 Can you hear me okay? Thank you. And thank you for that introduction by Sarah. I was listening to it and at the end I was like, oh, she's talking about me. It's cool. So it's early It's early and I'm also pretty nervous. So I'm gonna like take a second So my name is Marco Rogers I'm gonna move a little bit, but I need my notes. I remember what I want to say to y'all. I don't have any slides So kick back come along with me. It'll be fun Thank you for having me to keynote at RailsConf 2017 Let me get the work stuff out of the way that who I am stuff. I work at a company called Clover Health And we are building a different kind of health insurance company It's backed by technology. It's data driven and our goal is to focus on our members and their health and keeping them on a path To living well as a way for us to be successful as an insurance company. It's really cool But I'm not here to talk about that today I'm not here to talk about Rails today either. I don't actually know Rails and they promised me that that was okay before I came So I'm not here to talk about programming really either I've been a manager for like several years now So if I start to talk to you about programming She'll probably like to now check your email like push to production and whatever you're doing when you're not paid attention to talks Because that's not gonna happen What I am here to talk about today is how it feels to be black in tech I'm gonna let that hang for a second. So you can adjust It's gonna happen But don't don't worry right like it. We'll get through this I didn't I didn't come to start controversy on my first invitation to to rails comp This talk will be easy for you. It'll be hard for me. Okay. I'm gonna take On all the the hardness I've spoken at conferences before but this is my first keynote address And when Sarah and the other and the other organizers kind of reached out to me I asked them like why are you interested in me giving a talk? At rails comp and they you know Said what she just said that said, you know, we really appreciate your voice on Twitter Blog posts that you've written they seen other my other talks and they said we want you to come and talk About whatever is important to you and we want we want you to share that with us I want to ask other people like what do you want me to talk about like? What would you want to hear me talk about like friends and whatnot a lot of the people that I know who are not black They said that they wanted to hear me talk about being black and tech like that's a thing That people want to talk about we've been talking about diversity inclusion a lot a long time But you know, we kind of have to start digging into different axes on this And we've talked a lot about being a woman in tech, too. I think I think we're really good at that We don't get to talk about being black in tech very much So people said that's one of the what they wanted to hear about And I chewed on that for a second. I was like nah, nah, it's not happening I'm not that brave, right And so I wrote a different talk I wrote a talk That I thought was good My wife thought was good other people told me it was good, but it was a regular talk It did not pass my bar for keynote worthy The keynote slot says like basically keynote is like there's no other activities planned right now I need all of y'all to come in here and hear what this person has to say Lot of pressure right And so I asked myself like what qualifications do I have I You know to come and ask you hundreds of people to come in and listen to me for however long What makes me unique is what I asked myself I've done a lot of interesting things. I think But only one thing really spring up as unique to me And that's that I have had a pretty good career in tech for like 12 plus years been pretty successful And I've been black that entire time We're we're laughing great. That's great. I'm glad y'all awake, but That's uncommon, right? It's not it's not normal And I mean this is real talk today like I want to have a real conversation with you about it We know the diversity numbers in tech are not good for black people, right? Like companies are releasing their stats and they're showing like 2% 1% African-American sometimes 0% right like sometimes it's just like a line And 0% on their pie chart And then sometimes it gets crazy and it's like four or five percent people start high-fiving, you know, I mean But it's not great It's so uncommon that you know, I have people ask me all the time Like how did you do it? Like, you know, they're like Marco like how did you make it? Right? I don't know if that question is The right question, but it seems like one that people want to talk about so So I found some courage and I was like, okay, let's talk a little bit about it at least We can't tell the whole story. We don't have that much time, but I'll talk to a little bit about it So, you know, what I'm here to talk about is How it feels to survive as a black person in tech When all the evidence seems to point to the fact that that's actually really hard to do If I was putting a title on this talk, it would be something like survival tips for being black in tech And in parentheses, I would I would say like if you're Marco, right? Because I can only speak for me If I was trying to speak for like all of