A great interview with Smith at Columbia Business School's Black Business Students Association
Highlights:
1) At 14:30 he discusses the importance of inspiring young African-American's in relation to engineering, and providing them with a model for what is possible. He then discusses how important scaling Black success is, and going beyond focusing on the outliers.
2) At 23:41 he talks about Black people taking advantage of arbitrage in the market that they can take advantage of over a long time period, and the importance of"keeping the ignorant uninformed" meaning given the history of Black folks having barriers erected against them for hundreds of years it is important to create their own barriers to entry. This statement immediately reminded me of Charlie Mungers and Warren Buffet's notion of "Economic Moats"
3) At 26:47 he talks about driving a culture of scholarship within one's own community, and the importance of giving back on a local level even if it is just within one's family.
4) At 48:31 he is asked how to close the technology gap between that exist in the Black community. And in his answer he acknowledges the barriers that have been erected for centuries in relation to wealth and how there are modern structural issues that undermine the ability to close the gap. I rock with this part heavy, because he could have easily descended into moral grandstanding or a misguided vigor and gusto willpower shtick that is the M.O of CEO's but instead acknowledged the structural issues while simultaneously articulating how to undermine those issues to some degree.
Overall a good interview.