“A lot of people denigrate the value of talking about race and racism in technological spaces,” said Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want to Talk About Race, which has surged to the top of the New York Times best sellers list in paperback nonfiction, two and a half years after its initial January 2018 publication. “…I don’t think there’s a more important space to be talking about it.”

Oluo and I were talking this January, just before the global pandemic struck, at One Cup Coffee: a no-frills, “more than profit” coffee shop that shares a storefront with a church, and is just down the road from a methadone clinic. The cafe is not far from Oluo’s home in Shoreline, Washington, a city just north of Seattle.

“I’ve seen the absolute best and the absolute worst in race and racism in America on the web,” Oluo continued, “in ways that have had true-life consequences for me and for people I love. [The internet] is a space that is just as real as face-to-face space. And we absolutely have to be looking at it politically and socially, as to how it’s contributing to the way in which we look and deal with each other and how we address issues of inequality and injustice.”

To drive to Shoreline from the posh Seattle neighborhood in which I’d been researching Amazon’s growing campus — which exceeds anything at Harvard and MIT, the two campuses at which I work as a chaplain, in terms of glittering architectural swank — I’d had to pass directly by probably the largest homeless encampments I’ve ever seen in my life. And I’ve led interfaith groups of students to study and volunteer in large homeless encampments. 

Speaking of religion and faith, Oluo and I began our 90-minute conversation (edited highlights below) by bonding a bit over our shared interest in “humanism,” a semi-organized movement of atheists, agnostics, and allies who try to do good and live meaningfully without belief in a God. I work as the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard and MIT, and write about humanist philosophy as a kind of secular alternative to religion.

For her part, Oluo accepted an award for feminist humanism from the American Humanist Association in 2018. She delivered her acceptance speech to a mostly white liberal crowd who tended to think of themselves as enlightened and broad-minded and thus took it in stride when she opened by telling them to ‘buckle up,’ as they ate chicken breasts on white plates and black table cloths, busily passing rolls and butter and accidentally clinking their water glasses. But when Oluo told them, “I need for you to not always be looking for the harm others are doing, but look for the harm you are doing,” as my friend Ryan Bell tweeted at the time, “you could hear a pin drop in here.” 

Back to this past January, however: as we sipped simple cups of coffee and tea, I told Oluo about the thesis I’ve developed over the course of my year-plus here as TechCrunch’s “Ethicist in Residence”: that the world we call “technology” has grown bigger than any industry, and more impactful than a single culture. Technology has become a secular religion: quite possibly the largest, most influential religion human beings have ever created.

As you’ll see below, Oluo kindly tolerated, maybe even enjoyed the idea, riffing on several possible tech/religion comparisons. Like this one:

One thing tech fundamentally has in common with many religions, at least in America is that it is a white man’s version of Utopia. And tech especially has this cult-like adherence to a white man’s vision of a Utopia that fundamentally disempowers and endangers women and people of color.

I consider myself an agnostic (not necessarily an atheist) toward this new religion of technology, because I want to view tech the way I’ve always tried to view traditional faith: as a mixed bag, something that can do both good and harm, depending on the circumstance. But as multi-billionaire entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos accumulate power; as social media misinformation sways the fate of democracies while artificial intelligence intrudes on justice systems; and as the current pandemic drives more of our life online, I sometimes wonder if I’ll be forced to re-evaluate my own would-be “prophesy.” If we’re not careful, tech could become the most dangerous cult of all time.

Just a bit more context before the interview below, which Oluo and I agreed to call “So You Want to Talk About Race in Tech,” after her book—which was already a major success, but has now reached iconic status nationwide in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.

This article is the last installment of the roughly year-long series I’ve done for TechCrunch, offering in-depth analysis of people and issues in the ethics of technology. So let me just mention that up to now my editors and I have produced 38 articles, with over 150,000 words about mostly women and people of color who happen to be leading efforts to reform and re-envision the ethics of our new technological world.

The series included interviewed Anand Giridharadas on “Silicon Valley’s inequality machine“; Taylor Lorenz on “the ethics of internet culture“; and James Williams on “the adversarial persuasion machine” of efforts by his former employer Google — among others — to distract us to death.

It featured CEOs and venture capitalists disclosing childhood traumas before debating the moral merits of their creations; employees and gig workers speaking painful truth to their powerful employers; as well as deep dives into perspectives on tech feminism, intersectionality, and socialism, alongside heroic efforts to combat cultures of abuse and violent immigration policing within the industry.

Now, to introduce the interview with Oluo: which was, again, completed weeks before the current crisis, but is even more relevant today. To paraphrase the self-described “zillionaire” venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, another Seattle resident with whom I met the same week as I met Oluo, the pitchforks have finally come for American plutocrats. We’ve come to the point, across this country, where my fellow white people and I are not talking about race and racism because we’re woke, or because we want to do everything we can to make the world a “better place,” but because we fucking have to. As Kim Latrice Jones says in her viral video that has become emblematic of this period, we’re “lucky what black people are looking for is equality, and not revenge.”

This is perhaps doubly so in the tech world, where perhaps not all our neighborhoods and offices are literally burning at this moment, but where there is the most to lose because … they could be. Tech is immune neither to COVID-19 nor to pitchforks. If Black people aren’t able to achieve more sustainable forms of equality in the tech world in the coming years, revenge could become the next goalpost. And it could be justified.

But I trust no one wants to go there. As Malcolm X once said on a visit to Coretta Scott King while Martin Luther King, Jr. was in a Birmingham jail:

Mrs. King, will you tell Dr. King . . . I didn’t come to make his job more difficult. I thought that if the white people understood what the alternative was that they would be willing to listen to Dr. King.

MLK has become an almost literal civil rights deity over recent generations, deservedly so. But we may one day, hopefully a long and peaceful time from now, look back on the life and work of Ijeoma Oluo (along with several of her peers, many of them Black women) as having achieved a level of influence and inspiration that at least approaches King’s.

And while some readers might need to buckle up in order to take in what she has to say, they should remember that her vision is the more optimistic alternative for how things could go in the coming years.