blackness, they would like revoke my membership or something Don't I can only talk to you about me, but hopefully we'll learn something So a couple years ago, I gave a talk at AlterConf And it was called conforming to succeed And that talk was about some of my formative years growing up and how How I initially found my way towards a career in tech, right? You can find that on the interwebs. You should check it out. It's good This one basically picks up where that one left off Which is when with me graduating college I got a I got a degree in computer science from Georgia Tech originally from from Atlanta, Georgia Now with the tech nice, okay Um Getting my career started was pretty rocky Outwardly, you know my situation upon graduating was was was pretty dismal It wasn't atypical though, right? Like I had no idea what I wanted to do I was not a stellar student with some people are surprised by I've been on a long I've been on a long journey to getting to the point Where I know how to like show up and be good. I was not as a good student I didn't have a lot of prospects, right? Like I didn't have any internships while I was in school You know, I applied I got no no callbacks no internships No tech related clubs like I hadn't found any like open source communities to start to build my portfolio I didn't know how to do any of that stuff. I did not have people beating down my door. I was just a recent grad Trying to find a job while black Things weren't looking good, right? Like I was searching around in Atlanta. I wasn't getting any callbacks I didn't know any better because Atlanta was not a good place to be searching for tech jobs But that's the only place I had ever been and I didn't actually know how to look for jobs anywhere else There wasn't much of a tech scene in Atlanta like there is now. There's actually pretty good scene But I was starting to feel really discouraged. I Had spent a lot of money on this on this degree me and my family spent a lot of money on it And I just wanted to get a job, right? So my first survival tip the first tip that I picked up For surviving as a black person in tech was pretty simple You got to know some white people Yeah, I mean like that's not really what I mean, right like You know like what I really mean is that you have to know some people already in tech So that they can vouch for you right so that they can like get your foot in the door or whatever Everybody kind of needs their foot in the door For me was a buddy of mine from school. He's a white guy He's still a really good friend of mine. He called me up. He was in the DC area. He was like, I'm working at this place I can recommend you you should come work here so that worked out But you might be saying to yourself you might be thinking right now like when's it get to part where like it's hard because it's black, right? I mean anybody can make the right connections and and get their foot in the door Except like well, we know that's not true though, right like If you're paying attention if you've been paying attention to this conversation about diversity You know that most people Already in tech right like most people they make connections with people who are like them, right? like you we tend to cluster around our racial and Like and ethnic identities right like that's a thing. That's that's why they're racial ethnic identities Why people make connections with white people and presumably I can make connections with people who look like me, right? Except that I didn't see any of those people. They were they'd not exist I didn't meet any other black students in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech I didn't have any black professors my entire time there I was kind of on my own right like I had to I had to reach out to the whoever was around me and try to make some connections And I didn't really know how to do that, right? But I did my best and most of those people around me were were white and so to me That's what it that's what it was. That's actually how it played out Like if I wanted to get anywhere like I make friends with some white people. That's kind of how it goes But that's okay, right like that's that's actually expected Until we make more progress with this diversity problem We should expect people to follow their networks, right to kind of cluster around these racial and ethnic trends Like that's gonna keep happening. There's nothing wrong with that inherently Except that it has some fallout right like some realities for people Who are trying to make it to a different place from where they come from? Networking for black people in tech was really slim. So so what I am saying to you right now Is if you need to make connections to get into tech and you're black you might have to explicitly be the exception to that trend of only sticking with your ethnic identity Before you can even get started before you could do anything you have to not be that right You got to do something different than what all the statistics are telling you is gonna happen And I got lucky right like buddy of mine he reached out to me like he he was also a recent grad He got his job. You know he got it his dad His dad was in construction But new was friends with a guy and he knew a guy and he owned a web shop and he's like yeah My son needs a job and so