YouSaid · the spoken record

Kimberly Bryant

lines on the record: 68
first: 2019-04-22
most recent: 2019-04-22
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And the other thing I'm really happy, I don't know, happy is a funny word that I am inspired by, is last week I was part of a group of 11 founding foundations who've come together pooling more than 20 million dollars to support the work of on-the-ground women of color organizers that came out of hashtag Me Too. But these are farm workers, these are domestic workers, these are hotel workers, and one of the things that I find really inspiring is that hashtag Me Too in Hollywood Has shared the stage with hotel workers, with farm workers. And that was one of the things I pointed out I would love to see women in VC share the stage with those who have been gentrified out of San Francisco and Palo Alto and elsewhere because of tech.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, so again, I mean, and this is representative of bias, I suppose. The candidate that we've had the most interaction with over all the years is Kamala Harris from when she was here in San Francisco. And Mitch did some transition team tech advising. So we know her to be receptive. And she is in as many are pegging her, she's more the middle of the pack. The Elizabeth Warren proposals don't scare me at all. I know that there's a lot of my colleagues in Silicon Valley who think she's gone too far, who think all of that is crazy. I think it's great that we're having conversations about what to do about taxes and carried interest. And I think it's... Fabulous that we are having conversations about reparations in this country and long, long, long overdue.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no, no, no. A lot of people want our money. Let's be clear about that. When they ask for advice, I know that they're really asking for a check and they're just thinking that's the easier path to getting money. So far not involved”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Class of Smash Scholars on eight campuses around the US that A, I'm old, B, I've had a great life, and C, the best day of my life is yet ahead, and that is when I write a K-Por Capital check to a smash alum who is starting a business. That's helpful.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm incredibly optimistic. And, you know, which is why it's so odd. I keep being painted in this contrarian corner, but I am incredibly optimistic every single day I get to hear a pitch at Cape War Capitol. I'm just... Awestreck about the creativity and the enthusiasm and the drive that people who've been given the short end of the stick turn into this really positive kick-ass entrepreneur, great business, going to help everybody. And we see them over and over in every sector. So I'm incredibly inspired by our KPOR Capital entrepreneurs. I think we're going to get some attention, as I said, when we release our returns. We're opening our eighth Smash Campus this summer. I will visit all of them and I will say to each and every...”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it is. I do not get points to the podcast for memory it, but I saw that Linda memory. I saw that Blint. Okay. So they've been around for 15 years. They waited until a decade before they released their returns. They turned out to be in the top five funds in the world, not top five impact, not top five sustainability, and they've been in the top five every year ever since. They have well over 20 billion under management. They're not a little side fringe anything. They're just not very good at tooting their own horn. But I'm happy to give them all the credit.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Your brain to see if you've heard of them And Al Gore. Okay, so I didn't want to say it before you said it. I was like, isn't that Al Gore's thing? But, okay. Yeah, it is. I do not get points to the podcast for memoring it, but I saw that lent memory. I saw that.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I hope it doesn't. I think what it does is points to a need to get more nuanced and distinguished between different kinds of impact investing. Because that fund, as I understood it, it always reverted back to the standard TPG investment committee. So it still had to go through the usual mechanism. And so, probably the most impactful things we're going to get weeded out at that point. I think a firm that we don't know anywhere near enough about is generation investment management. They've been around for 15 years. They're London-based. I see you wrecking your brain to see if you've heard of them. They do have a small San Francisco office. They were co-founded by David Blood from Goldman Sachs, who's one of the first one.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Usually the top ranked public university in the world, and it doesn't do legacy admissions. And so I think sometimes you pointing to examples where things have been achieved, I think, is sometimes helpful. We know we can do that in the same way that we know we can make boatloads of money doing only impact investing and having our founders sign a founders commitment.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure. I was explaining this. I feel like, I mean, legacy admissions is just. It's a reflection of interest groups, right? It's a reflection of alumni who are a powerful interest group who don't want to see it changed. And I think the challenge for people who want to see more diverse classes, right, is that someone like you, they don't really care what you think necessarily. They care what the alumni association thinks, right? And the stakeholder is the alumni association and they want legacy admissions. So I'm sort of skeptical that actually changes, I guess is my big picture, unless there's overwhelming outside pressure, which maybe I'll bring that.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think we did a book reading with him over in Oakland in the fall. And I think. What he points out is reminding us to look at how far have we gone. So if college admissions, all the things you described are wonderful steps in the right direction. Now, when are you going to get rid of legacy admissions? If that's still a third of your class, that's a really different message than we care about diversity.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, a distance traveled metric would be to look at where did you start life at? Were you born on third base or were you born miles from the ballpark? And where did you get to on your own steam as opposed to what were the purchased advantages for you? So, for instance, kids who get unpaid internships because mom or dad are the next-door neighbor works at that place, yes, you had some experience. We don't actually know what it was, but it was not a merit-based award. And so it belongs in a different bucket than competing for an internship.