BRIAN
It didn't fit what they thought I should be--”

ROB
Which is great, by the way. It's what we like -- disrupting those narratives. Go ahead.

BRIAN
This is exactly what the show is all about.

ROB
It’s what it’s about.

BRIAN
I was always a victim, what I’d call the “Oh-oh,” which is I walk into your office and I say, “Hey, Steve. How are you?” They go, “Oh… oh, you’re Brian.”

ROB
“You’re Brian.” [Laughter] – Rob Richardson with Brian Brackeen

----------

ROB
Welcome to Disruption Now. I’m your host and moderator, Rob Richardson. With me is Brian Brackeen who is a serial entrepreneur. He found a company called “Kairos” which was a facial recognition company. He’s now… We’re now here in Miami. -- First of all, I’ve never been in Miami.

BRIAN
Welcome to Miami.

ROB
Hey, thank you for having me.

BRIAN
Like Will Smith.

ROB
Yeah. [Laughter] So you run a company now -- “Lightship Capital,” right?

BRIAN
Correct.
ROB
And we are in a space called “TRIBE,” right?

BRIAN
That's right.

ROB
That comes from a tribe called “Quest.”

BRIAN
It’s very simple.

ROB
Yeah, okay. Yeah, I figured that was inspired there. It is an awesome space. In my understanding, this is a space for black and brown entrepreneurs. Lightship Capital actually helps black and brown entrepreneurs in their journey and invest in those companies, correct?

BRIAN
Which we’ll work on the space, exactly. So Derick Pearson, Felecia Hatcher started this space for black and brown entrepreneurs maybe about three or four years now and so [inaudible - 01:31] became the headquarters of entrepreneurship for our community in Miami.

ROB
Oh wow, that's pretty… I’m kind of jealous being from Cincinnati seeing this happening. But the hope is that some of that is spreading because you spent some of your time in Cincinnati.

BRIAN
We’re going to get one, yeah.

ROB
I want to talk a little bit about your background growing up. I looked you up a little bit. You have a little different upbringing from what I see. So you were adopted. Is that correct?

BRIAN
I was. I was at six months old.

ROB
Wow. Okay. Tell me about that experience. If I remember correctly, your parents were Amish. Is that correct?

BRIAN
Yeah. Well my foster parents were Amish.

ROB
Okay.

BRIAN
I’m actually from Ohio. I was born in Ohio.

ROB
Oh okay. That’s probably why we get along so well, right?

BRIAN
I’m from Ohio.

ROB
What part of Ohio?

BRIAN
Part of Cleveland at a Catholic hospital there.

ROB
All right. I was born at the other part of the world -- Cincinnati. It’s like Cleveland-Cincinnati. Go ahead.

BRIAN
It’s far as any two cities. Is that correct?

ROB
Yes.

BRIAN
So yeah, as I understand it, two college students weren't ready to have a kid and so then I went to my foster parents. They were Amish. They were in technology -- candles, cloth diapers, the whole nine.

ROB
That was your experience for how long?

BRIAN
Probably a year or so in Pennsylvania and then my parents adopted me from there. My father's an engineer. That’s how I got in computers and things.

ROB
Wait. You were with Amish foster parents originally but then you had another set of parents that… To make sure I got this straight, they're not your actual biological parents.
BRIAN
Correct -- my adopted family.

ROB
Your adopted family, okay.

BRIAN
So from one or two on, for the rest of my life, they were my mom and dad.

ROB
Okay. I’m glad you got that straight. I was like, “What did you learn being Amish?” [Laughter] You got the technology. It seems like…

BRIAN
Very far.

ROB
…a very far leap but… Okay, that makes more sense now. All right, good.

BRIAN
A lot more. There weren’t very many Amish AI engineers when I grew up.

ROB
My understanding, your dad did introduced you to technology.

BRIAN
Certainly. Maybe about eight years old or so, he brought home this giant thing called “Computer,” put it on the dining room table. There weren’t computer tables back then, if you recall.

ROB
No. Gosh, we’re going to have that conversation now. Okay, go ahead. [Laughter]

BRIAN
You may not remember, a man of your young age.

ROB
Oh we’re the same age.

BRIAN
[Laughter] So he brought home this computer, put it on the dining table and said, “Kid, this is the future. You’ve got to learn it.” And back then, there was no Windows. There’s no user experience really. You had a code just to turn it on, just to play games.
ROB
Was that UNIX?

BRIAN
It was OS/2 -- the early DOS.

ROB
Yeah. I heard that.

BRIAN
And so I had to learn how to code just to use the computer and I just fell in love with the technology.

ROB
Right. And here you are just running companies. I want to think about your entrepreneurial experience. We talk in this show about disrupting common narratives and constructs. And it is obviously hard to be the entrepreneur…

BRIAN
Sure.

