April 10, 2025 • 55 mins
Join Joel Palathinkal as he explores Claude Grunitzky's journey from founding Trace magazine to creating Equity Alliance. They discuss balancing life and work, the concept of "Flow," and the importance of community. Claude shares insights on hip hop culture, cross-cultural collaborations, and music evolution. Discover parallels between talent sourcing in music and venture capital, and Equity Alliance's mission for a diverse investment team. The episode covers selecting fund managers, identifying underserved markets, Claude's shift to documentary filmmaking, and strategies for teaching founders about QSPS and trusts, alongside balancing work, health, and family.
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(00:00):
Yeah.
(00:00):
That was I was I was just so obsessed withthat.
And I guess that kinda speaks to my wholetheory on life as well, is never being stuck in
a box and always navigating different circlesand not ever wanting to be defined by somebody
else's categorization.
Yeah.
Yeah.
One of my favorite songs by Kanye, and thisgoes back to you know, I really love the the
(00:20):
harmony side.
I mean, was impossible.
I don't know if you remember that song.
To the investor, a podcast where I, JoelPalafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
(00:41):
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
We are live go ahead, Claude.
Well, anyways, let me introduce you, Claude.
So we're live here with Claude Grunitzky.
Super excited to have him on the show.
I'm really, really a huge admirer of his workand I just like to highlight amazing people and
(01:06):
just kind of the things that he's done in hispast career and how that's cascaded.
We're gonna start joking around a little bitbecause some of the stuff that he did in the
past I wish I wanted to do when I was a kid,you know, kind of get into the get into the
sectors that he was focusing on.
But Claude, know, thank you for popping on, youknow, being super generous with your time.
(01:27):
I know you're really, really busy, so I'mexcited to have you on.
It's so good to be with you, Joel.
I mean, it's funny that you said, you'rereally, really busy because I always joke that
everyone in New York always says they're busy.
You ask them how they're doing.
Oh, I'm busy.
I'm busy.
There's no other city where the defaultresponse when you ask people how they are is
busy.
Yeah.
I guess maybe maybe we we work in busy circlesand we Mhmm.
(01:49):
Work with people who are always busy or is thatsomething that you've noticed as well?
Oh yeah, I think so.
But you know what's funny though?
Like when you say you're really busy, you know,if something is exciting, you'll move your
schedule around.
Like that's one thing that I learned, you know,we were both community people.
We build, you know, ecosystems and and, youknow, one thing I've noticed is if you have
(02:11):
this is kind of a tip that I've given someemerging managers, like if you're putting
together some type of community event and itsounds super irresistible, like no matter how
busy people are, they'll move their schedulearound and try to go to that event.
So that whole busy narrative, like, changes ifif something irresistible happens or something
exciting happens.
And that happens to me too.
You know, I'm busy, but, hey, if I get to chatwith Claude or somebody interesting, then then
(02:36):
you make it work.
Well, yes.
I'm I'm glad you mentioned that because, itreminded me of a book that I absolutely love
and I've actually got as a gift, as a presentfor so many friends over the years.
It's flow by the Hungarian, American,psychologist Mihaly Mihaly, and he talks about
(02:57):
the the psychology of optimal experience.
Right?
Mhmm.
And how sometimes you can be busy working andyou're so much in that state of flow that you
don't even realize that it's like 2AM andyou're still working and you can still keep
working on it for two or three months.
Yeah.
You know, and and and that mindset for monthsand months And it's almost like he you know,
(03:18):
one of his quotes is like attention is likeenergy and that without it, no work can be done
and then doing work is dissipated.
We create, you know, ourselves by using energyin the right way, I think he said.
And, you know, that's something that's alwaysreally been really important to me because I
find that when I'm in that state of flow, Ioperate on such a higher level, and that's what
(03:39):
I've been seeking throughout my career.
You know, the challenge, that that excitementof, you know, doing something that is difficult
enough, but not too difficult that it'sunattainable.
You know?
I'll I'll I'll just give you an example.
Last Sunday, I ran my very first marathon herein New York, and, you know, 26 miles is very
(03:59):
difficult.
Mhmm.
And I had trained by doing two twenty milers inpreparation for Sunday's race.
But Yeah.
20 so much more difficult than 20, but it's notso difficult like 35 that you can't do it.
And that's kind of like how I look at my lifeand work right now is the kind of challenges
that I choose to take on.
(04:20):
It's like, it can't be too easy, but it can'tbe so difficult that it's pie in the sky in a
sense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I got a couple of things to jam on with that.
So there was, you know, so I heard of Flowbecause there is a pretty well known private
equity investor.
He does buyout named Graham Weaver.
So he's like all over the Internet now.
And, there was a podcast with him.
(04:41):
I guess he's got I think his fund now was like15,000,000,000 in assets.
And he does straight up, you know, buyoutinvestment.
But he mentioned the book Flow.
And I think it's really interesting.
Think, look, there was a saying that I heardthe other day where, you know, we spend when
we're kids, we spend our time trying to beolder, right?
We're like 15 years old.
(05:01):
We want to be older so we can party and andhave fun and be old enough to drink.
And then and then when we get older, we'respending all our time and the resources to feel
young again.
And, you know, we make money,
you know,
and then we make all this money.
So in a lot of times when you make all thismoney, sometimes you sacrifice your health and
then you make the money and then you use moneyto to hopefully stay healthy and pay for pills
(05:25):
and all that stuff.
So we're so busy, I think, worried about thefuture.
Some of us are traumatized by the past, butlike the state of flow is really kind of like
thinking about like enjoying the present.
Like this weekend, I spend time with my kids.
My son was doing ice skating in Bryant Park andI was kind of consciously thinking about I was
(05:46):
like, wow, this is like I should really be kindof enjoying this time instead of kind of
worrying about, you know, his college tuitionand all that, which, you know, hopefully you'll
figure out in the future about.
But, know, we spent a lot of time, I feel, andI don't know what, you know, how it is talking
to your people in your circles, but there's alot of worrying about kind of the future and,
hey, am I gonna, you know, be wealthy enoughand all that stuff?
(06:09):
But, you know, a lot of the joy is kind of liketoday, you know, right now.
Yeah.
I I mean, to close the loop on that is whatyou're saying really resonates with me.
You know, one thing I've learned is, you knowwhat?
Again, that state of flow, which is like thismotivation that involves being fully focused on
the situation that you're in or the task thatyou're actually handling at that very moment.
(06:32):
One thing I've learned is if I'm with you onthis podcast, I do not wanna be checking my
phone while I'm doing that because I wanna befully present and fully in the moment because
Mhmm.
You know, there's always gonna be someimportant message that flows through, right,
while we're doing this.
And it's the same as being with your kid.
You know, when they notice that you are focusedon something else and not fully focused on
(06:56):
them, it ends up altering the relationship.
And that's a real problem in our contemporarysocieties, I feel Mhmm.
Because we're multitasking.
We're stressed out because of so manynotifications coming about the Hamas, you know,
Israel war.
There's always something so urgent that isgonna grab our attention.
(07:16):
And Mhmm.
I feel like that leads to a lot of stress.
You know?
That leads
to a lot of stress.
I wanna be in that zone where I'm doing what Ilove with the people that I love, and I'm fully
focused on doing that with the people that Ilove.
Yeah.
No.
I agree.
Well, you know, this is a great preamble tokick things off, you know, just enjoying the
moment, enjoying the moment with you, Claude.
(07:36):
But let's take a step back and learn about whoClaude is.
You know, tell me about your family.
Tell me about where you grew up.
What did you study?
And, you know, tell me how you landed to whereyou are now.
I know a little of it, but I want the communityto hear it.
And, I want you to take you take us on thisjourney.
Well, it's a it's a it's a it's a real pleasureand honor really to be on this podcast with
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you.
And in sharing my journey, I have to take itall the way back to Togo because I was born in
Togo in West Africa.
And I grew up in a really interestingenvironment because my parents who were never
married were from two totally differentsocioeconomic backgrounds.
My dad was a rising star in Togolese politics.
(08:23):
He was a finance minister when I was a kidgrowing up in Togo.
Two of his uncles had been president of Togo.
He himself was very ambitious in what is aimingfor higher office.
And my mom, however, was a seamstress whodidn't have any sort of real formal education
and was really kinda struggling.
(08:46):
Mhmm.
And so I ended up, you know, spending mychildhood, my sister and I, navigating those
two worlds of privilege and poverty on a weeklybasis.
And I always say that that really shaped mywhole perspective on life and relationships and
friendships and family because thoseexperiences that I that I kinda went through as
a child allowed me to be comfortable in anyenvironment.
(09:09):
You know?
So now I'm comfortable with my billionairefriends.
I'm comfortable in the slums of Togo, in theshanty towns of Rio.
I could be comfortable in white communities,black communities.
I'm comfortable in Tokyo.
I'm comfortable in Soweto when I go to SouthAfrica and and Johannesburg, when I'm also
(09:29):
comfortable in Rosebank, the the upper middleclass white neighborhoods.
And that allowed me to relate to pretty muchanyone without kind of feeling like I was an
impostor in that environment.
Mhmm.
You know?
Yeah.
And and so when I ended up, you know, growingup a bit, my dad had a swift fall in politics
(09:51):
and he lost all his power.
He was destitute, it was really difficult.
And by the time I was a teenager, when I was12, I moved to Paris and went to Catholic
boarding school.
And, you know, it was a, you know, a verydifficult time because it was a fall from grace
for my dad, and my mom was still kindastruggling in Togo.
(10:13):
But, you know, we would only see our parentsonce a year in the summer, my sister and I.
And so I ended up, you know, not growing uparound my family, and I would see relatives on
the weekends sometimes.
But I really just grew up in an all boysCatholic, you know, boarding school outside
Paris Mhmm.
And dealing with racism in a in a very deepfundamental way.
And and that racist experience that I had atCatholic boarding school led to a discovery of
(10:39):
hip hop as Mhmm.
Liberation.
You know?
And so I discovered hip hop when I was ateenager, and I fell in love with hip hop and
hip hop culture.
And after I graduated, I went to an eliteuniversity in Paris and then went to London
University.
I had started a magazine, a monthly hip hopmagazine when I was in my early twenties
(11:00):
because I wanted to document this culture so Icould feel that hip hop was going to be an
important subculture that ended up influencingglobal popular culture, not just New York
popular culture or urban popular cultures inmajor metropolises like Paris, London, and New
York, but that would go mainstream.
