Philanthropist Robert F. Smith on his vision for tech equity

I'm really excited to have this conversation with you Robert thank you for being here and thank you to all of you you know after we get into it for a while I want to make sure that there's some time for audience questions so my one ask to all of you is that while we're having this conversation you think about what's on your mind and you get ready to ask a question hopefully not a comment at the end and we're going to try to keep them quick so that as many people as possible get to you know have a say all right so Robert yes the revolution is here yes AI seems to be all that anyone at this festival and outside of this Festival can talk about right now but I think we need to do some level setting to whom is AI actually accessible right now that's a great question um and let's first put it all in context if we can first let me welcome you all to my home state uh I am fourth generation from Colorado uh actually have one of my cousins here I'm excited that he decided to join me uh and the reason that's important is our family came here uh again over 100 years ago um we came here looking for equity and peace part of our family was chased out of Oklahoma which you know that story quite well um we settled here and created a community a community that we learned to rely on each other we REI learn to rely on sharing resources and accessing individual capabilities to make our community better um the ranch that I now have uh proprietorship over actually is the oldest African-American Resort Community founded by African-Americans we just celebrated the 102nd year anniversary and was just which is important and it just got recognized this past week as a National Historic Monument all that's important because what it tells us As Americans is we all count we all matter we all make contributions but in order to do that we need access to the Bounty that is America uh the early Bounty that is America of course was the land um many of our people didn't have a chance to participate in the Homestead Act the southern Homestead Act that created the basis of wealth and then you had of course the next Revolution the Industrial Revolution that Industrial Revolution the tail end of it we got a chance to participate as workers as laborers and the Great Migration uh prior to that of course a lot of our people were workers but did not get anywhere near the compensation for that and now we are in this age of a new generation the Computing generation has changed everything I have the great Fortune of of working in that in that area um I was exposed to it at a public high school same High School my father went to and it was from an internship experience that I got a bell Laboratories when I was 17 years old that opened my aperture to understand what technology and what access actually means and so while I got to go into that environment there were very few people in my community who got to see what I saw and it encouraged me to think about my career and education I ended up becoming a chemical engineer and patent holder and inventor but it's because I had access to tools and capabilities that very few people in my neighborhood had access to and so when you think about what where we are today this gen Revolution the early stages of the computer revolution of course where compute was actually H by governments large financial institutions typically large corporations and universities and it was those who utilized that compute that were actually able to bring massive amounts of economic expression and capture economic rent in a global Marketplace we then figured out ways to develop that compute at a lower cost More's law and distribute that compute in cloud computing that made it more accessible to the world and so now you see they enhanced Global competitive but yet I still see in America that 70% of African-American communities don't have access to broadband and so when you think about that if we are to compete as a nation going forward we need access all of our citizenry all of our citizenry needs access to the Bounty that is compute and now this next generation of geni who has access to that well first if you don't have Broadband you surely won't have access to that so we've got to solve that problem before we go to the next problem and then once you gain access to it what is it that these models are going to be trained on so that when they go into an inference State they actually have referenceable capacity or capability that actually represents who we are as a society and so who has access to it it is like every other those with capital first those with intention second and what is their intention in terms of the distribution of that capability and I think those are the questions that we're going to actually have to address and wrestle and wrestle to the ground there's going to be large institutions that that capture most of that for the next few years and then at some point it will be distributed and there's arguments about Distributing everyone should have you know Universal compute but if you don't have Broadband it doesn't matter if you have Universal compute credits right you don't have access to that capability and those are the things that this audience needs to think about and wrestle with because what kind of society will we be if we don't make it more inclusive to the ideas the creativity and ultimately the productivity because that's what keeps our nation strong that's what keeps our economy strong is our ideas and our people and our ability to innovate and drive forward well I have to tell you just a few days ago right here we got to hear from Sam Alman and Brian chesky and it was interesting to be in that room and I have to tell you as I I watched them respond to some of the existential questions that my colleague Lester Holt had for them you know this isn't a direct quote but it seemed that their answer to a lot of these questions these concerns about equality and safety in the future ultimately boiled down to well you're going to have to trust us and the teams and the experts that we install around us for now and while I saw excitement and faith in that room certainly every single person of color that I spoke to after that panel had some level of uneasiness of discomfort