ROB
…whether you're black or you're white. But there are some particular barriers even when you are successful.

BRIAN
Mm-hmm.

ROB
You have the experience of founding a company -- the AI company we talked about. Can you walk us through what your lessons were on that? And looking back now, if you can see yourself now, what would you tell yourself then if you can just go back and be able to just say, “Look, Brian, these are the things that you need to know that you wish you would have known.” You just want to just mentor your younger self in that process. What would you say?

BRIAN
That's a great question. Well first, I surely would start the company again even though it was by far the hardest thing I ever did in my entire life -- the most sleepless nights, the most stress, the highest highs, certainly, but also the lowest lows of my entire adult life.

That said, it is important for people who have ability to create things and make change in the world to do so or else the world won't push forward and it won't become a better place. It's possible if you don't do that, someone else who doesn't have good intentions might.
ROB
Right.

BRIAN
So I was really proud to create an AI company and a facial recognition company that was very thoughtful about people, privacy, about working equally in all races. And that really started to set a standard for our industry and start a conversation that wasn't being had when we started the company.

ROB
Yeah. I mean facial recognition, we've also talked about this on prior shows. Technology is not going anywhere. We know that. This technology is being implemented but it's not being implemented, from my perspective, in a way that is inclusive. I guess that makes sense because nothing else has been either. But I do think there are consequences that we may not have seen with artificial intelligence facial recognition because they… You know, you look at it, it, frankly, gets us wrong a lot.

BRIAN
Yeah.

ROB
It seems to be, from my perspective, relearning some of the same biases that is supposed to be eliminating. How do we tackle that?

BRIAN
Great question. So facial recognition AI is very, very good… what we call “Pale males.” So the paler you are, the male you are, it is very, very strong in that area. But every dimension, you get away from that. White women, for instance… Not even a different race. It's 30% less accurate for white women than white men, all right? So it just kind of degrades from there.

And so what we're starting to see in the last couple of years, as the conversation start to evolve, is the real focus on getting data about other genders and cultures and colors and shades into the AIs. It knows how to find us.

ROB
Right. I mean it's not surprising that if most of the people are doing the programming, it’s going to have their bias’s frame of thinking put into it, whether they realize it or not. So I wonder if there is--

I’m hearing the conversation more but I do see the consequences of not doing that up, like technology in terms of security, right -- misidentifying someone. I’m thinking about the Minority Report, which is also probably aging me, which is the story about computers seeing into the future before a crime was committed. Maybe we don't go that far but it might be some type of facial recognition to say, “This person committed…” I’m thinking as an African-American in the United States. Like, “This person committed a crime.” Police see it. They go after the wrong person who looked confused and that person gets shot or something.

Were there any ethical concerns when you were initially approaching this, when you looked at the technology? How did you try to frame it because obviously, I think you care about it. But did your investors care about it? And how did you get them to care about it if they did?

BRIAN
So let's talk about this dystopian future you just laid out.

ROB
Yeah. Sorry, there was a lot in there. [Laughter] That was a dystopian future. I brought that.

BRIAN
Actually, today, that is already happening. There are 230 million Americans according to Georgetown University… The Georgetown Privacy Law Center estimates about 230 million of the 300 are already in the official recognition database -- already -- in what they like to call a "Perpetual lineup."

So the AI is constantly trying to figure out with a picture who this person is. And because it's not as effective on these different groups, it is more likely to false positive on a black person than a white person or again, the pale male. So this concern of yours, and I see the rhetorical in the question, is actually here now.

ROB
Oh I see the words down... Actually, it's happening right now, okay. Thank you. [Laughter] I feel a lot better now.

BRIAN
I'm glad it gave you comfort.

ROB
Okay. Yes. All right. Thank you for that comforting thought.

BRIAN
Now the good news though on the flip side of that is AI is getting better exponentially. I would say it’s three-four-five indexed better even two years ago so we are moving in the right direction.

ROB
So it’s a solution for us to actually participate... because it's kind of counterintuitive. It's like machines are learning. So is it actually more beneficial for us to actually participate and put our faces when Google is asking you on Google photos, which is clearly what they're probably doing to help them with facial recognition. Is that helpful or... because I know some people are saying, "Well I don't want to give them my data. I’ll just make sure that they never see my face. In that way, they'll never see me" -- good luck with that. But what is the solution for really solving that from your perspective, having some experience in this industry?

BRIAN
Some of the work that we did, which I hope work we're doing now, is AI to train AI. What that means is there's this... to use the technical term, "GANs" or Generative Adversarial Networks,” which that really means is you can create fake humans that have never walked the earth and use those fake faces to train an algorithm to find real faces.

ROB
That's freaky.

BRIAN
Yeah.