So after I launched that magazine Trace inLondon, I moved to New York when I was 27 years
(11:26):
old
Mhmm.
To launch that magazine here in The UnitedStates, here in New York City.
And, again, I always talk about how I came toNew York.
I didn't know anybody in New York.
I was a destitute, penniless immigrant who wasliving hand to mouth, really struggling as an
independent media entrepreneur.
Right?
I by by then, I was both editor and publisherof my magazine selling advertising, chief
(11:50):
bottle washer, doing everything, writingstories, recruiting photographers, just really
struggling to pay my bills every single month.
And living that New York story, living onAvenue C, Alphabet City with a bunch of drug
dealers and just kinda seeing, like, pimps andprostitutes and crackheads on the street corner
all the time, it was, like, a very difficultenvironment, that New York, entryway for me.
(12:13):
But then I found a way to build relationshipswith certain people who became the arbiters of
black culture, in in New York.
And and and that led to incredible editorialcoverage, you know, with a lot of discoveries
of new musicians and and and new actors and newsingers who were writing that hip hop wave and
(12:37):
looking at how hip hop was not just aboutmusic, but it was also about fashion and film
and art and technology and increasingly just,you know, mainstream culture.
And Yeah.
On the back of that, I was able to secure, a$15,000,000 investment from Goldman Sachs who
invested in in in my company when I was, around30 years old.
(13:00):
And that was a big, big victory because
Yeah.
You know, as a first generation founder, youknow, I didn't have any founders in my family.
And no one told me, oh, this is how you grow abusiness.
This is how you negotiate a series a termsheet.
You know, I I literally had to make it up as Iwent along and figure it out.
But I was extremely lucky that I had a coupleof, you know, really great friends and new
(13:22):
business partners who kinda joined my journeyas an entrepreneur, and we were able to grow
this business.
And we actually sold that company Trace in02/2010.
And at that time, I just decided to become anangel investor.
I started, entrepreneurship programs, and and acouple years later, I started teaching at at
(13:42):
Harvard at the Social Innovation and ChangeInitiative as a way to help the next generation
of founders, do their thing.
And I was really always focused on on foundersof color and also women founders because I felt
like, you know, underrepresented foundersreally had something to say.
And so I started investing in their companies,mentoring them.
You know, they would come to my workshops, mylectures, my classes, and just launching
(14:06):
accelerator programs and and just really alsodoing a lot in Africa.
You know, as part of Barack Obama's youngAfrican leaders initiative, I started building
entrepreneurship programs, for the MandelaWashington fellows who are kind of the elite
young African leaders that are selected bythis, by this program and just really enjoying
life producing films and just really having agreat life.
(14:29):
And then Yeah.
We'll pause there, but but two years ago twoand a half years ago, I got a call from Dick
Parsons who had been a long time mentor sinceback in since he was the CEO and chair of
Citigroup.
And, actually, even before then, back when hewas the the CEO and chair of Time Warner, you
know, which was one of the time that I hadraised money from my own startup, those Trace
(14:52):
media venture that I mentioned earlier.
And I had built a relationship with him over atwenty year period and he said, well, you know
what?
We should join forces and launch the equityalliance as a fund, to invest in other funds.
So in a fund of funds model, investing in VCfunds that are run by women and people of
color, and also having a a pocket of capitalwithin the funds to back the most promising
(15:18):
startup founders within the portfolios of thefunds that we've backed, and that's how the
Equity Alliance was born in in in in 2021.
And, of course, unlike Graham, we don't have$15,000,000,000 under management.
We we chose to start small.
We started with a $25,000,000 fund one.
We actually ended up oversubscribing that andlaunching a fund one at 28,000,000.
And now we're raising, fund two.
(15:40):
We're raising 50,000,000 for our fund two.
Sure.
Yeah.
Well, you did a really good job kind of goingthrough the entire, you know, career history
and kind of how you built the business and andreally scaled it to be successful.
There's a couple of things that I was kind ofthinking about, you know, and and what I was
alluding to earlier in the intro was about, youknow, my interest in music.
(16:02):
You know, I my personal journey, I was, youknow, learning how to play the drums.
I learned how to play the drums, listening toLed Zeppelin and Metallica, I thought I was
going to be in a rock band at some point.
My parents kind of discouraged it.
I've kind of vented about this several times onmultiple episodes, so people are probably going
to highlight that and give me a hard time aboutit.
(16:24):
But it's interesting how music still kind offollows you back.
I mean, the fund accelerator that I launched,I've met so many interesting people that have
been in the music space and I've been able tokind of slowly get back involved.
I've started taking a few music productioncompanies.
So I think, you know, sometimes things happenfor a reason.
And and even if what you want to do doesn'thappen when you want to, if it's meant to be,
(16:47):
it'll kind of come at the right time.
So like, you know, I want to know a little moreabout your time in Paris.
So, you know, there was some hip hop culturethere.
What were some of the hip hop influences?
You know, can you can you tell us kind of whothe the artists were at that time?
I'm trying to think was it, know, what whatyear was this?
Was this in the eighties or the nineties?
(17:07):
I guess who were who were their biggestinfluences in Paris, and what were some of the
biggest differences, obviously, besides justrapping in French, in terms of, like, the
musical style and kind of the lyrics and andall that stuff?
I'd love to know kind of about that rap cultureand hip hop culture in Paris.
Oh, wow.
Oh, I'm we're really gonna get into it nowsince this is, the stuff that really shaped me.
(17:28):
So back Yeah.
When I discovered hip hop, this was the lateeighties.
Mhmm.
And, I moved, from Paris to London in 1990.
Mhmm.
And, you know sorry.
Nineteen ninety one.
Sorry.
And I was 20 years old in 1991.
And, in the eighties in Paris, actually inFrance, not just Paris because Marseille was
(17:48):
also a really big city for hip hop.
There were a few bands that came out, and manyof them had been influenced by a show that was
literally on prime time show every weekend, onFrench television, TF one, the major, state
owned broadcaster, and it was called Hip Hopand we would say that's spelling h I v h o v in
(18:14):
French and that show had a lot of New Yorkluminaries coming on all the time people like
Africa Bandada became luminaries.
They were coming from New York and kind ofpaving the way for a new style of French
expression.
And a few bands came out of that hip hop era.
One of them was from Paris.
(18:35):
It's called NTM.
They they became really, really big.
And another one from Marseille that I mentionedearlier in the South, they were called I AM.
I AM.
So those were two of the big bands back in theday.
And then from there, around the time that Idecided to move to London, there wasn't an
(18:55):
emcee who kind of just came out of suburbanParis and made a lot of noise because he made,
you know, French hip hop a lot more palatableto mainstream audiences.
His name is m c Solar, s o l, double a, r.
And he created a couple albums that were bighits and that kind of really touched on the
(19:19):
French love of poetry and using, like, Frenchstyle poetry with kind of hip hop vernacular
Mhmm.
French French slang, specifically, which iswhen we were growing up, was a specific, way of
of speaking by inversing the syllables.
So Mhmm.
(19:40):
Joel would be would be well, so we wouldpronounce the l before the Joe.
Yeah.
Claude would be.
And he used to really bring the new expressionsof French language that were coming out of, you
know, French youthful rebellion into, poetryand into hip hop and and and creating that with
(20:03):
just very kind of simple boom bap original rap,and that became extremely popular.
So those were the, I'm gonna call mycontemporaries Mhmm.
People who kind of ended up shaping the newgeneration of French MC culture.
And then in the nineties, it became really,really mainstream.
Yeah.
And France, towards the late nineties, early '2thousands became, you know
(20:24):
It's like Tupac and Biggie.
That's like the 1994, '19 '90 '6.
Bill Clinton, Tupac, Biggie.
Like, that was kinda that's what I think aboutin those years.
So that's kinda when it really blew Yeah.
Yeah.
But then but then what happened was a lot ofthe American emcees would come to Paris because
Yeah.
France by then was the second hip hop nationafter The US, and they would perform in Paris
(20:44):
and sometimes freestyle with French, rappers,and you would have to and French and English
together.
And when I became a magazine, editor andpublisher, I actually did a deal with Virgin
Records to produce three different, recordscalled Le Flow.
Le Flow oh, see, like, Le Flow that we justtalked about at the beginning of the episode.
(21:06):
Lo, f l o w, that were, MC Solar with MissyElliott, collaborations between French MCs and
American MCs.
Yeah.
And that was just great.
Those three records did really well because Ithink it was a way for me to bring my love for
hip hop, from a transatlantic perspective andget MCs from both sides of the pond to
collaborate.
(21:26):
And so those were just wonderful, wonderfulprojects for me.
I mean, even in the nineties, it was reallycool to just see R and B be mixed in with, with
hip hop too.
Right?
So you got a lot of the R and B artists, kindof doing a solo or kind of having a track on
top of the on top of the hip hop beat.
And, you know what?
What I really appreciated with Kanye, this islike February, '2 thousand and '5 Kanye.
(21:51):
Yes, late late registration.
You know, what I loved about him was, you know,he would get different artists, right?
He'd get like someone from Coldplay or Maroonfive to be mixed in to hip hop, which I didn't
see earlier, but just kind of seeing just a lotmore creativity with just different genres and
like mixing that into hip hop.
And then just kind of his style of justchopping up the sped up records, right, and
(22:13):
kind of having that, you know, turn into a newtrack.
I mean, I've seen after that, you know, I'veseen Kylo have kind of interesting tracks where
like he'll take different snippets of like avoice and like kind of make that a beat.
I don't know if you kind of noticed that insome of the of the tracks that like Kylo has
done.
(22:33):
I guess what are some other interesting justbecause you're a music lover like me, like what
are some interesting kind of innovations thatyou've seen in terms of like the music style?
Obviously, we've got trap music that's beenaround for the last few few years.
And then, you know, I've been following somestuff on TikTok and Instagram that actually has
mentioned Afrobeats.
(22:54):
So they got like Afrobeats and then there'slike a harmony on top of it.
But like that's what I've observed.
I would love to hear like what you've kind ofheard in terms of like new types of styles and
just what's what's exciting to you.
Well, I guess the music that I've loved Mhmm.
And that I ended up writing about and coveringwhen I was a magazine editor, was very much
(23:20):
like the kind of food that I love.
It's it was very much always written by fusion.
When I talked about NC Solar, now he kind ofbrought French poetry Mhmm.
