: You know, I just listen. I've worked for companies like

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Speaker 1: Uber and Google and like being around these folks who

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Speaker 1: were just like just going there real gully, like this

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Speaker 1: is what it's worth. You know. It has less to

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Speaker 1: do with just vanity metrics and has more to do

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Speaker 1: with the value add Right. So I praised the based

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Speaker 1: off of value and I'm like, let me see how

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Speaker 1: much they're gonna give me, right, And I'm just gonna ask, like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: that's like nothing. I mean you're talking to like large

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Speaker 1: corporate companies that you know, just do this all the time.

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Speaker 1: It's like this is kind of chump change for them, right,

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Speaker 1: But it was very meaningful because it allowed me to start,

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Speaker 1: you know, bringing in freelancers or what have you. So

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Speaker 1: for me, I looked at the models, like you said,

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Speaker 1: like the Hustle and shout out to Adam Ryan who

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Speaker 1: became a really great mentor for me, who was president

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Speaker 1: of the Hustle and after they sold, he now runs

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Speaker 1: work Week. But like it was like I'm gonna help you,

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Speaker 1: like really build this out. It's all the people who

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Speaker 1: actually helped you know, the Plug as well. But I

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Speaker 1: looked at all of these other publications and you know,

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Speaker 1: tried to find like their rate cards and things like that,

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Speaker 1: right because because folks used to publish them so you

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Speaker 1: can kind of see like how much it costs. But

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Speaker 1: more point, I just was like, I'm gonna just throw

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Speaker 1: a number out there and see and see what they say,

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Speaker 1: you know, and see if they say yes.

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Speaker 3: Yes, you know, whoever blinks first. First you got to

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Speaker 3: ask yeah.

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Speaker 1: You know, you know, just Uber train me well, because

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Speaker 1: I would, you know, I would watch my team members

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Speaker 1: and you know, our general managers would push us to

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Speaker 1: like just ask for the biggest number and see what

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Speaker 1: they say and start from there. So I got used

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Speaker 1: to just like, oh, yeah, this is this is who

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Speaker 1: we are, this is who we represent. And having your

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Speaker 1: data down right, you know who you know, who your

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Speaker 1: readers are, you know what your open rates are, your

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Speaker 1: click through rates, you know, really knowing the psychographics of

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Speaker 1: your audience and being able to speak to that and

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Speaker 1: showing that level of competence of what in what you're building.

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Speaker 1: So I felt confident going in also and saying like,

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Speaker 1: well I want this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you know. That's something I've kind of

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Speaker 2: told people in the past too. I think a lot

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Speaker 2: of times when people are working on you know, businesses

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Speaker 2: or projects, a lot of times there's scared to ask

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Speaker 2: for larger amounts because I think sometimes they think about

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Speaker 2: it from their standpoint, like and I always say, like,

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Speaker 2: this ain't your money, This is in the same thing

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Speaker 2: mighty to be totally honest, absolutely, but you know, like

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Speaker 2: you know, I've told people it's like, you know, you

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Speaker 2: can't like if you've ever had to put the down

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Speaker 2: payment on the house, you ever bought a car, like

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Speaker 2: you understand, like these these numbers get thrown around all

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Speaker 2: the time. So don't you know, you know, miss an

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Speaker 2: opportunity because you're scared to ask for a bigger number because

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Speaker 2: you just haven't experienced that personally, right, Like that's where

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Speaker 2: you actually grow. And and to your point, like you know,

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Speaker 2: content needs a business model. So if you want to

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Speaker 2: bring on you know, people and teams and freelancers and

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Speaker 2: stuff like that, you got to ask some day of

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Speaker 2: money so you can actually pay them.

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Speaker 1: You have to ask for some money. And also I

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Speaker 1: think that a lot of times we feel like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you know, my audience isn't the biggest audience. Our social

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Speaker 1: media numbers are the biggest, or what have you it's

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Speaker 1: like I try to hyper focus on value and distinctiveness, right, Like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I may not have, you know, an audience size of

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Speaker 1: like a million people right right out of the gate,

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Speaker 1: but the people who are here interact. Every single email

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Speaker 1: that I was sending folks or responding back, people were

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Speaker 1: sharing their own news and information or a leaked email

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Speaker 1: or something like that to add into you know, what

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Speaker 1: the plug was doing. And so for me, it's like

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Speaker 1: I can demonstrate, like our engagement's gonna be better than

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Speaker 1: someone who has a large audience and they're just kind

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Speaker 1: of one of many versus. My goal was to slow

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Speaker 1: down the news and actually, you do real journalism right,

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Speaker 1: especially when it came to covering black folks in the

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Speaker 1: innovation economy. It was like, you're gonna read this story,

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Speaker 1: you gonna sit, You're gonna sit with me for about

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Speaker 1: good five ten minutes. We're gonna I'm gonna have you

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Speaker 1: digest this. So on top of the value that I

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Speaker 1: added in covering this space in the way no one

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Speaker 1: else was, it was I want to slow this down

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Speaker 1: in a world full of noise where everything's like entertainment

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Speaker 1: focused and like a nice headline here and nice headline there,

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Speaker 1: like no, like we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna sit

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Speaker 1: and we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna ramp up our

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Speaker 1: vocabulary and we're gonna learn these terms, we're gonna click

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Speaker 1: these links, you know, and we're gonna engage in the

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Speaker 1: actual conversation. And so I got to use that as

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Speaker 1: like a lot of the selling you know, point and

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Speaker 1: proposition of like, hey, I'm not we're not talking about

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Speaker 1: junk food over here, like we're we're really talking about

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Speaker 1: them season. The greens got real season, they got clean,

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Speaker 1: real good, they got washed real good, you know. And

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Speaker 1: so you're gonna sit here, You're gonna you gonna sit here,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna eat, right, And so that's what I was

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Speaker 1: able to sell to our partners and our sponsors and

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Speaker 1: advertisers and even grant and foundation partners.

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Speaker 2: I'm gonna ask everybody to start putting things in terms

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Speaker 2: of college rooms because one, that's one of my favorite things.

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Speaker 1: But like that's a favorite thing to make quite honestly.

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Speaker 2: Now, on that journey, you said us around around like

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Speaker 2: seven years of the plug, like, what was one of

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Speaker 2: your favorite moments along that journey?

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Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh, I have so many. I still have them.

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Speaker 1: I still have people who come up to me and say,

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Speaker 1: we miss you, or I got an opportunity because we

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Speaker 1: were featured. There was a handful of times where maybe

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Speaker 1: in the first couple of months, you know, folks would

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Speaker 1: say because of you and in best who subscribes to

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Speaker 1: the Plug reached out to us and we got a check,

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Speaker 1: we got an investment as a result of being featured

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Speaker 1: in the Plug, And that was an impact measure that

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Speaker 1: I had not considered when I started the Plug. Was

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Speaker 1: that And that's also how we ended up becoming tp

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Speaker 1: insites because we started to look at our back end

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Speaker 1: data of who was subscribing and it was investors from

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Speaker 1: all over and other media reporters who were starting to

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Speaker 1: source stories and people from us as well, and so

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Speaker 1: the level of influence we had was just tremendous. But

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Speaker 1: those are probably the stories that I remember the most,

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Speaker 1: is folks really like just being grateful to be added

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Speaker 1: and considered who then that outcome was we got seen

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Speaker 1: or we got an opportunity as a result of the

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Speaker 1: journalism that you and your team have done. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: that probably stands out the most. And us getting our

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Speaker 1: publication syndicated on the Bloomberg terminal, so for those who

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Speaker 1: don't know what the terminal is, so you know, there's

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Speaker 1: like Bloomberg dot com. Right, And also had I had

