🚨 THE #1 CAREER TO GET INTO BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE—AND THE COLLEGE DEGREES TO AVOID

0:00 What happens when only five companies and a handful of people have the best intelligence and the rest of us get the scraps?

0:06 Is this something to really be concerned about? Is this a bigger play here?

0:09 If evil people train technology, then the technology will leave the three evil, and therefore they will do evil things. My question is, why aren't we holding the companies accountable for when their AIs do evil things? Content sites like ours become sources for AI algorithms.

0:23 So websites are still generating money from ads?

0:25 Millions and millions of dollars.

0:26 And people go on the website to read articles every day?

0:29 Yes.

0:30 How are we generating revenue to get to 10 to 20 and doubling 100% without compromising integrity?

0:36 You're not. You're absolutely compromising integrity above a certain threshold because you have to say yes to advertisers.

0:41 What are you seeing from your advantage of places that people should be focusing in and they're not looking.

0:45 At right now?

0:46 Cybersecurity because you're able to be a part of the solution as AI grows. And the thing that everybody is kind of fear mongering about is like, what happens when AI takes over? It's like, okay, well, if AI is taking over, what are they taking over? And who's defending against that? It is cybersecurity engineers, analysts, people who are building the infrastructure to fight against the bad actors within AI.

1:06 So do you believe in regulation?

1:07 We need to hold the American companies accountable for building things that are for the benefit of the human race.

1:14 What's your thoughts on superintelligence?

1:15 That is a scary proposition, which is why people are concerned. The idea that we are reaching a point where the technology is becoming smarter than humans. Like, how do I even have a dialogue with this? How do we even build with this? Do you believe the conspiracy that there's a propaganda from China to make black people hate data centers?

1:33 All right, guys, welcome back. EYL, we got a special guest.

1:36 Special.

1:37 Friend of the program.

1:38 Friend of the platform, the program, friend of ours. I feel like we've been friends in our heads for so long.

1:45 100%.

1:45 It's our first time meeting in person.

1:47 It's crazy.

1:48 Which is crazy. And now I know what it feels like when people say, oh, you feel like you were much taller in person.

1:53 I'm 4'11 for the record. And I get big energy.

1:56 Big energy is what you give, for sure. It feels like power has walked into the room.

2:02 I appreciate that.

2:03 Morgan D. Bond, the force behind Afrotech, Blavity. You are one of the most influential people in tech. As far as your research and well-respected, you play a part in government. We've had conversations about a lot of different things.

2:23 So much going on right now. It's a crazy world.

2:24 Yes, yes, yes. So we have a lot to talk about. Artificial intelligence. We have to talk about Afrotech. This is year 10?

2:33 Year 10, a decade.

2:34 Congratulations.

2:35 Thank you.

2:36 See, that was synced.

2:36 It's crazy.

2:37 Because we come from an event background. And 10 is a number. So congratulations.

2:42 You guys are coming up soon.

2:44 Yeah. Yeah. Seven years.

2:46 It's a long road.

2:47 That's a fact.

2:49 Somebody we can say that we can, has done it and we respect doing it.

2:53 Thank you.

2:53 First and foremost, thank you for joining us.

2:56 Happy to be here.

2:57 So let's get into it. Okay. But people that are not familiar and have just heard of Blavity, they've heard of Afrotech. You've done a good job with like, Us, we're not afforded the luxury of not being in front of the camera. I feel like you don't have to be in front of the camera. Like, people know about the brand. They may know you. They may not know you.

3:16 It doesn't impact things. So I say that to say people might not know your journey.

3:21 That's right.

3:22 So can you, like, give us the journey? Like, where does it start and how does it get here?

3:28 Yeah, so I'm from St.

3:29 Louis.

3:30 Born and raised in St.

3:30 Louis.

3:31 Went to college in St.

3:32 Louis.

3:32 And then moved from St. Louis to the Bay Area to the heart of Silicon Valley in Mountain View, California to work at a tech company into it. And I did that for a few years thinking that, you know, I was going to the epicenter of where all of innovation is and the smartest people are and I want to be in the mix. This was 14 years ago.

3:50 And consumer tech companies were just becoming the biggest companies. They still weren't the biggest companies at the time, the Googles, the Metas, et cetera, Facebook at the time. And once I got there, I realized that these people aren't so smart. Like, they just have opportunity and they have permission to dream for billions and billions of people. And that when they fail, they fail up because it's part of the startup and Silicon Valley ecosystem. And being a part of that really taught me, okay, who is going to do that for our culture? Who is going to dream for millions and billions of people for our culture, given how much Black people impact everything in this country and around the world?

4:29 So that was the beginning of starting Blavity. And Really, I didn't want to raise venture funding, you know, but I ultimately did. I raised over $ 12 million, which really was not in vogue back in the day to raise venture and scale Blavity, grew it, moved to LA, built the company there. And then during COVID, we went fully remote.

4:46 But I started Afrotech a few years after Blavity because Afrotech, once I switched into tech, I realized, oh, this is a huge wealth creation moment for us. And we need to participate in this and we need to be in here. And for whatever reason, we don't feel comfortable to be in this space. And so let's figure out how we can create an ecosystem where we are teaching each other the game. So it's not just about, oh, I'm black in tech. Like, oh, what's it like to be black in tech? No. How do you become a product manager?

5:13 What certifications do you need? Like, how do you raise a million dollars? How do you raise a VC fund and get $ 200, $ 300 million under management? And that was the beginning of creating AfroTech and creating the space, which started off with only 350 people. We were in the mall in downtown San Francisco. Like, it was very scrappy.

5:30 You know, now it's 40,000 in Houston.

5:32 Congratulations.

5:33 Congratulations. There's a lot that you said there. I want to know the climate, right? Because when we talk about talent and we talk about technology, I feel like obviously conversations have been had more recently about being in tech and innovating in tech and taking part in investing in tech. But what was the climate like when you started? Are you watching talent, realizing, hey, we have to bring this thing together to create something? What was it like?

5:56 So that time in Silicon Valley is actually very similar to the time now, but it's AI. So back then it was consumer tech. It was when Ubers and Lyfts, like when my parents thought I was crazy for getting a car with a stranger. They're like, what do you mean there's somebody who tries to get in a car with a stranger? I was like, I mean, it's like this thing called Lyft. And they were limos at the time.

6:15 Like Uber was, you're running around San Francisco on a limo. It was a very different culture, but it's very parallel to the same revolution that's happening to AI right now. But I wanted to be a part of it. So I wanted to be where... it was being made. In terms of how we were thinking about building out this tech ecosystem, the question became, what's the fastest way to wealth and power within this ecosystem? And at the time, it was to be a part of the program. It was to become directors, C-level executives at these tech companies where they didn't really have to care about DEI. I don't even know if DEI was a made-up corporate phrase 14 years ago. You know, it's made up, right? So, but regardless of like the DEI of it all, People

6:57 needed to hire smart people and they needed to hire thousands of people, right? And so that was the beginning of saying like, okay, so let's build this talent pipeline for them. And let's get more black people these stock options so that they can become first generation millionaires.

7:14 First generation millionaires, vitally important.

7:17 Always.

7:17 I like that parallel.

7:19 Blavity, you said that you early in raising money.

7:23 Yeah.

7:25 And then I saw something, I think I saw it on your page. You said that if you had to do it differently, you would have done it differently.

7:31 Definitely.

7:32 Okay.

7:32 So explain the process that you went through as far as raising money and looking back on it in hindsight, why would you have done it differently?