So you want to talk about race in tech? Let’s talk.

---

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity.

Greg Epstein: To what extent has the work you’ve been doing, particularly since your book So You Want to Talk About Race came out, intersected with the tech world?

Ijeoma Oluo: I wrote the book as a black woman who grew up in Seattle, which is such a tech-centric city, and who worked in tech for over 10 years before I moved over to writing. So it’s very much shaped by these environments — environments that think they’ve transcended race and racism and clearly have not, and also a place where people of color are extreme minorities, especially women of color.

So the tech industry was very present in the book even when I wasn’t talking about tech. Because a lot of people in tech recognized themselves and their peers in the examples used in the book.

Probably one of the most watched videos of a talk I’d given is the one I gave at Google. And a lot of the tech industry, especially here in Seattle, immediately adopted the book, like, “Oh, she lives here. Let’s read this, this will be the thing we do for the year, as far as race and racism.” 

But when I walk into a tech space, I think about it the way I think about just about any other white-majority, liberal-leaning space. Which is that there’s a very limited amount I can do in the time I’m there; the most I can do is reinforce what the extreme minority of people of color in that room are feeling and experiencing. Because I’ve lived it to an extent many other speakers cannot.

[The idea of the book as relevant to tech] also applies because as a black woman, and as a writer, I wouldn’t be [where] I am today if it weren’t for social media, the access that it granted me.

But the cost that [social media has] had, and the way in which it’s giving, via tech, the exact same if not larger platforms to hate, division, and abuse, especially of people of color and women of color, and LGBTQ community, is something that needs to be discussed.

A lot of people denigrate the value of talking about race and racism in technological spaces; I don’t think there’s a more important space to be talking about it. I’ve seen the absolute best and the absolute worst in race and racism in America on the web, in ways that have had true-life consequences for me and for people I love. It is a space that is just as real as the face-to-face space. And we absolutely have to be looking at it politically and socially as to how it’s contributing to the way in which we look and deal with each other and politically how we address issues of inequality and injustice.

Epstein: Great summary: [tech as] the best and the worst. I mean, I’ve learned so much from Black Twitter, which is extraordinarily empowering. Then there’s White Supremacist Twitter. And then there’s just the sort of White Supremacist Lite Twitter, that is, sort of…Twitter.

Oluo: It’s interesting [that you talk about] looking at [tech] like a religion. I think one thing tech fundamentally has in common with many religions, at least in America, is that it is a white man’s version of Utopia. And tech especially has this cult-like adherence to a white man’s vision of a Utopia that fundamentally disempowers and endangers women and people of color.

Epstein: I love that image; I’d love for you to brainstorm with me: what are the characteristics of this white man’s vision of Utopia that we see in tech culture?

Oluo: It starts with the mythologizing of white-male struggle that’s at the core of tech culture. The idea that these men were outcasts who built things up from nothing — the shunned ones. And they’re going to fix the problems standing in their way. This is their success story, their ascension. So what stands in their way, are people of color, the women that aren’t sleeping with them, the popularity and the wealth they aren’t automatically getting, old-class structures that are keeping them away from the new class structure [based on] who has these skills that they, as white men, have?

And the mythology built around it feels very cult-like, very religious-like. There’s this whole origin story that’s not true.

If we look at the founding of our biggest technological advances, we’re going to see a lot of extreme privilege, and this idea that there are rules, merits that are purely good, [things] you can do to ascend in these spaces that are going to revolutionize things. And in the tech space it’s really these guys saying [the criteria for inclusion are] going to be: How good are you at coding? Can you debate better than this person?

What it starts with is a fundamental centering of white maleness. And the goal is the ascension of white maleness. People of color can aid it, they can mimic it, or they’re in the way, to be overcome. There’s this argument in tech that anyone can prosper in this space. They’ve removed all the boundaries to prosperity. But the truth is, they’ve moved their own personal boundaries, and left all the boundaries to people of color and women in place because they just don’t exist in these origin stories, as anything other than props.

What cracks me up is, for a dogma that likes to talk about change and adaptation as much as tech does, how completely closed they are to actual change, especially for any sort of ideological change, and how terrified they are of looking around a room and not seeing people who look just like them, of taking things down to bare bones and asking, did we do this right?

There is nothing revolutionary about what many in tech are calling revolutionary right now. And many complaints people have about organized religion — “Wait, we’re still sticking to these rules from 2000 years ago? We’re still threatened by change and progress?” — are things you can see in tech already. And it’s worrying, considering how recent this industry is, that [we already see tech leaders] saying, “No, no, no, this is the way it’s always been done.” 

Well, where does the change come in then? Are we locking in at these prototype stages and saying, this is the way it’s always been done? For what, the last 20, 30 years? It’s ridiculous.

But the fervor with which I’ve seen white men defend [that status quo of the last 20 to 30 years] and the ways in which they talk about threats to it, also have that kind of religious fervor — the same fervor that launched the internet — even for people who are beyond religion.

Epstein: To what extent have you talked or written publicly about your work in the tech industry?

Oluo: I don’t write a lot about [my experiences in tech]. In my book there’s a couple of anecdotes about work; any time I write about work, chances are it was in the tech industry, but it’s not specific. 

The one thing I will definitely say is, I have never been more sexually harassed in my life than [while] working in tech. I have never faced more blatant accusations about my race, and whether it helps or hinders my career, than I have in tech. I’ve literally been asked to my face, “Do you think you got that promotion because you’re black?” 

I have never felt more of an outsider than in tech, and it’s an incredibly gaslighting environment because it likes to pretend it has that all figured out.

I’ve worked in places that suck on race and gender. And they very clearly suck in a way that you know [what you’re getting into]. I worked in the auto industry: I knew what I was getting into there. But in tech they’re like, “Oh, no. That doesn’t matter here. That’s not a problem here.” And it most certainly is a problem. A lot of people think everyone joins tech because they love tech, and that’s going to be the thing that gets them all together, right? This great passion that’s going to help you realize that gender doesn’t matter, sexuality doesn’t matter, race doesn’t matter. 