ROB
Okay.

BRIAN
In fact--

ROB
So we're creating fake humans now. All right. [Laughter]

BRIAN
Absolutely.

ROB
All right.

BRIAN
So what we could do for your viewers is... I’ll send you a link. You could show them right at this point in the video…

ROB
Okay. I love to see that. We'll do that.

BRIAN
…a face is being generated in real time.

ROB
Wow.

BRIAN
Every face the users are seeing right now never existed and I can generate them in seconds --milliseconds even.

ROB
Wow. With your experience as an entrepreneur, talk about what you see as your... I hate to say "failure" because people feel like that feels permanent. But people do, whatever. To set back is a challenge. What do you see as your greatest setback and challenge and how did that set you up for a greater learning lesson or greater opportunity in the future?

BRIAN
So many. So many.

ROB
But the one or two that stick out in your brain the most.

BRIAN
I would say moving people like lawyers faster. Service providers, the count is faster. The business was growing exponentially and we had lots of people, investors, you name it, kind of coming at us. But trying to get things like documentation and people work done from these outside counsel, you name it, it's hard to motivate a person that makes a million dollars a year to work all weekend. I think it's one of my kind of failure. I don't know if I'll ever figure that out. But I think looking back, I would--

ROB
I'm a lawyer. Office lawyers are because most of the time, they overthink the process. I have to say that as a lawyer. [Laughter]

BRIAN
There we go.

ROB
Yeah. Sometimes, [indiscernible - 12:16] is better than perfect, man.

BRIAN
Absolutely.

ROB
Because if we don't get out, it's worse than having something... not having every single semicolon in there. That's my perspective.
BRIAN
It is a friction between an entrepreneurial mindset which is all about opportunity...

ROB
And moving.

BRIAN
...and moving and feed… to feed the market -- you name it. I say, general lawyers.

ROB
Yeah. You know, it’s--

BRIAN
It's all about risk mitigation, even the smallest risk.

ROB
I'm a lawyer. Go ahead.

BRIAN
[Laughter]

ROB
I would take no offense. I'm also an engineer. I just want people to know I’m an engineer first.

BRIAN
I’ve done a whole different show. I'm a big fan of the Supreme Court. I like to read Supreme Court oral arguments. I read the [Briggs - 12:55] as well. I listen to oral... Like everything.

ROB
Yeah. You are definitely more of a... I've never met anybody who is more nerd than I am. [Laughter] And I mean that as a compliment. Wow.

BRIAN
Thank you.

ROB
But I want to understand the struggles. Let's get to the million-dollar question. You did have a dispute with the cops, right?

BRIAN
Yes.

ROB
That seem like it was fun from the outside looking in.

BRIAN
Oh no. But it's fine though, yeah. [Laughter]

ROB
I mean what was the learning experiences there that you can find for yourself and that you would tell others?

BRIAN
A couple of things. One, who's on your board matters. We work a lot with Lightship Capital in our portfolio companies. One, don't have a board as long as possible. Oftentimes, entrepreneurs, we feel like we're searching for answers because we're kind of this by ourselves.

ROB
Absolutely.

BRIAN
Right? You're kind of in a dark room and you're looking out--

ROB
Yeah. Just trying to figure it out, yep.

BRIAN
Yeah. So we turn this focus sometimes for that support. And they really don't know anything more than... We know way more about this than they do.

ROB
Absolutely.

BRIAN
And so I have a sense of… You know, positiveness wouldn’t even need… Well advisers and ultimately board members that may not have our best interest... even the company's best interest at heart. A lot of ego comes into play.

ROB
Always.

BRIAN
You name it. So I would say, “Make sure don't have a board as long as possible.” But even when you do, be very selective.

ROB
Right.

BRIAN
And also when you're thinking about board management and board structure--

ROB
Before you get there... I want you to finish that thought.

BRIAN
Sure.

ROB
"Selection" -- what do you do in the selection process because it’s... There's a tension because you want to keep your... You want to not have a huge board. You probably don't want to have a board as long as possible. But in order to grow as a business, you need advisors. You need people.

BRIAN
Yes.

ROB
One of my mentor says that you also need to be productively paranoid. He said, "Productively." If you're paranoid, you can't do anything but you have to be a little skeptical. I think you add a lot on top of that. If you're black, you productively paranoid and just add in there. But how do you make that evaluation in your brain without being jaded, too? How does one go about making the selection that this is the right fit? How do you evaluate that? And now that you have this database of knowledge built upon real experience, how would you advise people?

BRIAN
I’m not a fan of general mentorship. We'll start with that.

ROB
Okay.