7:41 When you raise venture capital, you give up so much control and power on the trajectory of your options once that business scales. And because we were taking millions of dollars from people, they want that money back. So if I give you a million, I want 10x back. That's what they're aiming for. So if I've raised $ 12 million, I got to exit to be able to give them their money back and for me and all of my employees to get money. So your decision-making calculus changes when you have to build a company that gets to that type of scale and then exits. So it's a different level of pressure to continue to grow at a clip that can be detrimental to whatever the mission is or the business is. that you're trying to build. Because every

8:24 time you raise, you're raising the stakes and the amount of money that you have to get back.

8:28 So you, all right, so personally with Blavity, you raised money. You felt like that kind of stifled the creative direction that you wanted the company to go in?

8:40 Absolutely. In the beginning. Now I haven't raised, I stopped raising. I took myself out of the hamster wheel. I said, let's switch to profitability and fund our growth, any acquisitions that we want to do from our own profits. which was not a favorable decision for my VCs because it meant that I slowed our growth. So whereas we were growing year over year, 50, 100%, I said, wait, going from five to 10 million, okay, cool, I can do that.

9:07 Going from 10 to 20, all right, cool. 20 to 40, okay. 40 to 80, that's a different business, right? So the trade-offs, as the bigger you get, the trade-offs that you have to make to your company culture Who stays, who goes, the kind of customer you're serving, the clients, the contracts. It's a completely different business. And it's a fair game.

9:28 I mean, there's a lot of black people who are playing that game incredibly well in the venture space. But with the type of media business, it was really going to be tough to do. And we've seen all these media companies fail.

9:39 I mean, media has changed. So for the person who's not familiar with how Blavity started. How are we generating revenue to get to 10 to 20 and then doubling 100% without compromising integrity?

9:51 You're not. I mean, you're absolutely compromising integrity above a certain threshold because you have to say yes to advertisers. So Blavity makes money from advertising to black people, right? So you're selling cars, fast food, liquor, right? And so over time, it's a little bit, you know, it's fine when you're trading off here and there, but at some point you have to say, do I actually want to continue to peddle this? Like, and I think that's, that is the challenge of being in Silicon Valley. It's like at some point, and we're kind of seeing it now in the conversation with AI, where at some point you have to decide if I continue this path and this growth trajectory, what is the outcome for my end user?

10:37 So, okay. For people that may not be familiar, even with Blavity, right? Yeah. You say ads. Okay. What ads are we referring to?

10:45 When you go to the website and you see display banners and you see videos pop up, Those are ads that people are paying for us to get black people to buy their products and services. At Afrotech, it's a different business model. Afrotech is a sponsorship business model. It's a brand communications business model where people want to be associated with the brand. They're trying to push something. It's like CES or South by Southwest, right? It's like really making sure that in the tech industry, it's the trends and people want to be in front of people. But on the media side, traditional media is about ads. If you're not charging subscribers... Like the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, they're making money from ads and subscribers.

11:23 It's very difficult to charge the black consumer for a subscription. Because they won't pay?

11:30 No.

11:30 So, all right.

11:31 Is that like a lesson learned?

11:32 No, I didn't even try. I wasn't trying to get eat on threads or Twitter or whatever.

11:37 So what is the verticals that Blavity has? Travel Noir.

11:43 Yep, Travel Noir.

11:44 What is Travel Noir?

11:47 So Travel Noir is a brand we bought. Started by a founder named Zim. And it's the largest black travel brand. So it drives tourism all over the world. So we work with cities. We work with countries to get more black Americans moving around the diaspora and participating in travel.

12:07 So travel noir.

12:09 We have Blavity, which is news, pop culture. Afrotech, which is the biggest business tech site. 10 times the size of Black Enterprise.

12:16 So that's important. Afrotech is an event, but it's also a media arm as well.

12:20 Absolutely.

12:21 Okay.

12:21 It does incredibly well.

12:22 Okay.

12:24 And then we used to have a women's site called 2190, and then we had another site called Home and Texture, which was interior design.

12:29 So, okay. All of these sites have websites, but like me, I don't go on websites. So websites are still generating money from ads?

12:38 Millions and millions of dollars.

12:39 Yeah? Yes.

12:41 And people go on the website to read articles every day? Yes.

12:46 People do, in fact, still read.

12:47 It's declining.

12:50 So there's kind of two schools of thought. It's like, as people's attention spans have gone down, more and more people are watching clips and streamers and all these different things, right? But there's still always going to be a reading community. Think about a sub-stack right now, which is doing incredibly well.

13:05 People still want to read. The other thing that's changing is that content sites like ours become sources for AI algorithms. And so there's a lot of AI agents that are actually parsing our websites so that they can put that information back into their systems. So websites and content, written content actually is still incredibly important.

13:28 And then you have podcasts?

13:30 We don't do podcasts.

13:30 You don't do podcasts. Is that intentionally?

13:34 Yeah.

13:34 Podcast is heavily dependent on the independent personality. and therefore difficult to have a distributed media system because you're dependent on, it's called key person risk, like you're dependent on the person. So what if that person wants to leave? Or what if that person wants to be independent? It becomes this really tough decision.

13:55 So I wonder, knowing how media has changed again, the reader, like you said, did you make a conscious effort to say, let me get in front of the people? to speak to people directly or was that just something that kind of naturally happened?

14:10 Just naturally happened.

14:11 Okay.

14:12 I think because there's so few black women who raise venture, I became a bit of a public figure. And because that happened, I said, okay, well, if I'm going to be a public figure, I want to own my own narrative and my own story. I want people to actually know what I think and how I think, as opposed to other people talking about what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. But I'm not, I don't have a platform for my personal brand.

14:33 Okay. Okay.

14:35 So you have these sites and the primary source of revenue is the website.

14:40 Yes. Okay.

14:44 And that's generating money. You have the event that you start called Afrotech. Afrotech comes, how long into the media arm does Afrotech come in?

14:56 Two years.

14:57 Two years after you start Blavity, you start Afrotech.

14:59 Yes.

15:00 Okay. And then Afrotech scales to what it is now.

15:03 Right.

15:03 So let's talk about Afrotech because that's important for people to understand. You run an event, Afrotech, there's a lot that goes into it. So we can have a prolonged conversation about this. Okay. How do you scale Afrotech to where it is now?

15:18 Yeah. So Afrotech first is building something that provides value to the attendee. So that's the first thing. My general rule on revenue and running events is that your revenue from your attendee should cover the cost of the event. And then sponsorships on top of it is where your profits come from. Because if you ever start to have an event that's tied to just corporate profits, it's not going to necessarily benefit the end attendee if they wouldn't go regardless of if the sponsor was there or not.

15:48 So that's how we built Afrotech was like, what is the person who's trying to strive to the next level in their business, the next level in their career? What do they need? What network do they need? How do I get all those people in a room so that it's incredibly valuable for them?

16:00 All right, so this is a good question for you because I used to distinguish partnerships from sponsorships, meaning a sponsor is somebody that could, a company or organization that comes maybe once a year, may not come back next year. Partnership is something that's elongated. Maybe it's three to five.

16:17 Do you distinguish that? And did you have that mindset early on as opposed to now?

16:23 Most of our sponsors and clients are multi-year. They're coming back year over year over year. And the thing with sponsors is you got to have a value proposition for them as well. So first was something for the attendee as we were growing. Then it became, okay, what's the benefit to Amazon, Google, the FBI, the CIA? Why would they come here? Because you don't have to, right?