That’s absolutely not true, because the pitfall that tech falls into is the same one that every other corporation, or actually any other group in America falls into. Which is the idea that true diversity and racial justice is going to be painless for white people and there will be no adjustment. And that people of color want the exact same things you want, and value the same things you value. And somehow at the end of that, they’re going to still see you as superior in some way. None of that is true in real diversity, and in real racial justice and gender justice.

And we need to talk about it, because it’s not just a work environment. I’ve talked to some of the biggest tech or tech-adjacent companies in the world: not only [are] real human beings going into an office every day and facing the realities of a space that does not want to acknowledge issues of racism and sexism, but [that same company] creates products that shape how we interact with each other in the world, in a way that replicates those same issues. 

If you can’t get your shit together first and foremost for the people in the office, you’re never going to get it together for the products you serve. You can’t have an all white male environment, or a majority white male environment, and think the product you have isn’t going to replicate bias and harm. 

And you can’t create a product that you think eradicates bias and harm, while you have a work environment [in which] the people are creating it are suffering under extreme duress, and exclusion, and harm. It has to both be tackled at once. And a lot of times I find that environments try to do one or the other, and not well, and it’s impossible. And the ramifications of not attacking it in tech hurt more than just the people sitting in cubicles doing the work. It really hurts everyone.

Epstein: When you say “it really hurts everyone,” you’re talking about the lack of commitment to actual justice?

Oluo: Yes. And the lack of valuing marginalized people. Even when we’re looking not just from a, ‘do you like your neighbor?’, but even from a profit-level standpoint.

Do you believe there is a profitable future in racial justice? Do you believe you can build products and goals around racial justice? Do you believe people of color are your customers? Do you believe that your product should adapt to them instead of them adapting to your products? Do you want their children using your products, and their grandchildren using your products? Do you want them feeling welcome and well-served by you? 

If we’re looking at capitalism — and this is a capitalist enterprise, we can’t [act] like it’s divorced from it — it matters.

And even these platforms that don’t think they’re related to capitalism, think they don’t sell a thing: it’s bullshit. It’s all part of the capitalist world. And it’s about what you value. Do you think the voices of people of color matter? Because if they do, then the way you tackle issues around harassment and abuse looks starkly different than if you just value the voices of white men.

Epstein: A final question I’ve asked of everyone I’ve interviewed for this TechCrunch series on ethics: how optimistic are you about our shared human future?

Oluo: I’m not more or less optimistic than I ever was. I worry. I worry about how easy it is for people in Western utilization of tech to feel like technology means they don’t actually have to see anyone face to face, and they don’t have to form deep connections with people, or try to build real alliances, or tie their futures and their sense of safety and community and belonging to other people. 

The one thing I would definitely say, that [there] is an incredibly Western-centric view of tech. I’m Nigerian American. The way in which tech is utilized in Nigeria is completely different than the way it’s utilized here. In Nigeria it’s about utility first and foremost. And about bringing people together face to face, to make African businesses run more smoothly, to help undo legacies of colonialism that have taken away physical infrastructure. To build that infrastructure online so that it can exist somewhere.

When we look at even the ways in which Nigerians use the internet to reach across diaspora, it’s so fundamentally different to the Western view of what the internet’s for and how it should be used, and I feel like there’s so much to be learned there. If you want to look at where real pioneering is being done, look at the ways in which tech and internet [are] being used in Central America, South America, African nations, and many Asian nations. Look at what it looks like when communities of color say, “I’m going to build technology that solves the problems that we have, within these limitations of white supremacist structure.”

Look at what it looks like when you’re creating the internet in a society that values the group over the individual. What does the internet look like then? Because it’s not the dream of extreme independence in Nigeria, that’s not what the internet’s built for, that’s not a goal, that’s not what you want for your kids or your family, that’s not what you set out for. So then, what does the internet look like when you have a different social structure? When you think that maybe it isn’t the idea that we’re all here pulling ourselves by our bootstraps, maybe we’re pulling our communities up, what does it look like then when you’re creating platforms? Whole platforms created for that? That’s where if you want to feel hopeful about what tech can do that’s where you need to be.

Epstein: What a beautiful answer to that question. Thank you. That’s in many ways the best answer I’ve received to that question, and I’ve asked it of a lot of smart people.

Oluo: Oh, thank you.

Epstein: Thank you so much for taking the time, on behalf of myself and TechCrunch.

]]>

“A lot of people denigrate the value of talking about race and racism in technological spaces,” said Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want to Talk About Race, which has surged to the top of the New York Times best sellers list in paperback nonfiction, two and a half years after its initial January 2018 publication. “…I don’t think there’s a more important space to be talking about it.”

Oluo and I were talking this January, just before the global pandemic struck, at One Cup Coffee: a no-frills, “more than profit” coffee shop that shares a storefront with a church, and is just down the road from a methadone clinic. The cafe is not far from Oluo’s home in Shoreline, Washington, a city just north of Seattle.

“I’ve seen the absolute best and the absolute worst in race and racism in America on the web,” Oluo continued, “in ways that have had true-life consequences for me and for people I love. [The internet] is a space that is just as real as face-to-face space. And we absolutely have to be looking at it politically and socially, as to how it’s contributing to the way in which we look and deal with each other and how we address issues of inequality and injustice.”

To drive to Shoreline from the posh Seattle neighborhood in which I’d been researching Amazon’s growing campus — which exceeds anything at Harvard and MIT, the two campuses at which I work as a chaplain, in terms of glittering architectural swank — I’d had to pass directly by probably the largest homeless encampments I’ve ever seen in my life. And I’ve led interfaith groups of students to study and volunteer in large homeless encampments. 

Speaking of religion and faith, Oluo and I began our 90-minute conversation (edited highlights below) by bonding a bit over our shared interest in “humanism,” a semi-organized movement of atheists, agnostics, and allies who try to do good and live meaningfully without belief in a God. I work as the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard and MIT, and write about humanist philosophy as a kind of secular alternative to religion.