And and and, you know, hip hop boom bap kind ofbeats the hip hop in France.
You know, I love the clash of cultures.
And the record that really, in a sense, changedmy life and main reason I decided to move from
(23:42):
Paris to London as a 20 year old is a recordcalled Blue Lines by, Massive Attack.
I don't know if you've ever heard that record.
Massive Attack is a British band from Bristolin England, and they were kind of using
electronic music, fusing it with hip hop, andwith a specific kind of rhyming and singing
(24:04):
style that was extremely original and nottrying to be like a New York emcee style.
So I've always loved music that is very much afusion of different forms of art of musical art
forms.
And that's why I spent a lot of time covering,Gangstar and Guru's Jasmine Taz record, you
(24:25):
know, which was like hip hop and jazz.
And then I spent a lot of time with Mary JaneBlige when she was kind of anointed the queen
of hip hop soul, you know, that you mentionedearlier, that fusion.
And then what happened was when Kanye camealong, he really and this is when I kinda knew
Kanye and hung out with him back in the daysthat you mentioned, 02/2004, '2 thousand '5, '2
(24:46):
thousand '6.
This he really found a way to create incrediblemusic that was very much about selecting the
best of different forms and but still rootingit within the rhythmic of pure hip hop Yeah.
And and expanding the barriers of of hip hop asa result.
(25:08):
And that was a really fresh take on producingbefore he was even known as a rapper.
You know?
Kanye was an extraordinary producer before hebecame a a MC.
I remember that.
So exactly.
Right?
And so I've always spent a lot of time, youknow, with people who were breaking boundaries,
exploring different art forms, and pushingthemselves.
I remember I'm still, and I was, very close tothe Wu Tang.
(25:30):
RZA just made the music for my new film.
I have Blue Carbon that just came out two weeksago.
I've also produced documentaries, but that'sanother conversation we'll have later maybe.
RZA, who created the Wu Tang, you know, Iremember being on tour with them, you know,
Rage Against the Machine.
So I love how, okay, now rock and hip hop willcome together and explore new kinds of
(25:52):
collaboration, how the audiences that, youknow, would kind of mingle and be a little bit
more curious about the evolution of theirvarious art forms and how we could cross
pollinate.
That was I was I was just so obsessed withthat.
And I guess that kinda speaks to my wholetheory on life as well, is never being stuck in
a box and always navigating different circlesand not ever wanting to be defined by somebody
(26:16):
else's categorization.
Yeah.
Yeah.
One of my favorite songs by Kanye, and thisgoes back to you know, I really love the the
harmony side.
I mean, was impossible.
I don't know if you remember that song.
Would that Keisha Cole?
Course.
I do.
Twista.
Yeah.
And I
just remember that video.
amazing.
Just like the the drum beats that were thereand then just kinda like, yeah, Twista on
there.
Then he had, Keisha Cole kinda singing the, thethe chorus.
(26:41):
But that was just, probably one of my favoritesongs.
Then then the Jamie Fox song, the first one,that, you know, put Jamie kind of back into R
and B because remember he used to be on theJamie Foxx show, right?
And then he would sing every once in while onthe show and, know, he was known to be a
singer.
Sang in church and then you know I guess Kanyeand this is the thing there's so many parallels
(27:04):
in life right?
When Kanye was a producer he's sourcing talentjust like a VC would be sourcing great
founders, great people, great partners.
I mean, he would be like, look, I want Jamie.
Jamie's got the voice Twist it can, you know,rap really fast.
And you're kind of like this person that is,you know, sourcing people to kind of put out
(27:24):
the great outputs.
You know?
So so many parallels with, with, like you know,we're we're gonna get into portfolio
construction a little bit, but but, I've justseen so many parallels in life.
Oh, no.
I'm so glad you mentioned Jamie Foxx because alot of people don't realize what a gifted
singer he was.
I mean, that album he put out around the sametime around that 02/2004, '2 thousand '5 time,
that album unpredictable Mhmm.
(27:46):
Which which also featured yeah.
If if if right?
You remember that.
Right?
It had Kanye on the song called extravaganza.
It was the
Is that the one with Blame It?
Is that with T Pain?
Or is that
the that It is.
Exactly.
It's the I think it's the one with T Pain.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Mhmm.
So, yeah.
I mean, it's I think maybe T Pain was a bit wasthe one after.
(28:08):
Anyway, it was around that same time.
Mhmm.
But, you know, he had great collaborators.
He had Timbalan who was doing great work forMissy Elliott at the time.
It was just like an incredible time forexploration around pushing the boundaries of
what music meant and how hip hop was not goingto be restricted to what people expected it to
be.
(28:28):
Mhmm.
And as a result, hip hop ended up broadeningits audience, you know, via r and b, via pop,
via rock, and and and also, influencing a lotof Caribbean art forms Mhmm.
You know, and all the way to drum and bass andjungle in The UK, all the way to trap that we
mentioned.
And and and and so, yeah, we could talk aboutthis forever, but I just love how this very
(28:51):
small subculture from the South Bronx ended up,you know, becoming so huge.
And I think it's important that we're talkingabout that this year as we celebrate the fifty
years of hip hop.
Yeah.
No, it's exciting.
And I mean, there's so many parallels to, youknow, sourcing talent.
(29:11):
Right?
I mean, you could be an A and R artist, andwhat you have to do is you essentially have to
find the next star.
So if you're an investor, you're trying to finda portfolio company, know, hopefully that's a
star that's going to make it worth the time ofeverybody and the resources.
So tell me some of your learnings kind ofswitching from being an entrepreneur to now
(29:32):
being an institutional investor.
What are some of the things that you'velearned?
What are the things that you look at when youlook at maybe maybe we can break it out into
fund managers and then, you know, founders?
Yeah.
So I've had, like, basically three careers,I'll say.
Mhmm.
So my first career, which lasted fourteenyears, was my journey as a media entrepreneur
(29:56):
with Trace all the way to the exit in 02/2010.
Mhmm.
And the next decade, really from, 02/2010 to02/2020 was really to me just about angel
investing, mentoring, paying it forward,helping young entrepreneurs do their thing.
(30:18):
And I really enjoyed doing that, you know,launching these accelerator programs that I
mentioned or the entrepreneurship track forBarack Obama's young African leaders
initiative.
That was really rewarding.
And I also started teaching at HarvardUniversity about seven years ago, and that was
also great because I got to work with, youknow, social change makers, young founders,
(30:41):
young nonprofit leaders looking to launch forprofit or nonprofit ventures that would just
basically will make the world a better place,looking for societal change.
Mhmm.
And I wasn't really looking to become a founderagain, launch a new venture.
I was just really, as I said, happy producingfilms and podcasts and having fun teaching and
angel investing.
However, when Dick Parsons called me, as I saidearlier and said, let's start the equity lines,
(31:08):
I was I really thought to myself, what do Iwhat do I bring to this table?
I'm not an investor.
I mean, as an angel investor, I've never beenlike a VC.
You know, VC is a skill set that I don't have.
But then I thought about a lot of the VCs thatI've met.
And in the conversation that we had about, youknow, kinda growing scaling businesses, they
(31:31):
they they had, you know, they had a theoreticalunderstanding of what it was, but they had
never done it.
Yeah.
They never knew what it was like to have tomake payroll.
And, you know, was bootstrapping the way wedid.
You know, they have no sense of the stress thatcomes with being a founder.
You know?
And I was like, you know what?
I feel like because I've experienced the painsand the joys of being a founder, I can actually
(31:54):
throw my hat in the ring and actually be a VCby leaning on my experience as a first
generation founder in an environment whereblack men are not supposed to raise money for
their ventures.
Yeah.
Black women are not supposed to raise money fortheir ventures.
Latinos and Latinas are mostly excluded.
And if you're not in the club, then you're nottaken seriously.
(32:17):
And so I was like, I can do this.
And on the strength of conviction knowing that,you know, I've gone through the entire journey
of having an idea, starting a company, buildinga team, raising money, selling my company, and
then advising young founders, there's somethingthat I brought to the table.
(32:37):
And the realization that I couldn't do italone.
So I was able to identify a couple of peoplewho really helped me in the early days.
Yeah.
Max Yann and Julia Paliar, who, were at thattime working, with one of our lead investors,
Ron Lauder, one of the owners of the EsteeLauder Companies Mhmm.
And also a very good friend of Dick Parsons.
(32:58):
They were like my team, my adviser, before Ieven had a fund.
And then I was once we actually raised capitaland were able to kinda build management fees,
then we actually ended up recruiting, first, aprincipal and now also chief investment
officer, Adrian Rees, and who's actuallysomebody who has experience investing because
she had previously worked with WaltonEnterprises investing money for the Walton
(33:21):
family.
Mhmm.
Obviously, as you can imagine, one of the big,big family offices in America.
Sure.
You know, she brought the rigor, the processdriven, diligence to the party, whereas I
brought a much more instinctive instinctualapproach to cutting through the bullshit and
understanding the addressable market and themindset of the of the founder to see how
(33:45):
resilient they were, how much great they were,and how they can withstand the pressures of
growing an a a company in a very, very tougheconomy.
And I feel like that combination of havingAdam, who I had hired right after he graduated
from MIT Sloan, where I also graduated from,you know, that helped us to bring three
different skill sets to the party.
(34:06):
And then working under the leadership of ourguy and chairman Dick Parsons, who's one of the
most astute businessmen I've ever met.
He was not an investor per se, but he wasprobably still is the single most successful
black corporate corporate executive ever tohave worked in America.
You know?
So he has great judgment, and he helps us tomake great decisions when sometimes we're a bit
(34:30):
stuck on what the choice points are.
So Yeah.
I feel like those different skill sets allowedus to launch a very small fund that it was a
proof of concept fund one that would also allowus to punch above our weight.
You know?
It it was like we knew that we were small, butwe also wanted to create a model that others
could follow.
And so in a sense, the early success that we'reseeing with the Equity Alliance is a testament
(34:53):
to the fact that we've been able to assemble ateam that is really much really very much
focused on this mission, which is to help todemocratize access to capital and to accelerate
economic mobility in America.
You know?
And so with that single-minded focus on doingthat, there's very few instances that we could
ever have any sort of mission creep because weknow why we're in this game.
(35:15):
Yeah.
We're in this game because we're trying to helpchallenge some of the inequities that have that
have made the VC world so unfair and and andand and and for so many people for so long.
No.
I totally agree.