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Speaker 1: read Bloomberg by Bloomberg, which was Bloomberg's autobiography that he

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Speaker 1: wrote himself about himself the other things that he did, right,

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Speaker 1: and it really made me think about the business model

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Speaker 1: for the plug. So again, as I told you, I

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Speaker 1: started off with this newsletter right, kind of as just

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Speaker 1: like a hobby something I wanted to do, something I

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Speaker 1: just wanted to contribute and add, you know, to the community,

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Speaker 1: and then kind of had to morph it into this

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Speaker 1: business and then eventually make the decision to just go

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Speaker 1: full throttle. Well I only felt comfortable doing that because

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Speaker 1: I had a blueprint of the Bloomberg business model. So

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg didn't start off as a media company. And it

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Speaker 1: started off as this kind of software service, like early, early,

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Speaker 1: early software service covering bond markets. Okay, right, so essentially

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Speaker 1: back in the day, So bloom Bloomberg started off as

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Speaker 1: a trader on Wall Street. Right, And if you can

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Speaker 1: consider even like watch all those like wolf Wall Street,

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Speaker 1: like all those you just see all the people down

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Speaker 1: there with the papers and stuff. So think about it.

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Speaker 1: You've got these markets that get open. There's not a

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Speaker 1: digitized system for tracking what's happening as the market is

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Speaker 1: fluctuating throughout the day. So Bloomberg in his cast of characters,

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Speaker 1: are like in the basement taking all this data and

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Speaker 1: creating a computer program based on this bond market data,

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Speaker 1: the first to digitize it, right, and so that then

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Speaker 1: became the Bloomberg Terminal. So taking and place in all

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Speaker 1: this data that no one else was like putting into

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Speaker 1: any kind of a system, and then licensing it to

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Speaker 1: some of the top financial firms. So that's really where

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Speaker 1: like the billionaire Bloomberg came from, was this particular foundation.

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Speaker 1: So now you have all the top financial analysts in

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Speaker 1: the world that have to subscribe to the Bloomberg They

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Speaker 1: called it the terminal to the Bloomberg terminal, because this

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Speaker 1: is going to help you do your job. If you're

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Speaker 1: going to be controlling other people's wealth, you need to

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Speaker 1: know what's happening, right, You're going to get that in

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Speaker 1: real time from the Bloomberg Terminal. So from there, then

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Speaker 1: of course you've got all this business insight and information.

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Speaker 1: The next thing you do is you launch a media company,

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Speaker 1: because now you can be a leader in business information.

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Speaker 1: So when I thought about TP in sites, and I

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Speaker 1: thought about how we can be the collectors and drivers

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Speaker 1: of black innovation data. Specifically, we can sell that data

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Speaker 1: to the financial markets and investors and all these people

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Speaker 1: who are trying to figure out what's happening with black

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Speaker 1: folks in business from the startup perspective, not just like

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Speaker 1: your general government, you know, like who has a small

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Speaker 1: business and runs a brick and mortar, but actual innovation

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Speaker 1: in these spaces that no one was collecting data on.

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Speaker 1: Then we can sell that and that can run and

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Speaker 1: drive and cover the costs of the media company. So

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Speaker 1: that was the thinking. So going back to your original question,

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Speaker 1: one of the proudest moments following folks who said that

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Speaker 1: they have been impacted by the work. The other problem

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Speaker 1: moment was getting the email from Bloomberg to have a

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Speaker 1: conversation about the plug being on the Bloomberg terminal. Because

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Speaker 1: I started with that model and so it was kind

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Speaker 1: of like a Okay, I did what I did, what

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Speaker 1: I said I wanted to do. I accomplished what it

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Speaker 1: is that I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to become the

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Speaker 1: black Bloomberg. And now they're reaching out to us. Literally

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Speaker 1: the first black business publication to syndicate on the Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: terminal where half a million financial analysts around the globe

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Speaker 1: are reading and digesting and learning about what's happening in

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Speaker 1: business to advise their clients on where to invest. So

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Speaker 1: for me, that was like krim delachrome.

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Speaker 2: And how long was it between you know, you giving

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Speaker 2: that insight from reading that autobiography to that opportunity.

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Speaker 1: Coming up you ask the entrepreneur man, Time doesn't exist,

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Speaker 1: It all blurs together. My gosh. I want to say

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Speaker 1: I launched the Plug in twenty sixteen, and I want

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Speaker 1: to say maybe by twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen. I was like,

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Speaker 1: all right, let's let's really like make this a thing.

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Speaker 1: And I think I think I read yeah, Bloomberg by Bloomberg,

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Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, and I was like, all right,

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Speaker 1: that's gonna be my goal. And yeah, we started syndicating

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty. I want to say, Okay, So yeah, it

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Speaker 1: was like it was levels, but maybe a two year

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Speaker 1: period after, like I kind of set the goal, and

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Speaker 1: that also helped me to really focus on how can

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Speaker 1: we be the best business reporters on Black Business News

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Speaker 1: because nobody else was you know, now they are because

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Speaker 1: we set the page right. So yeah, but you know

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Speaker 1: we're just working, We're just working.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I mean it's interesting too write like to even have

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Speaker 2: that insight, because media companies are hard, you know, just

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Speaker 2: from like and figure out like what that right business

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Speaker 2: model is. And you know you started doing that, it

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Speaker 2: started going. Then when did the kind of the opportunity

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Speaker 2: come around to where you decided, Okay, maybe this is

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Speaker 2: time to sell it and grow it or do something else.

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Speaker 2: Like what kind of made you start having those thoughts?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, media companies are hard. Black led, black owned, black

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Speaker 1: centered media companies are even harder. Yeah, advertising dollars, the

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Speaker 1: industry already was, you know, was taken aback. Buy technology,

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Speaker 1: buy social media companies, buy search engine companies. Like, all

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Speaker 1: the ad dollars shifted, right, and so the the feast

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Speaker 1: of what used to be the ad industry you know,

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Speaker 1: got became increasingly thin. Right. And then on top of that,

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Speaker 1: not only are the dollars when you're competing with folks

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Speaker 1: like the New York Times right, or the Wall Street

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Speaker 1: Journal or even bet right in terms of like the

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Speaker 1: vast reach of your of your audience for ad dollars.

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Speaker 1: If these big players are competing forevers, imagine when you're

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Speaker 1: like a smaller outfit in a very very niche space, right,

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Speaker 1: what it's like to coerce advertisers to come in or

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Speaker 1: and then on top of that, being black in a

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Speaker 1: space where twenty twenty twenty twenty one, you know, okay,

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Speaker 1: everybody's spending money with you, right because of the murder

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Speaker 1: of George Floyd, because of all of these things that

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Speaker 1: you know are happening in the world, as you know,

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Speaker 1: relates of course to you know, the way that black

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Speaker 1: people are treating in society. And then by twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 1: the conversation is shifting, right, So the dollars, the phone calls,

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Speaker 1: the emails, they start to slow up. And I had

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Speaker 1: to really make some really interesting decisions and have really

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Speaker 1: hard conversations with not just advertisers and funders and investors,

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Speaker 1: but also with colleagues in the space. Because my biggest

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Speaker 1: challenge was I've led my team thus far. You know,

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Speaker 1: I had folks who came to me from like the

435
00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:09,160
Speaker 1: Weather Channel, CNN, Forbes just amazing, you know companies, and

436
00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:12,280
Speaker 1: you know, being able to like platform them was amazing.

