OF10podcast

Kyle Bailey, from Detroit Michigan, is an engineer at Uber where he’s deeply involved in diversity efforts and outreach to HBCUs. Before Uber, he spent time engineering at VMware and was co-founder of his own startup. He graduated with his CS degree from Michigan State, and is currently pursing his MBA at Wharton.   We discuss diversity in tech, the midwest mindset, and I ask questions from Black Men in Tech. A slack group for black male tech engineers and founders.

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Ruben Harris began his professional career in Atlanta working in Finance, and now works in Partnerships and Leads at Honor, an Andreesen Horowitz funded Bay Area startup modernizing non-medical home care for seniors. He also serves as an advisor to AltSchool, which is working to reimagine education. He’s an accomplished cellist, playing for more than 22 years.

We talk a bit about his journey, his Young and Cultured project, and an article he wrote titled Breaking into Startups.

Ryan Smith is Director at Magic Johnson Enterprises where he helps the superstar basketball player and business phenomenon decide on investment opportunities. He’s a Howard and Stanford GSB grad, previously spending time on Wall Street. Ryan is the prototype of Black Excellence.

This episode is brought to you by Classana. Find the best books to read and classes to take on Classana.com

Rodney Sampson is the Chief of Diversity + Inclusion Initiatives at TechSquare Labs in Atlanta. TechSquare is an incubator, seed fund, and co-working space in the heart of Atlanta’s prominent Technology Square - an area near Georgia Tech where more engineers graduate than MIT and Stanford combined.

He’s an MBA, entrepreneur with 2 exits, an Author and Bishop.

He’s responsible for casting Troy Carter on Shark Tank, worked on Mark Burnett’s The Bible Series and Mel Gibsons Passion of the Christ, as well as The Chronicles of Narnia, and so much more.

We discuss the economic divide, Atlanta's startup scene, and budding engineers.

This episode is brought to you by Classana. Find the best books to read and classes to take on Classana.com.

Mark Daniel is CEO at Strut, a mobile app that aims to serve as your guide to style. He dropped out of college based on prompting of Paypal co-founder, and the first outsider investor in Facebook, Peter Theil. Peter also stuff a hundred grand in Marks pocket to do so. Mark, finishing the fellowship, Mark then swiftly raised another 1.5 million from Vinod Khosla - founder of Sun Microsystems.   We discuss education, existential crises, and the desire to be great.

This episode is brought to you by Classana. Find the best books to read and classes to take on Classana.com

Ruth Mesfun is a co-founder at POCIT which stands for People of Color in Tech. They run features on minority tech personalities from Founders, Engineers, and Marketers. She’s also a teacher at a middle school in Brooklyn, and launched a program to teach girls in her class how to program.

This episode is brought to you by Classana. Find the best books to read and classes to take on Classana.com.

Kristy Tillman is design director at Society of Grownups, a company offering financial services. They call it “ A masters program for adulthood” where the curriculum covers everything from investing in a 401K to having that hard talk about a budget to how to pick good, cheap wine. She’s a beast on Twitter, sitting at 10k tweets to date, and prominently tweets on pop culture, music, and social justice.

We discuss opportunities for Blacks in technology, design, and IDEO.

This episode is brought to you by Classana. Find the best books to read and classes to take on Classana.com

Everette Taylor is an entrepreneur and marketing pro who served as Chief Marketing Officer at Sticker Mule. The hugely popular custom stickers startup. He’s also founder at MilliSense, a marketing firm headquartered in Los Angeles. He built GrowthHackers with three partners, and partnered with NFL free safety Brandian Ross to create the brand Unity Over Self, which helps children with autism.

We discuss how students coming out of college break into marketing for startups, and tips for startup teams to get to Product Market Fit.

This episode is brought to you by Classana. Find the best books to read and classes to take on Classana.com

Angela Benton is founder and CEO at NewMe Accelerator in San Francisco. She serves as a startup coach at the Wall Street Journa, and writes for USA Today and Inc. Magazine.

On this episode, we talk diversity in tech, the "Black Mark Zuckerberg", and what makes founders successful.

This episode is brought to you by Classana. Find the best books to read and classes to take on Classana.com.

Season 2 Finale features:

• Paul Judge
• Kathryn Finney
• Charles Hudson
• Kimberly Bryant
• Navarrow Wright
• Erin Teague
• Megan Rose Dickey
• Michael Seibel
• Justin Washington
• Brian Dixon
• Makinde Adeagbo