And I think, you know, the the strategy thatyou have, I'm seeing with a lot of other funds
in terms of having the direct strategy and alsothe fund strategy, because it's also
(35:38):
interesting because a lot of the funds haveunderlying, deal flow that's very, very high
quality and you know there's obviously,benefits to be part of those ecosystems as
well, right?
It's those funds they have their AGMs, theircommunity networks and their events.
You know, that's what we met, right?
We met through kind of a common colleague thatwas also an LP.
(35:59):
So, you know, you kind of just cascade thosenetworks.
So I think that's that's why it's reallystrategic to to kind of have a fund investment
arm too.
And you just learn from other people.
I mean, you learn from smarter people.
So I mean, on your end, what are some of thethings that you know you guys look for in in
founders, you know, in terms of the businessmodel, maybe the character of the founder and
(36:22):
that, you know, I mean, what's exciting isthese emerging managers, they're also business
people, right?
They have to they have to manage their p and l.
They have a budget.
They're they're in the business of firmbuilding.
So what are some of the attributes that havegotten you excited in terms of the maybe the
fund manager selection process too?
Right.
(36:43):
I love this question, and I'm gonna try toanswer it in a pretty succinct way, and I'll be
concise.
So we work with emerging fund managers, as yousaid, but we also work with founders, right,
who are in the portfolios of these emergingfund managers.
The emerging fund managers, what I love is theprocess of delineating across the board based
(37:05):
on their thesis, their lived experience, andtheir ability to have a real point of view on a
specific, potential marketplace.
Mhmm.
And we've invested in some generalist funds andit's just fine, but if somebody is gonna tell
me that they're launching a fund that's focusedon health tech, I really wanna understand what
(37:30):
makes you really the very best person to bechallenging, the status quo and spotting the
best founders and the best, startup ideaswithin the world of health tech, You know?
And so I don't pretend to know everything, butit turns out that the majority of our
investments have been in fintech, health tech,and and and and I'll just call it SaaS.
(37:52):
Mhmm.
And and so a lot of people are tackling theseproblems, but we also look at people that are
looking for the underserved markets, that arenot being addressed properly.
So if there's health inequities, and if there'sa solution for sickle cell anemia, which, you
know, affects many, many black people and ablack founder is, is is trying to solve this
(38:17):
this this problem, and this emerging managerhas spotted and invested in this black founder
and really understands what it is that they'retrying to do, that kind of lived experience and
that kind of knowledge of the environment andthe socioeconomic environment and the
psychographics of that community is somethingthat we look at.
Mhmm.
You know?
(38:37):
Because of of the problem is a a lot ofemerging managers are, not differentiated.
You know, I can't tell you how many managerstold me they were solving for the future of
work.
You know, future of work, for sure of work.
What do you bring to the future of work debate
Yeah.
That is so differentiated?
(38:58):
Right?
What do you know about future of work and howfuture of income, you know, how all of that is
gonna change in the next few years?
Of course, there's a lot that's written aboutthat, but Mhmm.
You know, what is it in your experience andyour own personal interest that allows you to
have a very, very specific lane that you canown within the broader debate around future of
(39:21):
war?
Yeah.
Turns out that certain people have figured itout, and the ones who've cracked the code, we
figured it out pretty quickly.
And then so once we get to know these managersand we have really strong conviction on them,
the work that we do is get to know them so thatthey can share their deal flow with us and tell
us who their outstanding, founders are.
And, you know, once they've introduced us tothese founders, our job is to get to know these
(39:46):
founders really well before we write a direct,investment check into their their company.
Mhmm.
And Yeah.
And and that is the part that I love the mostbecause as a founder myself, I I I I can relate
to their challenges.
I know the stress that they're facing.
I know they work every weekend.
I know.
Kai used to work every weekend, you know, everysingle week.
(40:07):
And I I just know, that they're on this hustle.
You know?
And I can tell the ones who will stop atnothing to achieve their goals so long as they
are in a market that has that is large enough,you know, sufficiently large addressable market
to solve a big enough problem that we can get apretty huge return on our investment.
(40:27):
I'm pretty good at spotting those, and that'show we were able to spot, Samir Goel and Wimimo
Abi from Isuzu, where we invested in their around back in July 2021.
And six months later in January 2022, theyraised a b round at a $10,000,000,000 at a
(40:47):
$1,000,000,000 valuation.
Sorry.
That's me being that's a Freudian slip.
That's a nice b.
Still an ice b.
So and this market is still a nice b.
So yeah.
Yeah.
So I'm just saying that because I'm hoping thatIsuzu becomes a $10,000,000,000 company, by the
time we exit.
So, you know, and by meeting these two founderswho at that time when they were in late late
(41:09):
twenties, I could just tell that they were sofor real because they were tackling a specific
area within fintech and financial inclusionwithin fintech that is about helping renters
get on the property ladder and become owners.
We have building their credit score.
And that is a very simple proposition thatanybody could understand, but not everybody
could execute on.
(41:30):
Yeah, yeah, I got so I got three comments,right?
So in this market, somebody asked me this.
I was on a panel in D.
C.
A couple of days ago and they're like, hey,what are the exciting markets in a recession?
And, you know, any market where you're puttingmoney into somebody's pocket, especially in
these times are saving money.
Feel like it's a it's an amazing business andit's also an opportunity, especially if you're
(41:53):
making, you know, good, good amounts of growingrevenue, but you're also putting money in
somebody's pocket.
I feel like in my opinion, you know, on thefintech side, that's an amazing business in
these times.
And then another point that I want to respondto is just what makes fund managers different.
You know, I run a fund accelerator and thatsame point is what I hear often.
(42:15):
You know, there could be five climate changefunds.
They all look exactly the same and they youknow, the things that they're talking about
sound exactly the same.
And what I've also heard from specific LPs islike, you know, the pedigree is so great that
it's kind of boring, you know?
So, you know, you know, we would you got a teamthat, you know, worked at NEA.
(42:36):
They went to Harvard and, you know, theythey're already on their fund too and they've
already delivered DPI.
But what's the real story?
And I think that's what really gets people tokind of want to be behind that person,
especially if they're building a firm, amultigenerational firm.
So I think kind of what what's beyond the theinitial table stakes, which is performance,
(43:00):
track record, pedigree, knowing that you can dothe job in this market has got to be more
right.
And I think it's you got to take people on thatjourney.
So that was my, you know, response to that.
But then I think one thing that can be done topenetrate, you know, the table stakes is, you
know, kind of building your own personal brand.
(43:21):
So you and I, I'm going to I'm going to bringthis back because you and I were talking about
some tools that people can use for for podcastsand community building.
So, I don't know if you've seen people thathave been doing a good job in terms of kind of
building their own, you know, maybe personalbrand that's kind of tied to the funds brand as
well.
Because essentially, if you're an emergingmanager, you're the brand of the fund at the
(43:42):
end of the day.
Right?
So I mean, people are backing you.
So, you know, what what are your comments interms of content creation?
You know, what have you seen, with with brandbuilding, you know, across?
You know, there's a lot of different channels,Right?
So I'm doing video, because it's just morecomfortable for me.
I don't do a lot of editing.
So this is live.
Right?
But some people are great at some people aregreat at doing blogs.
(44:05):
Some people are doing great at doing audioonly.
So kinda like, what do you like doing in termsof content creating?
I know you like doing film production, and anda lot of, like, high end, video content.
But, you know, what do you like doing?
And then I guess some of the entrepreneurs orpeople that are in your circles, what do you
appreciate that they're doing as far as brandbuilding?
(44:25):
Well, that's evolved a lot over the yearsbecause I started, as I said, as a monthly
magazine Mhmm.
Editor and publisher.
So every month, I would put out a new issue ofTrace Magazine, and I would host a party with a
cover star, whether it was Alicia Keys orRihanna or whoever it was.
Mhmm.
And we would just basically document hip hopculture on a monthly basis, and that was fine.
(44:48):
After that, when we got funded by Goldman, wewere able to launch a television network called
Trace TV
Mhmm.
Which was very much a competitor internationalcompetitor to BET.
Right?
And and and that company is now owned by TPG.
It's it's it's big.
You know, I have not been involved with thatcompany since 02/2010, but I guess my point is
I was very much, raised on old media, you know,TV, magazines, and I used to do a lot of radio
(45:13):
stuff as well.
Now, I've kind of evolved that the TV work thatI used to do has evolved into documentary
features.
Right?
So I produced two award winning documentaries.
And
yeah.
What were the documentaries about?
They're both about climate change and howclimate change affects populations in the
global South.
The very first one, the Great Green Wall, wasvery much driven by this huge project called
(45:40):
the Great Green Wall, which is an 8,000kilometer wall of trees that is being planted
across the Sahel in in Northern Africa fromSenegal all the way to Ethiopia and how
desertification is forcing populations to kindaget on these rickety boats, to migrate to Spain
or Italy, many of them end up dying, and howclimate change is affecting lives of everyday
(46:02):
farmers and, you know, how young people cansupport can feed themselves, can support their
families, and what are the solutions?
Because my documentaries are always very muchsolution driven.
This new one that was launched a couple weeksago, Blue Carbon, which is gonna be shown on
CNN films in in The US and on Canal plus inEurope, is very much about populations that
(46:22):
live in coastal areas and have to deal withcoastal erosion and the solution that are that
is a mangroves and salt marshes.
You know?
How do you know?
How does nature create natural solutions tomitigate the climate disaster?
And, you know, that one we shot in Brazil, weshot in in Florida as well, but we also shot in
(46:45):
Colombia and Senegal.
So I always look at telling climate changestories from the perspective of of of the
global South because I feel like a lot of theclimate change issues always focus on the
concerns of people living in the Western world.
Yeah.
And a lot of my work has been about bridging,again, the gap between the Western world and
the global South.
And then so that's that.
(47:05):
And then I also have a podcast called theMidwest Africa every year, 30 episodes to come
out every week Mhmm.
For thirty weeks around development issues forAfrica.
You know?
Mhmm.
What is a start up scene in Africa?
What are some of the solutions for the creativeindustries in Africa?
You know?
And that's really rewarding as well because italso complements the work that I do with the
(47:27):
equity lines, which is really about identifyingthese extraordinary emerging fund managers and
these founders that we mentioned earlier.
So I love the fact that, you know, I have apretty good balance between the creative work
that I do as a content producer and also thework that I do as an investor looking at, you
know, investing in outstanding startups and andfund managers in The US.