437
00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:15,960
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, if we have to spend the

438
00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:21,159
Speaker 1: next three to five years, you know, chasing and trying

439
00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:23,600
Speaker 1: to just get to where we are every year and

440
00:22:23,640 --> 00:22:26,280
Speaker 1: not seeing tremendous growth or having to do things that

441
00:22:26,320 --> 00:22:29,719
Speaker 1: are outside of our wheelhouse, is that responsible for me

442
00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:33,000
Speaker 1: as a leader? Is that responsible for me to my

443
00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:38,040
Speaker 1: team versus finding a key partner that can help us

444
00:22:38,640 --> 00:22:42,760
Speaker 1: expand and do the kind of do more of the

445
00:22:42,840 --> 00:22:44,800
Speaker 1: kind of work that we want to do and have

446
00:22:44,840 --> 00:22:47,679
Speaker 1: more of the conversations that we want to have instead

447
00:22:47,720 --> 00:22:50,520
Speaker 1: of just trying to be independent on our own right.

448
00:22:51,920 --> 00:22:54,399
Speaker 1: And so it was it was not a decision that

449
00:22:54,480 --> 00:22:56,920
Speaker 1: you make all at one time. You know, you start

450
00:22:56,920 --> 00:22:59,920
Speaker 1: to survey the landscape. You start to survey who's spending

451
00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:04,240
Speaker 1: where and how, and you know, again, how do we

452
00:23:04,280 --> 00:23:07,600
Speaker 1: stay true? How do we still do great work? And

453
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:10,520
Speaker 1: our team was relatively small, so like six to eight

454
00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:13,560
Speaker 1: people full time, and then we had freelancers all over

455
00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:17,400
Speaker 1: the world and mostly black journalists I think ninety eight

456
00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:22,359
Speaker 1: percent like black business journalists, which is also really hard

457
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:26,520
Speaker 1: to find. Yeah, very very difficult to find, and so,

458
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:28,119
Speaker 1: you know, and then and then at some point it

459
00:23:28,160 --> 00:23:31,320
Speaker 1: was just like I'm actually ready for something else. Once

460
00:23:31,359 --> 00:23:34,679
Speaker 1: we like hit a lot of those milestones, it was like,

461
00:23:34,720 --> 00:23:38,080
Speaker 1: all right, this is amazing. I want to go work

462
00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:40,600
Speaker 1: on climate, you know, like I want to go like

463
00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:43,919
Speaker 1: figure out how we continue to breathe air and water

464
00:23:44,200 --> 00:23:47,239
Speaker 1: and make sure like black and brown communities aren't like

465
00:23:47,480 --> 00:23:50,440
Speaker 1: left when all these other people go to Mars, right,

466
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:53,399
Speaker 1: we actually have a Liverpool planet. And so it was

467
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:55,280
Speaker 1: just it was just it was it was about time,

468
00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:58,960
Speaker 1: you know, it's about time. And some people build for forever.

469
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:01,399
Speaker 1: And what I recognize about myself is that I'm a

470
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:04,120
Speaker 1: zero to one founder. I'm a like, let me build

471
00:24:04,160 --> 00:24:06,080
Speaker 1: something that doesn't exist, let me stand it up, let

472
00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:08,080
Speaker 1: me resource it, let me put the right people into place,

473
00:24:08,119 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 1: and then like go to God. Yeah, you know, like

474
00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:12,840
Speaker 1: take it to the next thing, and then like I

475
00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:14,840
Speaker 1: can move on into all these other things that like

476
00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 1: I'm put on Earth to do. And it took me

477
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:20,159
Speaker 1: a while again to kind of get there and to

478
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:22,800
Speaker 1: feel like, all right, I'm going to help my existing

479
00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 1: team transition to where their next level is. And in

480
00:24:26,080 --> 00:24:29,399
Speaker 1: the meantime, you know, have faith that like my work

481
00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:30,800
Speaker 1: did what it was supposed to do.

482
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:33,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that really resonates to me. You talk

483
00:24:33,600 --> 00:24:35,879
Speaker 2: about like the whole zero to one versus like the

484
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:37,959
Speaker 2: one end kind of founder, right, because yeah, there are

485
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:40,399
Speaker 2: some people even I feel like that way about certain things.

486
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:41,879
Speaker 2: It's like, look, I'm really good at getting stuff up

487
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:43,560
Speaker 2: and running and getting it to a certain point. But

488
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:45,399
Speaker 2: you got to ask yourself. It's like, all right, do

489
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:47,200
Speaker 2: I was still going to be doing this in five years,

490
00:24:47,280 --> 00:24:49,200
Speaker 2: ten years? Like do I see myself as a person

491
00:24:49,240 --> 00:24:51,639
Speaker 2: that's going to run and scale this thing for the

492
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:52,360
Speaker 2: next decade?

493
00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:54,360
Speaker 3: Or do I want to take it this far?

494
00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:57,359
Speaker 2: I've created, it exists now, yeah, let me find somebody

495
00:24:57,359 --> 00:24:59,200
Speaker 2: else can kind of take it and run with it. Now.

496
00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:00,920
Speaker 2: One thing I kind of wonder about it. We'll definitely

497
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:02,720
Speaker 2: get into this climate stuff next. One thing I wonder

498
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:05,159
Speaker 2: you know, when I went to grad school and I

499
00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:08,200
Speaker 2: finished up, I was in shock, is like the way

500
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:10,160
Speaker 2: I kind of put it right, Like I was so

501
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:12,440
Speaker 2: I had so much stuff to do and it was

502
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:15,199
Speaker 2: just so much like it was a NonStop that like

503
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:17,440
Speaker 2: the first day after grad school, I just was kind

504
00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:19,439
Speaker 2: of sitting there like, so am I supposed to be

505
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:22,600
Speaker 2: doing something? Like it just felt weird to have extra

506
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:24,920
Speaker 2: time for a little bit. I kind of wonder like

507
00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:27,440
Speaker 2: when you exited that business, did you have kind of

508
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 2: a similar experience of situation, Like were you just so

509
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:32,119
Speaker 2: much in it? Like wow, you know what we like,

510
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:35,960
Speaker 2: it's officially sold. It's off now, Yeah, like damn, what

511
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 2: do I do?

512
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:39,639
Speaker 1: Is this a safe space? Like okay, it's a safe space.

513
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 1: So first of all, yeah, grad school, grad school is

514
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:49,960
Speaker 1: is boot camp, it is any ways. So honestly, the

515
00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:53,680
Speaker 1: plug had become my identity. You know, you run something

516
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:57,399
Speaker 1: for seven years, you put your heart, your soul, your

517
00:25:57,520 --> 00:26:01,920
Speaker 1: entire life is around it, like you are that thing, right,

518
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:04,919
Speaker 1: That's where everyone knows your work from. That's how you

519
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:08,000
Speaker 1: get into every room, into ever, be on every panel

520
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 1: highlighted like that is your body of work. And I

521
00:26:13,520 --> 00:26:15,879
Speaker 1: want to say, like the day that we announced like

522
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 1: our last piece, our last publication date, I well, I

523
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:25,920
Speaker 1: turned off my email and I turned off my phone

524
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 1: because I was not ready for the calls and the

525
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:31,960
Speaker 1: you know what have you? And then I went to

526
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:35,399
Speaker 1: the Bahamas and I was like I just need I

527
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:38,199
Speaker 1: need a second to figure out like I was way

528
00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 1: too pressed to figure out what was next because my

529
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:42,440
Speaker 1: whole identity, like I wanted to be like, yeah, this

530
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 1: is what I'm starting now, and I wasn't trying. I

531
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 1: wasn't allowing myself to have just the room to breathe

532
00:26:48,520 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 1: and to just look up and say, wow, that was

533
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 1: a ride. And now like where is life leading me next?

