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Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by P and C Bank.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people think podcasts about work are boring,

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Speaker 1: and sure they definitely can be, but understanding of professionals

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Speaker 1: routine shows us how they achieve their success little by little,

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Speaker 1: day after day. It's like banking with P and C Bank.

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Speaker 1: It might seem boring the safe plan and make calculated

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Speaker 1: decisions with your bank, but keeping your money boring is

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Speaker 1: what helps you live a more happily fulfilled life. P

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Speaker 1: and C Bank Brilliantly Boring since eighteen sixty five. Brilliantly

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Speaker 1: Boring since eighteen sixty five is a service mark of

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Speaker 1: the PNC Financial Service Group, Inc. P and C Bank

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Speaker 1: National Association Member FDIC.

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Speaker 2: Well documented they give back to the senior class of

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Speaker 2: Worehouse and then I recently saw that the parents as

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Speaker 2: well of some of the students.

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Speaker 3: Their tuitions were their student loan debt.

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Speaker 2: Also taking care of One of the things I heard

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Speaker 2: you speak about, and I haven't I've never heard it

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Speaker 2: was broadband deserts.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and how.

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Speaker 2: HBCUs are disproportionately affected by having board band deserts not

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Speaker 2: a topic that I've heard discussed, you know, nationally or

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Speaker 2: even in you know, amongst communities, about how that affects

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Speaker 2: students long term and how it affects communities and education.

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Speaker 3: Can you talk about your efforts to try to combat that. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: it's a great question.

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Speaker 4: We've been talking about what is really the Fourth Industrial

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Speaker 4: Revolution that's occurring today. Every industry is being digitized, every

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Speaker 4: single one. I mean you just look in our studio

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Speaker 4: here and how much of this equipment is now digital

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Speaker 4: versus what it was even eight years ago where it

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Speaker 4: was analog, right, The capacity to edit okay, the capacity

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Speaker 4: to deliver streaming real time, you know, phase time around

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Speaker 4: the world, your program that wasn't you know something you

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Speaker 4: could do ten years ago, twelve years ago?

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Speaker 3: Okay?

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Speaker 4: Digitizing everything every industry. This is again, this whole fourth

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Speaker 4: Industrial Revolution is changing the economic landscape of this planet.

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Speaker 3: But yet our HBCUs eighty.

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Speaker 4: Percent of them are in broadband deserts. How are you

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Speaker 4: going to participate if you don't have access to the

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Speaker 4: tool of progress the principal tool of progress today in

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Speaker 4: the economy.

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Speaker 3: And that is a big problem.

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Speaker 4: And that's one that we decided to take on, and

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Speaker 4: I decided to take on and bring some partners to

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Speaker 4: take on.

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Speaker 3: To go get after this. We have to enable all

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Speaker 3: of our.

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Speaker 4: Citizenry to participate in this next generation of opportunity. The

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Speaker 4: US today, you own, our borders are basically closed, okay,

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Speaker 4: you know, we've got immigration laws and political conflict that

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Speaker 4: in essence, we are not importing labor anymore. And as

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Speaker 4: we need to grow as society, we need people. I

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Speaker 4: just tell people the biggest issue, the most scarce asset

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Speaker 4: we have on this planet today are software programmers. There's

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Speaker 4: eight billion people on the planet. There's only twenty six

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Speaker 4: million of us who write software.

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Speaker 3: For a living.

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Speaker 4: And it is that software that is required to digitize

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Speaker 4: every industry on the planet. Automotive, healthcare, demands thanking, all

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Speaker 4: of it is now requiring tools and systems that are.

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Speaker 3: Digital in nature.

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Speaker 4: But yet one of the greatest infrastructures for training people

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Speaker 4: historically black college and universities eighty percent of them don't

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Speaker 4: have broadband access where our kids can learn the tools

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Speaker 4: of this craft in a way that they can participate

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Speaker 4: effectively long term. And if we don't get this right now,

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Speaker 4: eight years from now, ten years from twenty years from now,

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Speaker 4: the market of change and opportunity and transformation will have

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Speaker 4: been gone so far that we won't be able to

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Speaker 4: participate in this next way. We didn't get to participate

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Speaker 4: in the great economic opportunity that was America in owning

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Speaker 4: land okay. Many of our families were unpaid labor okay, which.