(47:51):
Yeah.
What I've also been seeing too is a lot ofthese celebrities and successful artists now
get into a lot more philanthropy.
So I think there's a lot of education.
There's a startup called Ocho that is trying tounbundle that in terms of like there's a lot of
things that are demystified, especially whenyou come into wealth.
And this is good education for family officesof like, how do you protect your assets?
(48:14):
How do you set up a trust?
You have a business trust, you have a personaltrust.
So those are all things that I've been kind ofnerding out on as well, you know, in terms of
like, you know, what's the next stage?
Because when you think about your career, whenyou think about my career, you know, I was I
was working in tech, you know, became aninvestor.
But then as you kind of think about your yourlegacy, your family, you know, how our family
(48:36):
offices kind of thinking about their portfolioconstruction, you know, should they only do
real estate and then maybe a small percentageof venture and then, you know, those proceeds
you got to take advantage of QSPS.
So all of those kind of like long term legacybuilding activities and kind of like asset
protection.
Those are kind of things that I've seen a lotof, you know, successful entrepreneurs and
(49:00):
successful investors start to really thinkabout like building their own family office,
you know, and kind of how that's going toevolve.
So I don't know if you've been talking to anyother like single family offices or LPs in
terms of how they're thinking about that,because that's a great way to partner, you
know, for them to partner with people like youas well, because a lot of times they need that
(49:22):
access to, you know, interesting opportunitiesand trends and expertise that they may not
have.
So I know that was a loaded question, but
Well, it's it's absolutely not a loadedquestion.
It's almost as if you were reading my mind,Joel.
I have to tell you because I've been spendingso much time thinking about this because you
know when I raised money from my former startupthat I mentioned and that grew into a bigger
(49:48):
company, I never knew what QSPS was.
Mhmm.
And the amount of money I would have saved onmy tax bill if I'd known what QSPS was Yeah.
I wish I knew then what I know now.
Mhmm.
And so a lot of the work that I do withfounders is tell them about these things that
I've learned.
Yeah.
And and to be honest, now that, you know, myson is six and he's an only child, my wife and
(50:11):
I are talking about how do we set up a trustand how, you know, how do we kind of plan for
his future because my dad died, he didn't haveany money.
Of course, I didn't benefit from any inheritedwealth, but I would like my son, you know, not
to be a spoiled trust fund baby, but to be ableto have, the benefit of kind of what I work my
(50:33):
entire life building as in I do have assets andreal estate and investments and and all kinds
of things and how do you actually structurethat?
Yeah.
It sounds easy, but unless you have somebodyguiding you through that process, it it can
feel like a maze and so it's interesting thatit's only now that I'm really starting to focus
on that, because I feel like it's extremelyimportant as we start planning for his college
(50:57):
years and his future depending on whatever whatwhat he wants to do.
Yeah.
There's even creative things.
I think there was something that I saw on myfeed about Beyonce, you know, paying her
daughter as an employee.
So, you know, there are unique things you cando.
Obviously, talk to your CPA.
This is not financial advice, but or or taxadvice.
But, you know, I've seen some interestingthings in my feed in terms of, you know, hiring
(51:20):
your kids to actually be part of your companyand, you know, do real work.
And, you know, there's tax benefits to thattoo.
And, you know, like you see Beyonce's daughterin a lot of her videos, you know, so I can
imagine tax benefits to that.
But like just thinking about those things, youknow, how can you you know, it's not about like
how much revenue and, you know, how muchcapital can you grow and appreciate, but how
(51:42):
can you do that, you know, tax efficiently aswell as well.
I
mean Yeah.
Wonderful.
See, I'm gonna look into that.
I didn't know about that.
Wow.
I didn't know about that.
That's so clever Paying your kids to work foryou.
Some people do that.
Mean specific projects you give them.
Yeah, mean, so yeah, and there's things theycan do, right?
They can do some coordination work.
(52:02):
They can some people have hired their kids asmodels to do some, you know, media work, know,
they do Instagram videos with their their kidsand that builds like a lot of authenticity with
your audience, right?
So I think that's kind of interesting to seehow, you know, people are people are looking at
all these different strategies for for that.
(52:25):
What are some?
And I know we're out of time, but, what aresome of the things that you've been that you
you've learned recently, maybe in the lastquarter?
You know?
We talked about a lot of stuff in terms of justbeing present, you know, leaning into founders.
Anything you wanna share?
Yeah.
What I've been learning from our chairman andmy mentor, Dick Parsons, is the importance of
(52:49):
under promising and over delivering.
Mhmm.
One of the reasons he became so successful incorporate America running all these Fortune 100
companies is by under promising and overdelivering.
I feel like sometimes in New York we're allpushing so hard, all being busy trying to make
stuff happen that you know it's reallyimportant to set expectations and manage
people's expectations as opposed to thinkingthat just by working harder, just because
(53:13):
you're ambitious and you're known for taking ona big workload, you are able to, again just
make it all happen and do everything and youknow as someone who has suffered in the past
from planning fallacy, I don't know if you knowwhat that is, but planning fallacy is kind of
(53:33):
taking on too much and thinking you can do itall and not being able to finish everything
that you took on.
Yeah.
As somebody who kind of suffered from that inthe past, I'm careful now to not take on too
much and to literally under promise and overdeliver on what I took on.
Mhmm.
No.
I was you literally read my mind because thereI actually you were gonna ask me that question,
(53:55):
I've proactively started to deactivate like twoor three projects.
And, you know, I think I think you can takethem all on because people like you and me will
probably just lose sleep and get all the stuffdone.
But what happens is when you get older, likeyour health gets impacted and, like, the
quality probably goes down too, you know?
So there's kind of, like, repercussions with,you know, not getting a good night's sleep and
(54:20):
and, you know, kind of focusing on your health.
So one thing I've been trying to do too is,like, looking, like, I don't work out two to
three times a week like I used to when I wasyounger, but now I try to like just squeeze in
that run and I just do it first because once Ilook at my phone, I'm like, man, I got let me
let me knock out these tasks first and thenI'll work out later.
So I've been trying to like put my health, youknow, because you also think about your, you
(54:46):
know, as you get older, you think about yourmortality, you think about like, you know, you
want to make sure that you're around for yourkids and and your family too.
So you want to kind of be conscious of that tooand kinda be have that be blended in your flow
as as you're as you're doing all these things.
So so I totally agree.
I'm glad we we were able to come full circleback to flow as we end this conversation.
(55:09):
It's been a real pleasure, Joel.
I really enjoyed talking to you.
This has been really
fun for Absolutely, Claude.
Thank you so much for your time.
I know I know your time is very valuable, sothank you.
And this would be really a huge treat for theaudience.
So again, thanks for your time.
And we got some time, I think in the nextcouple of weeks.
So I'll catch you in person, I think next weekor the week after.
(55:30):
Absolutely.
I look forward to that.
Take care.
Have a beautiful day.
Take care.
You too.
Bye, Joel.
Thank you.
Bye.
Bye.
Yeah.
(00:00):
That was I was I was just so obsessed withthat.
And I guess that kinda speaks to my wholetheory on life as well, is never being stuck in
a box and always navigating different circlesand not ever wanting to be defined by somebody
else's categorization.
Yeah.
Yeah.
One of my favorite songs by Kanye, and thisgoes back to you know, I really love the the
(00:20):
harmony side.
I mean, was impossible.
I don't know if you remember that song.
To the investor, a podcast where I, JoelPalafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
(00:41):
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
We are live go ahead, Claude.
Well, anyways, let me introduce you, Claude.
So we're live here with Claude Grunitzky.
Super excited to have him on the show.
I'm really, really a huge admirer of his workand I just like to highlight amazing people and
(01:06):
just kind of the things that he's done in hispast career and how that's cascaded.
We're gonna start joking around a little bitbecause some of the stuff that he did in the
past I wish I wanted to do when I was a kid,you know, kind of get into the get into the
sectors that he was focusing on.
But Claude, know, thank you for popping on, youknow, being super generous with your time.
(01:27):
I know you're really, really busy, so I'mexcited to have you on.
It's so good to be with you, Joel.
I mean, it's funny that you said, you'rereally, really busy because I always joke that
everyone in New York always says they're busy.
You ask them how they're doing.
Oh, I'm busy.
I'm busy.
There's no other city where the defaultresponse when you ask people how they are is
busy.
Yeah.
I guess maybe maybe we we work in busy circlesand we Mhmm.
(01:49):
Work with people who are always busy or is thatsomething that you've noticed as well?
Oh yeah, I think so.
But you know what's funny though?
Like when you say you're really busy, you know,if something is exciting, you'll move your
schedule around.
Like that's one thing that I learned, you know,we were both community people.
We build, you know, ecosystems and and, youknow, one thing I've noticed is if you have
(02:11):
this is kind of a tip that I've given someemerging managers, like if you're putting
together some type of community event and itsounds super irresistible, like no matter how
busy people are, they'll move their schedulearound and try to go to that event.
So that whole busy narrative, like, changes ifif something irresistible happens or something
exciting happens.
And that happens to me too.
You know, I'm busy, but, hey, if I get to chatwith Claude or somebody interesting, then then
(02:36):
you make it work.
Well, yes.
I'm I'm glad you mentioned that because, itreminded me of a book that I absolutely love
and I've actually got as a gift, as a presentfor so many friends over the years.
It's flow by the Hungarian, American,psychologist Mihaly Mihaly, and he talks about
(02:57):
the the psychology of optimal experience.
Right?
Mhmm.
And how sometimes you can be busy working andyou're so much in that state of flow that you
don't even realize that it's like 2AM andyou're still working and you can still keep
working on it for two or three months.
Yeah.
You know, and and and that mindset for monthsand months And it's almost like he you know,
(03:18):
one of his quotes is like attention is likeenergy and that without it, no work can be done
and then doing work is dissipated.
We create, you know, ourselves by using energyin the right way, I think he said.
And, you know, that's something that's alwaysreally been really important to me because I
find that when I'm in that state of flow, Ioperate on such a higher level, and that's what
(03:39):
I've been seeking throughout my career.
You know, the challenge, that that excitementof, you know, doing something that is difficult
enough, but not too difficult that it'sunattainable.
You know?
I'll I'll I'll just give you an example.
Last Sunday, I ran my very first marathon herein New York, and, you know, 26 miles is very
(03:59):
difficult.
Mhmm.
And I had trained by doing two twenty milers inpreparation for Sunday's race.