534
00:26:57,400 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: And so I will say a week later, you know,

535
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 1: back from the Bahamas, a pretend refresh, right, because now

536
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 1: I have to come back and respond to all the

537
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:10,120
Speaker 1: messages and every everybody was just amazing. It was amazing.

538
00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 1: It was like, man, like you really helped shape my

539
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 1: trajectory and I got into this because of you, or

540
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 1: we got funding me because of this, or just well done,

541
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 1: just beautiful supportive messages. I did not know what to

542
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 1: do with myself, Like I really didn't. I had to

543
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:32,640
Speaker 1: figure out a routine because I wasn't you know, having

544
00:27:32,680 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 1: all hands on Wenday like I legit had to figure

545
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:37,120
Speaker 1: out like okay, I'll Monday, I'm gonna do this on Tuesday,

546
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 1: you know.

547
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:39,160
Speaker 2: Time.

548
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:41,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the biggest thing was like, well, how do

549
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 1: you like what is your title? Now? Like what do

550
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:45,639
Speaker 1: you do. Like that part was like, oh, snap, I

551
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:47,680
Speaker 1: don't have I'm just here, you know what I'm saying,

552
00:27:47,680 --> 00:27:49,120
Speaker 1: and like trying to figure out, like, now how do

553
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 1: I do I tell myself? Oh, like I'm the former

554
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 1: you know, founder CEO of the plug. I Yeah, it was.

555
00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 1: It was a very interesting It took me probably about

556
00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 1: a solid year to recover from that and to find

557
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 1: my footing and my sense of self and identity and

558
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 1: just myself and not necessarily just what I produce, right,

559
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 1: but also to look at you know, as you know,

560
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 1: like being a founder, being an entrepreneur is one of

561
00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 1: the most significant personal and professional development things the experiences

562
00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 1: you could ever have. Right. It makes you stronger, more resilient,

563
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 1: It increases your emotional intelligence. You become a stronger leader

564
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 1: if you're trying to be good at what you do. Now,

565
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:32,919
Speaker 1: some people are just straight ass, right, you know, they

566
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:36,480
Speaker 1: don't care. But if you actually have cared about your journey,

567
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 1: you've also come out on the other side as a

568
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:40,720
Speaker 1: very different person, and so you're not just trying to

569
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 1: jump into the next thing like you're trying to find now,

570
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:44,959
Speaker 1: meaning right, you've had some successes, so it's like I'm

571
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 1: trying to find and to do meaningful work next. And

572
00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 1: the amount of phone calls that I got to like, oh,

573
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:53,000
Speaker 1: can you come be the CEO of this? Or can

574
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: you come do X, Y and Z and you know,

575
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 1: or can you come help us run this fund? And

576
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: you know, just things that like sounded good and nice

577
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 1: and prestigious and like a really dope like, oh, now

578
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:04,360
Speaker 1: I'm popping out, like you know, look what I just did.

579
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:06,880
Speaker 1: Now I'm popping out. Things just there were there were

580
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: things that like sounded good but just didn't didn't feel

581
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:13,160
Speaker 1: quite right. And it was literally a conversation with my

582
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 1: mom and she just said, it's okay for you to rest.

583
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 1: It's okay for you to just rest for a second.

584
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 1: And she's like, you have far exceed our expectations. You know.

585
00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:25,280
Speaker 1: She was like, we know you're gonna do all this

586
00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:27,160
Speaker 1: because you know, when I was like, I'm the entrepreneur

587
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 1: and they're like, why don't you get a job, a job,

588
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:32,440
Speaker 1: like get a whole job, you know, and so yeah,

589
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:35,280
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like it took me a

590
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:39,280
Speaker 1: little while to figure out, now, this is what I

591
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:40,440
Speaker 1: want to be and this is how I want to

592
00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 1: build because in the beginning, especially when you're building something

593
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 1: of this magnitude for the first time, like you just

594
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:50,440
Speaker 1: try to survive every single day, So fourteen fifteen hour

595
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 1: days on planes because you had to be you know,

596
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:57,520
Speaker 1: saying yes to everything, yes to everyone, having a hire,

597
00:29:57,560 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 1: having a fire. After a while, that takes a big

598
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:02,960
Speaker 1: toll on your body, right, So I had to really

599
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:05,600
Speaker 1: take a step back and just say, Okay, the next

600
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 1: thing I build, I want to build it sustainably. I

601
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 1: want to build it in a way that doesn't take

602
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:13,240
Speaker 1: away from my health, it doesn't take away from my family,

603
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:18,120
Speaker 1: and it is done in a way that is smart,

604
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:20,880
Speaker 1: and there's some automations and I'm using all the technology

605
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 1: I'm talking about every single day to run this, right. So, yeah,

606
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 1: it was tough, and I had a lot of really

607
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 1: interesting offers on the table that just didn't feel right.

608
00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 1: But then the things that did come through the door

609
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:35,880
Speaker 1: that were just as a result of the relationships built,

610
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 1: the work done and demonstrate just even to this day,

611
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:40,480
Speaker 1: like so much of the things that I have going

612
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 1: on now are just based off of people are like, oh,

613
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 1: we saw that, Like you're rocking that perfect, You're doing

614
00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 1: this next thing, Let's go I.

615
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:00,640
Speaker 2: Think definitely resonates with me. I mean, even when I

616
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:02,480
Speaker 2: think about the stuff we've done with Butter, it's like, yeah,

617
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 2: how do you if I did want to do something

618
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 2: like how do you separate yourself from the thing that

619
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 2: everybody kind of knows you about?

620
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:07,959
Speaker 1: Right?

621
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 2: And then even just yeah, there's there's it's almost like

622
00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 2: a because you spend all day on these things. Again,

623
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:14,560
Speaker 2: this is the part I think people don't like. People

624
00:31:14,560 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 2: talk about all they sold there was an exit. It's like, yeah,

625
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 2: but that person probably poured so much themselves into that

626
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 2: thing that while yes, they got some money out of it,

627
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:24,200
Speaker 2: and it's not there like now that's a new that's

628
00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 2: a void that you have to fill in some way,

629
00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 2: shape or form. And so you know, and I've been

630
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 2: there in a similar thing too, where you know, I

631
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 2: used to have another business that I was running and

632
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:34,719
Speaker 2: I didn't do the best job I think. I mean,

633
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 2: it's a very common thing, especially with entrepreneurs, right, Like

634
00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:39,720
Speaker 2: you kind of build a team based on who you

635
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 2: have access to, So a lot of times it's your

636
00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:43,840
Speaker 2: friends and just people you know. And so I don't

637
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 2: think I did the best job building that team. And

638
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:48,840
Speaker 2: because I know because every time my phone rang, I'd

639
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:49,920
Speaker 2: have a damn anxiety attack.

640
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:52,560
Speaker 3: I'd like, oh God, what what what? What is? What

641
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 3: went wrong? Now?

642
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 2: And you know, I remember I went on vacation and

643
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:57,640
Speaker 2: I had to like literally lock my phone in the

644
00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 2: safe because because I was out to the point to

645
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 2: where anytime I even got a notification, I would just

646
00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 2: have this feeling of anxiety. And again, think about how

647
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 2: many times your phone goes off over the course of

648
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 2: a day, Like I'm just talking about like generic spam emails,

649
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 2: like you don't even know us, Like I don't even

650
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 2: know what I'm about to look at. And so I

651
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:17,160
Speaker 2: did the kind of the same thing as when I said,

652
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 2: like my next thing I build, I can't do it

653
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:21,920
Speaker 2: like this. It can't be so wrapped up in every

654
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 2: single aspect of it to the point to which, yeah,

655
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:26,719
Speaker 2: like I literally didn't want to even look at my phone.

656
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 2: And I think, again, people don't talk about that side.