For her part, Oluo accepted an award for feminist humanism from the American Humanist Association in 2018. She delivered her acceptance speech to a mostly white liberal crowd who tended to think of themselves as enlightened and broad-minded and thus took it in stride when she opened by telling them to ‘buckle up,’ as they ate chicken breasts on white plates and black table cloths, busily passing rolls and butter and accidentally clinking their water glasses. But when Oluo told them, “I need for you to not always be looking for the harm others are doing, but look for the harm you are doing,” as my friend Ryan Bell tweeted at the time, “you could hear a pin drop in here.” 

Back to this past January, however: as we sipped simple cups of coffee and tea, I told Oluo about the thesis I’ve developed over the course of my year-plus here as TechCrunch’s “Ethicist in Residence”: that the world we call “technology” has grown bigger than any industry, and more impactful than a single culture. Technology has become a secular religion: quite possibly the largest, most influential religion human beings have ever created.

As you’ll see below, Oluo kindly tolerated, maybe even enjoyed the idea, riffing on several possible tech/religion comparisons. Like this one:

One thing tech fundamentally has in common with many religions, at least in America is that it is a white man’s version of Utopia. And tech especially has this cult-like adherence to a white man’s vision of a Utopia that fundamentally disempowers and endangers women and people of color.

I consider myself an agnostic (not necessarily an atheist) toward this new religion of technology, because I want to view tech the way I’ve always tried to view traditional faith: as a mixed bag, something that can do both good and harm, depending on the circumstance. But as multi-billionaire entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos accumulate power; as social media misinformation sways the fate of democracies while artificial intelligence intrudes on justice systems; and as the current pandemic drives more of our life online, I sometimes wonder if I’ll be forced to re-evaluate my own would-be “prophesy.” If we’re not careful, tech could become the most dangerous cult of all time.

Just a bit more context before the interview below, which Oluo and I agreed to call “So You Want to Talk About Race in Tech,” after her book—which was already a major success, but has now reached iconic status nationwide in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.

This article is the last installment of the roughly year-long series I’ve done for TechCrunch, offering in-depth analysis of people and issues in the ethics of technology. So let me just mention that up to now my editors and I have produced 38 articles, with over 150,000 words about mostly women and people of color who happen to be leading efforts to reform and re-envision the ethics of our new technological world.

The series included interviewed Anand Giridharadas on “Silicon Valley’s inequality machine“; Taylor Lorenz on “the ethics of internet culture“; and James Williams on “the adversarial persuasion machine” of efforts by his former employer Google — among others — to distract us to death.

It featured CEOs and venture capitalists disclosing childhood traumas before debating the moral merits of their creations; employees and gig workers speaking painful truth to their powerful employers; as well as deep dives into perspectives on tech feminism, intersectionality, and socialism, alongside heroic efforts to combat cultures of abuse and violent immigration policing within the industry.

Now, to introduce the interview with Oluo: which was, again, completed weeks before the current crisis, but is even more relevant today. To paraphrase the self-described “zillionaire” venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, another Seattle resident with whom I met the same week as I met Oluo, the pitchforks have finally come for American plutocrats. We’ve come to the point, across this country, where my fellow white people and I are not talking about race and racism because we’re woke, or because we want to do everything we can to make the world a “better place,” but because we fucking have to. As Kim Latrice Jones says in her viral video that has become emblematic of this period, we’re “lucky what black people are looking for is equality, and not revenge.”

This is perhaps doubly so in the tech world, where perhaps not all our neighborhoods and offices are literally burning at this moment, but where there is the most to lose because … they could be. Tech is immune neither to COVID-19 nor to pitchforks. If Black people aren’t able to achieve more sustainable forms of equality in the tech world in the coming years, revenge could become the next goalpost. And it could be justified.

But I trust no one wants to go there. As Malcolm X once said on a visit to Coretta Scott King while Martin Luther King, Jr. was in a Birmingham jail:

Mrs. King, will you tell Dr. King . . . I didn’t come to make his job more difficult. I thought that if the white people understood what the alternative was that they would be willing to listen to Dr. King.

MLK has become an almost literal civil rights deity over recent generations, deservedly so. But we may one day, hopefully a long and peaceful time from now, look back on the life and work of Ijeoma Oluo (along with several of her peers, many of them Black women) as having achieved a level of influence and inspiration that at least approaches King’s.

And while some readers might need to buckle up in order to take in what she has to say, they should remember that her vision is the more optimistic alternative for how things could go in the coming years.

So you want to talk about race in tech? Let’s talk.

---

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity.

Greg Epstein: To what extent has the work you’ve been doing, particularly since your book So You Want to Talk About Race came out, intersected with the tech world?

Ijeoma Oluo: I wrote the book as a black woman who grew up in Seattle, which is such a tech-centric city, and who worked in tech for over 10 years before I moved over to writing. So it’s very much shaped by these environments — environments that think they’ve transcended race and racism and clearly have not, and also a place where people of color are extreme minorities, especially women of color.

So the tech industry was very present in the book even when I wasn’t talking about tech. Because a lot of people in tech recognized themselves and their peers in the examples used in the book.

Probably one of the most watched videos of a talk I’d given is the one I gave at Google. And a lot of the tech industry, especially here in Seattle, immediately adopted the book, like, “Oh, she lives here. Let’s read this, this will be the thing we do for the year, as far as race and racism.” 

But when I walk into a tech space, I think about it the way I think about just about any other white-majority, liberal-leaning space. Which is that there’s a very limited amount I can do in the time I’m there; the most I can do is reinforce what the extreme minority of people of color in that room are feeling and experiencing. Because I’ve lived it to an extent many other speakers cannot.

[The idea of the book as relevant to tech] also applies because as a black woman, and as a writer, I wouldn’t be [where] I am today if it weren’t for social media, the access that it granted me.

But the cost that [social media has] had, and the way in which it’s giving, via tech, the exact same if not larger platforms to hate, division, and abuse, especially of people of color and women of color, and LGBTQ community, is something that needs to be discussed.

