A note from our editor, Elizabeth MacBride:
The process of writing The New Builders was in many ways, for me, a process of confronting systemic racism in the United States. The book launches May 4, but we started it two years ago. It was born in venture capitalist Seth Levine’s office in Boulder.
We looked at the makeup of today’s entrepreneurs, New Builders: women, people of color, immigrants – and started interviewing some of the most amazing New Builders, people whose grit takes your breath away.
Like Danaris Mazara, who started her bakery with $37 in food stamps. Or Jahleel Pettiford, who described falling asleep as he fulfills orders from his bedroom floor. Or Jasmine Edwards, who commuted from Tampa to Atlanta to launch her startup.
Then we realized that entrepreneurship in America, contrary to popular belief developed around the tech world, is not thriving. It’s declining.
Every beat in America that I have ever covered, from health care to guns to entrepreneurship, has always come back to America’s original sin, Black chattel slavery, and our caste system of skin color.
White people have 10x times more family wealth than Black people, because Black people are 400 years behind. In today’s finance system, 80% of all entrepreneurs don’t have access to capital at all. Math 101. If you don’t come from a rich White family, you are unlikely to succeed as a new entrepreneur.
We were making these discoveries as the world was collapsing. The Trump Administration grew steadily more racist. The pandemic happened, with its disproportionate toll on people of color.
George Floyd was murdered. There were riots happening: we submitted our proposal as I was on my way to Louisville, which was in flames after Breonna Taylor died in a hail of gunfire.
We decided to pour everything into finishing the book. We hoped, rather than knew, that the spring would look brighter, and a book written by two optimistic people would find a place.
The New Builders we were interviewing believed America could stumble forward. Isaac Collins, interviewed from Kansas City, told us he planned to open another Yogurtini.
He was moving forward. So, we did, too.
I have been schooled more than once this year by Black friends and by the events surrounding us, and am grateful for the education. There was the attack on the capital. The violence that Black Americans have been living with for centuries arrived nearly at my door, in an institution that in White blindness I thought was secure.
Yesterday, a jury in Minneapolis meted out some justice.
When I was 12, I copied a quote of Desmond Tutu’s into my reader’s journal. It came to mind as I heard the decision.
“If we could but recognize our common humanity, that we do belong together, that our destinies are bound up in one another’s, that we can be free only together, that we can be human only together … “
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Best practices:
How best to bridge the talent gap in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine)? Marie Lynn Miranda, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost at the University of Notre Dame, says supporting the many educational and career pathways that are necessary to create the STEMM-enabled workforce of the future is critical, as the Notre Dame news reports.
Buzzworthy: In a documentary about women entrepreneurs, @BBC’s Nada Tawfiq explored how women entrepreneurs create their own markets and are the key to the economic future of America. Tawfiq reported on ECourtReporters, based in Wisconsin—who taught attorneys how to use online tools in order to keep their businesses growing during the pandemic. Times of E founder Elizabeth MacBride is quoted about her new book with co-author and venture capitalist Seth Levine about what policymakers need to do to support women entrepreneurs.
Made in the USA: Wear your makers’ mojo on your sleeve with this Made in the Midwest T-shirt, $30 on Etsy.