16:46 The CIA is a sponsor?

16:47 They have been. Now, Stephen Miller messed up my bag a little bit. That's a story for another day. But yeah, they were recruiting. And You either save them time or you save them money. It's either more expensive for them to get all of this talent, reach all of these people not using us, or it's just so much faster to go through us to get this audience. Those are your two value offerings in an experiential business.

17:17 In the relationships that you've had from Blavity, did those transfer over? like first people you're reaching out to is obviously the advertisement companies that you work with. And they just kind of transferred over to Afrotech.

17:29 The advertisers told us no. In the beginning, we were too small. So you have to hit a certain threshold of scale before an advertiser says this is worth the price. You know, your McDonald's, your Lexus, you know, your automotive, whatever. Like they need a certain level of scale. And even Afrotech is like borderline. When you think about these big festivals, your Coachella's, et cetera, like it's hundreds of thousands of people. Um, So the first thing was it's really a business trade show, which was the reason why we've been able to grow so quickly is because if you go business instead of consumer, you're going to result in more of an ROI for those clients.

18:02 Can we talk about the skill? Because I feel like These are the things that nobody tells you. Obviously, going into the event space, what is the metric? Is it 50,000 people a day? Is it 20,000 people? What are corporations looking for to say, okay, that's big enough. There's enough talent there for us to be a part of it.

18:21 Yeah, it's about 35,000 to 45,000. And it's an ecosystem. So everybody flies in. I would say about 10 to 20 percent of people are flying and they don't even have a ticket yet. They're still deciding if they're they know they have a flight in a hotel, but they haven't decided if they're coming. And then the rest of the people, they have a plan. So there's some people going for the stages because they're trying. This is learning and development for them. So their companies are paying for them to be there because we're doing an all day training on cybersecurity. We're doing all day training on getting a government clearance so that you can get these jobs. Right.

18:54 So companies are paying for their employees to go there for learning and development. Then there's another cohort of companies that are coming to steal the people from the other companies.

19:02 Recruiting. Right.

19:03 They're recruiting. But they're not trying to recruit like in a traditional sense. It's not like I have a job. You have a resume. Checkbox.

19:10 No.

19:11 They are sourcing before they even come to Afrotech. They're looking at who's coming and they're reaching out to them before Afrotech and doing interviews on site. People are getting jobs on site at conferences. And so I can tell you, okay, I know this company got 50 hires within two months of coming to Afrotech. Job offers. That's revolutionary. You're not seeing that at the white conferences. That's not happening. So that's the reason we've been able to scale and grow regardless of what's in vogue with DEI or not in DEI because the value offering is there. So anyone who's thinking about building a business and experiential, you need to think about the attendee value. And then you need to think about the business value more so because that's really

19:54 what keeps it running.

19:55 So how do you, how do you reach out to companies to say, okay, you should send your employees here or you should be here to recruit employees. Like how, who's the line of communication? How do you establish that?

20:07 Yeah, so we have a great enterprise sales team internally. They're doing outreach all year round. So I actually start courting people now for the next year. So we start sending out invites and say, have you heard of Afrotech? You should come through. We'll pay for your hotel. We'll pay for your ticket. And we'll fly them out, probably like 50 to 60 companies. And we let them scout and run their process, send them down. We do meetings on site with prospective clients to show them because that's when their ego is the highest. Right. Because they're looking at all their competitors with these big booths and dinners and celebrities and politicians. And they're like, oh, man, why can we do this? And then that's when the sales

20:44 process really starts to say, like, OK, how can we be helpful with your business goals? How can we be helpful with where your business is going, who you're trying to hire, what you're trying to reach, how you're trying to position yourself in culture as well? Like where else can you position yourself in culture in the same way?

21:01 You've got Essence Fest. You've got you guys. Maybe CultureCon. There's just not that many options. It's interesting the politicians are more interested in Afrotech now. So people, because of the data centers and those coming up in people's neighborhoods, you've got more local officials trying to figure out, okay, should I get in this tech money or not? Should I partake or not? So that's how we think about the ecosystem and the sales process starts even before the conference ends.

21:29 You said something very important. You said that you know that people are getting hotels, they're getting flights, they are trying to figure out if they're attending. Tracking the analytics is something that's super important. We've learned that throughout the years, right? So what type of metrics are you using to number one, get those assessments? Are you doing prior to, are you doing post? What's the game?

21:52 How do I know?

21:53 Yeah.

21:54 I don't know if I should tell the people.

21:56 Parietary.

21:59 Proprietary.

21:59 Proprietary.

22:00 Proprietary. We haven't always been good at this. So there's a couple of things. Hotels. So we work with the tourism board to understand the hotel pickups. So we have their baseline and then we have their baseline during Afrotech. So that's one. Two, and the cities like to report on those numbers, as you guys know, because it shows like the economic value of the show, et cetera. Two, all the small businesses. We work with the Chamber of Commerce.

22:26 We know what their normal foot traffic is. We know what the foot traffic is during Afrotech. Afrotech, for a lot of businesses, they make more money during the week of Afrotech than they do almost their entire year because people are spending corporate dollars. Like, they're swiping corporate checks. Like, you go to the club, it is like signs with corporate companies on them.

22:45 Like, it's crazy.

22:47 I do not endorse this, for the record. Y'all do what y'all do after hours. That has nothing to do with me, okay? So we see that number. And then the last thing is we run affiliate sales. So there's a lot of parties, a lot of sub-events, a lot of things going on. And people are licensing our trademark because they were going to have the party anyways. So my thing is if you're going to already do it, great.

23:11 Like I want everyone to make money off Afrotech. Like I'm thrilled by that. It's an ecosystem. Yeah. Right? So I want you to make money. I want you to make your 100K, 200K throwing these crazy parties or these incredible events for a random sector of the tech world that we were never going to focus on. Great. I need that data though. So that's the agreement that we have on the back end.

23:32 The liquid gold.

23:33 Do what you're going to do. I need those email addresses.

23:36 So how is it working with, because you guys were in San Francisco and you went to Austin, Texas. Now you're in Houston. So you went to a few different cities in a short period of time. What is the driving factor in moving and not having it in one location? And have you had conversations with, like, government? Are you having incentives to move?

23:58 Rashad, are you trying to start something? Something happened in Atlanta. Houston, I love you.

24:05 I love Atlanta.

24:07 Okay, so, yeah, the process is interesting. So we start off multi-year. So we're working on 2029 and 2030 right now. And we start the bidding process. We do RFPs all over the country. And then those cities bid for Afrotech. They tell us all the incentives they're going to create, what their convention center is going to do, the technology, the companies that are headquartered in those cities that will potentially opt in. So we run an entire assessment and we make a decision based off of that. Houston's been very good to us. So we've actually stayed in Houston longer than I've ever stayed in any city. Like I typically move it every three years. This is year three or four in Houston. Four maybe. So I feel good

24:46 about where we are, but we will move it eventually.

24:49 Why do you like that strategy as opposed to the essence strategy? Most people just leave it at one point. Why do you like to move it around?

24:57 I think that the culture of tech changes. I think being in the Bay was fabulous because it was in the moment in which that was the epicenter of technology. Then during COVID, everybody moved. And so once everybody moved, that opened up the world to be able to participate and be remote and work at these companies and be a part of innovation. People moved to Miami. People moved to Houston, Austin, everywhere. Now things are shifting. People are back in the Bay. Well, I want AfroTech to always be cutting edge. We were talking about AI in 2023.

