The Exchanges

Q Anything like that where you're investing in something that's working on a really cool problem or like, what are you inspired by lately?

A Oh yeah. Um, there was a really good, uh, article in Fast Company the past two weeks about our, our company called Spora Health. This is a deal We co-led with M-thirteen and refractor. It's, uh, it's telemedicine and telehealth for, for the enterprise, for really big organizations that have, you know, big insurance plans and, and, and, and, and have, um, a lot of employees. It's geared towards their African American employees. And what is geared towards is helping doctors really understand some of the root causes of health disparities for, for African Americans who work in these, in these, um, fortune, 500 companies. Uh, and, uh, the, the CEO, Dan Miller is just a really thoughtful, great entrepreneur. It's, you know, he's already, the company's already kind of, Oversubscribed and we think it's going to be a tremendous business success. He's got a, a great contract with United.

AI assessment note: “our company called Spora Health. This is a deal We co-led”

Q control of the usual special interest. Uh, you know, you guys worked together at sports charters in DC. You closed down feeling schools. Like where, where did that push come from? It really, I think it surprised a lot of people. And I, I, I was just really amazed by what you were doing there. It took a lot of courage and made a lot of people angry at you.

A No, I really appreciate it. And you, you say that to so many people when we're in private groups also. So, To me, like when I was hired as mayor, like I was the CEO of the city and, and as a CEO, your job is to take on the toughest problem. And I thought from day one, that if we didn't tackle education, that our city would never maximize its potential. Um, so, so we went right out of the gate to, to take over the school system to actually have the mayor in control of the way Richard Daley and New York, I mean, it's Chicago and mayor Bloomberg in New York had done. And so once I got control of the system, I wanted to find the best, most talented, Hard charging and visionary CEO I could find, and that, that was Michelle.

AI assessment note: “as a CEO, your job is to take on the toughest problem.”

Q Yeah, no, that's, that's fascinating, and I know, I know bringing diversity to private equity is one of your real driving missions you talk about, and how are you thinking of, how are you thinking about affecting change in that regard? What are you doing on that front? It kind of relates to this.

A Yeah, so, I mean, so first of all, you know, we're, we're trying to build, you know, a very successful fund, you know, that, that returns the money for us investors and has a great reputation with our entrepreneurs. Those are, Two of our top priorities. We are a majority African-American fund. So there's, there's four GPs, three are African-American. Um, and so what, what we're trying to do first and foremost is to, to show that the adventure capital is a place for everybody, for, for women, for Latinos, for African-Americans, for people, for immigrants. Uh, and so we're doing, and so our fund was actually the biggest first time fund for a majority African-American, uh, group and, uh, And we've got some great investors, many of whom you know, so, so thank you and, and some of them. And so what we do is we just want to have a really broad funnel. And so at the top, so at the top, you should, we should have women entrepreneurs. We should have, you know, minority entrepreneurs, immigrant entrepreneurs. And by broadening the top of the funnel, we're going to do two things. We're going to have the most amazing companies to invest in, and we're going to have really diverse led companies. And we've been successful at that so far.

AI assessment note: “what we do is we just want to have a really broad funnel.”

Q and division in our society, and a lot of people who, you know, really don't believe in America, who think America's a bad place now, who are, who are pretty negative on it. And I'm curious, I'm curious to get, you've gone through a lot of things. We've done amazing work. You've had a lot of people be pretty nasty to you. What, what, what are your thoughts on America?

A No, I, I, I, that's why I love what you're doing. I'm super optimistic and for, and for so many reasons, things are not perfect. I, I, I question some things that individuals are doing all the time, but, but the country I think has the exact right formula to help everyone. And now we just have to work a little bit harder. Be a little bit tougher, smarter in making that system work. It is interesting. I know you usually ask people about like books that people write. I listened to a lot more books during the pandemic. And if you listen to like, you know, I listened to like the, uh, the life and times of Frederick Douglass, amazing book. Now I'm listening to, you know, Alexander Hamilton. It's, I mean, I mean, what these guys were doing, you know, three, two, three, 400 years ago with, you know, so much less resources, and we have all these resources available to us, and we're doing some amazing things, but we really have nothing to complain about. We have all the resources to solve homelessness, or to educate kids, or to You know, send people to, to Mars, build electric cars.

AI assessment note: “I'm super optimistic and for, and for so many reasons”

Q fought and he ended that. It's, what's interesting today is this, the people who are fighting, uh, on the more progressive side, it's, They don't, they don't start by acknowledging the greatness of the values and saying we could be better. A lot of them just start by saying how horrible things are. It is like, where's that coming from? And, and, you know, what do you think about that?

A Yeah. And you know, it's great. I mean, Frederick Douglass, he was trying to fix it from the inside. He wasn't being meek, but he was trying to fix the problem from the inside. If he's going to make himself a voter, he went to Abraham Lincoln's white house. And I think these days people are trying to fix it too much from the, from the outside. They're just, As you say, they're either complaining or they're, they're, they're criticizing someone who's actually, you know, in the arena trying to fix it. You know, I give you a lot of credit. I've gone to a lot of your events. You have politicians come to your events. Sometimes you are actively engaged with them. To me, You know, if you're going to complain about, you know, the, you know, what's going on in San Francisco or California, then you should also be trying to do something about it in any way you can, but don't just complain that San Francisco has too much homelessness or California has too much taxes. You didn't use your influence to talk to people to try to fix things, and that's, that's what That's how I think you fix things from the inside. That's the great part about our country, but you got to get involved.

AI assessment note: “I think these days people are trying to fix it too much from the, from the outside.”

Q 25% for white and black families to, to, I think it's now over 70% for black families that don't have, you know, don't have, you know, a father who's there in their lives, and over 30%, you know, for, for white kids, and it seems like that's part of the problem too, tied to education, or how, how do you think about those, and how can we be confronting that?

A Well, the one thing that we really tried to approach was, like, um, making sure that, So we, you know, we supported all kinds of education. In D.C., it was basically whatever education would provide a great, whatever type of education would provide a great curriculum to the kids, we supported it. So we were very open on choice and alternative, like you said, charter schools, but even in our traditional public school system, we wanted Ingenuity and innovation. So that would absolutely, um, that would absolutely include lots of different, uh, ways to teach values or to teach, um, things that, that a teacher or principal thought, uh, were important. So, but what Michelle and I were big on, we weren't going to prescribe those things from the top. It's, it's much the same way that we as venture capitalists support, support entrepreneurs. You know, you look for an amazing entrepreneur who has a great vision for the future. That's the same thing we look for in teachers and principals.

AI assessment note: “we supported all kinds of education. In D.C., it was basically whatever education”