A lot of people denigrate the value of talking about race and racism in technological spaces; I don’t think there’s a more important space to be talking about it. I’ve seen the absolute best and the absolute worst in race and racism in America on the web, in ways that have had true-life consequences for me and for people I love. It is a space that is just as real as the face-to-face space. And we absolutely have to be looking at it politically and socially as to how it’s contributing to the way in which we look and deal with each other and politically how we address issues of inequality and injustice.

Epstein: Great summary: [tech as] the best and the worst. I mean, I’ve learned so much from Black Twitter, which is extraordinarily empowering. Then there’s White Supremacist Twitter. And then there’s just the sort of White Supremacist Lite Twitter, that is, sort of…Twitter.

Oluo: It’s interesting [that you talk about] looking at [tech] like a religion. I think one thing tech fundamentally has in common with many religions, at least in America, is that it is a white man’s version of Utopia. And tech especially has this cult-like adherence to a white man’s vision of a Utopia that fundamentally disempowers and endangers women and people of color.

Epstein: I love that image; I’d love for you to brainstorm with me: what are the characteristics of this white man’s vision of Utopia that we see in tech culture?

Oluo: It starts with the mythologizing of white-male struggle that’s at the core of tech culture. The idea that these men were outcasts who built things up from nothing — the shunned ones. And they’re going to fix the problems standing in their way. This is their success story, their ascension. So what stands in their way, are people of color, the women that aren’t sleeping with them, the popularity and the wealth they aren’t automatically getting, old-class structures that are keeping them away from the new class structure [based on] who has these skills that they, as white men, have?

And the mythology built around it feels very cult-like, very religious-like. There’s this whole origin story that’s not true.

If we look at the founding of our biggest technological advances, we’re going to see a lot of extreme privilege, and this idea that there are rules, merits that are purely good, [things] you can do to ascend in these spaces that are going to revolutionize things. And in the tech space it’s really these guys saying [the criteria for inclusion are] going to be: How good are you at coding? Can you debate better than this person?

What it starts with is a fundamental centering of white maleness. And the goal is the ascension of white maleness. People of color can aid it, they can mimic it, or they’re in the way, to be overcome. There’s this argument in tech that anyone can prosper in this space. They’ve removed all the boundaries to prosperity. But the truth is, they’ve moved their own personal boundaries, and left all the boundaries to people of color and women in place because they just don’t exist in these origin stories, as anything other than props.

What cracks me up is, for a dogma that likes to talk about change and adaptation as much as tech does, how completely closed they are to actual change, especially for any sort of ideological change, and how terrified they are of looking around a room and not seeing people who look just like them, of taking things down to bare bones and asking, did we do this right?

There is nothing revolutionary about what many in tech are calling revolutionary right now. And many complaints people have about organized religion — “Wait, we’re still sticking to these rules from 2000 years ago? We’re still threatened by change and progress?” — are things you can see in tech already. And it’s worrying, considering how recent this industry is, that [we already see tech leaders] saying, “No, no, no, this is the way it’s always been done.” 

Well, where does the change come in then? Are we locking in at these prototype stages and saying, this is the way it’s always been done? For what, the last 20, 30 years? It’s ridiculous.

But the fervor with which I’ve seen white men defend [that status quo of the last 20 to 30 years] and the ways in which they talk about threats to it, also have that kind of religious fervor — the same fervor that launched the internet — even for people who are beyond religion.

Epstein: To what extent have you talked or written publicly about your work in the tech industry?

Oluo: I don’t write a lot about [my experiences in tech]. In my book there’s a couple of anecdotes about work; any time I write about work, chances are it was in the tech industry, but it’s not specific. 

The one thing I will definitely say is, I have never been more sexually harassed in my life than [while] working in tech. I have never faced more blatant accusations about my race, and whether it helps or hinders my career, than I have in tech. I’ve literally been asked to my face, “Do you think you got that promotion because you’re black?” 

I have never felt more of an outsider than in tech, and it’s an incredibly gaslighting environment because it likes to pretend it has that all figured out.

I’ve worked in places that suck on race and gender. And they very clearly suck in a way that you know [what you’re getting into]. I worked in the auto industry: I knew what I was getting into there. But in tech they’re like, “Oh, no. That doesn’t matter here. That’s not a problem here.” And it most certainly is a problem. A lot of people think everyone joins tech because they love tech, and that’s going to be the thing that gets them all together, right? This great passion that’s going to help you realize that gender doesn’t matter, sexuality doesn’t matter, race doesn’t matter. 

That’s absolutely not true, because the pitfall that tech falls into is the same one that every other corporation, or actually any other group in America falls into. Which is the idea that true diversity and racial justice is going to be painless for white people and there will be no adjustment. And that people of color want the exact same things you want, and value the same things you value. And somehow at the end of that, they’re going to still see you as superior in some way. None of that is true in real diversity, and in real racial justice and gender justice.

And we need to talk about it, because it’s not just a work environment. I’ve talked to some of the biggest tech or tech-adjacent companies in the world: not only [are] real human beings going into an office every day and facing the realities of a space that does not want to acknowledge issues of racism and sexism, but [that same company] creates products that shape how we interact with each other in the world, in a way that replicates those same issues. 

If you can’t get your shit together first and foremost for the people in the office, you’re never going to get it together for the products you serve. You can’t have an all white male environment, or a majority white male environment, and think the product you have isn’t going to replicate bias and harm. 

And you can’t create a product that you think eradicates bias and harm, while you have a work environment [in which] the people are creating it are suffering under extreme duress, and exclusion, and harm. It has to both be tackled at once. And a lot of times I find that environments try to do one or the other, and not well, and it’s impossible. And the ramifications of not attacking it in tech hurt more than just the people sitting in cubicles doing the work. It really hurts everyone.

Epstein: When you say “it really hurts everyone,” you’re talking about the lack of commitment to actual justice?

Oluo: Yes. And the lack of valuing marginalized people. Even when we’re looking not just from a, ‘do you like your neighbor?’, but even from a profit-level standpoint.