BRIAN
I don't think people need this person... I get asked 20-30-40 times a month, "Will you be my mentor?" What does that mean? Spiritual advisor? No. I would like to see people say, "I'm very focused on digital transformation for my business." And this person is an expert in digital transformation. This person is an expert in growth. Have mentors that are subject matter experts in the specific areas that you need, and not general because that’s kind of babysitting god-complex, that they're kind of somehow above you. They got you lower when they're really peers at best.
ROB
Yeah. Man, that's tough. You get the people that… that paternalistic, I think, attitude. And I’m going to throw race in here a little bit. I think even... You've been in San Francisco, right?

BRIAN
Yes.

ROB
I am... whatever. I'm a Democrat in terms of... especially what's going on now but that's not the important part of this conversation. The important part of this conversation, I believe, is a general belief by folks that, "Oh racism only exists with Republicans." [Laughter] We both laughed. And there is this… and it is real, a paternalistic, what I kind of call "Racism," right...

BRIAN
Mm-hmm.

ROB
...that "I am comfortable with you in this space of, "Oh let me help you get some food stamps. Let me help you be depended upon..." so on and so forth. "But if you get to a place where you think we're peers..." They don't say this but it comes across in terms of assets, right?

BRIAN
Mm-hmm.

ROB
That is just as bad to me.

BRIAN
Yeah.

ROB
And I think a lot of people would be offended if you said that to them but I'll say, "Look at San Francisco. I’m looking at the representation. They look very good." I’m just saying. Am I missing something here?

BRIAN
None at all. George W. Bush, not a man of many great words, but one of his best quotes was... and he really had a problem with the gentle bigotry of low expectations, essentially, right?

ROB
And there's reality to that.

BRIAN
There's such reality.

ROB
And I don’t obviously agree with what he said but that's true.

BRIAN
Exactly. You know, I'm not here to bring George Bush but what I am here saying is, in San Francisco, you see that, where the Prius driving, earth-loving, Democrat voting person, Barack Obama loving-person, states… you know, pats you in the head a few times and say, “This is great. I've got you in this box and you should only really be in this box."

ROB
You should only be in that box. You should only be in the box of this. You know, entrepreneur are like, "No, you're not that."

BRIAN
Before my investor days, in my entrepreneurial days, when I will go out to San Francisco to raise money, here I am, African-American founder with an AI company, I just didn't fit what they thought I should be--

ROB
Which is great, by the way. It's what we like -- disrupting those narratives. Go ahead.

BRIAN
This is exactly what this show is all about.

ROB
It's what it's about.

BRIAN
I was always a victim, what I'd call, the "Oh-Oh," which is I walk into your office and I say, "Oh hey, Steve. How are you?" They go, "Oh... oh, you're Brian.”

ROB
"You're Brian.” [Laughter] On a prior show, we had Chauncey Mayfield on the show who was... He got about $1.5 billion in assets for real estate management a while ago. We're talking 20 years ago. And he had to manage and... Question is coming here. How do you manage this? Because he said he had to manage, even with his success, he managed the business of race.

So he used to go to closings, gave the highest offer but people would find a reason not to close with him even when he gave the most money. So then he said, "Okay, we have stop going to closings." He sometimes invite white people to the closings. He ended up doing this strategy for a while and figuring out ways to... Essentially, some people couldn't tell his race or anything.

And then finally, he said when they had about $250 million in management, he went to the place that he owned and decided to have a meeting with them. They never met with him. He just went and sat at a corner. A white guy was there, just came out and left and just kept looking around and then went back again and kept looking around. He was just like--

BRIAN
Couldn’t find him.

ROB
Then he asked. He said to Chauncey, "Have you seen anybody out here?" Chauncey said, "No, I haven't seen anybody.” He said, “I was looking for somebody.” Maybe I can help you," Chauncey said. Then he said, "Well you won’t be able to help me because you probably won’t know him.” He said, "Well I know a lot of people. Try me. I’m Chauncey Mayfield.” He go like, “Oh… oh… ah…um…” But that tells you a story--

BRIAN
Chauncey is a pretty black name, dude. I mean I don't know any white "Chauncey." [Laughter] So it shows a lot that that is not… There's not many folks that really... because... I'm just saying.

ROB
Yeah, because “Roberts and the Robs” are pretty white name…

BRIAN
Exactly.

ROB
…if we’re honest, right?

BRIAN
Exactly. If I were met a “Chauncey,” like, “Oh he’s a brother.” [Laughter]

ROB
How did you manage that process because I’m sure you went through it. You only get jaded because there are plenty of good, very open-minded, very progressive… A lot of my great supporters have been white but that challenge still comes. What do you do?

BRIAN
Just the two key things. One, even with the “Oh-oh” scenario, I’ve had to meet with “Oh-oh” people. Right?

ROB
Okay.

