William Crowder is a venture capitalist at Comcast and DreamIt Ventures. At Comcast, he leads the Catalyst Fund which is focused on investing in startups with diverse founding teams. He previously served as Director of Strategy and Business Development at AOL. We discuss diversity, what he looks for in startups, and building tech outside the norms.
This episode is brought to you by Classana. Find the best books to read and classes to take on Classana.com.
This episode is brought to you by Classana. Find the best books to read and classes to take on Classana.com.
Ruben Harris began his professional career in Atlanta working in Finance, and now works in Partnerships and Leads at Honor, an Andreesen Horowitz funded Bay Area startup modernizing non-medical home care for seniors. He also serves as an advisor to AltSchool, which is working to reimagine education. He’s an accomplished cellist, playing for more than 22 years.
We talk a bit about his journey, his Young and Cultured project, and an article he wrote titled Breaking into Startups.
Ryan Smith is Director at Magic Johnson Enterprises where he helps the superstar basketball player and business phenomenon decide on investment opportunities. He’s a Howard and Stanford GSB grad, previously spending time on Wall Street. Ryan is the prototype of Black Excellence.
This episode is brought to you by Classana. Find the best books to read and classes to take on Classana.com
Rodney Sampson is the Chief of Diversity + Inclusion Initiatives at TechSquare Labs in Atlanta. TechSquare is an incubator, seed fund, and co-working space in the heart of Atlanta’s prominent Technology Square - an area near Georgia Tech where more engineers graduate than MIT and Stanford combined.
He’s an MBA, entrepreneur with 2 exits, an Author and Bishop.
He’s responsible for casting Troy Carter on Shark Tank, worked on Mark Burnett’s The Bible Series and Mel Gibsons Passion of the Christ, as well as The Chronicles of Narnia, and so much more.
We discuss the economic divide, Atlanta's startup scene, and budding engineers.
This episode is brought to you by Classana. Find the best books to read and classes to take on Classana.com.
This episode is brought to you by Classana. Find the best books to read and classes to take on Classana.com
Ruth Mesfun is a co-founder at POCIT which stands for People of Color in Tech. They run features on minority tech personalities from Founders, Engineers, and Marketers. She’s also a teacher at a middle school in Brooklyn, and launched a program to teach girls in her class how to program.
This episode is brought to you by Classana. Find the best books to read and classes to take on Classana.com.
Kristy Tillman is design director at Society of Grownups, a company offering financial services. They call it “ A masters program for adulthood” where the curriculum covers everything from investing in a 401K to having that hard talk about a budget to how to pick good, cheap wine. She’s a beast on Twitter, sitting at 10k tweets to date, and prominently tweets on pop culture, music, and social justice.
We discuss opportunities for Blacks in technology, design, and IDEO.
This episode is brought to you by Classana. Find the best books to read and classes to take on Classana.com
Everette Taylor is an entrepreneur and marketing pro who served as Chief Marketing Officer at Sticker Mule. The hugely popular custom stickers startup. He’s also founder at MilliSense, a marketing firm headquartered in Los Angeles. He built GrowthHackers with three partners, and partnered with NFL free safety Brandian Ross to create the brand Unity Over Self, which helps children with autism.
We discuss how students coming out of college break into marketing for startups, and tips for startup teams to get to Product Market Fit.
This episode is brought to you by Classana. Find the best books to read and classes to take on Classana.com
Angela Benton is founder and CEO at NewMe Accelerator in San Francisco. She serves as a startup coach at the Wall Street Journa, and writes for USA Today and Inc. Magazine.
On this episode, we talk diversity in tech, the "Black Mark Zuckerberg", and what makes founders successful.
This episode is brought to you by Classana. Find the best books to read and classes to take on Classana.com.