Do you believe there is a profitable future in racial justice? Do you believe you can build products and goals around racial justice? Do you believe people of color are your customers? Do you believe that your product should adapt to them instead of them adapting to your products? Do you want their children using your products, and their grandchildren using your products? Do you want them feeling welcome and well-served by you? 

If we’re looking at capitalism — and this is a capitalist enterprise, we can’t [act] like it’s divorced from it — it matters.

And even these platforms that don’t think they’re related to capitalism, think they don’t sell a thing: it’s bullshit. It’s all part of the capitalist world. And it’s about what you value. Do you think the voices of people of color matter? Because if they do, then the way you tackle issues around harassment and abuse looks starkly different than if you just value the voices of white men.

Epstein: A final question I’ve asked of everyone I’ve interviewed for this TechCrunch series on ethics: how optimistic are you about our shared human future?

Oluo: I’m not more or less optimistic than I ever was. I worry. I worry about how easy it is for people in Western utilization of tech to feel like technology means they don’t actually have to see anyone face to face, and they don’t have to form deep connections with people, or try to build real alliances, or tie their futures and their sense of safety and community and belonging to other people. 

The one thing I would definitely say, that [there] is an incredibly Western-centric view of tech. I’m Nigerian American. The way in which tech is utilized in Nigeria is completely different than the way it’s utilized here. In Nigeria it’s about utility first and foremost. And about bringing people together face to face, to make African businesses run more smoothly, to help undo legacies of colonialism that have taken away physical infrastructure. To build that infrastructure online so that it can exist somewhere.

When we look at even the ways in which Nigerians use the internet to reach across diaspora, it’s so fundamentally different to the Western view of what the internet’s for and how it should be used, and I feel like there’s so much to be learned there. If you want to look at where real pioneering is being done, look at the ways in which tech and internet [are] being used in Central America, South America, African nations, and many Asian nations. Look at what it looks like when communities of color say, “I’m going to build technology that solves the problems that we have, within these limitations of white supremacist structure.”

Look at what it looks like when you’re creating the internet in a society that values the group over the individual. What does the internet look like then? Because it’s not the dream of extreme independence in Nigeria, that’s not what the internet’s built for, that’s not a goal, that’s not what you want for your kids or your family, that’s not what you set out for. So then, what does the internet look like when you have a different social structure? When you think that maybe it isn’t the idea that we’re all here pulling ourselves by our bootstraps, maybe we’re pulling our communities up, what does it look like then when you’re creating platforms? Whole platforms created for that? That’s where if you want to feel hopeful about what tech can do that’s where you need to be.

Epstein: What a beautiful answer to that question. Thank you. That’s in many ways the best answer I’ve received to that question, and I’ve asked it of a lot of smart people.

Oluo: Oh, thank you.

Epstein: Thank you so much for taking the time, on behalf of myself and TechCrunch.

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BLCK VC is on a mission to double the number of Black venture capitalists out there by 2024. The reason behind it shouldn’t need explaining — only 2% of all partner-level VCs are Black, and 81% of VC firms don’t have a single Black partner. It’s no surprise then, that the startup ecosystem that is built underneath the VC community is sadly and drastically homogeneous.

We sat down with BLCK VC co-founder and co-chair Sydney Sykes on an episode of Extra Crunch Live to talk about the ongoing protests, the state of the VC industry with regard to diversity and inclusion, and actionable insights and strategies around how we can be more inclusive across all facets of the tech ecosystem.

Because we believe this is a critical conversation to have and engage with, we’ve made this episode and the complete Q&A free.

Below, you’ll find a lightly edited transcript of highlights from the conversation, as well as a YouTube video of the entire chat. You’ll also find the video from BLCK VC’s “We Won’t Wait” day of action, as well as a list of resources focused on anti-racism education.

On whether tech companies’ energy in this moment will be sustained to foster long-lasting change:

You’re seeing all these tech companies saying ‘Black Lives Matter,’ and all these companies are donating. The truth is, in my mind, donating and posting statements doesn’t change the way your company works. It doesn’t change the way the industry works. So, when I hear those statements, that’s the part where I’m jaded and where I feel pessimistic and feel that things won’t change. Where I feel really optimistic is I’m seeing these employees at tech companies, and I’m seeing citizens saying, ‘No, you can’t just say Black Lives Matter. You need to actually live this.’

There’s a recognition now from the bottom up, a real grassroots effort to say, ‘you need to change what you’ve been doing because it hasn’t worked.’ I think these companies have been and they will need to continue to react to what their employees and what their customers are saying. So, I am more optimistic than I’ve ever been. That being said, I am still a black woman in America and I do not think that what’s going on right now will cure racism in any way. I’m optimistic, though, that things will be better in the future. In a month from now compared to where things were a month ago, how much better? We’ll have to wait and see. But I’m excited to see what the changes will be.

On creating and fostering change from within versus outside of an organization:

I first got interested in venture late in college. I was scrolling through the different pages of different VC firms, just black and white photos of white male investors. I felt that, just by being in this industry, just by joining a venture firm as an investor as a black woman, that I was initiating change and that I was making a difference. For me, I personally felt like the best way that I can cause action and that I can cause changes was from being on the inside. I don’t think that’s the right choice for everyone. I also don’t think that the onus should always be on people of color to put themselves in uncomfortable positions because they don’t think that those industries, those companies, will change without them being there. So I think it’s a balance.

On the one hand, you have boycotts that have worked in the past. That’s total abstinence. That’s total removal from a system that’s unjust. And on the other hand, you have people who are inside and they also are driving change in the environment.

I think there’s no right answer to how you drive change. If you are listened to and you have a voice, you need to speak up in the way that’s most powerful. So in the case of Alexis Ohanian, if he leaves, and him leaving is him raising his voice, that’s a powerful way to use your voice. There’s also a powerful way to use your voice from the inside. But at the same time, if he’s been speaking up all along and nothing’s changed, then maybe him leaving is speaking even louder, and maybe that is one approach. If you can’t make change from the inside, why should you waste your time there? Why not go somewhere else where you can actually drive change?