BRIAN
Sometimes, as founders of color, we have a bad initial experience and we allow relationship to degrade from that point on. And we put things on that other person that didn’t unnecessarily… which are--

ROB
Yeah, which makes sense, right? So two questions follow-up with that. I see that we put in because… I see racism. I’ve talked about this on the show, too. Everybody is racist whether they realize it or not. And to make progress, it's first realizing that because it's a subconscious... It's such a built-in construct that... It doesn't make you an evil person to be that. That's very important people understand that.

How did you go about changing your mindset to not take in... Okay, somebody have this negative reaction or whatever or said something that was out of line. How did you develop the emotional response to not let that affect the situation? It sounds like it's easy but it's harder than I think people get credit for.

BRIAN
It's definitely difficult. Probably a lot of my personality, going all back to my grandfather being a Baptist minister.

ROB
Oh yeah.

BRIAN
You know, you learn some things from that. Two, growing up in a majority-minority community, [inaudible - 22:03], where everyone, other than the upper-middle class neighborhood, everyone in our neighborhood was black -- the mayor was black, the community black, you know. So you get a sense that things are possible. And then sometimes, there are roadblocks and there’s people who are roadblocks but you still have to go around those roadblocks.

I’ve noticed that -- and we were talking about this a little bit before the show -- if you're in a minority-minority community, sometimes... or in a southern… kind of Jim Crow South and we only had one generation... first one to college, right--

ROB
Yeah, which is most black people.

BRIAN
Most black people.
ROB
As we talked about earlier, right, for the most part, in terms of the doors really being open... And you can make some arguments about this still, the broadness of it. But in terms of just legally and structurally, having an opportunity, that's a rather new experience -- last 40-50 years we're talking.

Black people have been conditioned into a subservient position. Whether we realize it or not, it's there. But if you're from an immigrant background -- we talked about this -- it's different. Like Miami is very different. I can say it's very different from places in Ohio...

BRIAN
That's right.

ROB
...in terms of how black people or brown people think. Talk about what... Because you're in Cincinnati often, you're in Miami often, talk about what you see is the distinct differences in approach.

BRIAN
You look at the Jamaican-American community, for instance -- very, very successful. Because you’re coming from a majority community, you don't feel some of the constructs. Also because you have many multi-generational wealth that you already had -- Jim Crow South, right -- it allows you a starting point in entrepreneurship that gets you further on the finish point. There's just less of a ceiling or a cap.

ROB
Right.

BRIAN
We're starting to do some work in Tulsa, Oklahoma lately -- on the side of the Tulsa race massacre… the Black Wall Street massacre.

ROB
Yeah, I’m well-aware. Black Wall Street, yeah. Haven't talked about Black Wall Street. That would be another good topic for us to talk about.

BRIAN
Come on and visit us.

ROB
Yeah, we're going to do that. We'll do that. We'll hold you to it.

BRIAN
So we're doing some good work out there. I think a critical piece of our work is just allowing--

ROB
And by the way, if you don't know about Black Wall Street massacre in Oklahoma, please look it up. It's something everyone should know about.

BRIAN
It's very, very deep. It's both sad but also the rebirth now of that community is certainly very exciting. The more we work there, we think that our role is to help remove some of those ceilings on the mentality of the community there because if you were a member of Tulsa, Oklahoma and your parents and great parents and beyond suffered through that period of time, how much trust can you possibly have?

ROB
You have very little.

BRIAN
You have very little trust. But that lack of trust is literally the ceiling that is holding you from creating a world-class business. And so we think of ourselves almost community psychologists in that community, not just investors.

ROB
Well a "community psychologist." See, that's the approach, I think, we have to take as I think about… I’m a policy person. I talked about this a little earlier, too. There's three levers of, I think, making really social construct changes. Black people, because of our position, they are focused on the first one. And it's still relevant but it's not the only one. It's protest. -- It's protest. -- It's saying, "This is unfair" -- whatever you call protest -- mass protest, boycott, whatever. But then there's, obviously, policy because protests mean nothing if you don't get any policy.

BRIAN
Amen.

ROB
And policy is not even sustainable. It don't matter if you have the best policy in the world, that could be reversed in a second by the next person in power. So you need the third P which is "Power." That only happens through collective power through entrepreneurship, through working together to advance our economic and political situation. And absent Democrat-Republican is about, “What are we doing to make sure that our interests are being advanced,” period.

BRIAN
Absolutely.

ROB
After I went to that rant... I had a point here.

BRIAN
The rant was fine.

ROB
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. [Laughter] Black Wall Street, trying to... You talked about those kind of, I think, negative--

BRIAN
Community psychology?

ROB
Yeah. “Communities psychology,” yes, and the negative, I would say plans, that have taken root. I want to talk about methods about how you actually do that. One I thought I have, and I want to hear what you say, is that... I said when you hear these negative thoughts about the old adage about the white man's ice being cooler, when you hear people say "Black businesses can't do that," take that thought. Literally, see yourself taking that thought. Write it down and put it in a fire and burn it.