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So there's one venture capitalist who heard me talk about distance travel. I've learned about distance traveled from working with our Smash Scholars and our predecessor program, ideal scholars before that, and really that there's something there that we don't know how to measure. But if we did, it would tell us a lot about college admissions. It would also tell us about entrepreneurial talent. And so a VC has quoted me in print a number of times and says, let's start a project. So we convened about a dozen college admissions officers, and we are starting to build a distance traveled metric for college admissions that colleges can use side by side.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. I mean What actually shocked me, you'd think I wouldn't be shocked by this stuff anymore. But what shocked me is that people write fake essays. You can hire somebody to write that essay to make up a good story about your upbringing that isn't even true, but that is just a good story.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it turns out only rich kids apply early action or early decision. Other kids, and the odds are much better of getting in early action or early decisions. So, right there it's rigged towards the privileged. Kids from low income backgrounds have to wait and compare their offers and especially compare their financial aid. Packages. So we wrote an op-ed talk about contrarian, where we said, How about if college admissions, college applications ask you to list every SAT prep class, every coach, everything, every purchased college access thing, you as a parent did for your applicant. And same thing, if you lie on this application and we find out next week, we find out when your kid is a week away from graduation, the kid's kicked out. So colleges could do whatever they want with it, but they could try to create a level playing field.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This society has moved farther and farther and farther away From being meritocratic for many decades. As one venture capitalist put it recently, that the last 50 years there's been a bull market in inequality. So, I think we have to look at all of the forces, including the ways in which tech has made things worse.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly, exactly. So I think what we have to do, and this is deeply tied up with technology and with the VC world in particular, we have to once and for all take a deep hard look at the BS notion of meritocracy.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, when the scandal broke, it's both outrageous and not at all surprising. And it is the extreme end of the spectrum of what goes on every single day and is completely legal, which is rich people jumping the line. And so it is exactly what the Rise Fund guy did is exactly what I was describing earlier when it's mostly white women and it's mostly moms who come and tell me that my program, Smash, is taking away their kids' spot. And you know, what I really think is your kid got every possible unfair advantage you could buy them, you know, SAT prep courses and coaches and summer college essay writing camps and on and on and on. And if your kids still couldn't get into college, like, hey, you know, I guess that kid's not so smart.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We can track the inbound deal flow by the race and gender and schools and every other kinds of dimensions of the people sitting on our investment team. It's who entrepreneurs feel comfortable reaching out to.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Investing. It has to be a kick ass business. It has to be a tech business. Right. And so it has to meet all of those criteria. And there is no shortage. And one of the things, going back to our earlier conversation about VCs and diversity, one of the most interesting things that has popped up every time we pop up with something or Uber letter in 2016, early 2016, we were the first venture capital firm to put in a founders commitment. We only write checks for the last three years to founders who sign on to build inclusive cultures and diverse teams. With great regularity, we get approached by VCs who say, I want to increase the diversity of my deal flow. How do I do that? And we say, Easy. Increase the diversity of who's sitting at the table.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, exactly. Exactly. So K-War Capital has very specific investment criteria. And we are looking at impact that means closing gaps of access, of opportunity or outcome for low income communities and or communities of color. So from every tech product or service, somebody benefits. And we're looking at who benefits. And is that going to widen gaps? Is that going to make society in whatever dimension it is more unequal or is it going to close those gaps? So we are completely sector agnostic. We have investments in education, in healthcare, in fintech, in criminal justice, in people ops.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Get rid of the warm intro. So get rid of the warm intro. What's really interesting is we've gotten rid of the warm intro. People can send us their pitches directly over the website. We have invested in companies whose pitch decks come in over the website and none of us know anybody who could have introduced them to us. And they are businesses that meet our investment criteria. And our investment criteria are pretty rigorous. And we see, oh, you know, between what comes us individually and what comes over the website, we see about 3,000 DLs a year. It's the criteria of investing that I would change. And the criteria for those investments by definition means you change who the entrepreneurs are and who the investors are.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think it would have many dimensions. It would have much more concern for who's sitting at the table. It would have much more concern for what are the pathways in for entrepreneurs. There are many practices in VC that are inherently biased. So this notion of a quote-unquote warm intro, And we've seen many a famous VC make public statements about if you can't figure out how to get a warm intro to me. It's true you, yeah, right. Yeah, screw you. We don't want to talk to you. Well.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, it's not speculation. It's a steady stream of conversations email, can we talk? Can we meet for coffee? Can we meet for dinner? Can we meet for a drink? I can't say this publicly. I'm worried about the backlash. And that thanked us. And look, I mean, I think you're still trying to paint me as anti-Alrace. I'm not anti-all race. They had the best of intentions. And as I've been saying for decades, sorry, intent doesn't matter, impact does.