so what is there and what is your moral responsibility right now sure it is a first of all trust but verify posture that needs to be taken and I actually spend time talking with Sam about this directly um and I propos some constructs that you know may manifest in ways that create inclusionary an inclusionary environment at multiple layers and not just for African-Americans in this country or or people of color in this country or marginalized communities in this country but we have to think globally in terms of what this technology is capable of accomplishing and what is capable of of delivering in terms of the benefits of society um and also some of the risks that it can pose if if not managed properly and I am optimistically hopeful in the conversations that I'm having with Sam and others on the board that managing this the right way actually can make the adoption the utilization and the The Fear Factor go down on the one hand but the utilization to increase where people will say I'm willing to contribute some of my best selves my best thinking my cultural fabric to the learning environment the information about our bodies because if you think about this you know a lot of these are going to be used for drug Discovery and pharmaceutical well you have to have inclusive environments for the data that actually will suggest what are going to be the outputs that can be helpful and I was on the phone yesterday we know historically black people get excluded with except Henryetta LAX but that's a whole another conversation um there's an important element of building infrastructures that are systemically including people not just episodically you know hoping that it happens and I think when you say what is our moral responsibility what is my responsibility it is to whatever platform that you all have access to bring this forward think about creative ways to create those on-ramps of inclusion for the data the information the thoughts the ideas the values and make sure that they become part of and I'm going to say this generally the training of these systems because everyone knows what those in the space that if you don't train these systems on the data they will be excluded in the inferences right in the actual execution and sure we can say oh we can tune it and fix it later but as you as you well know when there are systemic issues that propagate en large systems they often cause a tremendous amount of damage before you actually can wind them back so I do have a lot of confidence there are a lot of smart people thinking about this and I have the the great privilege of meeting and spending time with some of those people and and and and sharing with them ideas and hearing how those ideas get inculcated in their work uh but that said they're probably aren't enough people that look like you or I who were doing that uh and I think building systemic infrastructure to make that happen is an important part of your job and an important part of my job on the execution side you have to bring voice you have to bring awareness you have to bring a a knowledge to powers that can influence where this goes I have to bring capability and and people and insights and that that are very much in the sphere that I live in which is well let's be real how many of you are there and are they at the table I don't know how many very few um but part of my job is to create more uh part of your job is to create more uh and to support those that are on that Pursuit you know those entrepreneurs you know we have we build as you know a number of infrastructure uh systems our intern XL is one that I talk about we've now got I think it's 29,000 stem students African-American stem students uh from HBCU and msis uh that we actually build now I think we now have 57,000 course hours or courses that have been taken and completed um over 650 courses in training and development and certification again just stem students and my aunt always gets mad well what about the artist but I'm working on stem right now so I can only do so much um but all that's an important part of building these onr s so that they have the sort of internships that I had when I was 17 years old that awakens them to the opportunities and frankly as employers again the platforms that you all are part of or own or manage hire these interns let them experience what this world is about let them get engaged in the dynamic of change and and adopting newer Technologies gen so don't just bring them in and put them in an apartment that isn't embracing it putting them in an Department that actually is embracing and utilizing gen those are all important on-ramps to their development then of course as they are employees how do you ensure that they not only feel comfortable in the environment but you have created an inclusive environment not just inclusive of you know of gender or race but but inclusive of ideas and that's an important part that's why these ideas festivals are important okay how do you actually scale and structure those I our private Equity Firm we own 85 86 software companies today actually we just closed one today so 86 um and we have I think it's one of the only gender parity private Equity firms on the planet I have 100% of my boards have at least one woman and 100% of my boards have at least a person of color but it doesn't just happen you have to asally build infrastructure so that that occurs and that it is supported and that the value and the benefits of it are expressed in the performance of the companies and of the businesses and of the of the institutions so we all have a responsibility to think about the platforms that enable this to happen at scale that are sustainable at scale that's the way we approach it and that's the way I think about it I think some of the fear right now comes from the fact that this isn't just a uh a theoretical or future focused concern there's already evidence that for example in the housing space AI enhanced algorithms are leading landlords to deny housing to renters through systems that have actually given them inaccurate information about those very renters the majority of whom are poor and people of color I actually spoke the other day to a woman who spent about 9 months getting denied from an apartment or apartment buildings all over the Kansas