On the importance of tracking diversity numbers within VC firms:

It’s really important for people within firms, existing GPs and investors, to be aware of how big the issue is. If you don’t write it down, you don’t have to recognize what you’re missing and what is lacking. I’m not optimistic that, in the next couple of years as firms start writing down their data, that they will suddenly be representative of the U.S. population, or that they will be recognizing the value. But I also think it’s a bit of a snowball effect. If you get more diverse talent in the door or in the network, or at least on the radar, then you’re thinking about diversity more when you do your investment, when you host your events, when you’re expanding what the ecosystem looks like, even though it’s not going to change right away.

Frankly, a lot of the firms that reach out to us are already aware of and understand, to some extent, institutional racism. They understand implicit bias, and they understand that they are missing talent. It’s true that those are not the people or the firms who need the most help.

But when we do get firms who are willing to engage with us, or when we get in contact with firms that aren’t diverse or don’t have any diverse investors, it’s about talking about the value that diversity adds. In study after study, we see that businesses, investors and companies are better when they are more diverse, that their company will be better if they have that diversity. It’s just shown time and time again.

So even if you think your portfolio is as good as it could be, or your investor is as good as they could be, it’s probably not true. I also like to highlight the fact that it’s about having an informed perspective.

Your investors, the people you’re speaking with, the people you’re making investment decisions with, that perspective is only as informed as it is diverse. So if you don’t have diversity on that investment committee, making decisions about sending out those dollars, then you’re lacking a perspective and you’re missing information.

On best practices around tracking D&I:

On the VC firm side of things I recommend tracking top-level employees. What percent of your high-level employees represent diverse backgrounds, gender, LGBTQ and all that kind of data. Then, I also recommend tracking that at the seniority level, so associates, controllers, partners, GPs. How many of those people have diverse backgrounds. Then, beyond that, I think it’s also important to track your pipeline. How many of your candidates coming in are from diverse backgrounds or different schools. All those metrics are important, as well, because then you can see where the pipeline is falling short. When you host events, what do your speaker series look like? Do your panelists all look just like you?

I also think, on the entrepreneur side of things, it’s really important to look at the dollar amount spent. How many dollars are going towards founders from different backgrounds, rather than the number of diverse founders you’re investing in.

And lastly, and this is more of an intangible thing, but where are you going to find the entrepreneurs you’re investing in. Are they recommendations from other investors? Are they reaching out to you via cold calls and emails? Are you going to different colleges and universities and inviting them to your pitch days? So there’s also some pipeline tracking work that can be done there that is really important.

On increasing the number of Black partners at traditionally white VC firms versus encouraging Black VCs to start their own firms:

There are two approaches.

The first is the idea that these very large, predominantly white firms control a very large amount of the assets that are distributed in venture capital; $80 billion+ a year, and I’m sure a very large portion of that comes from the top 10 firms. So, it’s very difficult to parallel the amount of dollars being invested by the largest firms by starting up a brand new fund.

I also think it’s really important to have these Black-led VC firms that invest, without being beholden to any GPs above them. They have a very valuable perspective. We need both.

We need Black investors starting their own fund, starting their own firms, and investing in founders they believe in, whether they’re Black or not or brown or not. We also need people at the largest funds, making sure that the very, very large amount of wealth creation and job creation is being implemented and invested in a way that reflects the diversity of our country and reflects the perspectives of Black investors.

On separate funds dedicated to investing in underrepresented entrepreneurs, like the ones from SoftBank and a16z:

We always used to hear and still do sometimes hear the term ‘pipeline issue,’ which has always been a euphemism in the past to say that there’s not enough Black talent out there, which is just not true. There is a pipeline issue and it’s that these firms don’t have diverse pipelines because they don’t have diverse personal networks, and they haven’t tried to build out their networks. They tend to invest in people like them, and they tend to talk to people that look like them. That is the pipeline. I don’t know how these firms will change.

You mentioned SoftBank. There are a couple of funds right now dedicated to investing in underrepresented entrepreneurs, and I think any dollars put towards Black founders is a good thing. I’m having a hard time understanding the need for a separate fund to invest in diverse founders. If you have not been investing in diverse founders, how will a separate pile of money change anything? I don’t know. So you have to look at it and ask what is the issue? Why haven’t you been investing in diverse founders?

Do you think they don’t have good enough companies? That they don’t have enough good talent? They don’t have enough experience? I know none of those things are true. The approach I recommend is, above everything, change your pipeline. If it’s not working, change it. Go out there and meet founders, meet investors who are investing in diverse companies in a way that you haven’t. There are firms out there that are doing that. And if you feel like you can’t do that right away, then how about bringing in diverse scouts and giving them the money to invest? There are plenty of great Black founders, CEOs, investors, angel investors who would be wonderful scouts who can invest on a firm’s behalf and really put those dollars out there. That will instantaneously change things.

If you feel like you can’t do that, put your money into the funds that are actually doing it right now. Precursor is a great example. There are quite a few other funds that have been able to find incredible, diverse talent. Backstage Capital is another. There are quite a few of them. If you can’t do any of those things, I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think you’re trying.

On recommendations for aspiring Black investors who feel disillusioned or locked out of the VC community:

Don’t stop trying. You will not always get a response, but send cold emails, try to find the connections, a friend-of-a-friend in your network, and try to build up a network in venture. I know it’s difficult, but keep trying. I also recommend working with entrepreneurs to learn what that aspect of the job is like that will help you build up a skill set. So if there are any entrepreneurs around you, ask how you can work on a project with them, or interview them. There are a lot of accelerators and incubators that will offer opportunities for you to shadow or intern with them. That’s a really good approach and there can be more jobs on that side.

Truthfully, a lot of the jobs in venture go to somebody who comes from investment banking. That’s not the only approach, but being in the investment banking system or the startup ecosystem are helpful ways to get around venture capitalists that are a bit more accessible than the venture industry itself. It is a challenging road. The best approach for you is just trying to expand your network and putting your feet to the ground and
being proactive about it.