BRIAN
Yes.

ROB
Burn it.

BRIAN
Yes.

ROB
Right? Look, I have been guilty of that. All of us have been because it's so pervasive when you see yourself holding black people to not the same standard -- black businesses I’m talking about -- to the same standard as other businesses, one. Two, they're going to have some trials and struggles because you know what, they might have a corporation structure, infrastructure, like a huge business but at least, they're actually hiring people that look like you.

BRIAN
Absolutely. So if you think about all the great black entrepreneurs of the American history -- let alone world history but American history -- from cotton jeans to streetlights to astronauts, these are folks that were able to be successful in a much more structurally difficult time, not that now isn't difficult.

ROB
Yeah, there's no question. No one can argue it was much structurally difficult.

BRIAN
Structurally.

ROB
We couldn’t walk down the street. They could just shoot you and be okay with it.

BRIAN
Literally.

ROB
Yeah.

BRIAN
Literally. [Inaudible - 27:36].

ROB
Right. Yeah, exactly.

BRIAN
So structural.

ROB
Or just talk Black Wall Street, when they could just come and just take it and there's no recourse.

BRIAN
Literally. [Inaudible - 27:44].

ROB
So no one can say that it's equivalent in terms of constructs.

BRIAN
It's absolutely… certainly, not structurally. So with that said, if... because those people didn't have this kind of weight in their minds and on their shoulders, that we put on our... It was put there, actually, by previous folks.

ROB
Absolutely.

BRIAN
We also can take it off.

ROB
We got to take it off. It's time.

ROB
Perhaps it's not going to get any better which is what the original person wanted in the first place.

ROB
Which is why the teachings of both Martin and Malcolm... And actually, Martin started going towards Malcolm before he died, in terms of how he was thinking. I saw this old speech by Malcolm X saying, "Listen, other communities of immigrants have nothing, they came here, and you want to go and just go get a job in corporate America. That's what you think success is. That's not success."

And hearing those words like, wow, he was talking... We're starting to think now... I didn't even realize that his words were so prescient even at that time. But it's true, right? We're not going to... Nobody is coming to save us. And it happened, like the superheroes for the college books, you know, “Iron man is not coming. Superman is not coming. Wakanda is not coming. No, it ain't happening, right? We have to do that for ourselves.

BRIAN
How is Wakanda though? [Inaudible - 29:02].

ROB
Yeah. Well we have to be Wakanda.

BRIAN
Yes.

ROB
That's my point. Black Panther ain't jumping out and just go calm and just say, "Is this going to LA?" He’ll say, "Hey, we're going to change all the things that happened. We're going to have to create Wakanda."

BRIAN
Well I’ve got a spicy take back on to what you're saying about Fortune 5s.

ROB
All right.

BRIAN
You know, we love our Fortune 5s. They're big supporters of ours. But I think Atlanta's failure as an ecosystem is because success is working at Coca Cola…

ROB
I would say Coca Cola, too, yeah.

BRIAN
…as a senior vice president.

ROB
Now we got time [fairly - 29:40]. Bear with yourself in there.

BRIAN
There you go. [Inaudible - 29:42] more entrepreneur, right?

ROB
Yep, because Hollywood wouldn't accept him. You have to understand, Hollywood didn't want him.

BRIAN
Exactly.

ROB
And they didn’t think his product was valued. He had to create his own. He was back to that mentality of our ancestors before there was no Coca-Cola they could depend on.

BRIAN
That's right. And so essentially, he didn't [start - 30:00] Coke in LA.

ROB
No.
BRIAN
Right? He started his own soda brand.

ROB
Right.

BRIAN
Right? I think one of my Miami successes as an ecosystem system is that they're actually so few Fortune 5s and people are much more focused on being entrepreneurial, also immigrant mentality, and so we start things often here and finishing things were often--

ROB
In Cincinnati, we have more corporate 500 companies. And people I think have a very... and nothing wrong with corporate but it's a corporate mentality. Corporations, almost by definition, are not entrepreneurial. They're not seeking to disrupt. They're seeking to keep. And they're taking to keep the status quo because it's work for all.

BRIAN
I would argue that [Charlotte has a film - 30:38] -- black ecosystem -- for the exact same reasons.

ROB
Wow. From Cincinnati, we're going to work on disrupting that together. I’m looking forward to that. I think I saw somewhere that you are not a fan of diversity and inclusive. And I can kind of guess why but I want to hear your point or take.

BRIAN
Well it's the VP role. I'm a fan of diversity and inclusion. It’s the thing.

ROB
I know what you mean.