City right because of one of these models mhm has the train left the station uh as a eternal optimist I'm going to say no but it is important that that story is brought forward because that's what will retune these models and you come back and say guess what we got this wrong um I at my core and my heart a scientist and as a scientist an engineer you try something you look at the results say not quite what I wanted now I have to retune it but it depends on what is the the the the outcome that you're looking for um and I think it's important that that we frame what is the outcome that we want do we want a fair an equitable Society do we want a society where everyone has the ability to contribute their best selves when you have that a couple things happen a you get productivity which we need uh B you actually decrease risk which is always important see it makes us more competitive and we as an American society that now has distributed computing power globally and now we've distributed in many instances you know gen capacity globally we've trained a bunch of people in our great University Systems and said now go work somewhere else go live somewhere else so the level of competition has enhanced exponentially from the time when I graduated from college at that time compute was localized it was managed by you know smaller groups of Institutions and when we educated people from other countries we encouraged them to stay uh we encouraged them through the infrastructure to become Americans we encourage them to bring their best selves and their contributions to our society um that no longer is the case and so the level of competition has gone up so we have to actualize all the citizenry that we have available to us and we have to actualize all of I call it the we should be the place where the smartest people in the world want to come and live and work and want to contribute and some of those smartest people in the world actually are in these communities who are getting denied housing the creativity the thoughtfulness the understanding of the the complexities in those communities that has to be built into the model so as you're writing these models you have to go find these people and get them become a part of the contribution of the learning okay and the training so that you don't have the sort of instances that you had in Kansas City and when they do happen it is incumbent upon your industry to say this is not working we need to do something about it and it's p upon everyone out here to say we need to change what is happening because that cannot that cannot stay and that cannot because that is not going to be a sustainable outcome in that case for the Kansas City Community we have to we have to make sure we think about this holistically as a community of and I'm going to say this of American Americans to make this all work what advice would you give right now to young college students looking out at this rapidly changing world yeah trying to figure out how they're going to make a mark in it how they can get a piece of the wealth that's about to be built what what do you tell them I tell them I guess the same things I I tell my own children who of of of that age um I tell them right now you know when they're my kids and their their 20s on in that that that age group I said right now I want you to focus on building a set of skills um I want you to think about what are the skills of the future that are going to be helpful contribut contributory to the communities that you care about one Community you care about typically is yourself and your family and then the community that you live in the community that you came from and what are the skills that actually can deliver value into that those set of communities so that's the first thing and then the next thing I I tell them is start developing the habits and the habits that are helping you to become an efficient and effective member of that Community um there's all sorts of habits there be personal habits and study habits and work habits and connectivity habits you know habits like coming to the Aspen ideas Festival how do you make this accessible so that and this is part of that you know so people can learn from people on the stage in the audience what made them successful in their time you know there's a lot of things that made us successful in our time that will still apply for these young people to be successful in their time there's a lot of things that they will learn that we don't we aren't even aware of quite yet that will make them successful but encouraging a dynamic of of of that constant curiosity and engagement and then building skills and habits that actually can accelerate their their career that's the advice I specifically give them I can't tell you you know 10 years ago I would have said go study writing code that was important because we had a massive dir of of of developers I mean we constantly had five 10,000 open Recs for developers well now with you know with Gen code assist code guess what that is kind of decreasing so you know now you have a different sort of developer that you need those who know how to write prompts and utilize code assist so that's a different set of skills okay but you still have to have the habits of understanding how to drive that forward into a productive way of your life and approaching your life and so those are the things that I tell them very specifically and what what to do and hopefully it sticks especially my kids cuz I need them off the payroll one day but so that's a whole another conversation so what is what is going to happen to our jobs we know the old saying that we are the first to be fired last to get hired yeah um certain instate jobs will go away no question gen there're you know we'll see if they get convergence in this latest set of models uh they're having a hard time getting to kind of third levels of nested tasks but who knows I'm I'm sure some re architecture they may get there um and likely will is my guess uh and there's going to be certain jobs that will always be in demand um some of which will be exciting creative thoughtful and some of which will be the things that are essential to keeping Society running right um like all of us in here probably can't find a decent plumber or electrician half the