The price of entry & maintenance.

A thread.

As we hear about the data that supports the contention that there has been systemic marginalization of Black founders & investors, it struck me that the few of us that have paid visible & invisible dues while constantly dealing

with the macro & micro humiliations that come with being Black (Fitz phototype VI, in particular) in the quest for an investing track record have shared their inside stories about the price of entry AND the price to stay in the game. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-16/black-lives-matter-highlights-adversity-facing-black-tech-ceos

It’s important that those who are looking to go down the founder or investor track be clear about the potential trades you will have to make.
Not unusual, whatever your skin color, as life is a series of trades, but being Black means it comes with a greater propensity to bear the

burden of layered & concurrent trades, in combo w/ the ‘tax’ that comes with us once we are born.
Understand as well, that the situation is dire. We have been consistently excluded from participating in the engine of wealth creation, at least at a scale that is even remotely

closely weighted to our contribution to the overall economy.
Between 1990 and 2016, 0.4% of people who received venture capital were Black.
Black families in the U.S. have an average net worth of $17,600, about a tenth of that of white families.

Leland Stanford, the founder of the Stanford University, once declared, “I prefer the White man to the negro.”
Yet a Stanford degree is a well known sign of startup social proof, for us, in particular.
In short, we are playing defense every day.

And all you are thinking about is how to win.
For you & the many others that no one sees but look to you as inspiration.

Their weight, your pre-giant shoulders.

When I reflect, I know I really shouldn’t be where I am.
I needed an intervention that was much more than allyship.

People say that you need to make your own luck. That also means that increasing your surface area of opportunity is positively correlated with your quantum of luck.
How should you do that?
Well, first, go to college. Pay no mind to folks that say it has no value.

Sure, you will look wistfully at people you consider your peers doing big thangs in the outside world while you are sitting at your desk trying to meet a college paper deadline but trust me when I say that you never want to be in a place where your not having a degree is why you

aren’t allowed in on the ground floor of a conversation that may lead to an opportunity.

Here’s how my ground floor happened.

I had a good gig as a corporate lawyer. But I had gotten bitten by the startup bug and all I cared about was startups. So I decided to take the plunge

and go build mine.
In 2000.
In March.
Whoa!
Anyway I kept pushing, built out the team off a second mortgage and tried to raise more funding.
By October I knew winter was coming, literally, and I would have to wind it all down.
That was heartbreaking.
But I kept my head up.

I accepted an offer from Intel Capital’s Legal Group later that year.
2001 was a rough year for venture portfolios and I was kept very busy.
Recognizing that a bunch of the companies that were shutting down had technology and IP that could potentially be interesting to acquire,

I pushed to start a patent purchase group and concurrently ignited the bankruptcy practice group that would coordinate our responses and actions re portfolio company and supplier shutdowns.
I helped shutdown more companies than anyone really should have been exposed to that early

in a career and that certainly has had a long term impact on my investment judgment.

But I digress.
As those who know me well can share, I have always liked cars. There has been an occasional argument peddled over the years whether I liked cars OR the business of cars.

I can neither confirm nor deny.
So I get introduced to the then Corporate VP & Treasurer, apparently because we both loved cars. I had never really interacted with him and he had a reputation of being ultra smart w/ an interesting UX.
Over the next three and a half years, we

debated every topic under the sun.
Cars, stocks, economics, design, art, wine, travel, food, VC, M&A, etc.
Literally everything.
I will come back to this in a minute.
Two years into my stint at Intel, I realized that there was no obvious way I would ever get to the business side

of venture unless I went to business school.
When I looked at the folks in the Valley playing VC, and remember we were just slowly coming out of the malaise caused by the post-2000 crash so a bunch of folks had bailed to biz school in the absence of jobs, I was crystal clear I

would not even have a shot at being let into the room without some version of an M-cert. I wanted to see if I could get in HBS as they had an 18-month program but that got canceled right before I could apply. The bigger issue was the opportunity cost.

Sure HBS or Stanford were super expensive but they cost even more because I would have to forgo my salary and other benefits. The math was headaching me.
So I decided to do both. Full-time. And it was hell.
Oh and talking about hell, I had apparently torn my shoulder to pieces

20 years before (playing squash) and I finally hit my pain threshold. Decided to go in to see a surgeon and 5 hours of reconstructive shoulder surgery later, i was convalescing and thinking about how i was going to need to cry through a 9-month-long rehab program when I received

a call in the summer of '04.
I got offered the opportunity of a lifetime to be the Treasury TA (essentially a Chief of Staff) and that changed my life and career trajectory.
Whenever I think about this turn in my life, I still get a tad weepy because my boss took an active step

that literally clarified for me the distinction between allyship and sponsorship, and that between sponsorship and a powerlift.
He stepped up and lifted me. He probably took a few shots for that. But I think I did ok and made him proud.
I was lucky. And yes, I say I probably had

the world's longest interview, three and a half years.
I didn't have an engineering or compsci degree. I didn't have a finance degree.
I pulled it off, non-traditional academic background and all.
But it was a bloody set of very personal trades.
I couldn't let him down.

I couldn't let US down. I see you nodding because you know exactly what I mean. I consumed every piece of knowledge that I could. Every day. It made sense when my boss and I were at a conference and Mr. X walked up to chat and asked him a question about a complex transaction

we were working on. He turned to me and asked me for a summary and I just delivered it without missing a beat. Mr. X just turned to me and said, "You are always on, aren't you?" and I replied, "It's the price I pay to be the best I can be."

I still chuckle when i think of amazing founders like Barney Pell, who I worked with when recommending we lead Powerset's Series B, realizing that although I led the semantic technologies investing activity, I was self-taught and did not have a compsci background.

So when i was interviewed by @KielsasL w/ @Freightwaves, I thought it important to share my thoughts about allyship, sponsorship, and the powerlift. There have been great writeups about intentional steps our fellow travelers can do to improve and guarantee access to opportunity.

We don't want to be exceptions, we are just driven to be exceptional. That is the path to reward and meaningful wealth creation. https://www.freightwaves.com/news/venture-capital-leaders-must-powerlift-black-founders-investor-says

To founders/managers/recruiters hiring Black professionals, VCs hiring Black analysts, associates, principals & GPs, LPs funding Black fund managers, go to sleep & wake up knowing that being blinded by systematic bias limits your ability to pair the undiscovered w/ the unknown.

You will never know the scope of the value that could have been created otherwise. We know how to see around corners, like seriously. https://hbr.org/2020/06/a-vcs-guide-to-investing-in-black-founders

When I get asked about the invisible-but-ginormous opportunities that Black founders and investors represent, I like to think about it in the context of my favorite sport, cricket and my favorite batting position, off the back foot.

'This is one of the best looking cricket shots you can play. You'll need good balance and quick feet movement.
But unlike the hook or square cut, the back foot drive relies more on timing and placement rather than power.' http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/skills/5264520.stm

Sachin Tendulkar, underestimated at 5' 5" until he walked on to the pitch, turned out to be one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachin_Tendulkar I don't believe there was anyone better at the backfoot drive.

Pair the invisible with the unknown and misunderstood and watch greatness happen.

We are exceptional, not exceptions.

But the price of entry must come down, like it has for others.

/fin (c)