Kiss diversity conversations goodbye. This isn’t my opinion, this is market reaction fact as shown by the 4.8% loss Grubhub suffered, for NOT including the considerations of Trump supporters in the CEO’s company email.
GrubHubs CEO, back tracks Trump email to employees
Quickly, even Zuckerberg’s own dialogue has changed to empathy towards and willingness to listen to Trump supporters. Rightfully so, he builds products for whoever wants to share their thought. You can’t build solid products for folks you don’t listen to.
So, what does this mean for Afro’s in tech, now that voices of Trump supporters MUST be included to thrive as a company?
From my experience, it depends. Contrary to popular belief “Blacks” aren’t one unit of thought and response, though it can certainly seem that way at times.
For example, I have never been a supporter of black lives matter, they presented no political candidate, nor considered their passions could be quenched with a tech solution, not a political solution.
I was not a supporter of NFL protests.. NFL players and good income celebrity figures are the investment class not the protest class. Rather than losing how many millions in his protest, Antonio Cromartie could have done better investing half that in a problem solving start up. Celebrity figures should be challenged to invest, not encouraged to risk resources.
You can also tell from my past posts, I’ve never been a supporter of the diversity conversation without “build your own” as part of the conversation. Lets just say I’m not the most popular black guy among black techies in San Francisco.
My approach has been challenged, left me isolated and brings me not so warm introductions at times.
Now, after 6+ years of endless diversity conversations, it seems as though we are back to square one.
As many dismayed Afro techies look back at the Obama era, they may suddenly realize there hasn’t been much built, no massive IPO’s… no incredible exits and a very fierce competition for employment still exists.
A significant part of the problem is that millennial afro’s don’t listen to “outsider” voices.
They ignore this mad new future of American innovation has been largely driven by American outsiders, from Elon Musk, to Steve Jobs, Zuckerberg to Jan Koum.
The outsiders perspective is not welcomed in the American black world, despite the fact the historical progress of American blacks were catalyst by outsiders.
From the civil rights movement, ignited years earlier by Marcus Garvey (a Jamaican) to many historical revolts ignited by Haiti’s accomplishment. Even the term “Black Power” was coined by Stokely Carmichael, from Trinidad and yes even Obama.
Consider even Jack Ma, the (1st or 2nd) richest man in China spent years in the USA and returned with fresh ideas or an outsiders perspective.
These facts of history are mute on modern millennial’s and creates a none sense approach to problem solving.
So… the new tech era of listen to the voices of those who support Trump vs a set of ears deaf to outsider solutions, creates a losing scenario for afro’s in tech.
Lots of talking has left afro’s in tech voiceless now that a louder group is talking. No Afro equivalent of a bold Peter Thiel, CEO’s who speak up and try to be your voice will learn quickly to shut up.
You have a XXX day head start, this era could be different
This era could be the era of less talking more building. This era could become the era we build empires equivalent to that of our example president elect. The era we accept the voices of those with our best interest in mind, regardless how badly it stings our ears.
Along with opening up your ears to outside voices, afro’s in tech will have to open their minds to outside opportunities. The world of bitcoin and crypto currency is a trillion dollar new economy. The world of AI, chatbots and gaming have vast opportunities ready for creative imaginations.
Lastly the conversation has to change. The American black world, talks WAYYY too much about race leaving cramped room for future impactive discussions.
Some weeks ago I was at an AI meetup, pepper the robot roamed around the room. I was one of two afro’s there and I jumped into stimulating discussions about the possibilities of AI, the movie Chappie came up and I made a wild argument about the duel parents of Chappie “programming” his outlook on life, as a counter to a techie in the conversation who’s view is humans would not be able to program robots to kill. All senses of my brain were in tingles at this discussion, shown in the excitement of making a good point.
As the discussion continued, I noticed some familiar Afro faces walk in, I said hello and one pulled me away to discuss my good cop bad cop app with another afro who had a similar idea. “Fuck” I thought to myself, “I don’t want to talk black shit today”.
Not to be rude, I obliged and 15 mins later I was very annoyed at another lengthy “black” discussion around diversity and everything else others need to do to make the american black experience better.
I don’t want to talk solvable “black” issues. I especially don’t want to talk about it in the era of drones, self driving cars, borderless currencies, instant IPO’s, augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality… etc.
Here’s to the Trump era… the era that will be defined as the greatest tech entrepreneur era known to man.