BRIAN
Yeah, the VP of diversity and inclusion at any... particularly, West Coast, San Francisco-based organization--

ROB
I don't think it's unique to them. Go ahead.

BRIAN
Yeah. It's--

ROB
From my experience. Go ahead.

BRIAN
It's not particularly but not only -- not solely. They throw great parties.

ROB
Great parties. They’re the best parties.

BRIAN
[Indiscernible - 31:20], he’ll do a little stop over.

ROB
Yeah. He’ll stop over, yeah.

BRIAN
Even those kids, probably concert -- it's one. They create a beautiful glossy report.

ROB
It's great, isn't it?

BRIAN
Oh it's stunning.

ROB
Yeah.

BRIAN
Year in and year out, he says, “We've done absolutely nothing.” [Laughter] Absolutely nothing. But that party was fired. And so this kind of diversity VP lottery that people win and they get to go and do nothing for a few years and make six figures and the people, they're celebrating, feel like, "Oh yeah, you're going to go do nothing,” that's an absolute joke. When I see the one little simple that gets… someone in my Facebook to invest in every black venture capital fund as part of its treasury policy then I'll be impressed with D&I work.

ROB
Preach.

BRIAN
Getting an intern from Howard to work at Facebook for a summer is not success.

ROB
No.

BRIAN
It’s not. You're stealing money.

ROB
It's tokenism. It's not inclusion as you said. -- I’m stealing your word. -- It's not equity.
BRIAN
No.

ROB
That's not equity. You're not changing the construct. You're not changing trajectories. I don't have any more conversations about like with people… When I'm dealing with my business and dealing with data and marketing, people send me the diversity and inclusion. I’m like, “So you’re telling me you're not serious.” I don't want to go talk to the gatekeeper to figure out... to tell me I got a sign up as a DB to prove some stuff. How do I prove I'm black? Look. [Laughter] Look at here. What else can it be?”

Exactly, I am so with you on that. It needs to stop being used as tokenism. And let me just say this, we, as black people, have to stop allowing it -- allowing this -- because I don't go in that. And I’ve seen that happen so much where you have one or two at the gate and they're like, "Oh we both are diverse and inclusive. Look, we have Bob." Like Bob is one person.

BRIAN
One person.

ROB
What does that do when Bob has a job with you? And every time Bob... That means he owns the company.

BRIAN
Google hired 20 interns. The organization has tens of thousands of employees and their interns--

ROB
That's worth... Oh they're approaching trillion dollars. And I have friends... I know the head of marketing there. So what you see, that is not transforming.

BRIAN
Yeah. Now I will say, in Google's kind of defense specifically, they today announced that they're supporting Lo Toney’s new fund which is to fund two black VCs for $40 million... It's a $40-million fund launched today. So Google is putting the check--

ROB
That's good.

BRIAN
I don't see others put their check [in my place of work - 34:02].

ROB
Yeah, I agree with you. Let's kind of like finish up here. So this is Lightship Capital. Your mission is to do what here?

BRIAN
So we are here to support black and brown entrepreneurs and women to create world-class businesses.

ROB
Okay. How do you do that? How do you go about doing that?

BRIAN
Variety of ways. First and foremost, investment. These communities are under-invested by all standards. Reason, first investor… first institutional investor. We've invested about $125,000 into the first round and we'll hold back another $600,000 particularly for a bridge round because these entrepreneurs, when things start going well and they should do a series A, it takes them six months to a year longer because of the bias.

ROB
Yeah.

BRIAN
Right?

ROB
Absolutely.

BRIAN
So we're here--

ROB
The lack of the same connections and opportunities that others have.

BRIAN
Exactly. So we keep another $500,000 back so that we can invest that into other company's bridge to get them to series A. But then beyond that, we are really focused on entrepreneurship and education for black and brown founders.

We actually announced this year that we've raised $1.2 million in nonprofit funds just so we can train a hundred entrepreneurs next year in one-week boot camps around... everything from founder growth mindset to digital marketing, understanding your customer using AI.

ROB
Oh that's really cool. All right, three rapid-fire questions really quick and then we'll take a quick tour, let you go. You have a committee of three, living or dead, to advise you in life and business. Who are those three people and why?

BRIAN
Definitely Steve Jobs. I’m a big fan. Got my big start at Apple. I worked at IBM before but it wasn't the same.

ROB
You didn't go to college either, right?

BRIAN
I jumped out the first semester.

ROB
Smart man. It worked out well for you. [Laughter]

BRIAN
I realized completely it wasn't for me. So yes, Steve Jobs would be probably number one. Oh man, I don't even... Everyone else is so far down from that.

ROB
Well there's a lot of people. We got spiritual advisors, everything.

BRIAN
Oh anyway--

ROB
Any advisor -- life, business, personal, whatever.

