Can Venture Capital Help Unlock Wealth and Equality for All?

More than 150 years after Emancipation, Black people are still underwriting the accumulation of white wealth. My head spun with this reality, though another part of me wasn’t the least bit surprised to discover yet another dimension of racial economic injustice and inequity. Right then and there, I knew I had to help ensure that retirement fund investments reflect the diversity of the people contributing to them. The challenge was huge, yet I felt undaunted. If I wanted to see change, I had to be a part of making it happen.

As a Black woman, I was not only uniquely aware of the issue at hand; I was also uniquely aware of the upside possibilities that came with shifting these assets to Black and brown women more than almost any white man working in the VC space. Having grown up in and moved professionally within racially diverse contexts, I knew that the spaces wealthy white people inhabit are overwhelmingly monochrome. Their narrow lens not only leaves them with a colossal blind spot and it also makes our national and global economy incredibly vulnerable to various cognitive biases and distortions, denial, groupthink, unexamined assumptions, and the homogeneity that results when diverse perspectives are lacking—not to mention the reality that we miss out on billions of people’s God-given gifts, talents, and skill sets.