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Speaker 3: Created massive wealth.

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Speaker 4: And then you had gi Bill Home Set Act, Southern

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Speaker 4: Home Set Act. We didn't participate in that proportionately. We

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Speaker 4: didn't get a chance to participate in the asset accretion

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Speaker 4: in real estate because of redlining in those dynamics. And

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Speaker 4: so now here we are corporate America started to expand.

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Speaker 3: It has taken a while for us to get and.

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Speaker 4: We're still not even there fair share of opportunity to

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Speaker 4: participate as professionals environment and now you're going through the

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Speaker 4: fourth Industrial Revolution. If we don't participate here, it's going

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Speaker 4: to be the same dynamic. That's why it's so essential

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Speaker 4: that we equip our children and our communities with the tools,

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Speaker 4: and they need to insist that those tools be provided

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Speaker 4: and insist that they learn and train and develop ways

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Speaker 4: to participate in this economy, in this digital economy, what

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Speaker 4: percentage of your viewership you think is listening on some

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Speaker 4: digital device or digitalment ablement Yeah, your business relies on it,

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Speaker 4: so why shouldn't your community participate in it? And right

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Speaker 4: now those schools are being starved at those resources. You

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Speaker 4: can say conscious, unconscious, whatever it is, but the fact

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Speaker 4: is it is there. That's what we have to do

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Speaker 4: about it. Look, I'm going to do my part. You

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Speaker 4: guys got to continue to your part and make sure

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Speaker 4: that your viewership demands that our HBCUs have access to broadband,

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Speaker 4: every one of them, not just the big ones, every

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Speaker 4: one of them, so that our kids could learn and

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Speaker 4: participate and have the ability to now take what they

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Speaker 4: know and deliver business systems solutions into their community to

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Speaker 4: make their small and medium businesses in their community and

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Speaker 4: the education of the kids in our community more effective

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Speaker 4: than what it is today.

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Speaker 5: I want to just follow up on that on the

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Speaker 5: HPCU thing, because you got a lot of headlines when

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Speaker 5: you do more house, when you paid off the student loans.

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Speaker 5: But when we were in LA and I heard you

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Speaker 5: speak about that, and I realized that it wasn't It's

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Speaker 5: a little bit more complicated, which actually led to something else,

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Speaker 5: another initiative. So can you talk about that because people

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Speaker 5: just saw he paid off everybody student loans.

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Speaker 3: But that's not actually the full story, right, Yeah, So

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Speaker 3: the next thing, so what I.

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Speaker 4: Hell, Like all things, it's not as easy as you

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Speaker 4: think to pay off somebody's loans.

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Speaker 3: And everybody's like, what are you talking about? Who would

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Speaker 3: have thought?

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Speaker 4: Because yeah, whould have thought, right, Because if you pay

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Speaker 4: off somebody's loan, either you're giving them a gift orther

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Speaker 4: they're receiving a gift. Now they got to pay taxes

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Speaker 4: on it. So there's a burden to them or an

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Speaker 4: increasing burden to you. So you've got to actually architect

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Speaker 4: a system to do that effectively so that doesn't create

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Speaker 4: the burden in that process. What I learned is over

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Speaker 4: sixty percent of African American wealth.

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Speaker 3: Goes towards servicing student loans.

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Speaker 4: Okay, you come out, you've got sixty eighty one hundred

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Speaker 4: and twenty thousand dollars with the student loans.

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Speaker 3: Now you're paying interest on those loans.

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Speaker 4: Something happens in your family to use your job, whatever,

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Speaker 4: and now that compounds and it can be decades before

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Speaker 4: you've paid off those student loans. That inhibit you're a

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Speaker 4: ability to buy stocks, bonds, a house, invest in a business.

