Recode Decode: Why tech is "flunking" the diversity test

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Vox Media Podcast Network

Technology, Business

4.3 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2019

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Venture capitalist and prominent activist Freada Kapor Klein, the founder of Kapor Capital, talks with Recode's Teddy Schleifer about diversity in tech and impact investing. In this episode: In this episode: Kapor Klein’s background; her first forays into activism; why the term “sexual coercion” is more meaningful in the workplace than “sexual harassment”; holding managers accountable when they don’t live a company’s values; why did Kapor Klein and her husband Mitch Kapor become impact investors?; how to have values as a VC; being an Uber investor during the company’s discrimination scandal; how is Dara Khosrowshahi doing?; why the venture capital industry is “flunking” the diversity test; startups that widen inequality; the problem with how All Raise measures diversity; Kapor Klein’s publicly quiet supporters; what does impact investing really mean?; Bill McGlashan and the college admissions scandal; making college admissions more equitable; why Kapor Klein is optimistic about the world; and the 2020 presidential campaign. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	When you drive a Chevy electric vehicle, you're getting more than a way to get from point A to point B.
0:06.0	You're saying goodbye to gas stations and how low to open roads.
0:09.0	With the growing network of public charging stations, you'll be able to charge your EV while you shop, work, or do whatever you want to be doing with your time.
0:17.0	Chevy is making EVs for everyone, everywhere. Go to chevrelay.com slash electric to learn more.
0:24.0	Sabotage hired goons and a landfill in Utah.
0:32.0	How Steve Jobs' revolutionary catastrophe of a computer, the Apple Lisa, earned a brief second life, and then was buried for good.
0:42.0	Watch the Verges documentary, Lisa's final act, now on YouTube.
0:48.0	You're listening to Reco Decode from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:53.0	I'm Teddy Schleifer, finance editor here at Reco.com in today for Cara Swisher.
0:57.0	Today in the red share is free to Capra Klein, the founder of Capra Capital, and a co-chair of the Capra Center.
1:03.0	She's also a founding team member at Project Include, which advises tech companies on how to be more diverse and inclusive.
1:10.0	She and her husband Mitch Capra were seed stage investors in Uber, which you may have heard of.
1:14.0	And when the company's culture was accused of fostering discrimination in 2017, free to admit she did something very unusual.
1:20.0	They publicly shared their objections to how then CEO Travis Kalanick was running things.
1:25.0	We went public because we felt like we had tried many times in many ways, and that that was just falling on completely unreceptive years.
1:35.0	And that it reached a crisis point.
1:37.0	At the end of the day, living our values is more important than making money.
1:43.0	We're also going to talk about impact investing and why she will not invest in companies who plan to sell their products only to wealthy customers.
1:50.0	It doesn't matter if it's an education product or a fintech product or a healthcare product.
1:56.0	What we're doing is backing businesses in that model that says we want to widen the gap between halves and half nuts.
2:06.0	Not only am I not interested, I am worried about where that trend goes.
2:11.0	Freed up, welcome to Rico Dico.
	...

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