But Yeah.
20 so much more difficult than 20, but it's notso difficult like 35 that you can't do it.
And that's kind of like how I look at my lifeand work right now is the kind of challenges
that I choose to take on.
(04:20):
It's like, it can't be too easy, but it can'tbe so difficult that it's pie in the sky in a
sense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I got a couple of things to jam on with that.
So there was, you know, so I heard of Flowbecause there is a pretty well known private
equity investor.
He does buyout named Graham Weaver.
So he's like all over the Internet now.
And, there was a podcast with him.
(04:41):
I guess he's got I think his fund now was like15,000,000,000 in assets.
And he does straight up, you know, buyoutinvestment.
But he mentioned the book Flow.
And I think it's really interesting.
Think, look, there was a saying that I heardthe other day where, you know, we spend when
we're kids, we spend our time trying to beolder, right?
We're like 15 years old.
(05:01):
We want to be older so we can party and andhave fun and be old enough to drink.
And then and then when we get older, we'respending all our time and the resources to feel
young again.
And, you know, we make money,
you know,
and then we make all this money.
So in a lot of times when you make all thismoney, sometimes you sacrifice your health and
then you make the money and then you use moneyto to hopefully stay healthy and pay for pills
(05:25):
and all that stuff.
So we're so busy, I think, worried about thefuture.
Some of us are traumatized by the past, butlike the state of flow is really kind of like
thinking about like enjoying the present.
Like this weekend, I spend time with my kids.
My son was doing ice skating in Bryant Park andI was kind of consciously thinking about I was
(05:46):
like, wow, this is like I should really be kindof enjoying this time instead of kind of
worrying about, you know, his college tuitionand all that, which, you know, hopefully you'll
figure out in the future about.
But, know, we spent a lot of time, I feel, andI don't know what, you know, how it is talking
to your people in your circles, but there's alot of worrying about kind of the future and,
hey, am I gonna, you know, be wealthy enoughand all that stuff?
(06:09):
But, you know, a lot of the joy is kind of liketoday, you know, right now.
Yeah.
I I mean, to close the loop on that is whatyou're saying really resonates with me.
You know, one thing I've learned is, you knowwhat?
Again, that state of flow, which is like thismotivation that involves being fully focused on
the situation that you're in or the task thatyou're actually handling at that very moment.
(06:32):
One thing I've learned is if I'm with you onthis podcast, I do not wanna be checking my
phone while I'm doing that because I wanna befully present and fully in the moment because
Mhmm.
You know, there's always gonna be someimportant message that flows through, right,
while we're doing this.
And it's the same as being with your kid.
You know, when they notice that you are focusedon something else and not fully focused on
(06:56):
them, it ends up altering the relationship.
And that's a real problem in our contemporarysocieties, I feel Mhmm.
Because we're multitasking.
We're stressed out because of so manynotifications coming about the Hamas, you know,
Israel war.
There's always something so urgent that isgonna grab our attention.
(07:16):
And Mhmm.
I feel like that leads to a lot of stress.
You know?
That leads
to a lot of stress.
I wanna be in that zone where I'm doing what Ilove with the people that I love, and I'm fully
focused on doing that with the people that Ilove.
Yeah.
No.
I agree.
Well, you know, this is a great preamble tokick things off, you know, just enjoying the
moment, enjoying the moment with you, Claude.
(07:36):
But let's take a step back and learn about whoClaude is.
You know, tell me about your family.
Tell me about where you grew up.
What did you study?
And, you know, tell me how you landed to whereyou are now.
I know a little of it, but I want the communityto hear it.
And, I want you to take you take us on thisjourney.
Well, it's a it's a it's a it's a real pleasureand honor really to be on this podcast with
(07:58):
you.
And in sharing my journey, I have to take itall the way back to Togo because I was born in
Togo in West Africa.
And I grew up in a really interestingenvironment because my parents who were never
married were from two totally differentsocioeconomic backgrounds.
My dad was a rising star in Togolese politics.
(08:23):
He was a finance minister when I was a kidgrowing up in Togo.
Two of his uncles had been president of Togo.
He himself was very ambitious in what is aimingfor higher office.
And my mom, however, was a seamstress whodidn't have any sort of real formal education
and was really kinda struggling.
(08:46):
Mhmm.
And so I ended up, you know, spending mychildhood, my sister and I, navigating those
two worlds of privilege and poverty on a weeklybasis.
And I always say that that really shaped mywhole perspective on life and relationships and
friendships and family because thoseexperiences that I that I kinda went through as
a child allowed me to be comfortable in anyenvironment.
(09:09):
You know?
So now I'm comfortable with my billionairefriends.
I'm comfortable in the slums of Togo, in theshanty towns of Rio.
I could be comfortable in white communities,black communities.
I'm comfortable in Tokyo.
I'm comfortable in Soweto when I go to SouthAfrica and and Johannesburg, when I'm also
(09:29):
comfortable in Rosebank, the the upper middleclass white neighborhoods.
And that allowed me to relate to pretty muchanyone without kind of feeling like I was an
impostor in that environment.
Mhmm.
You know?
Yeah.
And and so when I ended up, you know, growingup a bit, my dad had a swift fall in politics
(09:51):
and he lost all his power.
He was destitute, it was really difficult.
And by the time I was a teenager, when I was12, I moved to Paris and went to Catholic
boarding school.
And, you know, it was a, you know, a verydifficult time because it was a fall from grace
for my dad, and my mom was still kindastruggling in Togo.
(10:13):
But, you know, we would only see our parentsonce a year in the summer, my sister and I.
And so I ended up, you know, not growing uparound my family, and I would see relatives on
the weekends sometimes.
But I really just grew up in an all boysCatholic, you know, boarding school outside
Paris Mhmm.
And dealing with racism in a in a very deepfundamental way.
And and that racist experience that I had atCatholic boarding school led to a discovery of
(10:39):
hip hop as Mhmm.
Liberation.
You know?
And so I discovered hip hop when I was ateenager, and I fell in love with hip hop and
hip hop culture.
And after I graduated, I went to an eliteuniversity in Paris and then went to London
University.
I had started a magazine, a monthly hip hopmagazine when I was in my early twenties
(11:00):
because I wanted to document this culture so Icould feel that hip hop was going to be an
important subculture that ended up influencingglobal popular culture, not just New York
popular culture or urban popular cultures inmajor metropolises like Paris, London, and New
York, but that would go mainstream.
So after I launched that magazine Trace inLondon, I moved to New York when I was 27 years
(11:26):
old
Mhmm.
To launch that magazine here in The UnitedStates, here in New York City.
And, again, I always talk about how I came toNew York.
I didn't know anybody in New York.
I was a destitute, penniless immigrant who wasliving hand to mouth, really struggling as an
independent media entrepreneur.
Right?
I by by then, I was both editor and publisherof my magazine selling advertising, chief
(11:50):
bottle washer, doing everything, writingstories, recruiting photographers, just really
struggling to pay my bills every single month.
And living that New York story, living onAvenue C, Alphabet City with a bunch of drug
dealers and just kinda seeing, like, pimps andprostitutes and crackheads on the street corner
all the time, it was, like, a very difficultenvironment, that New York, entryway for me.
(12:13):
But then I found a way to build relationshipswith certain people who became the arbiters of
black culture, in in New York.
And and and that led to incredible editorialcoverage, you know, with a lot of discoveries
of new musicians and and and new actors and newsingers who were writing that hip hop wave and
(12:37):
looking at how hip hop was not just aboutmusic, but it was also about fashion and film
and art and technology and increasingly just,you know, mainstream culture.
And Yeah.
On the back of that, I was able to secure, a$15,000,000 investment from Goldman Sachs who
invested in in in my company when I was, around30 years old.
(13:00):
And that was a big, big victory because
Yeah.
You know, as a first generation founder, youknow, I didn't have any founders in my family.
And no one told me, oh, this is how you grow abusiness.
This is how you negotiate a series a termsheet.
You know, I I literally had to make it up as Iwent along and figure it out.
But I was extremely lucky that I had a coupleof, you know, really great friends and new
(13:22):
business partners who kinda joined my journeyas an entrepreneur, and we were able to grow
this business.
And we actually sold that company Trace in02/2010.
And at that time, I just decided to become anangel investor.
I started, entrepreneurship programs, and and acouple years later, I started teaching at at
(13:42):
Harvard at the Social Innovation and ChangeInitiative as a way to help the next generation
of founders, do their thing.
And I was really always focused on on foundersof color and also women founders because I felt
like, you know, underrepresented foundersreally had something to say.
And so I started investing in their companies,mentoring them.
You know, they would come to my workshops, mylectures, my classes, and just launching
(14:06):
accelerator programs and and just really alsodoing a lot in Africa.
You know, as part of Barack Obama's youngAfrican leaders initiative, I started building
entrepreneurship programs, for the MandelaWashington fellows who are kind of the elite
young African leaders that are selected bythis, by this program and just really enjoying
life producing films and just really having agreat life.
(14:29):
And then Yeah.
We'll pause there, but but two years ago twoand a half years ago, I got a call from Dick
Parsons who had been a long time mentor sinceback in since he was the CEO and chair of
Citigroup.
And, actually, even before then, back when hewas the the CEO and chair of Time Warner, you
know, which was one of the time that I hadraised money from my own startup, those Trace
(14:52):
media venture that I mentioned earlier.
And I had built a relationship with him over atwenty year period and he said, well, you know
what?
We should join forces and launch the equityalliance as a fund, to invest in other funds.
So in a fund of funds model, investing in VCfunds that are run by women and people of
color, and also having a a pocket of capitalwithin the funds to back the most promising
(15:18):
startup founders within the portfolios of thefunds that we've backed, and that's how the
Equity Alliance was born in in in in 2021.
And, of course, unlike Graham, we don't have$15,000,000,000 under management.
We we chose to start small.
We started with a $25,000,000 fund one.
We actually ended up oversubscribing that andlaunching a fund one at 28,000,000.
And now we're raising, fund two.
(15:40):
We're raising 50,000,000 for our fund two.
Sure.
Yeah.
Well, you did a really good job kind of goingthrough the entire, you know, career history
and kind of how you built the business and andreally scaled it to be successful.
There's a couple of things that I was kind ofthinking about, you know, and and what I was
alluding to earlier in the intro was about, youknow, my interest in music.
(16:02):
You know, I my personal journey, I was, youknow, learning how to play the drums.