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Speaker 4: You see what I mean, and I was like, well,

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Speaker 4: that's just unconstable because most of the student loans are

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Speaker 4: paying back to the United States government. Yeah, African Americans

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Speaker 4: paying money back to United States government to pay our

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Speaker 4: student loans.

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Speaker 3: How y'all feel about that? That's crazy?

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Speaker 4: Crazy, Yeah, y'all should think about that, right, talk about that, right.

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Speaker 4: So then I thought, well, what's a better way to

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Speaker 4: do it? This is what's the better equilibrium system. The

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Speaker 4: better equilibrium system is to create a fund. It's called

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Speaker 4: the Student Freedom Initiative. We raise money, I put in

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Speaker 4: a bunch of money, and now these students borrow from

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Speaker 4: the fund.

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Speaker 3: Okay, let's make.

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Speaker 4: Sure it fits our condition. Our condition often is that

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Speaker 4: we often aren't paid as much as corresponding white students.

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Speaker 4: So let's make sure that the interest rate is below

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Speaker 4: parent plus loans.

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Speaker 3: At a minimum, at a minimum and every now and

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Speaker 3: you have life interruptions.

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Speaker 4: Okay, Well, if there's a life interruption, you know, parent ailing,

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Speaker 4: we've got to go back take care of that parent.

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Speaker 4: Then we can actually stop those payments in that period

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Speaker 4: of time. Parent plus now you're gonna pay whether you

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Speaker 4: work it or not. And then compounds and all that,

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Speaker 4: so you can stop it during that period of time.

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Speaker 4: And if you decide to go work in a community

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Speaker 4: to be a teacher like you were, right, okay, and

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Speaker 4: you're making below a certain amount, but you're doing good

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Speaker 4: for the community. You do that for twenty years and

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Speaker 4: that's forgiven. But rather than pay that money back to

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Speaker 4: the government, it pays back into the fund and then

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Speaker 4: that fund can relend that capital and that's.

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Speaker 3: A virtuous cycle. Okay.

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Speaker 4: So that's a student Freadom initiative, is okay, And so

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Speaker 4: that our students can borrow from this fund and they

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Speaker 4: pay back into that fund.

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Speaker 3: They can be reborrowed.

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Speaker 4: So now you're taking care of your own community through

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Speaker 4: your work in that regard, that's what it is.

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Speaker 5: And the money goes back to the next generation of students, right,

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Speaker 5: my graduates from my school being false.

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Speaker 3: Bad drop drop mic drop bagdrop earners. What's up?

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Speaker 1: You ever walk into a small business and everything just works,

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Speaker 1: like the checkout is fast, the receipts are digital, tipping

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Speaker 1: is a breeze, and you're out the door before the

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Speaker 1: line even builds. Odds are they're using Square. We love

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Speaker 1: supporting businesses that run on Square because it just feels seamless.

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Speaker 1: Whether it's a local coffee shop, a vendor at a

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Speaker 1: pop up market, or even one of our merch partners,

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Speaker 1: Square makes it easy for them to take payments, manage inventory,

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Speaker 1: and run their business with confidence, all from one simple system.

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Speaker 1: One of the things we love most is seeing neighborhood

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Speaker 1: businesses level up. Business West Indian spired writing our community

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Speaker 1: that started with a small takeout counter. Now with Square

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Speaker 1: they've been able to expand into a full sit down

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Speaker 1: restaurant and even started catering events across the city. That's

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Speaker 1: the kind of growth that inspires us, and it's powered

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Speaker 1: by Square. Square is built for all types of businesses,

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Speaker 1: from the corner bagel shop that turned into a local chain,

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Speaker 1: to the specialty market with thousands of unique items, to

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Speaker 1: the stylists who's been holding you down for years. If

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Speaker 1: you're a business owner or even just thinking about launching

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Speaker 1: something soon, Square is hands down one of the best

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Speaker 1: tools out there to help you start, run and grow.

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Speaker 1: It's not just about payments, it's about giving you time

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Speaker 1: back so you can focus on what matters most ready.

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Speaker 1: To see how Square can transform your business, visit Square

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