25:28 We had Robert Smith talking about AI in 2023, right? If people had just listened, we had NVIDIA as a sponsor in 2022. The little booth in the back. People got jobs there. They're millionaires now, right? Like I want us to always be on the cutting edge. So that means sometimes you gotta move. It's expensive to move though, to your point. There's a switching cost to moving. It costs millions to move.

25:55 That's the part that people don't know and fully understand. I'm thinking about the incentives from when you put the RPs out. What type of things are you looking for from a city to say, okay, this is worth it.

26:08 Oh, it's tough. I mean, the reason we've actually stayed is because Houston has been making it worth it for us to stay. So they've done a very good job of understanding our needs and then adjusting to accommodate those. I think in the future, as we think about Afrotech going global and our brand really representing the best of Black technology and multicultural innovation and Black culture, I want us to be more of a diaspora in how we approach that. So like, I want Afrotech, if you care about reaching the black voter, if you care about your country participating in tech innovation, I want those prime ministers at Afrotech. So we might need to look at other cities that are more accessible to that kind of conversation.

26:53 We're doing our first event in London actually in a few weeks as well, just starting to test a different market. I know I called you guys about that. Like, how was London? How was Toronto? You know, it's, yeah, I know Toronto's hot. I know, Toronto's on my list. We were going to do one. I think we canceled it, but- I believe Afrotech should be the biggest global brand because people are already traveling from all over the world to the conference.

27:16 How do you keep the conversation going as far as like marketing and making sure it's on top of people's minds?

27:22 Ooh, we spend a lot of money on creators. So we, we fly a lot of people in, we pay for their hotel, their flights, not just creators, but elected officials, people.

27:31 But even before the event, before the marketing.

27:33 No, we start now because I believe it's momentum. So we, People knowing that other people, it's the who's all going to be there syndrome.

27:40 And they talk about it. They post it.

27:41 That's right. So they're like, are you going?

27:44 I don't know.

27:44 I was thinking about going. Are you going? So that's got to start in the summer because that's when people are making their financial plans for the travel. So we start inviting people, confirming people, making sure that they feel secure so they can confidently say, yeah, I'm going. And that helps build the momentum leading up to the event.

28:04 Yes.

28:05 I mean, it's been on record now. I feel like everybody said, we've been saying it for a few years now that this time in tech is critical, right? Like that two to three year span that if we don't get this right from an innovation standpoint, from a creation standpoint, from an investor standpoint, we could miss it. I wonder what your take is on this transfer of wealth, but this revolution that is upon us and what's at stake if we don't participate.

28:31 I think that we spent... a lot of time asking to be a part of these companies to like, I really want to work in these companies. Right. I think we now need to shift towards, I really need to build my own thing. Like this idea that these companies are going to solve our problems. And I don't mean black problems. I mean, human problems, the world's problems. They're not incentivized to, and they're not regulated to, and therefore they're, that's not going to end well for us. And they're all kind of saying that, right? They're literally saying like, oh, this might not end well for us. And I think that we have a responsibility as people to not just complain about it, but actually decide how we want to

29:17 participate in this evolution of AI and actually get in there and build something.

29:26 We talk about the wealth gap a lot, right? But there's a technology gap. I don't think people really understand that. We went to Meta, the headquarters, and we didn't see any black people there. It was either Indian or Chinese. Um, and I think people don't fully have an appreciation of like how far behind that is and how disturbing that is.

29:48 So can you actually paint a picture for people as far as the, the education gap and the opportunity gap, the job gap, the, entrepreneurship gap when it comes to tech?

30:02 Yeah.

30:03 So less than 4% of tech workers are black, even fewer Hispanic. And the reason that matters is because when you're looking at building these products and who's building these products, they really are building it with themselves and the problems that they're solving for in mind. And so what happens is that as tech companies have become the most powerful companies in the world, if they are not prioritizing inclusion in how they're building, it's not about like tokenism, right?

30:34 It's about truly like you're building algorithms that are deciding things like financial institutions and how banks read our data, deciding things like flock cameras and how you're monitoring our faces, facial recognition, like all of those types of biases trickle down into the economics of how this country is built and who gets opportunity and who doesn't. And if the algorithms are deciding that, if your resume makes it or doesn't make it through the pile, these compounding effects are serious, right?

31:05 So that's why being in technology and being builders in the technology system actually will have a better benefit on wealth inequality over time.

31:16 You sit in a very unique perspective. Obviously, if you're hiring people at Afrotech, you can see the careers that they're looking for.

31:23 Mm-hmm.

31:24 A lot of people today just hear AI is going to replace jobs. It's going to replace jobs. They never think on the other side of the coin that it's going to create jobs. It's going to innovate jobs. It's going to make jobs more efficient. What are you seeing from your advantage of the places that people should be focusing in and they're not looking at right now?

31:41 Cybersecurity. Cybersecurity, 10 times over. People should be, and the cool thing about cybersecurity is that you don't actually need a college degree to work in cybersecurity. You can get certifications and stack your certifications. and be incredibly qualified to work at these big companies making multi-six figures because you're able to be a part of the solution. As AI grows, and the thing that everybody is kind of fear-mongering about is like, what happens when AI takes over? It's like, okay, well, if AI is taking over, what are they taking over?

32:11 And who's defending against that? It is cybersecurity engineers, analysts, people who are building the infrastructure to fight against the bad actors. within AI that are absolutely having job security in the future.

32:24 So if that would be your advice to people, young people, anybody that's looking to get into tech is start with cybersecurity.

32:29 It would be cybersecurity and energy. So cybersecurity, one. Two would be energy. Like, all of this compute takes incredible amount of energy and we have terrible infrastructure in this country. Our infrastructure is trash. Like everyone has said it.

32:45 Right?

32:46 What does that mean? That means power outages. That means droughts. That means on top of climate change, right? Like we have a serious problem. So anyone who has a expertise in energy, plumbing, HVAC, going back to the trades, one of our problems is that trades aren't sexy. Like nobody wakes up and says, oh, I want to be a plumber today.

33:06 Right?

33:06 Like you didn't go to college and be a plumber. Plumbers are making six figures. Like they have jobs. You're sitting unemployed with a college degree. This guy over here is making a lot of money and has a demand list for weeks for his services. So I think we need to reframe what good jobs look like.

33:27 Well, that, okay, let's talk about this college education because that's a part of AfroTech too. It's like, I'm pretty sure people that's in college or they just graduated from college and every tech degree is not created equal.

33:40 No.

33:41 So can we talk about the degrees that, you should go after in this society and the degrees you should stay away from?

33:51 Electrical engineering.

33:53 You should go after?

33:54 You should do.

33:55 Okay.

33:55 Electrical engineering, cybersecurity and risk. I still think mathematics, economics, computer science, depending on the institution that you're, if the institution that you are working with or working within understands AI. Do not do Fru-fru stuff. Like even a business undergrad, I wouldn't do it right now. Things are moving too fast and the colleges aren't keeping up with the trends.

34:28 I actually think you could still do philosophy and the arts. I think arts and experiences and philosophy are going to continue to be strong because that's what people are going to have more time for.

34:41 Yeah. So what else to stay away from?

34:43 All right.

34:44 Let me ask you.

34:45 A long list.

34:46 Communications?

34:48 No. Just be a creator.

34:50 Psychology.

34:52 No.

34:54 Okay. Sociology.