they hooked that up You know which I have no problem with by the way like get the hook up like do it like pull some strings Pull all the strings like get in where you can sit in I Now I had one string that one friend who reached out to me And it worked out right, but I don't know how many people never had any strings Didn't get to do anything because they didn't they didn't they weren't able to buck whatever trends were keeping them from finding the right network So it worked out for me And I had my my first phone interview Real quick, I think it's funny. It's not actually That important, but I think it's funny my first phone interview I got my first job because phone interview was was useless like then He asked me like what I was doing in school or whatever and I told him It was basically like nothing like we built some some cruddy apps or whatever And the the one key question I feel like this is the one key question that he asked me that got me the job Because I told him that the language that I had used in school was was Java for most things, right? And he like through this question. I mean he's like he's like oh, so he said you said you do mostly Java Does that include Java script? Um, and I'm serious like he asked it like that and I don't know if it was a trick question But that's how he asked he was like does that include Java script? And I I knew that those two were not the same thing I didn't know I didn't know a whole lot else, but I knew that those two were not the same thing And I was like, oh, I haven't done much JavaScript, but like that's not the same thing, right? And he was like cool. You should just come up here and work Like like I had gone through so much struggle just trying to get a call back trying to get somebody to talk to me or whatever And I literally got a job because my buddy referred me and because I knew that Java and JavaScript were not the same thing like It's wild right like there's no barrier except for the social ones to me really that's my experience There's no barrier except for the social ones So anyway, I Got my first job I'm working at a web consulting shop in DC and I'm killing it y'all I don't know how well I'm actually doing but I kept getting paychecks Which for me was the only criteria for killing it like I Was knocking it out because every two weeks they would give me money So I made a lot of good friends, but at the same time like I'm feeling out of place Right like I'm the only black person on my team. This is true for a long time They didn't bother me necessarily But I couldn't help but notice right And the same way like I don't know if y'all know this right but like black people when we walk into a room any room We like immediately scan the room to see how many other black people are in it This is a thing like it doesn't make a difference like you're not gonna do anything But like you just want to know you've got to read the atmosphere in the room, right? Like I know I know at least two people I saw walking here I could I could actually point to you where they're sitting too, but I won't do that But you got to read the atmosphere right so but one day this change they had another black person Let's call him Carl Names have been changed to protect the innocent. Let's call him Carl and by by the innocent I mean me like if he will recognize themselves in this talk I don't want them to be mad at me and so we're gonna change all the names Carl was similar to me in a lot of ways He was a recent grad. They had a lot of recent grads He had a CS degree from a decent school, you know And and he was black Okay, so so those might be like the only ways that he was similar to me, but that's enough right like that was enough I mean, there's no other black people around like I hope that this crowd at least That we've progressed enough to the point where we understand that having another person Around who looks like you like that matters Right, it matters a lot That's part of why diversity is important seeing yourself Reflected around you and people being successful as it has a huge impact on whether you are able to be successful Right, so all of a sudden I had this other person that could reflect back at me What was going on if you take nothing else away from this talk Let it be that right like let it be like hearing from me that being black always matters always Whatever it is that you're trying to do right like I'm trying to do I'm trying to do that same thing. I'm trying to do it too, but I'm trying to do it while black And that means that the rules might be different They might not be right there aren't always different But they might be so I have to like tread carefully and it helps if I see What happens with other people who are trying to do this thing while also black So even though me and Carl weren't that tight I'm personally invested in what happens to him He's like the only other data point I have for what happens to black people in tech besides me Well, it was not a good data point Carl did not do awesome and he was let go within six months I have been there I don't know not not that long maybe I have been there like six months and he was let go within six months of him coming um And I remember vividly the reasons that were given these might sound familiar to some of y'all He wasn't really picking