I learned how to play the drums, listening toLed Zeppelin and Metallica, I thought I was
going to be in a rock band at some point.
My parents kind of discouraged it.
I've kind of vented about this several times onmultiple episodes, so people are probably going
to highlight that and give me a hard time aboutit.
(16:24):
But it's interesting how music still kind offollows you back.
I mean, the fund accelerator that I launched,I've met so many interesting people that have
been in the music space and I've been able tokind of slowly get back involved.
I've started taking a few music productioncompanies.
So I think, you know, sometimes things happenfor a reason.
And and even if what you want to do doesn'thappen when you want to, if it's meant to be,
(16:47):
it'll kind of come at the right time.
So like, you know, I want to know a little moreabout your time in Paris.
So, you know, there was some hip hop culturethere.
What were some of the hip hop influences?
You know, can you can you tell us kind of whothe the artists were at that time?
I'm trying to think was it, know, what whatyear was this?
Was this in the eighties or the nineties?
(17:07):
I guess who were who were their biggestinfluences in Paris, and what were some of the
biggest differences, obviously, besides justrapping in French, in terms of, like, the
musical style and kind of the lyrics and andall that stuff?
I'd love to know kind of about that rap cultureand hip hop culture in Paris.
Oh, wow.
Oh, I'm we're really gonna get into it nowsince this is, the stuff that really shaped me.
(17:28):
So back Yeah.
When I discovered hip hop, this was the lateeighties.
Mhmm.
And, I moved, from Paris to London in 1990.
Mhmm.
And, you know sorry.
Nineteen ninety one.
Sorry.
And I was 20 years old in 1991.
And, in the eighties in Paris, actually inFrance, not just Paris because Marseille was
(17:48):
also a really big city for hip hop.
There were a few bands that came out, and manyof them had been influenced by a show that was
literally on prime time show every weekend, onFrench television, TF one, the major, state
owned broadcaster, and it was called Hip Hopand we would say that's spelling h I v h o v in
(18:14):
French and that show had a lot of New Yorkluminaries coming on all the time people like
Africa Bandada became luminaries.
They were coming from New York and kind ofpaving the way for a new style of French
expression.
And a few bands came out of that hip hop era.
One of them was from Paris.
(18:35):
It's called NTM.
They they became really, really big.
And another one from Marseille that I mentionedearlier in the South, they were called I AM.
I AM.
So those were two of the big bands back in theday.
And then from there, around the time that Idecided to move to London, there wasn't an
(18:55):
emcee who kind of just came out of suburbanParis and made a lot of noise because he made,
you know, French hip hop a lot more palatableto mainstream audiences.
His name is m c Solar, s o l, double a, r.
And he created a couple albums that were bighits and that kind of really touched on the
(19:19):
French love of poetry and using, like, Frenchstyle poetry with kind of hip hop vernacular
Mhmm.
French French slang, specifically, which iswhen we were growing up, was a specific, way of
of speaking by inversing the syllables.
So Mhmm.
(19:40):
Joel would be would be well, so we wouldpronounce the l before the Joe.
Yeah.
Claude would be.
And he used to really bring the new expressionsof French language that were coming out of, you
know, French youthful rebellion into, poetryand into hip hop and and and creating that with
(20:03):
just very kind of simple boom bap original rap,and that became extremely popular.
So those were the, I'm gonna call mycontemporaries Mhmm.
People who kind of ended up shaping the newgeneration of French MC culture.
And then in the nineties, it became really,really mainstream.
Yeah.
And France, towards the late nineties, early '2thousands became, you know
(20:24):
It's like Tupac and Biggie.
That's like the 1994, '19 '90 '6.
Bill Clinton, Tupac, Biggie.
Like, that was kinda that's what I think aboutin those years.
So that's kinda when it really blew Yeah.
Yeah.
But then but then what happened was a lot ofthe American emcees would come to Paris because
Yeah.
France by then was the second hip hop nationafter The US, and they would perform in Paris
(20:44):
and sometimes freestyle with French, rappers,and you would have to and French and English
together.
And when I became a magazine, editor andpublisher, I actually did a deal with Virgin
Records to produce three different, recordscalled Le Flow.
Le Flow oh, see, like, Le Flow that we justtalked about at the beginning of the episode.
(21:06):
Lo, f l o w, that were, MC Solar with MissyElliott, collaborations between French MCs and
American MCs.
Yeah.
And that was just great.
Those three records did really well because Ithink it was a way for me to bring my love for
hip hop, from a transatlantic perspective andget MCs from both sides of the pond to
collaborate.
(21:26):
And so those were just wonderful, wonderfulprojects for me.
I mean, even in the nineties, it was reallycool to just see R and B be mixed in with, with
hip hop too.
Right?
So you got a lot of the R and B artists, kindof doing a solo or kind of having a track on
top of the on top of the hip hop beat.
And, you know what?
What I really appreciated with Kanye, this islike February, '2 thousand and '5 Kanye.
(21:51):
Yes, late late registration.
You know, what I loved about him was, you know,he would get different artists, right?
He'd get like someone from Coldplay or Maroonfive to be mixed in to hip hop, which I didn't
see earlier, but just kind of seeing just a lotmore creativity with just different genres and
like mixing that into hip hop.
And then just kind of his style of justchopping up the sped up records, right, and
(22:13):
kind of having that, you know, turn into a newtrack.
I mean, I've seen after that, you know, I'veseen Kylo have kind of interesting tracks where
like he'll take different snippets of like avoice and like kind of make that a beat.
I don't know if you kind of noticed that insome of the of the tracks that like Kylo has
done.
(22:33):
I guess what are some other interesting justbecause you're a music lover like me, like what
are some interesting kind of innovations thatyou've seen in terms of like the music style?
Obviously, we've got trap music that's beenaround for the last few few years.
And then, you know, I've been following somestuff on TikTok and Instagram that actually has
mentioned Afrobeats.
(22:54):
So they got like Afrobeats and then there'slike a harmony on top of it.
But like that's what I've observed.
I would love to hear like what you've kind ofheard in terms of like new types of styles and
just what's what's exciting to you.
Well, I guess the music that I've loved Mhmm.
And that I ended up writing about and coveringwhen I was a magazine editor, was very much
(23:20):
like the kind of food that I love.
It's it was very much always written by fusion.
When I talked about NC Solar, now he kind ofbrought French poetry Mhmm.
And and and, you know, hip hop boom bap kind ofbeats the hip hop in France.
You know, I love the clash of cultures.
And the record that really, in a sense, changedmy life and main reason I decided to move from
(23:42):
Paris to London as a 20 year old is a recordcalled Blue Lines by, Massive Attack.
I don't know if you've ever heard that record.
Massive Attack is a British band from Bristolin England, and they were kind of using
electronic music, fusing it with hip hop, andwith a specific kind of rhyming and singing
(24:04):
style that was extremely original and nottrying to be like a New York emcee style.
So I've always loved music that is very much afusion of different forms of art of musical art
forms.
And that's why I spent a lot of time covering,Gangstar and Guru's Jasmine Taz record, you
(24:25):
know, which was like hip hop and jazz.
And then I spent a lot of time with Mary JaneBlige when she was kind of anointed the queen
of hip hop soul, you know, that you mentionedearlier, that fusion.
And then what happened was when Kanye camealong, he really and this is when I kinda knew
Kanye and hung out with him back in the daysthat you mentioned, 02/2004, '2 thousand '5, '2
(24:46):
thousand '6.
This he really found a way to create incrediblemusic that was very much about selecting the
best of different forms and but still rootingit within the rhythmic of pure hip hop Yeah.
And and expanding the barriers of of hip hop asa result.
(25:08):
And that was a really fresh take on producingbefore he was even known as a rapper.
You know?
Kanye was an extraordinary producer before hebecame a a MC.
I remember that.
So exactly.
Right?
And so I've always spent a lot of time, youknow, with people who were breaking boundaries,
exploring different art forms, and pushingthemselves.
I remember I'm still, and I was, very close tothe Wu Tang.
(25:30):
RZA just made the music for my new film.
I have Blue Carbon that just came out two weeksago.
I've also produced documentaries, but that'sanother conversation we'll have later maybe.
RZA, who created the Wu Tang, you know, Iremember being on tour with them, you know,
Rage Against the Machine.
So I love how, okay, now rock and hip hop willcome together and explore new kinds of
(25:52):
collaboration, how the audiences that, youknow, would kind of mingle and be a little bit
more curious about the evolution of theirvarious art forms and how we could cross
pollinate.
That was I was I was just so obsessed withthat.
And I guess that kinda speaks to my wholetheory on life as well, is never being stuck in
a box and always navigating different circlesand not ever wanting to be defined by somebody
(26:16):
else's categorization.
Yeah.
Yeah.
One of my favorite songs by Kanye, and thisgoes back to you know, I really love the the
harmony side.
I mean, was impossible.
I don't know if you remember that song.
Would that Keisha Cole?
Course.
I do.
Twista.
Yeah.
And I
just remember that video.
amazing.
Just like the the drum beats that were thereand then just kinda like, yeah, Twista on
there.
Then he had, Keisha Cole kinda singing the, thethe chorus.
(26:41):
But that was just, probably one of my favoritesongs.
Then then the Jamie Fox song, the first one,that, you know, put Jamie kind of back into R
and B because remember he used to be on theJamie Foxx show, right?
And then he would sing every once in while onthe show and, know, he was known to be a
singer.
Sang in church and then you know I guess Kanyeand this is the thing there's so many parallels
(27:04):
in life right?
When Kanye was a producer he's sourcing talentjust like a VC would be sourcing great
founders, great people, great partners.
I mean, he would be like, look, I want Jamie.
Jamie's got the voice Twist it can, you know,rap really fast.
And you're kind of like this person that is,you know, sourcing people to kind of put out
(27:24):
the great outputs.
You know?
So so many parallels with, with, like you know,we're we're gonna get into portfolio
construction a little bit, but but, I've justseen so many parallels in life.
Oh, no.
I'm so glad you mentioned Jamie Foxx because alot of people don't realize what a gifted
singer he was.
I mean, that album he put out around the sametime around that 02/2004, '2 thousand '5 time,
that album unpredictable Mhmm.
(27:46):
Which which also featured yeah.
If if if right?
You remember that.
Right?
It had Kanye on the song called extravaganza.
It was the
Is that the one with Blame It?
Is that with T Pain?
