Morgan DeBaun
Founder and CEO, Blavity Inc.. On 3 shows, 3 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
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Morgan DeBaun is the co-founder and CEO of Blavity Inc., a digital media and technology company. She is also an angel investor, corporate advisor, and author.
3shows
3appearances
31statements
3resolved
2supported
0contradicted
67%fully supported
1said about them ↓ Everything Morgan DeBaun said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
DeBaun: Most creative people will gain the most from AI rather than be replaced
“I think the most creative people are going to be the ones who get the most out of it, as opposed to it being something that replaces.”
Morgan DeBaun: Founders should plan exit outcomes when initially raising capital
“I know they always say, well, don't worry about the outcome or who you're going to sell to when you're first raising money. I think it's important to think through those things, actually.”
DeBaun: The tech industry ignores the problems of Black people and women
“There's a thousand problems that black people have, and people of color have, and women have, that this entire industry ignores.”
DeBaun: Legacy Black media failed mobile while millennial media ignored Black audiences
“Black media is moving too slow because they're antiquated in terms of magazines and newspapers. They never really made the switch to mobile first and digital first. And then millennial media, they don't care.”
DeBaun: AI email drafts ease the mental burden on female CEOs
“It takes me a lot of used to take me a lot of energy to formulate email responses in a way that, you know, is concise and direct. And warm and all the things that a female CEO has to think about when you're in doing correspondence and having a tool that I can …”
DeBaun: Media companies providing functional utility will survive AI disruption
“I think that my perspective is that for media companies that solve a problem, I call it utility, right? Like a company that is providing content and information and entertainment that is a utility, meaning that people can actually use it where there's value. I…”
DeBaun: Tech equity gaps stem from builder access, not consumer adoption
“And the thing is that people of color oftentimes use, are the early adopters of technology, right? So it's not for lack of use. It's lack of access to get behind the scenes to build.”
DeBaun: Retraining staff on AI is cheaper than hiring scarce experienced talent
“Because at the end of the day, like it's much cheaper to retrain people. And there's a limited amount of people who have 10 years plus experience in some of these new technologies because they're new.”
Morgan DeBaun: Brands avoid running ads alongside social justice coverage
“You know, people are very sensitive about running ads or campaigns against black death or murder or social justice, because that's not always ad safe or ad friendly.”
Morgan DeBaun: Venture-backed startups must target $40M to $50M in revenue
“Also, venture funding isn't for every business model, right? You know, you have to very much be on a mission to build a hundred million dollar plus business and be able to Get to 40, fifty million dollars in revenue plus, right?”
Morgan DeBaun: Standalone media companies struggle to raise venture funding
“And I think media alone as an industry is very difficult to get venture funding for we've seen so many media companies go out of business.”
Morgan DeBaun: Venture funding creates constant pressure to sell the company
“Now, when you take venture funding, the only way people get their money back is if you exit. That's a very tough thing that I have to struggle with because that means that we are selling it to someone else and that there's a constant push And drive towards tha…”
Morgan DeBaun: Blavity's 1 million users would raise $5M today, not $500K
“It took me a lot of no's to get 500,000 dollars for Blavity. And I had a million users at the time. If I went out today with that, I would raise five million because there's more venture funds focused on minorities and women of color.”
Morgan DeBaun: Blavity diversified revenue to avoid relying on venture capital
“Blavity, we've always had a diversified business because I did not want to be dependent on venture funding, so we've prioritized revenue at our core in terms of operating because it was important that We had multiple industries and multiple revenue streams.”
DeBaun: Tech and entrepreneurship are the best ways to build community influence
“How do I both help the people that I care about in my community make enough money
so I can influence other people and make better decisions and technology and entrepreneurship is one of the best ways to do that”
DeBaun: Black Americans watch 8 hours of TV daily while driving content
“Black people and people of color actually over index and watching television, so it's about eight hours a day on average, it's a lot, the average person watches about five, and at the same time, we're huge content creators”
DeBaun: Pitching competitor's investors is a mistake for founders
“I think I made the mistake that a lot of first-time founders make, which is you raise you go and look at your competitors, right? You go look stocks on AngelList, you look at them on Crunchbase, and you're like, okay, well, who invested in them? We're like the…”
DeBaun: Few Music Media Brands Focus on Black Culture
“There's not many music media brands that focus on Black culture, which is ironic, considering how much black musicians run the music industry, right? Are the creators of the music industry.”
DeBaun: Black Female Founders Must Not Seek Outside Validation
“I would say it's so, you don't have to ask for permission. Like, I think sometimes we wait for other people to validate us because we've spent a lot of time not being validated and not seeing ourselves in places.”
DeBaun: API workflows cut creative tasks from two days to 10 minutes
“So for social postings or video editing or audio editing, you know, click of a button, two or three apps will then communicate with each other through their APIs. And something that maybe would have taken us two days now takes us 10 minutes.”
DeBaun: Blavity's internal AI policy was drafted using AI
“I wrote, and side note, I wrote an AI policy for our company, and I said, yes, this policy was written by AI at the end of it.”
DeBaun: Black tech representation is vastly higher for AI than during Web1
“And I think the generation that built the first version of all these tools and products that we use, like Netscape and everything, we maybe weren't a part of it because there wasn't a lot of black folks that were in technology at the time. And now there are, a…”
Morgan DeBaun raised over $11 million in venture funding for Blavity
“I've raised, you know, over eleven million dollars, have fantastic investors that support the mission, but it is a for profit entity.”
Morgan DeBaun: Blavity raised venture capital as an audience platform
“I think that sometimes people may look at Blavity and say, well, it's a media company that's raised venture funding, and it's really more of a company that raised venture funding because we have a huge audience, and we're building products, brands, experiences…”
The other half of the tape: Morgan DeBaun's own voice is left out of every number here. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →
Statements about Morgan DeBaun, by other people (1)
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Morgan's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Y COMBINATORLEDGER | Founder and CEO, Blavity Inc. | 1 | 12 | 0% 0/1 | full record on the Y Combinator Startup Podcast → |
 HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Founder and CEO, Blavity Inc. | 1 | 10 | 100% 1/1 | full record on How I Built This → |
 MASTERS OF SCALELEDGER | Founder and CEO, Blavity Inc. | 1 | 9 | 100% 1/1 | full record on Masters of Scale → |