things up fast enough You know Like he didn't and also right. He didn't really have the right attitude Carl didn't have the right attitude To this day. I don't really know what the right attitude is Um, and I don't really know how fast you have to pick something up for that to be fast enough And for you to not be fired I still don't know. Um But I had to had to put this together With what I was able to observe about Carl for myself And what I observed is that like Carl was always asking for help Right, like he was pretty upfront about what he knew and what he didn't feel comfortable with and what he didn't feel capable of Um, Carl when he came in he he knew like c sharp and net like that was the language that he was most familiar with Uh, but our shot was mostly python at that time Uh, and so he was kind of expected to transition like he was picking up a new language Uh, and he was humble enough to ask for help with it Uh and within six months he's gone So, uh, the next survival tip that I picked up don't ask for help Don't ask anybody for anything. Don't admit that you're having a hard time. Keep your head down. Just make it make it work Don't tell people, uh, that you're struggling Um, y'all this is not good life advice This is not a good lesson. It took me a long time to unlearn it, right? Like I don't give people this advice. It's not healthy Uh, but remember right like these are tips for survival Right, like I was trying to adapt to the environment that I found myself in and I didn't have any guidance Right, nobody was telling me how this worked. I just saw people who looked like me dropping like flies so You know, that's kind of how it worked out. Um The first black engineer that I had ever worked with he took a hit Um, because he didn't prove that he deserved to be there And all I could do was try to learn from that, uh, to make sure that I wasn't next Um Carl is not intact anymore as far as I know. He bounced around to some other jobs He's not didn't really recover from that like I don't know what that does to your confidence Um, and he had to find another profession, right? So We're like we're like one down like two black engineers. One of them already off the table um fast forward couple years I'm actually doing well now like I I know the computers right like sometimes people ask me questions about computers and I know the answers To those questions So like it's it's lit right like I feel pretty good about it. I'm like, okay I might I might deserve to be here. Um, I'm going out to client sites now Just uh, we got contracted out Uh, and I'm contracting for this big company Big tech company, uh They got a lot of in-house devs, but they also like Bring in contractors to kind of enhance their internal teams and we worked with them a lot during that time period Uh, so I walked on to this team and we were building a web-based rss reader. This was like 2007 So it was like really awesome projects um and so That's where I got to work with my second black engineer second one. I had ever met um Yeah, so like that's and that's not an exaggeration like years into my career in tech and I work with exactly two black devs um So, you know, you can see that like there's not a lot of opportunity For me to observe what's supposed to happen here. I'm just trying to like make my way So the second guy, let's call him lester Um Lester was different from me and he was different from carl too, right like lester seemed Comfortable Right like lester would come in at like 10 30 11 o'clock sometimes he wouldn't even apologize. I was like, you know, whatever Um, his clothes were pretty disheveled most of the time Like this was this was contractor land, right? Like I had to wear a button down to sit at a desk and type, right? Uh, but he was like wearing t-shirts and like wearing t-shirts was like a big deal to me I was like, I want to wear t-shirts. I don't like I don't like collars Make my neck itchy Lester was even like he was like even sarcastic and snarky with people Um, even people even his bosses, right? Even the people who were like running the project. He was gonna crap all the time But everybody seemed to be okay with it, right? Like They were just like yeah, whatever. That's lester. You know, he does what he does. Um Let me tell you y'all this was fascinating to me I didn't really understand like even my my whole career had been about like Like I don't even supposed to be here like I got in I was really lucky like I'm hustling hard to prove that I deserve to be here and here was a guy He seemed to not give a crap Right, uh, but he was still respected For all intents and purposes lester has somehow managed to achieve the confidence of someone who was black and tech But not feeling like they were struggling to survive And I was like, what is this magic? I need it, right? Like I need that I don't know where you get it from but I need that Um, so I got to know lester a little bit. Um, this was tough, right? Like I had to I had to be careful because I was still a junior member of the team. I was a contractor, right? Like you have to play your cards close to the chest remember you can't you can't let them know that you Don't know what you're doing. Like that's not that's not cool Um, but lester and I got friendly enough that one day I was able to ask him Like why