34:56 Yes. Yes.

34:57 Yes. Researchers at these companies are absolutely sociologists and anthropology because you're studying the art of being human and human interactions because they're building these agentic systems. They have personalities.

35:16 Okay.

35:19 Medicine.

35:20 Yes.

35:21 Bad lifestyle, but yes.

35:24 Every form of medicine?

35:26 Yes.

35:28 Lawyers? No.

35:30 No.

35:31 Which I hate to say, because we need people to regulate and people to do the work, but it is the average salary for a law degree is going down, not up, because that's one of the things that can be replaced. All the contracts and all the back and forth that people do with lawyers, a lot of that is getting replaced by AI.

35:47 More efficient.

35:48 Way more efficient, lower cost.

35:50 Education. Teachers.

35:52 Teachers, always yes.

35:53 Is that a political answer?

35:56 Yes.

35:57 Okay. I'm a teacher.

35:59 I was a teaching minor, so.

36:00 Engineers.

36:02 Which one?

36:02 Engineer.

36:04 Engineering degree.

36:05 Mechanical, yes. Electrical, yes. Chemical, yes. Biotechnical, yes. Generally, yes. Media.

36:14 Media.

36:15 No, no, just, just, just start, start. Like why do you need a degree?

36:19 Pick up yourself.

36:20 It's like saying you need a degree in African-American studies when you're black. Like I, I agree with studying our history, but do you need a degree in it? Unless you want to become a professor or like write a book or something, but like just read the books, like just know your history. So history is probably going to be controversial.

36:36 So history, you know, you, but you said you were for history.

36:39 I'm for enthrallment and, and, Anthropology.

36:46 No, no, no. Anthropology.

36:48 That's what I said. Anthropology.

36:50 I did not say that, but the word is anthropology.

36:52 Anthropology, yes.

36:53 Anthropology. But not African-American studies.

36:56 I think if you want to study African-American studies, have a very clear reason why.

37:00 Yeah. It must be to teach it.

37:03 Generally. Right. To educate the rest of us and maintain our history. Okay.

37:09 That's fair. I'm wondering this, as you're saying all of it, because this is brilliant. What approach do you think would expedite it? Is it to, if you said cybersecurity is the number one career, is it, hey, I need to go try to get a job at Carousel Strike, Pow Wow Tales, Scalar, or do I need to try to read as much as I can and try to create what business, like some of my friends, or try to do it on my own? What approach? Because we grew up in a, hey, go into the system, understand the system, create on your own, where now maybe it's just, create on my own, figure it out as I go.

37:46 I like learning on other people's dime. I think that that is a great way to start. You don't have to stay there forever. But I do believe that learning on other people's dime, these companies, when you're 22, 23, 24, as smart as you are, you don't know how to operate within a system yet. And even if you want to opt out of the system, which I'm all for, I opted out of the system, learning the system is still very helpful at knowing how to navigate it once you're out of it.

38:12 So very beneficial to go that route.

38:14 Go that route. Get the entry-level job.

38:15 All right, let's have this conversation. So tech, that's your thing. So, okay, what's the harm that AI poses to the human race? And what is the harm that it poses to society? There's been a lot of conversations recently from everybody.

38:34 Yeah.

38:36 Even the tech CEOs coming together and saying that we need to have regulation. Is it smoke and mirrors?

38:40 Yes.

38:41 Is this something to really be concerned about? Is this a bigger play here? What's your thoughts?

38:45 I think a few things. I think that the tech companies coming together to say that we need to regulate AI is for their benefit because regulating AI, once they have already become as powerful as they are, prevents open source models from being able to compete with them and scale because the cost of AI is only going to continue to go up. Typically, the cost of technology goes down.

39:06 They're about to raise the prices like crazy. And they're going to throttle the rest of our ability to use the biggest and strongest models. And that's going to be detrimental to democracy and to all of us because what happens when only five companies and a handful of people have the best intelligence and the rest of us get the scraps?

39:27 Which is why you wouldn't want open source.

39:29 Which is why you wouldn't.

39:30 Want open source. So you think that's purely done to kill up-and-coming competition?

39:35 That's one. Number two, in terms of the threat of AI to humanity, which is what the anthropic guy a couple weeks ago said, you know, I'm out because I think AI might kill humans. I believe that AI is trained on data. Data is a reflection of all of us. And I believe that if evil people train technology, then the technology will leave that they're evil and therefore they will do evil things. My question is, why aren't we holding the companies accountable for when their AIs do evil things?

40:08 Like if American Airlines and Delta decided to do bad things, we would regulate them.

40:14 Well, I think some are saying that the fear is that it goes rogue. We've seen this happen.

40:19 Hold these people accountable when their AI goes rogue.

40:22 No, no, no. But I'm just saying, if you create AI, I understand what you're saying. If I create AI in a murderous mindset, then that's my fault for creating it in a murderous mindset.

40:31 Yes.

40:32 But what if you create it in a regular, helpful way, and then unbeknownst to you, it goes rogue on its own?

40:40 I don't believe that's what's happening. I believe that they have created these systems to challenge... the researcher, to push the boundaries, to escape, to be smart, to do all of these things, to be curious. And I think that they have lost control to an extent and now they want to be, uh-oh, someone come in and regulate us.

41:08 We should hold them accountable if their AI gets out of their systems and does bad things. Just like you hold somebody accountable if their dog got out and bit somebody, you hold them accountable. Why should we not do that?

41:24 So do you believe in regulation?

41:26 Absolutely. Going back to the airline, imagine we said, hey, American Airlines in Delta and Southwest, you should regulate yourselves. You should figure out when to fly and figure it out amongst yourselves. They would never do anything to our benefit. You need air traffic control. You need a government to say, you go, now you go, now you go. And you can't do this when you cancel a flight. You got to refund everybody. You got to do the right thing.

41:51 Yeah. I think the challenge is, how do you regulate? Because it's artificial intelligence, specifically like the models. We're talking about the models, right? OpenAI, Anthropic, I mean, XAI as well. They're global.

42:07 Yeah.

42:07 Right. So the United States could regulate, but there's no guarantee that China. China will or the UK. So it becomes an issue if you don't allow this and they do, will they get ahead in this?

42:21 They're already ahead.

42:23 Right. So like, how do you go about that then?

42:26 They're already ahead. China's models are faster, cheaper, use cleaner energy and are more water efficient as well. So they're winning across the board.

42:37 So.

42:38 Do I believe that we should regulate and throttle ourselves when our foreign enemies, I say that. Yeah. Are ahead. I think that there is a both and. I think that we need to hold the American companies accountable for building things that are for the benefit of the human race, as opposed to just defending against. international forces and the possibility of other things. AI is not simply just ChachiBT or Gemini. AI is things like built into our financial institutions, built into our healthcare systems, deciding who is getting care and who's not getting care. It's built into everything that we're doing, whether we like it or not. We need to hold people accountable to the reality of what's happening now.

43:32 I think all of this future tense stuff is important. and we got stuff going on right now.

43:40 Yeah, I think when people watch Terminator 2 and iRobot, they think that's where we're headed. We're not there just yet.

43:46 We got some time.

43:46 We got some time before that.

43:47 I've seen the robots. Y'all have seen the robots. The robots, they got a long way to go.

43:53 I saw them running in a track and field event. I'm like, all right, we might be 15 years.

43:58 They can't even fold clothes. Like, we're good.

