Happy Friday. Let’s talk about our dreams.
Last fall, and with relatively little fanfare, tech and marketing veteran Everette Taylor became the new CEO of the crowdfunding behemoth Kickstarter. It’s big business: The platform has transferred over $7 billion to artists and entrepreneurs since its founding in 2009. Among successful alums are Peloton, Issa Rae’s Awkward Black Girl series, the Exploding Kittens game, and Oculus Rift.
Taylor joined Fortune CEO Alan Murray and me on our Leadership Next podcast to share his plan to lead a company that has become an industry standard in a category that needs an innovation refresh.
Taylor says Kickstarter is partly about how community can help make the world better and more beautiful.
“This is not equity-based funding,” he says. “A large amount of people contribute from the goodness of their hearts and…want to see the thing actually come to life.” Films, albums, passion projects, they got you. “If you have a performance art piece that you want to put on, I don’t think, you know, Andreessen Horowitz is looking to invest. Right?”
That said, dreams are a business.
In addition to having a great idea and some early supporters, be prepared to hustle, he says. “I tell people all the time if you don’t have that hustler spirit, then Kickstarter might not be for you. Like, this is actual work.”
He’s taking his own advice.
After a pandemic-fueled slump in 2020, Kickstarter’s revenue is “crushing it,” he says. Now, he’s focusing on new initiatives designed to help a considerably underserved and monetizable cohort of creators find success. According to the platform’s data, creators of color are currently not getting the traction they should, an experience that mirrors mainstream industries like publishing, music, film, game development, and venture capital.
We also discussed why there are still so few Black CEOs in tech, He thinks of it as a missed opportunity of the post-George Floyd era.
“When it comes to people of color—people from underrepresented backgrounds and people that may not have the résumés that others may have—those people are often overlooked,” he says. It’s amazing how having professional-track parents, access to “friends and family” money, or simply growing up unbothered with fast internet can lift some dreams instead of others.
Taylor acknowledges that Black professionals have received more career opportunities in the last three years. “But, you didn’t see a lot of Black CEOs coming around,” he says. He’s taking his visibility seriously, knowing that he is the dream for so many. “It’s really important for me to show what I can do through impact.”
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
This edition of raceAhead was edited by Ruth Umoh.
On point
The bias facing Black talent in customer service roles
Wandy Felicita Ortiz (a raceAhead alum!) unpacks two enduring biases facing Black people navigating customer relationships. The first is that Black employees or businesses don’t provide the level of customer service that non-Black firms or employees do. The second is that Black customers don't talk to people and businesses in a manner that gets them a good customer service experience. Click through for an interesting case study of success. (Looking at you, Synchrony Bank.)
CCW Digital
We’re about to find out if the NFL is ‘rife with racism’
NFL Coach Brian Flores is heading to court after a federal judge waived the League's preferred option to arbitrate. Flores sued the League and three teams a year ago, claiming its failure to hire and promote Black coaches are evidence of widespread racism. The presiding judge agreed, finding the descriptions of the “long history of systematic discrimination toward Black players, coaches, and managers...incredibly troubling.”
NBC News
Faith leaders with trans kids fight back
They are rabbis and pastors, Jewish and Christian, but also parents who find themselves on the ugly side of a culture war gunning for their children. As legislature after legislature takes up bills restricting affirming care for trans kids, faith leaders are taking public stands across the country. “Our state is at war with our family,” says Missouri-based Rabbi Daniel Bogard. “It’s not an exaggeration that we are up at night talking about when and how far we might have to flee.”
Washington Post
ChatGPT is just an approximation of how wealthy white men talk
Well, not exactly. But not far off! Emily M. Bender, a computational linguist at the University of Washington, has a better way to explain what’s happening when chatbots get flirty, dark, or are simply wrong: Remember who made them. But the problem is really us, she says.
New York Magazine
Parting Words
“As a black woman, I don’t identify with and relate to most of the non-black characters I see on TV, much less characters of my own race. When I flip through the channels, it's disheartening. I don’t see myself or women like me being represented. I’m not a smooth, sexy, long-haired vixen; I’m not a large, sassy black woman; an angry Post Office employee. I’m an awkward black girl.”
—Issa Rae, launching herself on Kickstarter in 2011