are you so comfortable? Right? Like how so It was a conversation that I had I had I've only been able to have with black people to be honest, right? Because I was using very few words But he knew exactly what I was talking about like we were right on the same page Uh, I'm gonna give you the dramatized version. It was pretty close to this Uh, but you know it was like Lester man, like how do you do it? Like I mean you walk in here and you just post up like like it's all good and like what is that? How do you how do you get away with it? That's what I said. That's all And then uh, but he was right with me. He didn't miss a beat. He was like nah, I hear you a little homie, right? Like he didn't he didn't call me a little homie. It's a dramatization, right? Remember? Um, he's like nah, I hear you man, uh But it is what it is. He's like, you know, I'm not worried about it. Like they know they couldn't do this without me Y'all Blew my mind. Okay, like this was this blew my mind. I I mean like I had met people Who had this kind of like nonchalant confidence like you can't be In tech without meeting those people, but I had no idea you could do that while also black I didn't I didn't know anything like everybody everybody since the beginning of time and told me If you want to be successful You have to be like straight laced and you got to be On top of your stuff and like you have to be very personable and like you all that stuff Like you got to be twice as good. I know you don't heard this, right? Like that's real Like black people tell each other that all the time passed down in our history Like you better get your stuff together because then I went to hang around acting like that That's what we hear all the time and then like There's lester, right Well, so I had talked to him about it. I had to find out more about it Um, and I found out that lester had been doing this for a long time, right? Like he was already 10 years into his career He had 10 years on his belt A lot of it with this same company. He had paid his dues already He was senior people respected him because he had already spent years and years proving that he deserved to be here Um, so at this point he like leaned on that reputation and he made himself comfortable, right? Came in late wore whatever he wanted. He got paid a lot. You know, I mean and like man I wanted to be lester like I I really wanted to be lester when I grew up Um, so my next my next survival tip came from lester This is the first piece of advice that I have ever gotten from another black person in tech It's like years after I started Um, and I don't get to talk to any other black person to tell me like what it's like And I finally met one person and I was like, what's up? Like, what do I do? Um, he's like, no, you can't be like me. He's like, don't do that He's like, you got to earn this you got I had to work for a long time I used to be like you and so you do that until you could be like me and it takes a long time The advice that he gave me was Always be better than they expect you to be Never let them see your confidence waiver because if you don't believe you're worth it. They won't either Right, that was his advice Uh And this resonated with me it matched exactly with what I had just seen happen to carl Right, like not just happened, but you know like that matched up. I was like, right, like Right, like carl was like trying to be honest with him. He's like, I don't kind of know what I'm doing and they were like Sorry, that's not how it's gonna work So this is kind of a big deal, right when we when we talk about barriers to diversity and inclusion um, a lot of us are starting to recognize the pervasiveness of imposter syndrome, right People feeling like they don't belong or they're not good enough like no matter what people tell them they always feel like an imposter And we need to talk about it because a lot of people struggle with it. It's a real thing. Um, but that's not my life Um to survive in tech while black I never felt like I had the luxury of not believing in myself Like that was just not a thing, right? Like I always had to show up Like I was ready to be better than everybody else. Otherwise they would tell me to go home right, so So far like I have two examples Uh of people who look like me in tech One of them was honest and open about his shortcomings And they told him to go home And the other one he said never let them see you sweat And he made more money than any black person I had ever met And I don't just mean in tech. I mean like anybody ever right like and I grew up in Atlanta I knew a lot of black people and he made much more money than all of them by far So it was a real easy choice for me to try to figure out who to emulate, you know, like today When people talk about imposter syndrome, right? I have a lot of sympathy for them. Like I know it's a real thing Uh, but I'm not telling black people that getting comfortable with imposter syndrome is going to help Because I don't believe that like that has not been my experience And so I can like participate in that conversation like a little bit But not a lot like it doesn't work that way for me and a lot of people that I know Um, you got to bring your a game, right? Like you've got to impress people early and often Otherwise you might not be around