657
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 2: They talk about you know, oh it's great and you

658
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 2: do all this stuff. It's like, yeah, but these people

659
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 2: put so much themselves into this thing. You know, my

660
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 2: guy Mady Mighty Water was talking about something on socially

661
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 2: the other day, like, you know, for businesses that fail,

662
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 2: it's like the same thing even if you have success,

663
00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:45,120
Speaker 2: but for those businesses that fail, it's like you put

664
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:48,600
Speaker 2: so much of yourself into it and it didn't work outright,

665
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 2: Like give yourself some grace, yes times.

666
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 1: Some time, because you do. You have to recover, you

667
00:32:56,240 --> 00:32:59,240
Speaker 1: have to take you have to have those quiet moments,

668
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:01,720
Speaker 1: and some people again they go I do admire people

669
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:04,400
Speaker 1: who go right into the next thing, because I'm like,

670
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 1: I couldn't do it. Yeah, I mean I did a

671
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:09,800
Speaker 1: lot of quiet stuff in the background, but you know,

672
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 1: the relationship to what we produce, and I don't know

673
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 1: if it's just like distinctively American that we're like this,

674
00:33:16,680 --> 00:33:20,520
Speaker 1: you know, because we're all about production and efficiency and

675
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 1: growth and scale and all those kinds of things. But yeah,

676
00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:26,960
Speaker 1: but at the same time, it's like, I'm so glad

677
00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:30,600
Speaker 1: that I built that way because if I didn't have

678
00:33:31,160 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 1: that muscle, I wouldn't know how to now build very

679
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:37,880
Speaker 1: differently because you need that like that. You know, people

680
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:39,480
Speaker 1: talk about pay your dues, but I think it's more

681
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 1: of like building that tough skin and also building the acumen,

682
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:46,040
Speaker 1: like you know, when there's a terrible deal on the table,

683
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:48,240
Speaker 1: you know how much to charge. You now know that

684
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 1: you can't always hire your friends and your cousins, you know,

685
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:53,120
Speaker 1: to be part of the business, and you love them,

686
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 1: but like, no, you can't work for me because you're

687
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:57,400
Speaker 1: not going to You're not what I touched it too,

688
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: don't and I don't want to babysit you, right, So

689
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:04,000
Speaker 1: you get to all of that, like, if we didn't

690
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 1: have all that, we wouldn't know how to build what

691
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:09,160
Speaker 1: we're building today, right, and we probably wouldn't know how

692
00:34:09,200 --> 00:34:12,600
Speaker 1: to Oh this is true for you, But I was

693
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:15,520
Speaker 1: someone who really had like a temper, right, and so

694
00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:18,359
Speaker 1: if I felt a disrespect, I'm popping.

695
00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:19,120
Speaker 3: Off about it.

696
00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 1: I don't let you know. And you can't always do

697
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:24,520
Speaker 1: that in business, right, And so it's also like, how

698
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:27,759
Speaker 1: do you also become a better communicator so that when

699
00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:31,480
Speaker 1: something is not right for what you're trying to accomplish,

700
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:33,200
Speaker 1: you can get to where you need to get to

701
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:36,960
Speaker 1: right and turn conversations around, or turn deals around, or

702
00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:39,360
Speaker 1: just say Okay, that's not for me, you know, and

703
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:41,880
Speaker 1: keep it pushing, because now I expend all this energy

704
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 1: being upset, right, versus like, all right, so what is

705
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 1: our solution let's get to a solution. And even you know,

706
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 1: if you have to deal with or speak to and

707
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:54,399
Speaker 1: especially coming to the tables as black entrepreneurs and black

708
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 1: women entrepreneurs, like folks will be in rooms talking to

709
00:34:57,160 --> 00:34:59,719
Speaker 1: us crazy absolutely a lot of times and just tell

710
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:01,839
Speaker 1: you to your face, we don't think you're worth this much.

711
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 1: We don't we don't value this or what have you?

712
00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 1: Or we already spent our black dollars, you know, like

713
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:09,799
Speaker 1: we already spend our our black people budget, you know,

714
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 1: so we're not gonna we're not gonna spend more budget

715
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 1: with more black people. There's only gonna be one. There's

716
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:17,720
Speaker 1: gonna be that one media company that gets our black dollars.

717
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:20,760
Speaker 1: And and it's only the two percent of their overall

718
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:23,480
Speaker 1: marketing budget, right that they're already spending with other people.

719
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:28,759
Speaker 1: And instead of like getting frustrated and cutting people out, what.

720
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:30,279
Speaker 3: You want to do a lot of time, what you

721
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 3: want to do, right.

722
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:33,480
Speaker 1: You're like, don't play with me, right, don't be over

723
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 1: your planet in my face. But you you learn that

724
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:40,319
Speaker 1: sense of tact and like true leadership of you know

725
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 1: what this situation is, what it is? Right? But I

726
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:52,279
Speaker 1: have to remember the mission I have to remember that, like,

727
00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:54,680
Speaker 1: we still got to get to the other side of this.

728
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:56,520
Speaker 1: So how am I gonna make this work? And it

729
00:35:56,520 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 1: may not be with this particular entity, but I have

730
00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:03,279
Speaker 1: to figure out how to make this work and run

731
00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 1: because I'm going to get obstacles all the time for

732
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 1: whatever reason and for whatever bias people have.

733
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:10,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know it's yeah again, it's funny you

734
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:11,520
Speaker 2: talk about even just leadership.

735
00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:11,759
Speaker 1: You know.

736
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:13,439
Speaker 2: I was talking to a friend of mine and I'll

737
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:16,160
Speaker 2: just say, like I can tell I've spent a lot

738
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:19,360
Speaker 2: of time, especially for last I'd say maybe four or

739
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:22,400
Speaker 2: five years learning how to be a leader, you know,

740
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 2: and I and I can really tell, you know, even

741
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:27,160
Speaker 2: when I see how certain people interact with their teams,

742
00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:29,239
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, that person has probably never been to

743
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:32,800
Speaker 2: a single leadership training seminar, They've never read a book.

744
00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:34,400
Speaker 1: On it's an executive coach.

745
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:37,680
Speaker 2: An executive coach, And you know, I can really tell.

746
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:39,319
Speaker 2: And I think like that also is kind of a

747
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:41,799
Speaker 2: little bit of a a secret sauce, right, It's like,

748
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 2: which is again you know that you have to do it,

749
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 2: Like people don't really understand the value of what it

750
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 2: takes to really be a good leader to have, you know,

751
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 2: to be able to give clear directions, to be able

752
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:52,279
Speaker 2: to hold people accountable, and the right kind of way

753
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 2: to be able to communicate. It's just those are things

754
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:55,879
Speaker 2: that I you know, you kind of learned a little

755
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 2: bit through hustle. Yeah, but you know it's again, it's

756
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:00,440
Speaker 2: like you can only hustle so far, like sooner you've

757
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 2: got to actually add a little you know, some frameworks,

758
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:05,759
Speaker 2: some context to how you're doing things. Otherwise you're just

759
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:07,879
Speaker 2: making stuff up and that will definitely stress you out.

760
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:10,399
Speaker 2: But you know you've done that, and then you start

761
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:14,520
Speaker 2: a pivoting So why climate tech? Like do you say

762
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:15,800
Speaker 2: they're gonna leave us and go to Mars?