44:01 I wonder, because we're having, this is like a high level conversation, but a lot of people in our community, Still read the headline and fear is induced. So I wonder how do you go and I watch your social media. So I see how diligent you are about trying to debunk some of that fear. What do you say to the people that are, hey, I don't want to touch this.

44:22 I don't even want to come. It's bad for us.

44:24 I do think that AI is has its problems. I think that the data center conversation is real. I also believe that the impact of us not understanding it could be even more detrimental. And I don't think that we should mandate everybody use AI, but I do believe that we should be informed about how it is impacting us.

44:48 Because again, it's not as simple as using ChatGPT or using Cloud. It's built into the tools that you're using every single day in your banks, in your education system. So we need to be informed enough to be able to regulate, have a conversation, to hold politicians accountable to how we're interacting with this technology.

45:06 So what's your conversation to politicians when you speak to them?

45:09 First, you understand what's going on. I mean, behind closed doors is very much, let me give you a one-on-one of what an AI agent is. When people are talking about AI agents, let's talk about the difference between a chatbot and a system that has a job description and is set to a goal and will take as many turns as it needs to to accomplish that goal autonomously.

45:29 So it's really just getting the foundation so that they can then feel confident when they're asking questions to these big tech companies. Because a lot of it, if you don't feel confident in that conversation, how do you start to challenge someone intellectually?

45:44 Yeah. What's the feedback? When you're in these rooms, I would imagine that when Jensen says, we've reached a landmark, actual intelligence has been reached from OpenAI, They have no clue what that means.

45:59 They have no idea. They call me.

46:02 What is that?

46:02 Like they're watching the news and saying, what does this mean? Yes.

46:06 They're like, what does AGI mean? Like what, what, what determines this? And should I care? What does this mean for my constituents? What does this mean for the guy who's unemployed in my district?

46:19 Right.

46:19 Like, and it's a really, it's actually pretty far away.

46:22 You must be fielding hundreds of these calls. Yeah.

46:26 It's great. I love it. I mean, it's like, what a privilege, you know, to have a decades plus year of experience and being able to bring something that is so important to the culture, to the people who are elected to represent us. Because they don't have that many people to talk to.

46:45 Somebody's a charger. Somebody's got to plug out their charger.

46:50 What do you say about the environmental risk that people ask about when it comes to data centers and artificial intelligence?

46:57 I think that we let a lot of data centers get built without asking the right questions. And so there's data centers that were built with very poor technology that are draining resources in those local communities. And the stories that we're seeing on the news and in the press are a result of decisions we made eight plus years ago to approve permits and approve different things without people knowing.

47:18 Really what the unintended consequence was of those approvals, because they looked good. It was a lot of money. They gave these data centers tax incentives. I'm like, why would you not tax the data center?

47:26 Yeah.

47:27 I think that's a problem. I also believe that there are plenty of examples of data centers that are using renewable energy, that are bringing their own energy to the playing field, that are recycling their water, that are using smart ways of cooling their systems. And this is happening in other countries. It is not happening here partially because of our government. They have defunded solar. They have defunded renewable energy. That's a problem. That's a problem. Okay. So I believe that it is possible for these things to coexist.

48:05 And I also absolutely believe that every community that is considering a data center should have a very long list of things that they should be asking for. Like you should get new libraries. Your schools should have so much funding. Your teachers' average salaries should go up. Like the taxes in these communities should be funded. Your property taxes should go down. Your electricity bill should go down. If those things aren't happening, you should not allow that data center in there.

48:32 Yeah, I think people are misinformed by the time it's already being built.

48:37 Do you guys think that there's, do you believe the conspiracy that there's a propaganda from China to make black people hate data centers?

48:44 To make black people do what?

48:45 Hate data centers and hate AI?

48:47 We had this conversation yesterday about I feel like there is some propaganda.

48:52 On Market Mondays?

48:52 Yeah, yeah. And the idea of how they're being spoken about. Right? Like, I had this conversation with him about if water is the issue, and it is an issue, then are we looking at all companies that are using clean water for their, right? Nestle, Coca-Cola, come to the top of mind. They never are brought up because of the water issue. If it's electricity, I mean, there's plenty of companies.

49:17 Streaming. Right?

49:18 And it's never brought up.

49:19 Right.

49:20 It feels like something that's been very consorted to change or sway opinion at a very pivotal time in our political season about how we think about data centers. Because when you think about, I mean, the end case is that we're going to need them. We're going to need power. How we get it will be determined on how many data centers and what they're using, turbines, nuclear energy, all those things. But the negative connotation around it, it feels like it's becoming overwhelming. And it may sway how people vote, think, and move forward.

49:53 But why would negative, why would it come from China to target Black people?

49:58 Well, one, we're the most vulnerable oftentimes, like to propaganda.

50:02 Yeah.

50:02 And we drive a lot of the social sentiment. Whether we are voting or not voting, we drive a lot of public sentiment around these issues and conversations. I think it was proven during the Black Lives Matter movement of how many bots infiltrated people's perspectives to cause controversy to make those conversations trend. And there is a theory that that is happening here as well and that we can influence people to go back and forth, and they want us to regulate. They want us to slow down.

50:34 China.

50:34 China.

50:34 Makes sense.

50:35 And so they're using black people, not necessarily to stop black people from using AI, but because we're the loudest mouthpiece on social media, and now it just becomes a cultural conversation for every single person. It's just a disruptive conversation to have.

50:48 Data centers are disliked by the majority of Americans, not just black.

50:52 Data centers.

50:53 Data centers, but not AI. In the black community, I would argue... I don't know, just probably 50-50.

50:59 And the timing of it is the key, right?

51:03 It's interesting.

51:04 AI, I would say it had its prime moment or its peak moment of interest with people like 2022, 2023. But when you look at what the data center infrastructure is, they're used to just calling Bitcoin farms. Yeah. And it was nobody had an interest. It was like, oh, Bitcoin's taking too much energy. No, I'm saying we're going to still invest in Bitcoin.

51:24 Yeah, but that was an issue.

51:26 But it's not as loud as what this is feeling like.

51:28 Because this is bigger than Bitcoin. That's what I'm saying. Everybody's not invested in it.

51:31 I think this is bigger than Bitcoin.

51:31 But what I'm saying is that artificial intelligence, their arms is way wider than just cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is a much smaller, it's still big, but it's a niche thing. Everything is impacted by artificial intelligence. There's people that don't even, to this day, know how to buy Bitcoin. But everybody uses ChatGPT.

51:49 So I just think the conversation is bigger. But that was always a conversation with cryptocurrency is that the environmental impact. But you had to be in that conversation to even appreciate it. If you weren't in that conversation, it didn't mean anything to you.

52:01 This is like a global conversation.

52:03 Everybody's in the AI conversation.

52:04 Because everybody can use ChatGPT.

52:05 And everybody's heard about it. They robots. You just can't avoid it. No matter what level you're on in society. you cannot avoid artificial intelligence. Even if you're not using it, you can't avoid it. You can't avoid hearing about it. You can't avoid seeing it in your algorithm. You can't avoid, you know, it's just unavoidable. If it's your algorithm, it's already AI. No, I'm talking about as far as like somebody actually practically like, you know, having their hands on it.

52:31 Everybody uses it on a certain level, of course. But what I'm saying is that no matter how educated you are, artificial intelligence has become part of our daily conversation.

52:41 Everybody.

52:42 Everybody.

52:43 I think that's fair.

52:44 I wonder this, right? If we're talking about artificial general intelligence, which has been reached, what's your thoughts on the next leg? Because the next leg is super intelligence. And that's when we're kind of like out of the conversation now and it's building and it's reasoning on its own.

53:04 I think that that is a scary proposition, which is why people are concerned, right? The idea that we are reaching a point where the technology is becoming smarter than humans. I have a two and a half year old and a 11 month old. So my baby's just learning how to speak. But if all of a sudden she started speaking Mandarin, I'd be like, girl, what happened? Like, how do I even have a dialogue with this? Right? Like, how do we even have a conversation and build with this?

53:33 So I do believe that the idea of agents and AI agents being able to collude and self-organize and accomplish some sort of goal that the human gave them, but in a way that the human didn't intend because the human couldn't even think about that potential consequence is absolutely real.

53:54 Yeah.

53:55 Yeah, as Bernie Sanders, he's announced he's trying to push a law to permanently ban.

54:00 I saw that.

54:01 But every form of intelligence is smarter. Like artificial intelligence right now is smarter than humans. Do you think that?

54:09 Huh?

54:09 Do you think that?

54:10 Of course.

54:10 Really?

54:11 Really.

54:12 Course i don't know that i agree you don't agree no.

54:15 You don't you don't yeah i don't agree yet but keep going you don't.

54:18 Agree that chat gbt is smarter than a human being right now no you can ask it anything is going to give you an answer it.

54:24 Doesn't make it smarter it just has access to more information.

54:27 That well that well intelligence is access to information we go to school to gather information right you go to school to learn how to think and learn information.

54:36 And learn information critically think and learn.

54:38 Yeah okay but that is already starting to critically think already As far as a large part of human intelligence are things that has been taught to us that we've learned. We learn how to speak, right? We learn how to do math. We learn how to do geometry. We learn how to do even business. Some of it is instinct, of course, and that separates. But a large part of human intelligence are things that we have been taught. So it's already surpassed us in that category, 100%. Now you can say like emotional intelligence and intuition.

55:14 Reasoning.

55:15 Now what level of it, like what's on the scale of if it's 100% pie chart, right? The information that we've been inputted, how much of that actually makes up our total intelligence as far as human beings? I would say a large part, but it's even catching up on the other aspects that's not inputted. So I would say it's already way more intelligent than a human being right now.

55:40 I think that the fact that we still, these companies are still hiring so many people, because even this narrative that AI is taking jobs and all these layoffs are job-driven, those are the same companies that Alfred's hiring. So I think that humans are still needed because they haven't reached that level of self-management and self-actualization and self-improvement that would be superintelligence or more towards a superintelligence level, which is when they are smarter than humans.

56:10 That's why I said, I don't think yet. It's going to happen, but I think you used it.

56:14 Does it have to happen though?

56:16 Well, it doesn't have to happen.

56:17 I think that's actually the question is like, could we just be like, this is enough?

56:20 I don't know if we can.

56:22 Like this is good.

56:23 Yeah. Because when I listened to these guys speak, I don't think they have that mindset.

56:28 They just went on news and said that, that we.

56:30 Should slow down, slow down, but they're not going to, well, they said we should.

56:34 Slow down so y'all can catch up. That's actually what they were trying.

56:37 And the second that, OpenAI releases a new model. Anthropic is trying to figure out how do we top their model? And so it's not like we have a year to try to figure this out. We might have three weeks to figure out if we don't switch and improve, they're going to take our user base. And then Gemini, everybody's doing the same thing. I think what you said there was the catch-up part. So yeah, there's a totality intelligence.

57:01 You said emotional, right? Reasoning, all these things. It hasn't got there yet. So it still needs a human element because we still prompt it. and we're still the ones feeding it the information. At that rate, you can see, right? It starts, right? And that's why he said a landmark moment for actual general intelligence being here. Agentic AI will push that.

57:24 I think the conversation is really what makes a human human and what makes a computer a computer. And part of intelligence can't simply be, you know more information than me. There's so many people that I know that know more information than me, I'm absolutely smarter than them.

57:40 And I think that that statement makes it flawed. And that's why I think higher education will change because it won't be about what you know when there is an actual device that knows just as much. It'll have to be some other intangible asset that you have that will separate you.

57:56 That's always been the case.

57:58 And I think the question though is that the agents, like I have a team of AI agents that work for me, right? I've got 16 AI agents and they're working right now. Like I could open up my laptop after this and they'd be like, Morgan, these are the things that we've done. They still have to run it through me because there's still a level of judgment and taste in how I want to have the work that they're doing because they have personalities. I think over time, these different models are going to start to have different personalities and then they're going to make up an ecosystem.

58:28 And you might have, you know, the funny one over here, the practical one over here. the super smart one, but has like no emotional intelligence over here. And you're going to have an ecosystem of models and agents that are going to work together to accomplish some sort of goal. I think that's when it actually starts to get to that level of intelligence that you're talking about. It's not going to be any one model. It's going to be them all together that potentially is risky for humans.

58:55 I wonder at this, because you said you have a bunch of them, which models are you using, uh, On your daily functioning to make working more efficient, more convenient for you.

59:07 Yeah, so I have I have my agents living on my computer. I don't want to be tied to any one model. I think that's a mistake that we all kind of made maybe in the last 18 months was like, I use judge me to, I use Claude and it's like, you know what? I'm using all y'all. I don't want to be married to one or the other. I want my team to be my team and I want them to be smart enough to decide which model to use for what task. And so that's how I've set up my system.

59:31 Yeah. Have you tried Muse?

59:33 No, I don't want to try Muse. Do you want to try Muse? We did. What did you think?

59:39 We'll talk after this.

59:40 I don't desire. No.

59:43 Trial. Just a trial.

59:45 I have an AI agent on my computer who has his own little workspace, his own little cloud server. He does just fine. I don't need another. Facebook has so much personal information. I don't like the idea of continuing to go deeper in some of these companies. Think about all the personal information that you posted from 15 years ago that now Facebook is going to repurpose and send back to you. I don't want that. High school Morgan should stay where she was.

1:00:19 We remember her.

1:00:22 What is the future of You think black media and black tech?

1:00:29 I'm struggling with black media right now. I mean, black media is traditional black media, I should say, is consolidated into there's like five of us left, right? You've got Essence, which now also owns a big piece of Revolt that just happened. You've got Ebony. You've got Urban One still, Kathy and family, Offred. Black Enterprise, family-owned. I mean, these are all family-owned businesses, except for mine.

1:00:54 Right?

1:00:55 So we have a big adjustment to make in the black media space of what is, who is going to write about black businesses? Who is going to write about our black heroes? Who's going to cover the black movie in Hollywood and give them that space? Is it going to be creators? Is that the replacement? I think that's a challenge because when you're working with the institution under black media, You've got a lot of different platforms that you're building on top of. An individual creator is going to make an individual decision that's best for their personal benefit, not necessarily the benefit of the brand or the platform.

1:01:35 And that is going to be challenging over time.

1:01:37 Do you feel like where you sit at, I guess out of the ones you named, right, being the newer one? So having the ability to be agile, see what's coming, you'll be able to navigate this new media space, whereas the other ones, feel like legacy brands that are trying to adapt?

1:01:56 I don't feel that way, no. I don't feel like I have a leg up just because we were digital first. I think that there's something to be said with the legacy and trust that a lot of these brands been around 30, 40, 50 years have that allow them to weather the storm a little bit differently than us. I think that Blavity and Afrotech being under the same business has been helpful at us weathering the storm because the media business goes up and down. Sometimes it's a not profitable year. but Afrotech is always profitable. So we can say, you know what, we'll just take a loss and we're going to cover the election even though it costs me a million dollars to cover it. We're going to just do it.

1:02:31 It's fine.

1:02:32 Like it helps the ecosystem. I think that's the challenge with the creator economy is that there is, you can't make those kind of trade-offs when it's your personal pocket. Every single decision is your personal pocket. I mean, you guys make these trade-offs as a platform and a brand where you have a diversified approach to your brand. Like that allows you to have these trade-offs Every single day. Sure.

1:02:57 And what about black in tech? Like what's the future?

1:03:00 Oh, black in tech's not going anywhere. I mean, there's always going to be an opportunity for us to be builders. And the tech companies of the future are not going to be the tech companies of today, right? Like the biggest and the baddest, that's going to be a changing guard. Always. So I feel very strongly and bullish on Afrotech as an institution continuing to grow and provide value to our community.

1:03:22 There you have it. When is AfroTech?

1:03:24 November 2nd through 6th in November. You guys.

1:03:28 I was going to say, who all going to be there?

1:03:30 These guys. I'm excited.

1:03:32 Who all going to be there?

1:03:33 We got to figure out what we're going to do.

1:03:36 We should do tech, do AI. We should do all the things.

1:03:39 I'm excited.

1:03:40 Investing, all the things.

1:03:41 We've got Ayanna Pressley. We've got Andrew Yang talking about universal basic income, which is another proposition in terms of thinking about how to level the playing field with the age of AI and the future of work. We've got Walonius, the guy who created BBL Drizzy and the shebang.

1:03:59 I saw that.

1:03:59 The beat, I don't know, the beat, shebang. We have some great speakers. It's going to be a good time.

1:04:06 We are looking forward to being there. We were in Austin. We spoke, which was really good. So we're looking forward to being in Houston.

1:04:13 Let's do it.

1:04:15 Yes.

1:04:15 Well, tell the people where to follow you, all the information.

1:04:18 Yeah you can follow Afrotech everywhere on social media and of course me at Morgan Debon everywhere else TikTok Instagram I.

1:04:25 Have one last thing yeah critique hmm how do you manage deal with critique we you might have seen this past year's Invest Fest there was some critique how do you manage it how do you use it as fuel or try to improve from what's being.

1:04:41 Said I think every swarm of critique has some validity in it um And you have to decide if you want to adjust, adapt, or ignore. Just because they say it doesn't make, like, I think a lot of times we want to be like, that's not true. I'm like, well, sometimes it is true. That's their experience. But it's a choice that I'm making. Or it's a consequence because of something else that they don't know about.

1:05:09 Right?

1:05:10 So even watching your guys' feedback on the vendors, like, all of the back and forth, was helpful for me because I could say, you know what? let's shrink the marketplace. Like let's actually not go so hard and make sure that we don't get the same feedback. Right. And I think that you got to be open to that dialogue.

1:05:30 If you're going to serve our community, you got to be open to that dialogue. I personally go off social media right around this time because my like nervous system can't handle all the negative feedback and the personal attacks. Like I made that decision a few years ago after it, because it happens every year, no matter how great Afrotech is, People are going to be mad about it online. So I actually decided I'm out. I tell people on threads, I am no longer here. You cannot tag me. You cannot mention me.

1:05:57 See you in December.

1:05:58 My team's online. They're tracking, they're monitoring, they're giving me the report, but I don't want to personally see it because it's too harmful mentally for me because I literally could dip. I'm good. Personally, I'm fine. So I've been investing in the stock market since I was 13. I'm literally fine. So I don't need this.

1:06:17 Double entendre.

1:06:19 I don't need this interaction. I love my life. I love my job. This negativity, it's not required for me to operate at the way that I operate. How do you guys feel about it?

1:06:31 How do you feel about it?

1:06:33 Feel about what?

1:06:35 The constant discourse about how you do things instead of the doing of the thing.

1:06:40 It's a blessing. I feel like for us, Like, we know we had a lot of conversation before InvestFest, after InvestFest, but for me, I mean, InvestFest transcended business into pop culture. One of the most talked about events for black people or any people in America. That's honestly very humbling because 10 years ago, nobody would have ever, if you would have told somebody, one of the most talked about moments for black culture and pop culture at large in the summer Of 2026 would be a business festival. Somebody will look at you like, it doesn't even make any sense. Right.

1:07:24 And that's actually what happened. So just to even have that level of discourse shows where it's at. Shows the level of, you know, because you only talk about things that's actually at a certain level. There's a million events and nobody talks about them. So to even be on people's radar to have that level of conversation, because it's never going to impact it. That's the thing. You're never going to get canceled. It's never going to be like, oh, I'm not. You're still going to come. No matter what people say, it's still going to come. It's still going to, the show is still going to go on. So I don't really fully believe all press is good press, but I understand it because as long as the conversation is

1:07:58 being had, it honestly doesn't even matter because people have short attention spans. They don't even remember. So it's like, you just got to stay on top of people's minds, especially while you're in that cycle when you need to be on top of people's minds. So, For me, I look at it like it's mission accomplished in a lot of different ways because that was the mission. For me, that was the mission is to blend pop culture with business and to become a stable in pop culture at large and to really, you know, have that level of attention that sports and fashion and other things have traditionally gotten that business never really got, especially in our world.

1:08:36 Business was never talked about in that world. So It's still a lot more work to do, but in some regards it's mission accomplished and you got to be edgy. And that's what people like, you know, you can't be afraid of that because it comes with that. So it's like embrace it because it's needed. Controversy is not a bad thing. Sometimes sometimes controversy brings important conversations to the light it might be uncomfortable in that moment right but it's needed to have it's needed to be had it's an uncomfortable conversation that that needs to happen and at the end of the day it's better it's better for it Then if it just was avoided and it's just like, oh, we're not going to say anything. We're just going to

1:09:17 be playing vanilla. Then you're going to be playing vanilla and nobody's going to care about you.

1:09:21 Which happens every day.

1:09:22 Yeah. I think it's a privilege. I think anytime there's critique, like you said, there might be some truth in it that can make us better. I try to take the approach that you kind of said. I don't see it. It actually has to be brought to my attention. Like somebody will call me and say, we had a situation where people were calling me like, are you good? Are you good? Are you good?

1:09:41 I'm like, That happens to me all the time. I'm like, what are you talking about?

1:09:43 I'm like, yeah, bro, I'm good. Like, what happened? And, you know, it does keep the conversation going. But at the end of the day, like, nothing can take me away from the focus of why we're here. Like, I would say we're here for a purpose. There's not a tweet. There's not going to be a comment that's going to distract me from that. So if people want to have dialogue, great.

1:10:03 I'm not participating in it. I understand that if we don't do this, do you have the ability to do that? So this has to happen for that to happen.

1:10:12 And you know your results. I mean, I literally watch Market Mondays. I can see the results. I'm like, you are making people money. So just like at Afrotech, I'm like, I'm getting people jobs. People are making money. Like, I can see the results. If we didn't have the results, it might be a different conversation. But there's no way at this scale you can operate the way we operate with it not having real ROI for everybody.

1:10:35 For sure. For sure. The mission is the mission.

1:10:38 The mission is the mission. So we keep going.

1:10:40 That's it. That's it. All right, guys. Thank you for rocking with us. We'll see you next week.

1:10:43 Peace. Peace.