time right yeah right that will not go away which gen but the scheduling of them will make it more efficient and will create more efficiency in that kind of a that kind of a model um we will need people who are thoughtful about utilizing these tools to solve some of society's problems you know just you we were talking just briefly about you drug Discovery okay and well how do you how do you look at that for certain physiologies and in certain countries and in certain places and what's the impact you know climate change how do we think about utilizing these tools to literally change the way that we are in acting interacting with our environment and decreasing the amount of carbon output making more efficient the way that we manufacture and produce you have to have some understanding of what the challenge is to bring these tools to bear so you're still going to need some fundamental you know knowledge and and and education to solve some of these problems certain tasks will absolutely go away certain new ones will actually become much more valuable in the future so all any sectors you think are going to be in the near future completely unrecognizable all of them um I don't want to say completely unrecognizable they will all evolve uh we have the good fortune in in our portfolio we are in about 70 different Industries and I can see in some cases truly evolutionary change in what gen will bring from a products or services or Solutions perspective to that specific industry some it's going to be a little more you know uh some will be completely transform transformative in short periods of time some will be slowly evolving uh efficiency models typically will be the ones we'll see first right how do you you know how do you route the plum plumber to the best place at the right time or route some device to fix something at the lowest cost or how do you do it to to optimize some output for CO2 so that you can actually minimize impact on the planet and and live more gently uh in this world some of which will say we don't need to do that do it that way at all right we don't need to do drug discovery that way at all um and I think each of those will will will benefit at different levels and different rates education is a classic one um our children are going to be educated completely differently utilizing these gen tools and Companions and buddies that will help them learn the way that they learn best and accomplish the task that we think are important as a society or as a a school system that they that they should learn uh they will do a completely differently than the way we do it and it will probably accelerate faster because of they it'll hone in on what are the challenges we have one of our companies that have some of that capability and technology today and it's amazing to me because they have the unique data sets around the children or the school system or the the environment in which they they are instructed to live they will accelerate on their learning Curves in ways that will will will be mind-blowing for us years from now and then we'll say well of course that's going to transform their lives now all that said we have to be thoughtful about what it is that we are teaching them and what what are the values that we're saying are important you know inclusionary environment how do you get the best ideas to now participate in the dialogue in the discussion of EV invention or risk management or optimizing a business or business infrastructure if you only are looking and getting this group of ideas then you're going to have an outcome that's op imized for that which may not be long-term sustainable for the way that our whole planet is evolving and becoming more you know diverse in its in its in its mindset and in and in the people you know so many of our diverse minority communities in the United States they're the trends Setters in food music art culture these systems are training on them as they take our words our paintings our music what do they owe us in response I think what they owe us is an authenticity to who we are we are complex like every other group of people on this planet and deserve to be heard and deserve to contribute and deserve to benefit from what these systems uh will ultimately produce we have to be thoughtful about what that actually means you know many of the parts of the Community I get to interact with as you said or you know I get to interact with a lot of scientists and technologists uh but the artist Community is saying well wait a minute what am I getting out of this right uh but we also have we have to hold these institutions accountable if they are utilizing them as a training it's the Henrietta La story again right yeah okay this was that's the early Training Systems if you think about it and it only decades later that a family got a portion of the benefits that that you know this one person one case we about one case yeah that we know about right and and so it's important that we that we know about these things so again you know your industry has to bring giv the homework okay yeah of course it is an important thing you you you play a very vital role uh in that in that in that construct to to identify here are some things that that need to change and here's ways in which we can change it not just the critical aspects of it but here's ways in which to change it you know we and I'm going to say As Americans have the benefit honestly of having the most diverse population on the planet and so by that very fact we should have the best models so long as we ensure that that inclusionary process occurs and by that very fact we should have the most productive tools and the most robust economy and the most Innovative Technologies and entertainment and all those sort of things all come from the fact that we have the most diverse environment so we have to celebrate that and make sure it is included which means access to broadband access to you know compute access to to the to the to the to the knowledge I'll give you an example we know we own a company stats perform largest database of of sports data in the world 6 and a half pedabytes we add about 1.2 pedabytes of data per year in this system 10 times more than anyone else and I noticed that in our HBCU they did not have access to a lot of the Gen Ai and Ai and this is very much an AI Centric AI focused company and it fuels most of you who get Sports data and information from all that they they basically get it from us because because of the way that we've approached this this market so we said you know what we need to change this so when I talk about using your platform so we took the company and we said let's create a a AI curriculum let's go deliver it and we delivered at Morehouse now we're going to do it Spellman of course I know you're about to ask me that um where now these students now can participate and understand how we utilize this technology how to engage with it and how to use it for its predictive capabilities on the one hand which is a great outcome but also to understand what the impact of it is again but you have to actually go deliver that into the communities where those kids those students live and that's an important part so any of you who are you know running businesses deliver that opportunity that onramp so that you know more diverse people can participate in the environment that you run manage or partic or or are involved in when you talk about some of these Solutions like making sure our fellow Americans have access to broadband do you think leaders are taking these things seriously and seeing them in the context that you're spelling out I mean especially after last night there are a lot of people worried that our leaders are not up to a whole number of tasks yeah and do we really think they they even understand gen gen I mean seriously so I'll I'll tell you one thing that's been interesting um a number of them have taken upon themselves and and you know one of my good friends Chuck Schumer for instance is they do a lot of educating and informing and bringing Business Leaders in and gen leaders into inform them you don't hear about it in the Press cuz they're like we just need to understand what it is because as you all know what's going to happen it's going to to get regulated right and we all want it regulated properly uh it's going to be done in AAR and you know that kind of is what it is that's the way the government works typically on Innovations but many people are actually taking this on to educate themselves comma however uh not everyone does have access to it and not everyone recognizes the importance of it I'll give you an example you know two years ago a year ago um one of the things we discovered of course during co uh that our communities lived and brought band deserts and at that time you know 82% of the HBCU we've solved a lot of those problems but we're still solving them but we're living in these Broadband deserts uh and our students and our kids had to go to the you know sit in the parking lot of the local fast food restaurant and tie in to do their their homework and so then you know we there was a bead funding you know hundred billion dollars of bead funding and you know you you said great that's you know government's going about this the right way at least getting some funding allocated but then the way it works is it actually gets distributed at the state level so I don't I don't know all of your background but you know a lot of my you know relatives and and and uh you know seniors uh participated in the military but they did not gain access to the GI bill so right so the GI bill was a federal program but distributed at the state and so when my four fathers went into the state they said no you don't get access to college you can go to trade school oh the trade school is actually owned by the person who's making that distribution and they're getting paid $62 to train them to be carpenters and Masons and that sort of thing so it's the same sort of dynamic where it actually is distributed at the state so when we looked into this what we found out was they went out and and you know surveyed the communities but they did not hit our communities so we put our whole initiative against it now we had we had over uh 5,000 community members we had I think now at 70 Town Halls that contributed and actually got the data built to say here's how these communities can benefit from using utilizing this this this funding I went to the Secretary of Commerce Gina rundo and said this needs to be built in because it came out of Commerce into the nitia funding so that they can actually get the Broadband access dollars into the communities where there's you know 82% disparity or no access to it but I will tell you had we not done that work they would have never included those communities in where that funding was go so part of what you have to do is when you identify those problems is actually put whatever capacity you have against it to solve it because I said the last thing I want is the same thing that happened to our parents and grandparents and no access to the GI bill to happen to these students and no access to broadband funding so let's see because now they're starting to write the checks as to where it actually gets distributed if it actually makes it to the communities who need that access that's all a part of again you know the fabric that we have to bring as Business Leaders as Community leaders as spokespeople for our community to make those changes in areas where there's that disparity that's an important part of our our our work what do you think of the argument that has been made at times that some of what would have mitigated some of these concerns is well maybe we could have kept all of this in a nonprofit opsource publicly acceptable or accessible model before we let the for-profit closed Source model takeover yeah I will tell you I'm not while not an expert at the nonprofit space even though I spend a fair amount of my time and energy and effort most of the innovations that I have seen hit communities more broadly and more effectively have come out of the for-profit sector I think it's important to have these private you know public partnership type Dynamics but when I look at some of the more innovative ideas thoughts institutions most of that kind of gets directed towards the I'll call it the for-profit uh area so but it's important that we again bring the the dynamic where where we have the ability to to bring that into a societal benefit not just I call it a shareholder benefit but more of a stakeholder benefit sometimes that gets a little flak right but you know the stakeholders are the ones that keep things sustained able okay they're the ones that actually keep that Community stable that employee population stable that you know the the the shareholders actually get the benefits and they see that oh wow because you all have made it more inclusive and you've made a more stable community in which this company you know lives you actually decrease the risk you know there's thousands of studies from McKenzie and BCG and all these smart folks that show that actually decreases the risk and actually enhances typically the profitability and enhances the growth so those are the things I think are important as we live in a capitalistic Society I think making sure that capitalism is underpinned by the ability to innovate to optimize and many their their their Innovation uh call it ability to innovate which is access to people access to Capital Access to ideas and in this case in gen gen access to newer Technologies I am sure that there will be some reigning in ultimately because some of these Technologies actually change the National Security stance uh of Nations right and so ultimately I think there's going to be some of that Dynamic that's going to come into play but I I do believe uh that the best Technologies belong in instances of environments where people are looking to optimize them for profit but they have to do it in a way where they're actually thinking about the broader call it societal impact of the work that they're doing what are some actionable easy steps that someone could take right now if they feel isolated or confused used by all of this to get into the space to better understand it get their hands on these tools or even just get themselves up for a job yeah depends on who you are if you are a business owner one of the most important things is to now engage with what I'll call trusted uh institutions about utilizing these tools um in some cases it might be an existing software provider that is actually introducing some gen solutions that make your business more Su successful or that you can help your customers become more successful engage there because they're already a trusted partner they likely have you know the data sets and the workflows understand your business a lot better than you know some outside consultant type of a person so that's kind of one as a business owner um if I think about it as a as a manager in in one of those businesses start to bring in different vendors to evaluate how are these tools from what they're saying how are they actually being used use and actually figure out what is the productivity that comes from utilizing this you know just to give you an example we have in our companies we measure the productivity of the actual products that our portfolio companies sell to their customers we today it's about a 640 per Roi so that's the actual product that we sell to our customers when we're looking now at these gen Solutions just to give you a sense 100% of our companies now have some code assist or code development you know utilization of gen we're about 80% now that actually have some product and Marketplace are under development we'll be at 100% by the end of the year so we're now starting to measure what is the productivity enhancements certain cases of productivity enhancements is 50 to 100% of what that 640 per Roi actually is today that's the impact that that technology is is making and from what we can see so as a manager of a business in an operation I would start to think about how do you utilize these tools educate your people give them access to these tools so that they can actually use that in their day-to-day work as an employee or a a someone coming into this environment I think the most important thing is educate yourself as to what are the areas that I call you have sphere of influence over if you're in production or marketing or finance and what are the tools that are being used there and why are they being touted as being effective in that environment and start to work on it and you like I you know little skills and habits again right develop a new skill okay that new skill might be prompt engineering or utilizing different prompt engineering tools uh that help you think about here's the workflow that I normally go through what does this actually enhance my ability to do to create to eliminate waste and get very much engaged and involved in it this is going to be a participatory sport okay and those who participate I think will capture disproportion of benefits if you stand back with fear about what it is that fear will likely manifest okay and how how you because you will not understand that but if you really start to understand the impact of it you'll see I don't want to say this word lightly the infinite possibilities of it um but from that you'll also start to recognize what the risks are and that's how you can start to bring in your own knowledge and experience and say Here's a risk that comes from us utilizing this tool in that environment and here's what we need now to to manage what we need to do to manage that risk in that environment so again it is a participatory sport at different levels that we all have to think about what is it where is our sphere of influence and how do we bring our best selves and impact to that that environment do you have a call to action something you want corporations software developers Regulators to think about right now yeah there are a bunch of calls to action um if I think about one of the most important that I say is the inclusion of our society into this into this into this you know this transformational moment and that's at all levels that means everything from opening up you know having internships to training to developing to making sure that even the you know each those who are generating these models and building these models have built and are establishing inclusionary constructs uh that aren't episodic but are going to be systemic in the way that these products are built and developed and and and delivered and tested um and I think it is important that you know the the government in the regulatory environment continues to get informed not just in how the tools can work and how they do work but their impact okay both positive and negative and start to think holistically about what it is that we need to to to Embrace what are the things we need to you know to to regulate and what are the things we need to unleash in terms of what this capacity can mean for our overall uh you know overall well-being you know you think about the tool to be used for Environmental Protection right how do you do that okay there's protecting by regulating but there's also protecting by let's be smart about the investment so we actually you know limit the impact you know live more gently still be productive but how do we do this and live more gently uh and create less impact on the on the environment all those are are elements that I'd like to see our government lean more towards not to say they're not but lean more towards in terms of a call to action but you need to have Smart capable engaging people in those environment who are engaging with business Community engaging with the university community engaging with you know the communities of people who feel that they might be left out what is it why am I afraid of this I don't I don't know what it is but I'm afraid it's going to take my job okay get down in that community and understand what their concerns are and think about how you can bring them forward to participate in this and how they can see the benefits maybe better Medical Care better treatment you know lower you know shorter weight lines ability to actually get know government services more efficiently believe so do you believe then that this could be used actually to reduce discrimination no question but you have to build it in right you have to build it's like any other model you have to build a construct that says here's what our design points actually should be and the nice thing is there's enough data out there that shows guess what more diverse environment lower risk okay higher profits faster growth so so long as they kind of understand that as part of the model then it should it should naturally encourage that but if you don't build that part in the training then it will not view that as a factor to be considered and like all tools it's going to have to be tuned but we have to be thoughtful about the cycle of the tuning and the tuning mechanisms and and who was actually involved in that and that's all part of being a society that is actually participating in this not you know not just standing and watching being a bystander to it well I promised I would leave time for others to ask you some questions but before I do so I just want to thank you and I have to say you know I hope you're traveling all around the country talking about this because you've made it make a lot more sense frankly than I've seen other others do well thanks for saying um I've left a lot of these conversations actually more frightened um and so uh I get a chance to travel around the world and have this conversation because I believe it is a world issue it is a Humanity issue and it is important that we bring voices that matter which are all voices to the table um and ensure that people people are very thoughtful about it and try to impress upon them that if we get this right we will all really benefit from it I just hope you're not alone in that fight well yeah thank you for saying that I am not all right you right there in the front someone's going to run over to you with I you should just ask have my relatives ask questions but since you're going to ask random people I get choose we will deal with that too I can bring it to her cousin uh awesome thank you for the time Robert uh my name is Juan Bermudez uh I work at a series startup called paragan we do data integration and Analysis for Public Safety agencies uh as a hiring manager on my team I've been thinking a lot about how can we make this team more diverse what are the things we can do and you mentioned stats perform and the kind of active go out onto campuses that type of work I think parag's a little too early on to work on things like that so I'm curious what are your thoughts on building diverse teams even earlier on in the stages that that a company may be in when you're much smaller we we do that that's a great question thank you for asking it because I get a chance to answer it in ways that actually work we do this for all of our portfolio companies one of the most important things is open the aperture of recruiting what often happens of course is you know you find a talented person like you you went to this school you were a part of this fraternity and so that you just go there and just milk that for all this work for the next five generations of employees right and you're like wow our employee population isn't that diverse well no quitting you you recruited from the exact same place so what we do part of intern XL why we built that in the first place was so that we could bring a broader aperture of students into the pipeline Point number one point number two you have to skill certain of those students because they may not have the same sort of experience that's why we have the training modules right Point number three build something on the back side of the institution your company that says all right we're taking 3 5 10 30 50 of these interns a year here's the way that we're going to manage them through the process so they have a supervisor and I call it a big buddy I.E someone who can have a penalty-free conversation with have them for two or three years so you get a good look at them they get a good look at you and by the time you're done with that you figured out oh of those 50 people there's 25 that we'd really like to hire right but build those pipelines I think you know we it's important to think about it systemically and not episodically and often what I see in corporations is they do it episodically oh let's do an intern program this year okay right and they might I find three interns and one works out and you're like that's good we're done you know that worked out really well for us got 800 employees and one of them is diverse um build underpin it for 10 years say we're going to do this for 10 years and if you say okay bring in three for 10 years and then probably by the fourth year going to say man we should go to Five because this is great oh then we should go to eight but but make a corporate commitment to do it for at least a decade because it takes a while for these mechanisms to start to work and again you're welcome to come to you know intern EXL and be a part of that we got 6 700 corporate Partners but that's an important part of that process uh is opening the aperture and and then developing an infrastructure that helps those students be successful in understanding how to navigate the infrastructure and understand what skills and habits are required for them to be successful in your company y great question you should be a relative that's a good relative question he's in the family now yeah is for sure hi Mr oh yes oh sorry no no please hi Mr Smith it's good to see you um Carrie gray and my work is about advancing opportunities for disabled people of color I have a question so just a couple of hour ago hours ago 19 keys on his platform Higher Learning he released a post saying that CNN denied all black media um access to any black company that applied to get media access and I find that that's very relevant across a lot of Industries about still lacking the opportunity to even get one person in the door I'm wondering if you have experienced a fight in your work in terms of being able to enter into spaces and industries before and what is important about that fight yeah I experience a fight every day yeah every day you're going to experience it probably in a half hour right I mean just that's just the nature of being an African American and an African-American male in the industry that I'm in um you know I saw that roled Barton sent me a note and Byron Allen sent me a note on this yesterday said man do you believe this I'm like yeah I can believe it is am I upset about it yeah but okay who should do something about this CNBC CNN not that it was on your channel I'm I am not CNN news I know I know I know but I'm I'm saying that only because all of you should have an outcry you you see what I mean when I see an injustice done in the private Equity industry for my you know African-American and Latino managers I actually say something and sometimes I get a skewer here and there but I know as an IND industry incumbent now you know wasn't right it's important for me to raise my voice and say that is wrong and we need to do something about that and that's what I mean the community everybody had you know you have your voice in that regard look I don't know if they fixed that because I just saw this last night when when Byron and and uh and and Roland sent it to me I'm like okay guys I'm not in the media business what do you want me to do about it but but um but I can say some about it right which ABJ and others have called them out Association for black journalists yeah I'm sure they did right which is great and that but that's an important thing that has to happen um that you have to actually build the coalitions that take the stand and sometimes you got to actually build trade organizations because you might get skewed by taking the stand right but those are the Dynamics that are important in in really being a a an authentic participant in the community not just saying oh man would I got m and I'm getting paid and no you've got to actually understand how to build your community's capacity I think we have time for one more question I called on him because he looks like a relative don't okay thank you um I run a venture fund where all our investments are seeg stage and all the founding teams are diverse black brown female lgbtq part of good job part of the we got there is building our own team to look like that so bluntly I'm the only white guy in the shop that I put together yeah so expanding on your prior question of opening the aperture on networks and uh just um recruiting and so forth how do we get more people on your my side of the table who look more like you than me yeah told you he was a relative didn't I tell you okay cousins yeah see again it is you know opportunity access to opportunity and I I know I sound a little bit like like a broken record but internships to me are the greatest way to create exposure you know we have from our Frontiers fellows program or girls who invest programs and and what we what I figured out not just me but you know there's a whole lot of brilliant people who have no idea that our industry actually exists okay I grew up in Denver Colorado on 26th in cook I had no idea there's a thing called private Equity okay and it was and I became an engineer why because I heard do a pretty good job I went to Bell Labs I'm like wow man these gu that guy makes $442,000 a year I mean I never I didn't think you made any more money than that right and then I get exposed to this thing called Wall Street well what's that all about what do these people do and you know and but it took years for me just just to see how our society worked how capitalism worked and where I could participate and internships and engagement I think is one of the most important things we can do let's let's engage them at age 15 16 17 18 host these sorts of events where we're bringing a lot of young people have you and I and you know Ben horowits and a bunch of other people saying hey let me tell you what I do for a living let me tell you why that's cool let me tell you about the companies we invest in let me tell you things went great let me tell you about things that didn't go so great all of that's an important part of educating and informing the communities that don't necessarily see this and it's incumbent upon us to continue to do that and guess what we will start when they start figuring out how much money you make making that industry they're like man forget that you know forget that basketball so I'm doing that right but that's an important part of contributing in our society is to educate inform and create the on-ramps of opportunity that's what I focus on great question thank you Robert no it's my pleasure this was really a wonderful conversation very very grateful to you pleasure to be here and thank you to all of you for being here yeah and welcome to Colorado again have fun here all right thanks for watching stay updated about breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or follow us on social media

2024-07-03 20:53

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