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Published our medium post. So African American women and Latinx women entrepreneurs are recipients of almost 10 times as much inappropriate touching from VCs as our white and Asian women. That's appalling. And if you're a white woman entrepreneur mentoring a black or brown woman entrepreneur and you don't know that, you can't possibly be a good mentor to her.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we're getting together with a few people from our team and from Alrays. It's been probably a year ago that I offered when they were going to start a mentoring program for founders. And I said, I reached out and actually the One of the women who started part of that effort is a founder in our portfolio. I reached out and I said, hey, let me help you so that you, you know. Don't forget to have an intersectional lens because the kinds of obstacles in front of African American women entrepreneurs, Latinx women entrepreneurs, Asian women entrepreneurs, LGBTQ women entrepreneurs, the kinds of obstacles they encounter are very different. And this is where my research hat comes on. And we went and we did a study.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He was a white male founder. Okay. And somebody thought there was a big need for that. Well, actually, I'm much happier to have invested in a woman of color who started an ed tech platform that's serving more than 15 million of the world's poorest students. So, you know, you tell me on what scale do you measure those? Right.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think who the VCs are and who the founders are is critically important. Because as I mentioned, it is their lived experience that generates ideas. You know, look, it was somebody's lived experience to generate Jucero, right?”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think improving diversity in venture capital aspiration shouldn't just be women, that the aspiration should be intersectional when it talks about women, and it should be men of color, underrepresented men of color as well. And I think Why would you not want it to be representative of the US? And so the aspiration we talk to our founders about their own teams, and we don't dictate anything, prescribed numbers for them. We say, here's your aspiration. Build a team that reflects your customer base. Now, if you stop and think about it, there's nothing radical about that at all. And actually, it sounds like a pretty good business strategy. And so why we haven't adopted that more broadly in VC towards both their own investment partners and towards the companies they fund.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, misguided is your word, not mine. And I think that those goals are too limited. And again, the example I gave of being pitched by a very prominent VC about a startup founded by two women that is going to be gap widening. So I care about the kinds of companies and who benefits from those companies more than counting the numbers of women VCs. Women entrepreneurs are starting companies, some of which are gap-widening and some of which are gap closing. And so I am interested in helping bring about improving the VC sector and therefore improving who gets funded to build what kinds of companies.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think here's what I would say. I would say that they set their standards too low. That if all they were seeking to do is increase the number of privileged women who become partners at VC firms as VC currently exists, that's an incredibly low bar. And don't you want to think about VC 2.0? Don't you want to think about making the industry better on all dimensions of diversity? And there are a lot of people who are trying to hold tech and VC accountable now and look, the industry has brought it on itself. And a different group of people sitting around that table could have tackled a bigger issue about where has VC not done what it could do? How could we help VC live up to its potential?”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, look, I think all race is incredibly well intended, and I think they didn't dig in and do their homework. They didn't do due diligence like VCs ought to do due diligence. So one of the things is it matters who's around your founding table. It matters who's there, whose voices are there when you design your organization and its purposes. So I think they had a different group of women around the table, they would have a different set of goals and their organization would look different.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“More often than I want to count, a finger gets pointed at my face and says your kids are taking my kid's spot away. I don't want those women investing. That's not any kind of progress. That gets you the college admission scandal we have right this minute.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I have had many a white woman say to my face that the smash program I founded 16 years ago, Summer Math and Science Honors Academy, which is a residential program for underrepresented high school students of color. They live all three years of high school, all three summers. They live on a college campus. It closes the academic preparation gap. It builds social capital. The outcomes of the program are stunning. We create twice as many African-American, Latinx, underrepresented high school students who go on and graduate college with a STEM degree in five years. We turn out these first generation kids at twice the rate of all college graduates. Just an absolutely amazing outcome. When I'm talking to affluent white women about the program,”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Will so first of all, if all you're doing is counting women and they're white and Asian and you're not including African American and Latinx women, that's a huge problem. If all you're doing is replicating, again, the same zip codes, it's a fact that the valley likes to ignore the majority of white women voted for Trump. And everything that goes along with it.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so to be able to back an entrepreneur like that and to see a business grow when what the success of that business means is that we're solving a real problem. We are not exacerbating income inequality. We are closing that income inequality gap. So we have tons of positive solutions and there is a model that works. And I can't wait till we release our returns because people who only care about greed are going to say, well, I can make a bunch of money. And happen to make the world a better place at the same time.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I don't think more likely to start those companies than men, but I think if what we do is count the number of women partners, and if those women partners are white and Asian and went to the same school and grew up in the same zip codes and now live in the same zip codes as their male partners, that doesn't get me very far on diversity. And I mostly care what we've seen in our experience, and that's why, I mean, people like to paint this as negative. Every single day, I am awestruck, I am inspired by the entrepreneurs that come to pitch us. And they are from every walk of life, from every background possible, every combination of family circumstances, of race, of religion, of age, of gender, of LGBTQ status, disability, and it is their lived experience that generated that aha moment. I have a great idea for a business.