long enough to get comfortable You know, you don't have that kind of you don't have that kind of time So fast forward a few more years Uh, this is this is the last story I think Um, so I'm pretty confident in my skills at this point I'm leading like big projects like I'm making real good money Um, I even tell other people what to do occasionally and they do it, right? Like which was weird, right? I liked it. It's kind of weird. Um And I took on a project for a really big client that real deep pockets. They're paying us a lot of money It was a big like multi-phase software project had multiple teams on it different contracting companies participating in it Um, and I'm leading the team that was building the website out It was a lot of fancy features with search and e-commerce and stuff So we were building a website and the other teams were building data sets and web services for us to use um So as things ramped up I started interacting with other teams Um, and another black dev shows up This was trey And trey was like the fifth or sixth Like black dev that had come across uh at this point It was like, I don't know four years into my My career or whatever, uh, but I don't like I don't even get excited anymore now, right? Like I'm like man one of us pops up like every six months, right? It's not even special anymore. You know, I mean so um so Plus like I had a persona now also, uh I was about business. You know what I mean? Like I was I was I was actually killing it like actually I was working long hours never asked people for help always acting like I knew what I was doing Never let them see you sweat, right? Always be better than what they expect Uh, I was probably a jerk to a lot of people. Um, this is not a good period for me Um, but it seemed to be serving me well, right? Like I had been here for years I was still here, right? Like I had proved the people that I deserved to be here Uh, and I started to think like maybe it wasn't so hard to survive in tech while black Maybe people were making it harder than it needed to be, right? Uh, no That was about the gum crashing down. Like that was that was false. Um I never I never found out how trey actually got onto the team Um, if I was speculating based on the limited data points I had I would probably say that he had a white friend from college And like his his dad got him a job and then that white friend called him and got him On to the team, but that was that's a very limited data set. So like, you know, I'm probably projecting to a certain extent That's all I know about how black people get into tech at this point. Um, so Uh, but you know, I should tell you like what was mine What was my relationship with tray, right? Um Trey was in charge of web services so In this world, like me getting my work delivered was directly dependent on him getting his work delivered, right Like he had to he had to deliver me the web services so that I could integrate This is like the mid 2000s, right? Like there's there and there ain't no agile Like we got gant charts and waterfalls everywhere. Like, you know, there's dependencies and him He was first and then I was second like on the chart And so, uh, so like I had to work with him and I needed him to give me his stuff Um, and I I didn't like tray very much I ain't like working with tray because he didn't he didn't move fast enough for me. You know, I was constantly waiting on him Now, uh in hindsight, I was missing something about this project That a bunch of other contractors like tray seemed to understand already Um, when you have a big client with deep pockets, it pays to not move very fast Right and I mean like literally it pays like your hourly you're billing them So like the longer you take the more money you get um And everybody was doing that on this project to be honest like my boss is okay with me doing that too Like he he didn't really say that but he was just like, you know, I was telling him about time He was like, no, I'll be fine so um But like that didn't sit well with me that that was never the kind of attitude That's that well with me. Um for one thing like my my work ethic is too strong It didn't didn't really allow it. It felt dishonest to me. Like we were still billing them, right? Like I wasn't in charge of billing so somebody would build them whether I did work or not and I didn't I just didn't feel good about that but also also remember, uh That like I'm I'm still trying to survive. I'm doing better. I'm feeling more comfortable with it But I'm still trying to survive um And that depends on me constantly showing other people that I was awesome Right that I deserve to be here because I there's still there's no other black people It was like me and Tray. There's like dozens of people on this project. It was me and Tray so, um Working with Tray bothered me, you know, I mean like I didn't see him check things in very often Like he would take days on something that I felt should be much easier than what he was making it out to be um And he was throwing all the gantt charts off man. Like we worked a lot. We worked hard on those So he was throwing them all off. Um If I was gonna hit my deadline it's like he had to hit his I I needed Tray to step up I started to feel like Tray was kind of lazy, you know I started to feel like Tray wasn't picking things up fast enough You know what I mean? Like maybe he had the right attitude So you I mean you see what's going on here, right? Like I like I'm becoming that guy You know You know I'm talking about like that guy. He's like a little bit too full of himself Um, he starts to undermine the people around him, you know, like subtly at first like I'm I'm not trying to be a jerk Right, like I just want to get things done. You know, like I'm trying to be awesome And you're kind of like cramping my style right now That guy I was that guy So I decided I was going to talk to somebody about getting things back on track Yeah um Unfortunately, I did what that guy does like I went to the higher ups And I expressed some concerns about the timeline You know I didn't call Tray out specifically But I made it known that it it didn't feel to me like the web services were materializing fast enough Like I I had the business jargon down y'all like I was on it Like I didn't say Tray's name at all, but they knew what I was talking about um So, you know, I mean this should be cool, right? Like, you know, Tray will get like a kick in the pants Uh, and then we'll get things rolling. I'll be able to be awesome again But nah, right like this the story is about survival. So you know, that's not how it went um In my vague recollection of this Uh, which may also be dramatized for the story, but I had this conversation on the thursday Uh, and by next tuesday, we were informed that Tray was no longer on the team Y'all when I tell you that like That took all the air out of me, right? Like I didn't know how to process that like We were a team like we had been working together like it's not that I ain't like him He was just bothering me like, you know But he was gone that like snapped me right back into reality, right? I was I was right back to being keenly aware that was the only black dev from miles around here And I got reminded how quickly they get rid of folks who look like me At the drop of a hat gone Only this time it was my fault um, remember at this stage We're still clocking in at Like less than eight black devs that had ever seen in my career including me um And had just helped one of them get fired I I didn't even have the courage to ask what happened. Like I knew what happened, right? They probably pulled Tray aside and they were probably like Not really picking things up fast enough It doesn't really feel like you have the right attitude for this project. So Kind of have to let you go That was the end of me being that guy Nipped in the bud like quickly Because my this last tip for surviving in tech while black Never helped them get rid of us never The only reason I'm here and able to like talk to y'all today Is because I managed to never get on the wrong person's bad side or like I managed to make the white the right kind of white friends who would step up and like put in a good word for me, you know Or I managed to be just awesome enough to offset whoever else was trying to undermine me But that doesn't feel awesome it feels lucky It feels really lucky. I mean like my my confidence is still intact. Like I I know what I can do I know what I'm capable of but right alongside that that sits a healthy respect For still how lucky I am to be able to be here Uh, so that has some fallout right like these lessons you learn to have fallout like to this day I feel it's it's extremely difficult for me to give any kind of negative feedback to other black people It doesn't feel right. I can't do it. I'll pass bow out. I'll like I won't say anything There's not enough of us who even get a shot At all for me to be making it harder Like one step harder at all I can't do it um So I've given you a few survival tips. This is a bunch of them. We won't have that much time like I said um Maybe maybe this talk is not what you expected like even when I told you we were going to talk about being black um You might have expected talk about like discrimination and microaggressions and stuff And that stuff happens too. I got a lot of those stories like if you've got some more keynotes I'll fill them up. Um But you know like I that stuff is what happens to black people in tech, right? But what I wanted to talk about is how it feels to be a black person in tech, you know because like That's what I feel like I want people to walk away with is like Understanding that you know those few people that you see dotted around like there's a lot going on for them to be here There's a lot going on For the longest time Being black in tech It felt like being on a tightrope, you know so like Like i'm i'm out there by myself because like most people didn't even get to get started They didn't they didn't even get shown where the tightrope was so they didn't need to get a chance to try i'm out here by myself And i'm concentrating right because like everybody else is walking around right like nobody else gets Has to walk on the tightrope But I still have to make it to the end at the same time they do or maybe even faster So i'm concentrating and then like Carl comes up behind me right Uh, and I like I hear him he slipped some falls Uh, and I can't turn around like I had to keep my eyes trained on the rope. I don't feel safe yet like You know, I don't I don't feel like I even have my legs under me So I can't do