BRIAN
Oh Dr. King would certainly be one, for sure. I mean for all the kind of obvious reasons. And then I think last but not least... I have a bit of a CEO crush on the CEO of American Airlines, Doug Parker.

ROB
Okay, all right.

BRIAN
Very, very random.

ROB
Yeah, that was really quick, okay. [Laughter]

BRIAN
Doug go all the way back, was the CEO of, if you remember, American West Airlines -- a very small airline.

ROB
I don't remember, sorry.

BRIAN
Regional at [indiscernible - 36:48] but regional in Arizona. He continuously bought bigger airlines to kind of like... To sue the other side, he would keep the name of the bigger one. So America West bought US Airways and he had left the brand "US Airways" even though he owned this.

ROB
Smart.

BRIAN
Then US Airways bought American, he called the whole thing "American" -- makes them feel better. In American's case, his college roommate was the CEO of American Airlines. They were actually good friends. And what's crazy about that situation is American goes into bankruptcy, he decides that he could probably do a better job. He negotiates contracts with all the unions -- the pilots union -- and then offers the Bankruptcy Court a better path forward than his friend and American. The Bankruptcy Court assigns American Airlines to US Airways and then he takes over as CEO.

ROB
Wow.

BRIAN
Yeah.

ROB
Are they still friends?

BRIAN
Probably. Hopefully. [Laughter] Actually, Scott Kirby was that gentlemen, once president of United. And the CEO just announced today that he's leaving. He now becomes the CEO of United.

ROB
That's such a smart move, too. People overestimate their own brands. Think like, "If I put my name on everything then that will help it." That's not true. Those people don't know the brand for that reason. So let the brand exist and be happy that you have the power and the money to actually have the ability to do those things and not allow your ego to get in the way of the result.

BRIAN
Buy bigger companies. All starts everything by buying their biggest competitor -- bigger than they are.

ROB
Right.

BRIAN
It's the way to do it.

ROB
That's awesome. What's an important truth very few people agree with you on?

BRIAN
An important truth--

ROB
That you hold... personal belief that people, if you tell them, that that's crazy as hell -- what you believe in.

BRIAN
The Constitution is a nearly perfect and divine document. There isn't a single word out of place. And here's the thinking: In a Donald Trump world, how can that be possible? [Laughter]

ROB
I was like, "This is very good."

BRIAN
Right? The electoral college. The electoral college as intended -- as intended -- so that the people picked a guy like Donald Trump--

ROB
That's exactly what... Yeah, you're supposed to pick somebody else.

BRIAN
They shouldn't have picked him out anyway -- independent of the votes, right...
ROB
Yeah.

BRIAN
...because things like this could happen. The Constitution got it right; the people got it wrong.

ROB
And the Constitution only works when people apply it.

BRIAN
That's right.

ROB
So I agree with you.

BRIAN
Like the “Buy” move.

ROB
Like buy… I can buy… I say America is unique in its approach, where there’s always a tension to live up to its ideal that it says it believes in versus what it actually practices. But the closer we get to the ideals, the better we are as an American. But we have many starts and setbacks that--

BRIAN
People are messing it up.

ROB
Not looking around. People are messing it up so... I mean but it's up to people to preserve the ideals of who America is.

BRIAN
To get to this place.

ROB
Yeah. Let's hope people will do that because I think what's going on right now, whether you're democrat or republican, the ideals are out of whack.

BRIAN
"Out of whack."

ROB
Out of whack, no matter how you look at it. There's no way to look at this stuff like, okay, if you read this... There's only one way to read this. I don't know how else you can read what's going on and then interpret that this line is with that. Let's hope people can connect it, too, but most are skeptical because of--

Well, you know, emotional beings we are, figure out how to get people there as we know technology works in... People are now exploiting that in new ways, so it's hopeful that people get there. And I agree with you. I mean the Constitution as written -- you know, like slavery and all that stuff and so forth -- is it the works--

BRIAN
Improves.

ROB
Improved, right?

BRIAN
Yeah.

ROB
Its current state is beautifully-written and should... If we stayed true to that, we have a whole lot less problems. But doing that is always a trick.

BRIAN
Exactly.

ROB
Final question: There's a billboard, Google ad, digital ad, whatever, that summarizes a belief of yours, a saying. What would that say and why?

BRIAN
Mm, "The future will be delivered not from the coast, not from New York or San Francisco and not by a traditional..." Zuckerberg holding its founder.

ROB
Yeah.

BRIAN
They held [inaudible - 41:17] and the future will have its little [buy - 41:19] the rest of us.

ROB
Hey, for the rest of us, next is now. Time for disruption right now. -- Brian Brackeen, brother, we got to do this again. Yeah, we love to have you on.

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]