763
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:17,920
Speaker 1: So we got to figure out what we're going to

764
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:20,960
Speaker 1: go over here, you know, honestly, and just really quickly

765
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:23,240
Speaker 1: just to the whole point of like, you know, learning

766
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:25,560
Speaker 1: leadership skills. And I think that so much of the

767
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:29,440
Speaker 1: entrepreneurship conversation is focused on money, yeah, right, And I

768
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 1: think that it's kind of been weaponized like, oh, you know,

769
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:35,480
Speaker 1: we're better than you because we are out here trying

770
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 1: to doing it for ourselves. And I think that what

771
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:42,640
Speaker 1: I have realized is if you want to be really good,

772
00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 1: if you want to get really good and you want

773
00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:47,960
Speaker 1: to build meaningfully, it's not yeah, like, of course we

774
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:49,880
Speaker 1: don't want to give them money, like that's that's a byproduct.

775
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 1: But it really is about studying like actual business or

776
00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 1: you have to be a student of business and student

777
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:00,440
Speaker 1: of people. That's the biggest thing. You have to be

778
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:06,359
Speaker 1: able to navigate around egos and personalities and culture in

779
00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:08,600
Speaker 1: order to get really good at what you do. Because

780
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:11,240
Speaker 1: if you can read and study people, you can sell,

781
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:15,360
Speaker 1: you can market, you can build, you can analyze, you

782
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:18,360
Speaker 1: can be in any room on the planet and be

783
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:21,880
Speaker 1: able to do really solid business. But if you're wrapped

784
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:24,240
Speaker 1: up in your own ego about like just making money,

785
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:27,960
Speaker 1: like I'm sorry, Like I think that's just shitty entrepreneurship

786
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 1: at the end of the day. But yeah, climate, how

787
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:34,280
Speaker 1: do we get there? I told you I'm from Seattle,

788
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:38,480
Speaker 1: So Seattle is a very hippie, dippy place, right, It's

789
00:38:38,520 --> 00:38:40,439
Speaker 1: like absolutely. When I came to Atlanta, was in birken

790
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:45,320
Speaker 1: Sox all the time, right, And we had an environmental

791
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:48,600
Speaker 1: education when I was very very young. The environment and

792
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:51,879
Speaker 1: care for the environment was embedded in our curriculum, so

793
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:55,760
Speaker 1: coming to the other side of the country and learning

794
00:38:55,840 --> 00:39:00,640
Speaker 1: that basic things were not taught was very foreign. We

795
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:03,080
Speaker 1: were very much one with nature. There's always a hike

796
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 1: camp interest. While on camp today we had to learn

797
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:10,520
Speaker 1: about the plants and which ones will save you or

798
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:13,440
Speaker 1: which ones you can eat, and what banana slugs are.

799
00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:17,560
Speaker 1: Yeah no, no, no, no, no, no, very very much, very

800
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:22,080
Speaker 1: much so like hiking, camping, fishing, horseback riding, all those things.

801
00:39:22,080 --> 00:39:24,320
Speaker 1: So grew up with a tremendous left for the environment.

802
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 1: And then as I was, you know, building and growing

803
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:31,120
Speaker 1: the Plug, we did try to cover as many tech

804
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:36,320
Speaker 1: centered environmental businesses, black owned businesses as much as possible

805
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 1: who were dealing with things like water or energy or

806
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:41,600
Speaker 1: like pulling carbon out of the air and turning it

807
00:39:41,640 --> 00:39:45,719
Speaker 1: into protein and like really dope shit like that. They

808
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:50,680
Speaker 1: don't get as much shine because it's sometimes gonna be

809
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:52,720
Speaker 1: a little bit harder to grasp exactly what they're doing.

810
00:39:54,040 --> 00:39:56,880
Speaker 1: And so even before I made a decision to sell,

811
00:39:57,840 --> 00:39:59,840
Speaker 1: I was building out a climate vertical for the Plug.

812
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:03,960
Speaker 1: Oh okay, And I think that was my attempt to

813
00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:07,759
Speaker 1: try to start working on what I really wanted to do.

814
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:11,160
Speaker 1: And at some point like it was just it was

815
00:40:11,200 --> 00:40:14,399
Speaker 1: just really hard to recruit a black business journalist that

816
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:17,480
Speaker 1: was focused on environment or had some kind of a

817
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:26,120
Speaker 1: scientific writer background. Super challenging. So this pivot is more about, now,

818
00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:28,440
Speaker 1: how do we use all this innovation and build things

819
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 1: that we actually need. Because we don't need more delivery apps,

820
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:36,520
Speaker 1: we don't need that, and we don't need any more

821
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:39,280
Speaker 1: things that are going to waste away in the ocean

822
00:40:39,400 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 1: or go into a landfill. But what do our people?

823
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:45,799
Speaker 1: What are people going to need? Water, clean air, right

824
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:52,319
Speaker 1: ways to eat, and all of these things are being

825
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:55,279
Speaker 1: threatened in our environment now. And then when we think

826
00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:57,680
Speaker 1: about all these natural disasters, who are the folks that

827
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:00,880
Speaker 1: impacted the most? Right to look like me and you?

828
00:41:01,640 --> 00:41:07,960
Speaker 1: But the lack of focus on creating tools that are

829
00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:11,200
Speaker 1: going to support our liveli than in the future. And

830
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 1: I always always say this, and hopefully I think listeners

831
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:17,840
Speaker 1: and viewers really get this. I think black and brown innovators,

832
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: if y'all want to build something today, go into the

833
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:26,160
Speaker 1: climate tech space. There's just wide open opportunity and the

834
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 1: category is almost endless. This country is going to have

835
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 1: to modernize the grid. This country is going to have

836
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 1: to work on energy and dependence, you know, and we

837
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:37,799
Speaker 1: know that this new administration is like trying to pull

838
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:39,320
Speaker 1: back a couple of things. But they're going to be

839
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:42,759
Speaker 1: heavily investing in geothermal technologies. There's going to be some

840
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:46,799
Speaker 1: more investments in renewable energy. There's lots of opportunities and

841
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 1: even if you want to build in the space, you

842
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:52,880
Speaker 1: could become an ev charging station technician. You've got Camille

843
00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:55,520
Speaker 1: Arry and Yvette Ellis, two black women out of Compton

844
00:41:55,560 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 1: who built up Charger Help, which trains will community to

845
00:41:59,160 --> 00:42:03,840
Speaker 1: college degree which trains people how to fix electric vehicle

846
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:07,919
Speaker 1: charging stations. Series a black women found a company straight

847
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:10,799
Speaker 1: out of content. Like when I tell you that this

848
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:13,719
Speaker 1: is a billion dollar company and folks are getting trained

849
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 1: and started off making thirty five dollars an hour fixing

850
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:18,480
Speaker 1: the charging stations that we're going to need to power

851
00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:22,200
Speaker 1: all of our electric cars. Like that is significant and

852
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:25,279
Speaker 1: important to the way that this world is moving and

853
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:27,719
Speaker 1: also the opportunities that are going to be given as

854
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 1: things like artificial intelligence are changing and transitioning. But all

855
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:37,919
Speaker 1: of that to TLDR is there's so much opportunity here.

856
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:41,080
Speaker 1: There's so much opportunity for us to build there's going

857
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:44,720
Speaker 1: to be so much wealth created as a result of

858
00:42:44,880 --> 00:42:49,359
Speaker 1: what's the very major in immediate issues in climate. And

859
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:52,640
Speaker 1: I just I didn't see or I don't see enough

860
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:56,319
Speaker 1: of us in the tech and startup spaces in the

861
00:42:56,400 --> 00:43:02,319
Speaker 1: ecosystems that we're a part of talking about this a mass, Right.

862
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:04,719
Speaker 1: I felt like so many of the conversations and even

863
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:06,279
Speaker 1: the pitches that we would get at the plug, I'm like,

864
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:08,759
Speaker 1: I don't care about this. I legit would just delete

865
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 1: people's emails like this is stupid, This is stupid. Literally,

866
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:16,040
Speaker 1: the world is dying quite literally, like our kids don't

867
00:43:16,040 --> 00:43:18,840
Speaker 1: have access to healthy food. Like, solve that for me.