On firms that are waking up to this issue and want to make changes but are scared of coming off as opportunistic or performative:

Performative allyism is a problem.

You’re saying something that you don’t live. That is the only problem with all of this. If you live it, it’s not performative. It’s actual, if you genuinely believe what you say, what you put on social media, what you talk about. If you want to start recruiting in diverse ways, that won’t look opportunistic or performative. You will look enlightened. And maybe that’s a dramatic turn, but it’ll look like you finally understand. I don’t think any firm should be afraid to take action, especially on diversifying their networks.

Now, where you come into a risky space is when you start to think about the dollars you invest and the hiring you do as an act of, you know, good PR, or as an act of charity. There are incredible Black entrepreneurs out there and you should be investing in them because they will improve your portfolio. They will introduce you to even better investors. They will give you better opportunities to improve your funds. You should invest in hiring black investors because they will expand your network, they will provide you opportunities to think about problems in a different way. They will provide a different perspective and a different opinion, and they will be some of your best investors and investments. If you are hiring them, and you are not giving them the power to invest dollars, if you’re not giving them the opportunity to speak up and share their voice, that is performative. That is not helpful. It will not change lives, it will not change racism, it will not change the shape of this industry, and it will not make your portfolio and your firm better.

On the progress that’s been made in the past several years:

One great example is Elliott Robinson. He’s on our founding BLCK VC board, and now a GP at Bessemer. He is very well listened to in the VC community, not just in the Black VC community. I think that is a sign of progress. He has check-writing power.

I also like to see the movement of white allies stepping down from boards to make space for Black advisors to be on an independent board. That’s hugely important. It’s an important trend to keep continuing because board seats are an incredible source of influence and wealth and are very important to diversify.

I also am excited to see the groundswell of support from white allies from tech company employees, standing up and saying, ‘we just want to stand for your policies, we won’t stand for policies that don’t promote Black investors or Black employees at the same rate as their white counterparts, and we won’t stand for policies that support initiatives that promote institutional racism.’ I think that is all very empowering. Oh, I’m curious to see how this movement keeps going. I’m very hopeful. I think there is a tension and there’s action, and there is an excitement that I’ve never seen. I think we just need to try and keep moving that forward.

Following, you’ll find a list of resources for anti-racist education in the tech and VC industry and more broadly. This list is by no means comprehensive but is a great place to start.

On bias in tech:

Tech orgs focused on racial equality:

Reading List:

Movies:

• Selma, Ava DuVernay
• Just Mercy, Destin Daniel Cretton
• 13th, Ava DuVernay
• American Son, Kenny Leon
• Fruitvale Station, Ryan Coogler
• If Beale Street Could Talk, Barry Jenkins
• I Am Not Your Negro, Raoul Peck
• Clemency, Chinonye Chukwu
• The Black Power Mixtape: 1967 – 1975, Göran Olsson
• Do The Right Thing, Spike Lee
• The Last Black Man In San Francisco, Joe Talbot
• Get Out, Jordan Peele

TV Shows:

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Companies increasingly recognize that one of the greatest stresses for their employees is financial wellness. Even at innovative tech startups, people typically bump up against the limits of how much they know about wealth management pretty fast.

But providing financial education to a workforce, which has become more common, is largely useless as most employees will tell you. The information can be hard to navigate, and it’s often not personalized in a way that addresses an employee’s circumstance and goals, which change over time depending on whether someone is a recent graduate, getting married, or even eyeing retirement.

It’s why so many employed people look to outside apps to both better understand their financial picture and to actually manage it.

It’s also a missed opportunity, according to a growing number of founders who are working to convince employers to move beyond education and instead offering automated financial planning (with a dash of human involvement) as an employee perk.

Their understandable argument: While offering benefits around fertility, family planning, and mental health are wonderful, companies are missing out on the chance to address the very top priority for their employees, which is how to avoid financial trouble.

Origin, a year-old San Francisco-based company led by Matt Watson — whose last company was acquired in December — is among the newest entrants to make the case.

Freshly backed by $12 million in funding led by Felicis Ventures, with participation from General Catalyst, Founders Fund and early Stripe employee Lachy Groom, among others, Origin wants to become the place where employees can track financial milestones, get professional advice from licensed financial planners, and take action, whether it be paying down student debt, building emergency savings or finding the right home and automotive insurance.

Currently staffed by 32 employees, six are financial planners, and they can handle the unique circumstances of “mid thousands of people,” says Watson, who notes that after an employee initially sets up a plan, much can be automated until a life event changes the picture.

“If you use just the tech, you’re only getting limited information,” he says, adding that access to Origin’s planners is “unlimited.”

The company already has 15 customers with between 250 and 5,000 employees, including the social network NextDoor; the cloud communications and collaboration software platform Fuze; and Therabody, whose Theragun therapy tool is used by pro athletes and trainers to pulverize their aching muscles.

All are paying $6 per employee per month because it doesn’t matter how much employees are making, says Watson. “The thing about financial stress is that it impacts everyone pretty evenly. The greater your income, the more stuff you buy.”

Considering that employees spend an estimated two to four hours each week dealing with their personal finances, an offering like Origin’s seems like a no-brainer for employers looking to both improve employee productivity and employee retention.

Indeed, the only thing holding back such offerings earlier in time were the kind of open banking APIs that exist today.

Now, the biggest challenge for Origin is to capture employers’ attention ahead of the competition. For example, another young startup that’s also developing financial planning services as an employee perk is Northstar, founded by Red Swan Ventures investor Will Peng.

More established players like Betterment that have long catered to individual investors are also focusing more on building ties to employers that can use their offerings as an employee resource.

Either way, the trend is a positive one for employees, who are right now living through an economic roller coaster and could generally use far more help with both staying afloat and saving for the future.

“Everyone struggles with finances,” says Watson, who worked in high-yield credit trading at Citi in New York before moving to San Francisco to start his previous company.

“I’m supposed to understand this stuff, and it’s complicated for me.”

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