 I'm honored to be here today with Robert Smith, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Vista Equity Partners. Robert was recently named by time as one of the world's 100 most influential people. Robert's firm, Vista Equity Partners manages over 58 billion with the portfolio that consists of more than 60 of the world's top software companies. He's a social activist, a philanthropist who has invested his time and his money in young people in underserved communities and lifting up black Americans. Robert, it's great to be with you today. It's always good to see you and to be with you, Bill. Now, I know there are a lot of demands on your time and so I want to thank you for joining me for this conversation. Now, it seems like an important but awkward question these days with all that's going on in the world, but how are you? I'm doing well, I think like all of us, we have become hyperproductive individuals because we aren't traveling as much, so we have access to each other through these digital platforms on the one hand. And then on the other hand, we're seeing a little more of what I'll call fatigue because we're not getting the movement, the motion, and probably not as much outdoor exposure. But I'm doing well, my teams are doing well. We are, because it's striving and moving forward. And frankly, we've had an ability to take on a few other initiatives that I think are frankly going to put us all into a better state of equilibrium as a society. So I'm excited about what the future brings with leveraging our people and our technology. But thank you for asking. Well, I hope as you travel and doing all this great work, glad to see you're safe and your colleagues and family are safe. And maybe we can hear a little bit more about what you're working on as we talk. Yeah, I like to jump in. I've had the privilege of working alongside you over the past few months and was really inspired by the two percent solution. The idea that the best way to begin to reverse corporate America's history of structural racism is for large companies for big banks to invest 2% of their annual net income over the next 10 years in ways that empower minority communities. I really want to thank you for that bold challenge. And I like to get your sense from you of how this plan has been received so far. And and yeah, just let's just start there. I'd be curious to see how much traction has been getting. Yeah, you know, it's interesting when I first introduced this idea, you know, the thought and when you and I were working on, you know, the the PPP activity and I really started to understand through your eyes and through other managers of our CDF eyes and MDIs, you know, are called our capillary banking system. The real challenges that you all face and a big part of the challenge is the under capitalization on the one hand and the lack of modernization of the technologies to deliver comprehensive lending solutions, credit solutions, you know, loan management solutions to the communities that you serve. And those are very vital communities. And and frankly, just under capitalized and, you know, in recognizing that and as you and I and others spent time kind of thinking about it, I said, look, a couple of things we need. Firstly, capital delivered into into the into this capillary banking system. But one second, we need to modernize. And so bringing forward the idea because I get to work in the intersection of technology and finance. I said, well, why can't companies really bring forward a capital and be, you know, wherewithal? And we've been using some of our companies in the wherewithal to to to modernize this infrastructure. And we said, OK, well, now how do we get capital? And when I started looking at the very large banks and the amount of profits they made over the last 10 years, I said, man, if they dedicated 2 percent of their annual net income to these, you know, CDF eyes and MDIs and driving capital and credit solutions into the communities, it would eliminate. I call it a lot of the the the access to capital gaps, which ultimately creates safer communities, creates communities that are more robust and ultimately eliminates a lot of the, you know, the the disparities of first income and wealth in these communities. And I think that drives economic activity now forward, you know, pretty substantially. In fact, we partnered with, you know, McKinsey and and some Eric Smith's folks and some folks that, you know, Adele and Microsoft and others. And as we got the work done, actually, BCG is doing some other work on this. And we started getting this work done. What we realized is if you actually, of course, eliminate this wealth disparity, you create about, you know, one and a half to two trillion dollars of GDP. So now the question is, how do you get that capital into the community? So one of my good friends, John Newton Dahl, was working with one of his his partners at Bank of America, Anthony Nukin, and they came up with an idea and it's and they just got a done it's called the, you know, equity progress sustainability bond. This is a two billion dollar bond. It was two and a half times over subscribed. And in essence, it's the first social inclusion bond by bank. They issue two billion dollars. And in essence, it can be used for an affordable housing, low income tax credits, you know, financing, supply chains and putting in tier one, tier two capital into MBIs and grants and funding for CDFIs, etc. So now they've done the first one. They're lining up a number of Fortune 500 companies to issue similar bonds to do the exact same thing. So, you know, it started off as an idea of, OK, well, net income, you can actually finance it using these bond structures, which are clearly being or which are clearly in demand based on how the commitments were subscribed to. And I'm actually quite excited about that because now there's a financing vehicle that we can use to, you know, to really support this two percent initiative. That's really encouraging. And it's an indication that we're actually seeing companies start to push the envelope a bit because while there's been a spattering of investment over the years in underserved communities, you see that the numbers don't change dramatically where we are not closing the gap. It's really going to take a step further than we've seen historic movement to actually overcome centuries of underinvestment in communities of color. And as you and I have talked, Bill, one of the most important things is to put sustained levels of investment into the communities across, you know, multiple dimensions as opposed to a one-time shot of, oh, here's a grant one time. You can issue these bonds literally every six months and there's a return to the investors. What Bank of America did in this case was they actually got minority banks to do the underwriting and the agents, so there's money that went into those those institutions. And now you can actually sustain capital infusion into the areas that most need education, welfare, health, you know, trying to, you know, eliminating some of the capital deserts that truly exist in our communities. So it's I think about as a very elegant solution to solving this problem. And you can do it for a long period of time, not just a one-time shot. And I think that's what the key is. Well, you mentioned earlier the role, the work we did with the Paycheck Protection Program and the important role that, as you so I think aptly term, capillary banking, the capillary banking system in closing these gaps. I'd be interested to get your perspective on how the initiative that Bank of America is, his launch, can connect with those frontline first responder institutions that are more present in these communities, because as we know, you know, banks control the vast level of resources that can help promote wealth, but they are not, they don't have a great history of actually connecting those resources in communities of color and underserved high poverty places. So I would think that we hope we can make the linkage with CDFI's minority depositories as you've been working to strengthen that capillary banking system. Yeah, and I am seeing what I'll call the connective tissue form and now being strengthened. For instance, you know, out of this work, the Business Roundtable convened a group that to focus on a number of areas in one of the areas that I got to colleague with Jamie Diamond was focused on finance, our finance subcommittee. And out of that, we said, OK, what are the things we need to do to enable this capillary banking system to be more effective? And what's come out of that is actually pretty, pretty impressive. First thing is an investment and provide technical assistance to, you know, black owned and run and Latinx own and run businesses. How do you now start to, you know, drive ongoing mentorship support? And we're working on with and I've got a group working with Satya and his team at Microsoft on all the business in a box and, you know, the folks at PayPal and Square and others and saying, OK, well, how do we deliver, you know, technology solutions for 50,000 plus black and Latino small business owners? And that's our goal. 50,000 by 2025 that are enabling technologies, which create most what, you know, the, you know, the average ROI return on investment of technology in the small medium businesses over 900 percent. So it's probably one of the best investments you can make. So that's kind of one to, you know, we've made a goal to provide grants and low cost debt to community development, financial institutions, CDFIs like you run and we set a goal of investing a billion dollars by 2025 and to invest in tier one and two tier two capital and deposits 600 million by 2025. So these are all, you know, the BRT financial institutions, largest financial institutions in the US and then support pilot plans or programs to modernize the systems and infrastructure of the MDIs and CDFIs. So we've got a number of companies who are coming up with a call up the lender in a box solutions to deliver the modernization capability so that you have the ability to deliver to your, well, us to the MDIs, CDFIs, technical solutions, which can decrease the processing cost. And you know this, I mean, without, it takes about seven and a half to eight hours without technology to really process loans effectively. And when you implement these solutions, I mean, you can do these things literally as you build your infrastructure in, you know, minutes or hours. And, you know, cost is reduced quite dramatically. And you can, with more capital, with more modernization, you can make a more efficient lending infrastructure, which will, again, drive massive income and then wealth creation and opportunity in these communities. And I think that's what's sustainable. And so you've got not just large banks, but the big business roundtable with the technical folks and technical companies all focused on these sort of solutions. And now the next piece, of course, is how do we start to drive more policy decisions to start to support this more effectively? And so we're, of course, continuing to work with the administration and congressmen and women and to support those efforts as well. You know, Robert, every time I speak to you while you clearly had incredible success as an investor, it's clear you're training as an engineer. A lot of you are obvious, huh? No, no, you take a very systems approach, you dissect these challenges and then rebuild them. And when you talk about the CDFI sector, I think it's really important and you bring a great perspective to this conversation because often the conversations around CDFI and MDIs, particularly those in places like the ones I serve, I work in the Mississippi Delta, the Black Belt of Alabama, some of the poorest places in the nation. And there's a narrative around lack of capacity. Well, it's lack of investment. And as you've seen, as we've seen when you make the strategic investments, whether it's technology or end capital, because you need both, you can you get incredible results. My organization went from making 40 to 50 business loans in a year to within six months processing 7,400 PPP loans, closing 3,000. And it, you know, it but it took the strategic technology investments as well as the capital. And so that that's I really appreciate you bringing that perspective. To you think about you take that, you know, you take your numbers 50 to, you know, 7,500 or 17,000. You start thinking about scaling that across all the CDFI's and MDIs. And building that capacity and then driving capital through, you know, this channel and and you and I know this when you, you know, we've got 1.4 million small businesses as customers across our portfolio. When you enable those small businesses to be more effective, they hire more people, they stabilize neighborhoods, they put more tax revenues back into those communities and those communities self heal. And I think that's how we should think about it. So it's just it's great to hear, you know, from where we were six, eight months ago to where we are today with your group. It's great. I think we're on the right path. You talk about the impact in communities on on families on children. And I know that's been a big part of your life's work. I've heard you talk about the importance of your high school internship experience at Bell Labs and how how that influenced your career path and ultimately got you where you are today. You talk a little bit about why these opportunities, why internships are so essential to creating a high qualified, diverse pipeline of talent. Sure. You know, where I grew up in Denver, Colorado was that group at a time when computers were just getting introduced into the schools. And today, you know, when you think about it, we have computer capacity that's really available everywhere. The question is, do do kids have access to it? And so, you know, we're working on solutions. We've got some partnerships that are that are coming quite effective, actually, with the BRT and others to say, OK, how do we actually deliver, you know, through these bonds, for instance, the last mile gap for students to gain access to computing capabilities? We have to, as a country, unleash the capacity of our people. We have to unleash the capacity of our young people. And the best way to do that is give them give them access to computing PowerPoint, number one, and then instruction point number two. And then the third thing, which is really the overlay of that is mentorship. You know, I had a great experience working at Bell Laboratories when I was 17 years old and I had a major degree in computer science. I had a mentor who was in the 60s and the relationship of having a very senior person with experience and an interest and a desire to, to, you know, you know, think about, you know, give forward knowledge information is critical. And I credit him in particular with helping me discover the joy of figuring things out, which is, again, one of the things that I embrace as one of the tenants of, you know, a life well lived is enjoying, you know, solving complex problems in that context. And I think what we've been focused on now, we built the platform into an X platform, we've got 12,000 or so African American students and Latin X students. And it's, you know, of course, because of the way it's built, we can kind of have hundreds of thousands and then partnering those with companies and beyond just, OK, here are some students you can choose from, you actually have to, as a company, you know, go through modules of training and how to become a good mentor and how to become a good supervisor for these, for these, these students, especially in today's time when we have distance internships. And then the students that we have, I think now 65 modules, learning modules for those students to go through, some are very technical and some are actually a little more EQ oriented around how to engage in an environment that you're, you know, not familiar with. And it kind of gets back to your, you know, learning part of your question, which was, you know, I grew up in, like I said, a neighborhood, my parents were teachers and we had no real engineers in our community. So what does an engineer do? And it wasn't until I actually got a chance to see what an engineer does that it made me excited to pursue that as a career. And I think it's important that we provide access and exposure, but not just, you know, I don't get me wrong. I think a one day visit to a company is, but, but, but sustainable engagement, which is an easy thing to do in this digital world when we engage today to give those kids a chance to ask the questions and hopefully this, you know, discover the joy of figuring things out. I really appreciate how you have paid it forward. And is, as you said, in addition to the exposure, there are real financial constraints that limit opportunity for communities of color, particularly our children. And as we've seen the enormous amount of debt on families, particularly in minority communities rise, I'd like your thoughts on what what can be done in terms of helping students overcome these these obstacles. You've you've made investments in HBCUs. I'm trying to find the Robert Smith for Mississippi Valley and Alcorn and Tougaloo here in our region. But you clearly have zeroed in on this as an important issue. But what are your thoughts about what can be done in terms of helping students at HBCUs? Sure, sure. And this, you know, a lot of this came out of, you know, as I made the gift at Morehouse and really realizing, you know, that the challenge that a lot of our students have, they come out of school with a little more debt, about seven and five hundred dollars more. And then, unfortunately, because of the, you know, income gap and wealth gap, by their parents typically don't have assets, houses or financial assets that they can pay college, these kids into borrowing more and having more to pay back, you know, five and eight and 10 years later. And that's debilitating. And the most shocking statistic that we learned in this work is over 60% of African American wealth goes towards servicing student debt, student loan debt, and which is just appalling. And we think about most of that capital goes, for the most part, back to the federal government because a lot of our federal loans, you know, a pair of plus loans, etc. And African Americans traditionally haven't participated in some of the other wealth-acquiring mechanisms that the federal government has provided over time, you know, Homestead Act, Southern Homestead Act, GI Bill, those sort of things. And so they don't have the generational wealth to support that next generation of engaging in, you know, the uplift. And most people know that, you know, a college education has traditionally been the biggest, you know, uplift from a wealth perspective in America. But if you're burdened with this debt, it's just almost impossible to overcome in a reasonable period of time. So what we've now done is we launched about a month ago, a thing called SFI Student Freedom Initiative. We're doing our first launch with 11 HBCUs. We funded it with a fund-toon foundation of $50 million. And in essence, what we're able to do is take, and it's the whole idea of paying it forward, take this capital. Students can borrow it. It's a lower price than parent plus loans, but they don't pay it back to, you know, the government or an institution to pay it back into the fund. And if you go and you work at, you know, a tech company or financial institution, whatever, you're making more money, you pay back a little faster, a little bit more. And if you go teach at a school in your community, you pay back a lot less for a lot longer. But it fuels the system that then gets to fund the next generations of kids. So now, with that initial funding, we will be able to graduate STEM students out of those 11 HBCUs in perpetuity, which is phenomenal. And as we raise the additional $450 million, we'll be able to support all STEM students out of all HBCUs in perpetuity. And I think that is, again, a unique solution because we've launched it. And I'm excited about that because it gives these kids, these students have become adults, a chance to actually build wealth, get a college education, not have to burden some debt. They will have debt, but not so burdensome that they can't build wealth. And it gives them some flexibility to not just go work at a job to pay the salary, but potentially go and become a teacher and drive that STEM education back into the communities very directly. So that's why I'm excited about what this initiative is. Oh, that's really exciting. And those numbers are encouraging, particularly as we see the country becoming more black and brown. We cannot afford to leave so many assets underdeveloped. And I think that's what we've done to often with our children, particularly children of color, which takes me to the work you're doing at the Business Roundtable, really encouraged by these restated purpose of a corporation, an economy that works for all Americans. I think that's important. And as you work with this group of CEOs to promote a thriving economy and expand an opportunity, I know that you have been leading in efforts around this racial equity agenda. Can you share some of what, how that's developing and how it addresses racial disparities under the leadership of the business sector? Yeah, I'll tell you. So Doug McVellan over at Walmart kind of the heels of the George Floyd murder said, listen, we need to understand what is going on and do something about it. So he formed a series of subcommittees. One is called the Equitable Justice Subcommittee. Originally, Randall Stevenson was chairing that. Now we have Craig Arnold, who's an Eaton Corporation chairing that group. We have the Health Subcommittee, Arnie Sorenson, who runs Marriott is chairing that group. Jamie Dimon and me on the Finance Committee. And then we have Mary Barr, of course, from General Motors, whose education and workforce subcommittee. And there's two big categories that we focused on. So I'm actually just formed a broadband committee because it's cutting across all of them. One is what can we do as corporate leaders that have access to the assets of the corporation, you know, people hiring, training, et cetera. And then the other piece is what can we support from a policy perspective to advance, you know, racial equity, social justice, et cetera, economic justice. And so we've actually just finished the reports from each of these subcommittees. And I think there's easily over 150 CEOs that got involved in this. And like I said, with real tangible goals for things that we can do and then tangible objectives in terms of things that we can support as it relates to pushing forward through the government, you know, what are the steps the government can take and happily encourage them to take these steps. And so, you know, I would encourage everyone to get a copy of this report and Bill, I'll get a copy to you because, again, it points to some very specific things that we can do as companies and also initiatives that the government, through our support, irrespective of, you know, where you might sit politically, it just makes sense for our citizenry to be the most effective citizenry. And like we talked about, if you really eliminate the wealth disparity in this country, not only does it expand our GDP by up to, you know, seven percent per year, but it also, you know, there's studies, plenty of studies that show that, you know, when you actually have communities that have a, that are economically viable, they are safer communities. And when they're safer communities, you have the ability to support more wholesome lifestyles across the board. So we're, you know, we can eliminate, you know, these capital deserts, these education deserts, healthcare deserts, food deserts through these sort of initiatives. And I think it's incumbent upon the large corporations, which I'm so proud and pleased that the BRT has adopted this as an area that we are going to put true attention and focus on. And then, you know, in addition to the things we're focused on as it relates to, I'll call it climate change, because I think we have to do that all in the construct of, you know, preserving our planet and, you know, the home in which we all live. Well, this is great. I would love to continue this conversation for hours, but I know we're maybe not here. We will take it offline, but I really, what you said really connects with me. We were started here at Hope by Rob Walton, who, Sam Walton's son, who recognized that his interests align with the faith of the people in the communities, where they live and work and where they rely on to buy their products. And I think that alignment between our interests is the only way that we can really get through and these challenges and get collective action at the level that's needed. And so I really love your perspective as we wrap down. Are you optimistic? Do you see the corporate community using their position to, as you said, influence policy, but also their own practices to close these gaps in a way that will actually get us to that more perfect union? So, when I think about it, am I optimistic? Generally, yes. You know, I see the work that's happening at the BRT and I'm optimistic about that. There's, you know, I don't know if you know, Treasurer Wooden that in the state of Connecticut, he has convened a group of investors and these are largest investors in the world. These are, you know, public market investors, you know, from the black rocks and lines burning all those sort of firms. And he has challenged them along the same lines and saying, you bring your heft and your power as investors to these corporations and say, here's what we want from you. You know, I like the way he thinks about it. There's a mirror in the window. Okay. First thing in the mirror, what are you doing internally promoting equitable opportunities within the corporations in which you run? And what are you doing through the window and supporting as an investor initiatives that you know make sense for the corporations that you are the shareholders of? When I think about the corporations and I think about the shareholders, I think about the employees that make up the community and I think about the broader community of teachers and, you know, firefighters and, and healthcare workers, police officers, etc. And then you have government. This is the first time I've heard all of those constituencies really start to say we need to make a change. In some cases, you would see groups say we need to make a change and others would say, I understand that I have a priority that I need to go deal with. That's the first time I'm hearing the priorities being aligned across all of those groups. And that's what gives me optimism. That's what gives me hope. Well, Robert, what, what would you say to these thousands of investors who are watching this conversation today? What is the challenge? What is something you would charge them to do to use their position to make a difference? Yeah, I think first, you know, look in the mirror and say, what can I do with things that I can control hiring, training, promotion, implicit bias? I don't eliminate all of that in my organization as best I can. But don't wait to just do that. Look through the window and say, hear the organizations that are being effective. BRT is a good place to start because we're pointing to, okay, here's you want to get involved in fair housing, you know, nothing about it. Hear organizations that can help. You want to get involved in, you know, Student Freedom Initiative, here's an organization that can do it. So, you know, then be very conscious and look out the window and look at organizations that are doing things and invest in them. You know, we, we pulled together, for instance, a list of 13,000 school districts and what students don't have access to broadband. Well, I'm happy to give you the list. And then you can look in the community and say, you know what? These students may not have broadband or they may have broadband and don't have a device. Let me get involved. And Michael Dell's got his team involved on that for community. So, people are actually saying, what can I do to help? You know, Satya got his team involved in Michael. Well, how do we deliver services and allow costs to these communities? We're delivering the learning management systems through our company. I think that's, look for those companies, those groups, those organizations, those institutions that already have the elegant solutions outlined and put heft behind them, put capital behind them, put time and resources. I tell my teams all the time, we can always write checks, but often it's your, our organizational capacity and writing checks that makes a sustainable difference. And I think that's what we're seeing is a lot of brilliant people focused on bringing a new set of organizational capacity to find the right new equilibrium of, of inclusion in our, in our economy. It's a great charge to end on. Thank you, Robert, for making time to be with us today. Always a pleasure, Bill. And so good to see you take care and I'll probably be talking to you very soon on something else. That's great. Be well. Great. Thanks, my friend.