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. And I said, we would never invest in this because it's gap widening. So if it is, it doesn't matter if it's a product, if it's an education product or a fintech product or a healthcare product, what we're doing is backing businesses in that model that says we want to widen the gap between haves and have-nots. We're going to make health and quality of life and good food and good education. We're going to make all of those things available only to the wealthy. Not only am I not interested, I am worried about where that trend goes.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, let me give you an example, and I'll give you an example that's all of two days old. Okay. And a prominent VC in the valley, Caucasian mail, nice person, great investor, well-known, reaches out and says, I have a company I think you might be interested in. Two women founders, and it's a direct-to-consumer product. And their business model is affluent customers.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think I'm much more interested in the goals and the goals for me are not adding raw numbers. The goals for me are about building an investment firm that in turn has a nuanced eye for building a portfolio of companies that close gaps of access or opportunity or outcome rather than continuing To advance inequality.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, what do you make of when on the stat that you can quibble with the numbers about who's a partner and who's not? Doing pretty well. We just, you know, we used to have, if you had a firm with five male partners, now they have female partners and one female partner. 16, 18%. I mean, what's the response to kind of the raw numbers?”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're not wrong. I might dress it up with something. Yes, they might. But I think that's really what it's been. I think he spent an awful lot of time listening and apologizing for things that did not happen on his watch. I think that what we see with Uber and more so with the Googles and the Facebooks of the world is the bigger and older the company, the harder it is to turn it around.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think he's done a remarkable job on changing the culture. I think there has been, you know, I think his apology tour is going to be the stuff of lots of business school cases and organizational culture cases. I don't know what they call it.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well I don't think we would have had the impact with Uber, and I'm now on Uber's diversity advisory council and have regular contact. I think Dara invited us in to talk about how they were doing. And as I've often said, I'm still waiting for anybody, any unicorn, any tech company to claim the top spot in how to build a truly welcoming culture and how to build a diverse workforce. So is Uber perfect? No. Can we point to any... High growth tech startup that's perfect? I can't.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We went public because we felt like we had tried many times, in many ways, again, having been invited in, and that that was just falling on completely unreceptive years, and that it reached a crisis point and that we wanted folks to know what we had been doing and what side of the line we were on. At the end of the day, living our values is more important than making money.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. And in fact, I think what the Holder report pointed out is that there were in fact some values that the company had that fostered that behavior. So it was always pushing the itch, asking forgiveness instead of permission. Well, those things without the right guardrails, Telling people to ask forgiveness rather than permission gets you right down a sexual harassment line.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Priest Susan Fallow, they'd get themselves in some kind of a mess or just growing pains of a company and somebody would reach out and bounce something off of us. So there were a few of these instances where I had spent a lot of time on the phone and giving suggestions and giving advice and here's what to do. Here's the intervention, but then here's the prevention. Here's what you want to put in place.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That often is their argument. And my argument will be one is stay tuned because for the first time ever, KPOR Capital is going to release our returns in May. And I think that people will be, anybody who's been dubious, skeptical about impact investing or seeing it as a trade-off of financial returns. We'll have to eat those words. And I think what we're really hoping is that we open a very wide path. For founders and for VCs to be able to say We can all choose our spots on a continuum, and we can choose to invest in a way that we think aligns with our values. There has been too much of an Hiding behind the LPs won't like it or won't let me do it. And I think if we reframe things as, well, we're impact investors and if you're not interested in impact investing, you're interested in greed only.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Very easily. You can argue that they're being cowardly, but you can sort of understand the incentive structure of some venture capitalist who is begging for dollars and are concerned that if they're too much of an activist on issues that are not directly relevant to other LP returns, maybe they'd say, save that fight for the benchmarks of the world. But I'm not saying that's legitimate. That's just what their argument could be.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think, yes, it is the concern, and I think it's also the excuse. Because there are these things called LPs, limited partners, the folks that put money into the venture capital funds, and they're expecting a certain rate of return. But it is also possible to be a venture capitalist who says these are the kinds of companies we want to back. And these are the kinds of cultures we want them to build. These are the kinds of hiring practices we want them to have. By the way, we're not going to look the other way when somebody tells us that a founder is a harasser. And so I think VCs have much more power than they pretend to have in these moments when they say, oh, I can't do it because of my LPs. Well, If you are at all a desirable fund, you're oversubscribed. And you can say, this is what I'm interested in.”
2019-04-22 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT