Kim Smith, executive director of the League of Innovative Schools, has worked for many years to address education equity and has a unique perspective on the barriers to entrepreneurship. In this interview, Kim shares her thought-provoking insights to help drive racial equality in our venture capital industry, and makes a powerful call for white co-conspirators who are ready, willing, and able to fight.
For more, read Kim’s op-ed: A Call to Action — Black Educators Need White Co-Conspirators to Combat Racism in Schools and Empower Our Students to Succeed.
If you want to become a white co-conspirator and change the venture capital diversity ratio, Kim emphasizes that anti-racist work must be done in parallel. She suggests taking time to:
I tried for many years to maintain a jam-packed schedule with zero margin for error, but life never seems to fit into perfectly scheduled boxes. After a straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back moment, I’m learning to live off of the brink of disaster.
Read more ➞I've spent more time than necessary on our fund administration and reporting, in part because of some of the easily avoidable administrative mistakes I’ve made over my 10-year journey as a startup investor.
Read more ➞Over these past two months and throughout all of 2020, I've learned something that I want to record to make sure that I remember: My anxiety about the potential outcomes is almost always worse than the actual outcome.
Read more ➞In this second episode of a new series to feature startups sourced from our Fund81 VC forum members’ portfolios, I interviewed Alaffia Technology Solutions nominated by the Hustle Fund.
Read more ➞