868
00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:21,399
Speaker 1: Tell me, you're you're putting a you know, a one

869
00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:24,920
Speaker 1: of those container Yeah, you know one of those Yeah,

870
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 1: a container grocery store or something, or a hydroponic farm

871
00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 1: that you're you know that you have in a container

872
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:32,719
Speaker 1: store that like is on the corner, you know, where

873
00:43:32,719 --> 00:43:35,640
Speaker 1: there's a food desert and you're growing fresh fruits and

874
00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:39,319
Speaker 1: vegetables Like that to me is dope, Like I don't

875
00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:41,200
Speaker 1: I don't care about this other stuff y'all do, right,

876
00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 1: And so I'm a little biased on that end, but

877
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:46,879
Speaker 1: there's so much opportunity and and I think as as

878
00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:49,560
Speaker 1: as folks that look like us, we've got to be

879
00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:55,240
Speaker 1: in the space on all levels.

880
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:04,800
Speaker 3: Where specifically are you most interested that in that space?

881
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:09,960
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, definitely food. I think that you know,

882
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:13,359
Speaker 1: this move towards more sustainable agriculture and how we grow

883
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:15,760
Speaker 1: food and how we distribute food, it's gonna be really fascinating.

884
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:20,560
Speaker 1: I think Julia Collins sold her regenerative Snacks Black Women

885
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:25,319
Speaker 1: to Patagonia two years ago. Prior to that, she had

886
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:27,440
Speaker 1: a company or the company now was called Forward Health,

887
00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:30,120
Speaker 1: and I think it was Moonshot Snacks, So y'all got

888
00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:34,160
Speaker 1: to look it up. Amazing, amazing, very low key, but

889
00:44:34,200 --> 00:44:38,360
Speaker 1: like one of the dopest black women founders on the planet.

890
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 1: Prior to that company, she had a robot beizza delivery company.

891
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 1: So when I tell you, like there's true genius out here,

892
00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:49,200
Speaker 1: like in this space, there absolutely is. So yeah. So

893
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 1: definitely on the food scene, I think water is so

894
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:57,719
Speaker 1: significant and so important even when we think about it

895
00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:02,359
Speaker 1: becoming commodity and people now or some investors now like

896
00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:06,600
Speaker 1: finding ways to privatize public water, Like I don't think

897
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:11,280
Speaker 1: we understand how dystopian this really is that when people

898
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:14,319
Speaker 1: get control of our water supply and now you got

899
00:45:14,360 --> 00:45:17,719
Speaker 1: to buy a bottle of water for fifty bucks. Right,

900
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:20,480
Speaker 1: we saw what's happened in Flint that still has not

901
00:45:20,520 --> 00:45:25,360
Speaker 1: been resolved contamination issues. Verunna Technology is another black owned

902
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:31,360
Speaker 1: company that does analysis on water for municipalities, again building

903
00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:34,919
Speaker 1: another billion dollar company. The infrastructure the United States has

904
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:40,560
Speaker 1: not been updated or changed or replaced in over fifty years.

905
00:45:40,920 --> 00:45:42,759
Speaker 1: So we're talking old water pipes, all those kinds of

906
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:43,720
Speaker 1: special landlands.

907
00:45:43,719 --> 00:45:45,560
Speaker 3: We got clay pipes in the ground. That's why. That's

908
00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:47,160
Speaker 3: why floods every time in rain.

909
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:48,880
Speaker 1: It's gonna say because I had to replace mine at

910
00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:50,880
Speaker 1: my house because I was like, these are from nineteen

911
00:45:50,960 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 1: twenty two, and I need some new I need some

912
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:57,279
Speaker 1: updated technology. So I think just the basic things that

913
00:45:57,360 --> 00:46:00,880
Speaker 1: like we need to survive as human beings really fascinate me.

914
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 1: In green energy, I love in green architecture. There's you know,

915
00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:10,440
Speaker 1: these these new building styles like passive houses or net

916
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 1: zero houses. So your house essentially generates all of its

917
00:46:14,040 --> 00:46:17,680
Speaker 1: own electricity, right, So it's beyond solar panels, it's everything

918
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:21,719
Speaker 1: in your house is regenerative. And so think about a

919
00:46:21,719 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 1: world where there's like very few utility bills, right and

920
00:46:26,239 --> 00:46:29,560
Speaker 1: in your home is also not harming the planet. And

921
00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:32,080
Speaker 1: we saw just even in you know, in La with

922
00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:34,040
Speaker 1: all the fires and just people who have lost their

923
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:37,959
Speaker 1: homes been insane. And now you know, there's a couple

924
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:40,719
Speaker 1: of houses that are standing that were specifically built and

925
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:48,240
Speaker 1: designed to withstand environmental disasters, right, Like, there's amazing stories

926
00:46:48,239 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 1: on this, and of course these people are like like

927
00:46:50,040 --> 00:46:52,920
Speaker 1: literally my house, all my neighbors are gone, but like

928
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:55,040
Speaker 1: their house is still standing just by nature of how

929
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:59,200
Speaker 1: it was designed from an environmental perspective. And so I

930
00:46:59,239 --> 00:47:01,759
Speaker 1: as you can see, like I'm fascinated by all of

931
00:47:01,760 --> 00:47:04,120
Speaker 1: this because there's no one right answer and there's no

932
00:47:04,239 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 1: one right space. So you can really pick something to

933
00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:10,600
Speaker 1: study and to learn about and to see where your

934
00:47:10,640 --> 00:47:13,880
Speaker 1: skills may fit to help build and grow those industries

935
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:18,040
Speaker 1: and distribute them in equitable ways, particularly to our communities.

936
00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:20,440
Speaker 2: I think, you know, that's interesting, Like, and I think

937
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:23,080
Speaker 2: a lot of times too, just because maybe maybe in

938
00:47:23,080 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 2: our communities we don't use a lot of those products,

939
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:26,879
Speaker 2: so we think it's a little bit more further off

940
00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:28,920
Speaker 2: than it is, you know, but like a you know,

941
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:29,720
Speaker 2: it's going to get affected.

942
00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:30,680
Speaker 3: Everybody's going to be affected.

943
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:32,880
Speaker 2: I remember at I was at south By Southwestern one

944
00:47:32,880 --> 00:47:35,080
Speaker 2: the year and I went to this really interesting panel.

945
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:37,839
Speaker 2: It was called President twenty fifty, and what they were

946
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:40,560
Speaker 2: talking about was they said, you know there are groups that,

947
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:45,000
Speaker 2: hypothetically speaking, they could engineer a president. They said, because

948
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:47,319
Speaker 2: what we can do is we can forecast out that

949
00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 2: what the issue is going to be in twenty fifty,

950
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:52,440
Speaker 2: Like we know that water, access to water is going

951
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:55,240
Speaker 2: to be an issue. We know we know that accessity

952
00:47:55,239 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 2: sing is going to be an issue. So what if

953
00:47:57,480 --> 00:48:00,000
Speaker 2: you know, some group, some illuminati group with a bunch

954
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:02,200
Speaker 2: of money decided, you know what, we're going to produce

955
00:48:02,239 --> 00:48:04,480
Speaker 2: the president. So what we're going to do is we're

956
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:06,360
Speaker 2: gonna make sure that, you know, when this kid is

957
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:08,600
Speaker 2: growing up, we got pictures of him with the lemonades,

958
00:48:08,640 --> 00:48:10,640
Speaker 2: the picture of her with the lemonade stand. And then