anything about that And then like lester comes up and like lester's riding a unicycle He's like, you know, he's doing laps around me and stuff I don't even know how you do laps on a tightrope, but he's doing it like, you know Damn it lester um And I you know, I like I reach out to him Uh, and he's like nah a little homie like Don't try this yet. You're not ready But don't fall that's not good And he just speeds off like I never see him again So i'm getting a little bit better right like But then like I come up behind trey right on this tightrope Uh, and I'm like I'm just starting to feel like I'm gaining my momentum Right like I'm getting the hang of this. I'm like I'm trying to move a little bit faster And trey's like he's slowing me down. You know, I mean like I gotta get to the end remember I gotta I gotta be at least as fast as everybody else And he's slowing me down. So like, you know, I don't have no ill will but I like nudge him I'm like either way man. I'm I'm here to play. I'm about to do it Uh, and he loses his balance and he falls And I lose sight of trey. I'm He's gone just me now like I can make it to the end but like Just watching people drop him That's what it feels like All the time it felt that way long long time It's still in the back of my head now, but like for a long time. That's how it felt is like I was still here like I got to show up every day You're right. They didn't pull me into a conference room. So I'm gonna add a bad attitude, right But i'm watching everybody around me dropping out uh I know this guy real depressing I apologize for starting your morning off this way, but like This is real talk, right? Like I wanted to have a real conversation with you About what it means for this industry to have such a poor track record for the black people Um, those of us who are making it Feel like we're running a gauntlet a lot of times, you know, like just to be here just to stand in this room I had to go through a lot I got into talking about diversity and inclusion more Because I know this is not what it should be like We are I think we all know like at this point. We all know this is not what it should be like Um, I want to work towards a world Where black people can stop getting this advice. It's terrible advice Right, like maybe you can't get a call back without knowing a white person who already works there, right? That should be possible. That should be a thing to have Right, maybe you don't have to hit the ground running all the time Maybe you can show up and like ask for help and have people like support you while you grow Maybe one day we'll like have enough black people That it's okay for for us to point to somebody who's not doing too well and be like you need to do better And like not feel like we might be like killing their career by saying that Like that should happen, right? That should be a thing. That's possible. I mean, it's it's simple It should be simple All I want is to have enough black people around That it doesn't feel like survival for me to be here, right? Like I want to I want this talk to be stupid because nobody believes that this is a thing I want us to be able to put that type rope away, you know I want us to stop pushing so hard so we can spend our time and energy on something better You know what I mean? Like I want to spend my time on something better I'm gonna learn rails at some point like if it was as soon as I get a minute like that's gonna be a thing um So anyway, I'm gonna I'm gonna wrap up. Um But just a a couple things like and this is this is recent. It wasn't really even part of the talk, but Um, my cousin I got a little cousin and he just started college Uh, he's reaching out to me. He's like I'm gonna do computer science Right and like I know this kid. So I'm like, right, bro. Like cool. Yeah, that's gonna happen, right? But he keeps coming back to me. He's like nah, nah, I'm doing it, right? And I'm like, all right I'm not I'm not being a very good cousin. I'm like, all right. Why why do you think this is what you want to do? I should be encouraging him, but I'm like, you're not that reliable So, um But he's like he's like I want to do what you do, right? He's like you, you know, I'm saying you your life is great Like you get to do whatever you want to do and like you make more money than any black person I've ever met He's right I do No, I'm like, it's for real though. I make more money than any black people. He and I have ever met And so I was like, oh, well, he must be serious about it, right? And so, uh, I gotta start helping him, right? Like I'm bringing him and his brother out here flying them out to to california and hang out with me a little bit So we can talk about it They ain't they've never been nowhere and never been to california, but I gotta do it, right? I gotta bring them out um And try to figure out how to get them going try to figure out how to help them Try to figure out how to give them a leg up where I didn't have one, right? Like they already know a black person intact at least one, right? So maybe maybe that'll work out That's all that's all I got y'all. Um, thanks so much for having me and letting me Get this stuff off my chest uh to you today. Um, I'll be hanging around the rest of the day Feel free to come chat with me. Uh, I'm open to it. Um And thanks