Rodney
Appearances
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Tech Layoffs, Midlife Investing, and Parenthood in the Age of AI
Black women receive 0.35% of venture capital. Again, that's 0.35%. The average loan to white-owned small businesses is over $30,000 higher than for non-white businesses. And on top of that, Black entrepreneurs are denied bank loans at nearly twice the rate of white entrepreneurs.
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Tech Layoffs, Midlife Investing, and Parenthood in the Age of AI
And so, as the two of you know, the American Alliance for Equal Rights has successfully sued nonprofits making grants to minority-owned businesses, arguing that these nonprofits are discriminating against white business owners.
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Tech Layoffs, Midlife Investing, and Parenthood in the Age of AI
So the question I have for the two of you, how do we solve this massive capital gap facing minority entrepreneurs without addressing race and racial bias in venture capital and banking?
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Tech Layoffs, Midlife Investing, and Parenthood in the Age of AI
Two quick things. So one, Scott, totally hear you on that. I will note too, though, that even in terms of like those Harvard graduates that are students of color, they're still like differentials with like their white counterparts.
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Tech Layoffs, Midlife Investing, and Parenthood in the Age of AI
One other thing real quick, the irony about Stanford as well is that Stanford University is producing some of the best research out there that indicates, and this is something that Scott, like when you were at business school, the data was there, the data set didn't exist. That really points out that
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Tech Layoffs, Midlife Investing, and Parenthood in the Age of AI
entrepreneurs of color, fund managers of color, oftentimes can outperform their white counterparts. There's a huge data set, and also at Columbia University, I know it's a competitor to NYU, Scott, but at the end of the day, there's a lot of data set right now that really indicates that People of color, minority entrepreneurs, really can be successful.
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Tech Layoffs, Midlife Investing, and Parenthood in the Age of AI
And as a whole data set, that bias question is still really strong.
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Tech Layoffs, Midlife Investing, and Parenthood in the Age of AI
I'm doing well, Cara. Great to meet you. Hi, Rodney.
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Tech Layoffs, Midlife Investing, and Parenthood in the Age of AI
Yeah, so Kara, Scott, I run a consulting and investment business that's really focused on increasing wealth and ownership for the bottom 90%, which Scott, I think it really resonates with you. But for years, I've worked on capital access problems facing minority entrepreneurs. For some context, Black founders receive less than 2% of all venture capital.