959
00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:12,319
Speaker 2: we're gonna make sure when they go to college that

960
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 2: they're they're taking classes on you know, access to clean

961
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:18,319
Speaker 2: water and like environmental stuff like that. And we're gonna

962
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:20,680
Speaker 2: basically engineer this person so that when it's time for

963
00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:22,719
Speaker 2: them to run, you can look at all because all

964
00:48:22,719 --> 00:48:24,719
Speaker 2: their history is going to be documented, Like they've got

965
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:26,919
Speaker 2: this whole documentation said this person was pretty much born

966
00:48:26,960 --> 00:48:29,720
Speaker 2: to be president because look at what they've done. But again,

967
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:31,919
Speaker 2: like if we already know what the issues are going

968
00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:33,719
Speaker 2: to be, and to your point, we know who's going

969
00:48:33,760 --> 00:48:36,239
Speaker 2: to get affected by it first. And so yeah, we

970
00:48:36,280 --> 00:48:38,239
Speaker 2: have to make sure that our communities understand this stuff

971
00:48:38,239 --> 00:48:39,839
Speaker 2: because I'm telling you, my parents going to Stolle the mountain,

972
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:41,400
Speaker 2: it's a food desert. If they want to drive and

973
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:44,080
Speaker 2: get a salad, they got to drive, you know, thirty minutes.

974
00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:47,239
Speaker 2: Now they want to get some Jamaican food, some wings

975
00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:50,040
Speaker 2: or some liquor. Oh, that's right around the corner, but

976
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:55,400
Speaker 2: like an actual sit down restaurant. Yeah, you're back in

977
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 2: Atlantic sublimitive wings while you out here, you know what

978
00:48:57,680 --> 00:49:00,960
Speaker 2: I'm saying. But yeah, access to this stuff is really important.

979
00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:03,359
Speaker 2: So it's something we definitely need to, you know, start

980
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 2: getting ahead of what's next for you, Like, are you

981
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:07,960
Speaker 2: gonna build something in that space? Are you gonna build

982
00:49:07,960 --> 00:49:10,760
Speaker 2: another you know, let you can you give us any insights?

983
00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:12,480
Speaker 2: Is that still in the works right now?

984
00:49:12,920 --> 00:49:15,840
Speaker 1: A lot of things in stealth mode are happening right now,

985
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 1: and I've got some amazing partners, and so y'all will

986
00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:24,000
Speaker 1: see the work being done. I haven't decided when we'll

987
00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:26,239
Speaker 1: get out of stealth mode just yet. Right now, we're

988
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:28,719
Speaker 1: just focusing on doing the work. And I think maybe

989
00:49:28,719 --> 00:49:31,120
Speaker 1: in a couple of years of fun that's gonna particularly

990
00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:34,480
Speaker 1: invest in climate tech. But you know, right now, my

991
00:49:34,719 --> 00:49:38,920
Speaker 1: goal is to amplify the voices of the black and

992
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:41,759
Speaker 1: brown vcs that are in this space, the founders that

993
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:44,640
Speaker 1: are in this space, and just really help to do

994
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:48,000
Speaker 1: more storytelling because a lot of times, you know, not

995
00:49:48,080 --> 00:49:50,839
Speaker 1: everyone really cares about this stuff, right, But I bet

996
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:53,719
Speaker 1: you care about your utility bills being lowered, right, Like,

997
00:49:53,719 --> 00:49:56,880
Speaker 1: that's a conversation we can have, right And when we

998
00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:59,040
Speaker 1: talk about money, and we talk about, Okay, you can

999
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:01,520
Speaker 1: get this job. You can get this job that happens

1000
00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 1: to be a green job, but oh, it's gonna pay

1001
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:05,680
Speaker 1: you a great living wage. It's gonna be able to

1002
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 1: afford you to buy maybe one of these passive houses

1003
00:50:08,040 --> 00:50:10,279
Speaker 1: that are being newly built in these new communities. Right

1004
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 1: I think actually Atlanta is there's like a whole new

1005
00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:16,960
Speaker 1: like cottage community that's like very equal friendly or something

1006
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:19,160
Speaker 1: like that's starting to pop up. So those are like

1007
00:50:19,200 --> 00:50:24,040
Speaker 1: the relevant conversations to have versus just oh, like wind turbines,

1008
00:50:24,120 --> 00:50:25,759
Speaker 1: like no one, no one wants to talk about that,

1009
00:50:25,840 --> 00:50:28,040
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like me limit wings, like

1010
00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:32,840
Speaker 1: don't want to talk about wind turbines. So yeah, so

1011
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:35,640
Speaker 1: so you know, there's there's still some stealth mode things,

1012
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:39,000
Speaker 1: and but I'm working with some incredible people and partners

1013
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:41,439
Speaker 1: and yeah soon come okay.

1014
00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:43,719
Speaker 2: Well sharill before we get out of here. I know

1015
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:46,959
Speaker 2: you're in stealth mode. But how can people find you,

1016
00:50:47,040 --> 00:50:48,719
Speaker 2: support you the stuff you're working on?

1017
00:50:48,880 --> 00:50:52,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely definitely go to my website Charrelle Dorsey dot com.

1018
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:55,400
Speaker 1: Actually do a newsletter once a month that's called Regenerative.

1019
00:50:55,600 --> 00:50:57,920
Speaker 1: And so for those who are not like all into

1020
00:50:57,960 --> 00:51:01,080
Speaker 1: this green space, I just try to like share opportunities

1021
00:51:01,120 --> 00:51:04,319
Speaker 1: to connect everything from business opportunities to just like what's

1022
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:06,920
Speaker 1: going on? What does that mean for you personally? So

1023
00:51:07,040 --> 00:51:09,480
Speaker 1: just ways to learn, you know, very very basically, and

1024
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:14,320
Speaker 1: then just LinkedIn Instagram threads. We're not on X anymore,

1025
00:51:15,239 --> 00:51:18,960
Speaker 1: you know, we boycotting X, but yeah, I'm all over

1026
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:19,919
Speaker 1: the internet all the time.

1027
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 3: Okay, well, chill, this is great, so good to see you.

1028
00:51:23,040 --> 00:51:26,239
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for pulling up. I'm gonna go

1029
00:51:26,320 --> 00:51:28,239
Speaker 2: figure out me something can start up in climent tech.

1030
00:51:30,280 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 2: You got me inspired out here, but I appreciate it.

1031
00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:35,600
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for pulling up. And that's the pod.

1032
00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:36,239
Speaker 2: Y'all we out.

1033
00:51:36,520 --> 00:51:39,440
Speaker 1: Thank you.

1034
00:51:39,440 --> 00:51:41,239
Speaker 2: You've been listening to button Nomics and I'm your host,

1035
00:51:41,280 --> 00:51:44,520
Speaker 2: Brandon Butler. Got comments, feedback? Want to be on the show.

1036
00:51:44,680 --> 00:51:47,840
Speaker 2: Send us an email today at hello at butteronomics dot com.

1037
00:51:48,040 --> 00:51:51,120
Speaker 2: Butter Nomics is produced in Atlanta, Georgia at iHeartMedia by

1038
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:54,560
Speaker 2: Casey Pegram, with marketing support from Queen and Nikki. Music

1039
00:51:54,600 --> 00:51:57,239
Speaker 2: provided by mister Hanky. If you haven't already, hit that

1040
00:51:57,280 --> 00:51:59,719
Speaker 2: subscribe button and never missed an episode, and be sure

1041
00:51:59,719 --> 00:52:02,200
Speaker 2: to fallollow us on all our social platforms at butter

1042
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:04,640
Speaker 2: dot a t L. Listen to better Nomics on the

1043
00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:08,120
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts