Put the Mirror Up

As a leader yourself, not only in the workplace but in the nonprofit work that you do through your group, Upward, what are you doing not to just move the conversation forward but to really make sure action is taken and progress is made?

Well, I mean that's a tough one. Because ultimately, it's the decision of the leadership to decide to do those things, to make the structural change, to create accountability, and some incentive for people to do the right thing, to diversify their teams. All we can do is put the mirror up, all we can do is say, "This is what happens if you do that." We have example after example of companies that have had success doing it, and we can say these are the programs that you can put in place in order to achieve that. But at the end of the day, they have to decide they want to, they have to decide that it's important enough, and that there's an economic benefit enough, and maybe even a social benefit enough for them to do it. So you can kind of lead the horse to water but you can't make them drink, it's kind of that. We hope that there's enough really compelling arguments that move them to engage, but it's still ultimately up to them. And so until the culture changes among the leadership teams across all industries, not just private business, but until that changes it's hard to see where you get real structural systematic change.

Yeah. Are you hopeful? Are you hopeful that we're in a better place now than, in recent memory because of the Black Lives Matter Movement, because there is so much more intensified focus on these issues now?

Well, I can say that I'm pleased that a number of big brand companies have come out and said they're going to invest in minority communities, they're going to invest in minority entrepreneurs. I think that's a positive step. It's actually what I thought we would get after we announced the Intel Capital Diversity Fund, which I founded back in 2014. I thought a bunch of companies would jump on board and do the same thing. And so that didn't happen then, it is happening now so that's encouraging, but I don't think that's it. I think that's a good first step, but unless you really deal with the cultural, structural, systematic, incentive issues that I mentioned, you're really not going to get sustained change. And so that's an executive decision. That's how the leadership use their company and their mandate. And if they're not excited about it, it's not going to happen. It'll be a flash in the pan unfortunately.