Or is that
the that It is.
Exactly.
It's the I think it's the one with T Pain.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Mhmm.
So, yeah.
I mean, it's I think maybe T Pain was a bit wasthe one after.
(28:08):
Anyway, it was around that same time.
Mhmm.
But, you know, he had great collaborators.
He had Timbalan who was doing great work forMissy Elliott at the time.
It was just like an incredible time forexploration around pushing the boundaries of
what music meant and how hip hop was not goingto be restricted to what people expected it to
be.
(28:28):
Mhmm.
And as a result, hip hop ended up broadeningits audience, you know, via r and b, via pop,
via rock, and and and also, influencing a lotof Caribbean art forms Mhmm.
You know, and all the way to drum and bass andjungle in The UK, all the way to trap that we
mentioned.
And and and and so, yeah, we could talk aboutthis forever, but I just love how this very
(28:51):
small subculture from the South Bronx ended up,you know, becoming so huge.
And I think it's important that we're talkingabout that this year as we celebrate the fifty
years of hip hop.
Yeah.
No, it's exciting.
And I mean, there's so many parallels to, youknow, sourcing talent.
(29:11):
Right?
I mean, you could be an A and R artist, andwhat you have to do is you essentially have to
find the next star.
So if you're an investor, you're trying to finda portfolio company, know, hopefully that's a
star that's going to make it worth the time ofeverybody and the resources.
So tell me some of your learnings kind ofswitching from being an entrepreneur to now
(29:32):
being an institutional investor.
What are some of the things that you'velearned?
What are the things that you look at when youlook at maybe maybe we can break it out into
fund managers and then, you know, founders?
Yeah.
So I've had, like, basically three careers,I'll say.
Mhmm.
So my first career, which lasted fourteenyears, was my journey as a media entrepreneur
(29:56):
with Trace all the way to the exit in 02/2010.
Mhmm.
And the next decade, really from, 02/2010 to02/2020 was really to me just about angel
investing, mentoring, paying it forward,helping young entrepreneurs do their thing.
(30:18):
And I really enjoyed doing that, you know,launching these accelerator programs that I
mentioned or the entrepreneurship track forBarack Obama's young African leaders
initiative.
That was really rewarding.
And I also started teaching at HarvardUniversity about seven years ago, and that was
also great because I got to work with, youknow, social change makers, young founders,
(30:41):
young nonprofit leaders looking to launch forprofit or nonprofit ventures that would just
basically will make the world a better place,looking for societal change.
Mhmm.
And I wasn't really looking to become a founderagain, launch a new venture.
I was just really, as I said, happy producingfilms and podcasts and having fun teaching and
angel investing.
However, when Dick Parsons called me, as I saidearlier and said, let's start the equity lines,
(31:08):
I was I really thought to myself, what do Iwhat do I bring to this table?
I'm not an investor.
I mean, as an angel investor, I've never beenlike a VC.
You know, VC is a skill set that I don't have.
But then I thought about a lot of the VCs thatI've met.
And in the conversation that we had about, youknow, kinda growing scaling businesses, they
(31:31):
they they had, you know, they had a theoreticalunderstanding of what it was, but they had
never done it.
Yeah.
They never knew what it was like to have tomake payroll.
And, you know, was bootstrapping the way wedid.
You know, they have no sense of the stress thatcomes with being a founder.
You know?
And I was like, you know what?
I feel like because I've experienced the painsand the joys of being a founder, I can actually
(31:54):
throw my hat in the ring and actually be a VCby leaning on my experience as a first
generation founder in an environment whereblack men are not supposed to raise money for
their ventures.
Yeah.
Black women are not supposed to raise money fortheir ventures.
Latinos and Latinas are mostly excluded.
And if you're not in the club, then you're nottaken seriously.
(32:17):
And so I was like, I can do this.
And on the strength of conviction knowing that,you know, I've gone through the entire journey
of having an idea, starting a company, buildinga team, raising money, selling my company, and
then advising young founders, there's somethingthat I brought to the table.
(32:37):
And the realization that I couldn't do italone.
So I was able to identify a couple of peoplewho really helped me in the early days.
Yeah.
Max Yann and Julia Paliar, who, were at thattime working, with one of our lead investors,
Ron Lauder, one of the owners of the EsteeLauder Companies Mhmm.
And also a very good friend of Dick Parsons.
(32:58):
They were like my team, my adviser, before Ieven had a fund.
And then I was once we actually raised capitaland were able to kinda build management fees,
then we actually ended up recruiting, first, aprincipal and now also chief investment
officer, Adrian Rees, and who's actuallysomebody who has experience investing because
she had previously worked with WaltonEnterprises investing money for the Walton
(33:21):
family.
Mhmm.
Obviously, as you can imagine, one of the big,big family offices in America.
Sure.
You know, she brought the rigor, the processdriven, diligence to the party, whereas I
brought a much more instinctive instinctualapproach to cutting through the bullshit and
understanding the addressable market and themindset of the of the founder to see how
(33:45):
resilient they were, how much great they were,and how they can withstand the pressures of
growing an a a company in a very, very tougheconomy.
And I feel like that combination of havingAdam, who I had hired right after he graduated
from MIT Sloan, where I also graduated from,you know, that helped us to bring three
different skill sets to the party.
(34:06):
And then working under the leadership of ourguy and chairman Dick Parsons, who's one of the
most astute businessmen I've ever met.
He was not an investor per se, but he wasprobably still is the single most successful
black corporate corporate executive ever tohave worked in America.
You know?
So he has great judgment, and he helps us tomake great decisions when sometimes we're a bit
(34:30):
stuck on what the choice points are.
So Yeah.
I feel like those different skill sets allowedus to launch a very small fund that it was a
proof of concept fund one that would also allowus to punch above our weight.
You know?
It it was like we knew that we were small, butwe also wanted to create a model that others
could follow.
And so in a sense, the early success that we'reseeing with the Equity Alliance is a testament
(34:53):
to the fact that we've been able to assemble ateam that is really much really very much
focused on this mission, which is to help todemocratize access to capital and to accelerate
economic mobility in America.
You know?
And so with that single-minded focus on doingthat, there's very few instances that we could
ever have any sort of mission creep because weknow why we're in this game.
(35:15):
Yeah.
We're in this game because we're trying to helpchallenge some of the inequities that have that
have made the VC world so unfair and and andand and and for so many people for so long.
No.
I totally agree.
And I think, you know, the the strategy thatyou have, I'm seeing with a lot of other funds
in terms of having the direct strategy and alsothe fund strategy, because it's also
(35:38):
interesting because a lot of the funds haveunderlying, deal flow that's very, very high
quality and you know there's obviously,benefits to be part of those ecosystems as
well, right?
It's those funds they have their AGMs, theircommunity networks and their events.
You know, that's what we met, right?
We met through kind of a common colleague thatwas also an LP.
(35:59):
So, you know, you kind of just cascade thosenetworks.
So I think that's that's why it's reallystrategic to to kind of have a fund investment
arm too.
And you just learn from other people.
I mean, you learn from smarter people.
So I mean, on your end, what are some of thethings that you know you guys look for in in
founders, you know, in terms of the businessmodel, maybe the character of the founder and
(36:22):
that, you know, I mean, what's exciting isthese emerging managers, they're also business
people, right?
They have to they have to manage their p and l.
They have a budget.
They're they're in the business of firmbuilding.
So what are some of the attributes that havegotten you excited in terms of the maybe the
fund manager selection process too?
Right.
(36:43):
I love this question, and I'm gonna try toanswer it in a pretty succinct way, and I'll be
concise.
So we work with emerging fund managers, as yousaid, but we also work with founders, right,
who are in the portfolios of these emergingfund managers.
The emerging fund managers, what I love is theprocess of delineating across the board based
(37:05):
on their thesis, their lived experience, andtheir ability to have a real point of view on a
specific, potential marketplace.
Mhmm.
And we've invested in some generalist funds andit's just fine, but if somebody is gonna tell
me that they're launching a fund that's focusedon health tech, I really wanna understand what
(37:30):
makes you really the very best person to bechallenging, the status quo and spotting the
best founders and the best, startup ideaswithin the world of health tech, You know?
And so I don't pretend to know everything, butit turns out that the majority of our
investments have been in fintech, health tech,and and and and I'll just call it SaaS.
(37:52):
Mhmm.
And and so a lot of people are tackling theseproblems, but we also look at people that are
looking for the underserved markets, that arenot being addressed properly.
So if there's health inequities, and if there'sa solution for sickle cell anemia, which, you
know, affects many, many black people and ablack founder is, is is trying to solve this
(38:17):
this this problem, and this emerging managerhas spotted and invested in this black founder
and really understands what it is that they'retrying to do, that kind of lived experience and
that kind of knowledge of the environment andthe socioeconomic environment and the
psychographics of that community is somethingthat we look at.
Mhmm.
You know?
(38:37):
Because of of the problem is a a lot ofemerging managers are, not differentiated.
You know, I can't tell you how many managerstold me they were solving for the future of
work.
You know, future of work, for sure of work.
What do you bring to the future of work debate
Yeah.
That is so differentiated?
(38:58):
Right?
What do you know about future of work and howfuture of income, you know, how all of that is
gonna change in the next few years?
Of course, there's a lot that's written aboutthat, but Mhmm.
You know, what is it in your experience andyour own personal interest that allows you to
have a very, very specific lane that you canown within the broader debate around future of
(39:21):
war?
Yeah.
Turns out that certain people have figured itout, and the ones who've cracked the code, we
figured it out pretty quickly.
And then so once we get to know these managersand we have really strong conviction on them,
the work that we do is get to know them so thatthey can share their deal flow with us and tell
us who their outstanding, founders are.
And, you know, once they've introduced us tothese founders, our job is to get to know these
(39:46):
founders really well before we write a direct,investment check into their their company.
Mhmm.
And Yeah.
And and that is the part that I love the mostbecause as a founder myself, I I I I can relate
to their challenges.
I know the stress that they're facing.
I know they work every weekend.
I know.
Kai used to work every weekend, you know, everysingle week.
(40:07):
And I I just know, that they're on this hustle.
You know?
And I can tell the ones who will stop atnothing to achieve their goals so long as they
are in a market that has that is large enough,you know, sufficiently large addressable market
to solve a big enough problem that we can get apretty huge return on our investment.
(40:27):
I'm pretty good at spotting those, and that'show we were able to spot, Samir Goel and Wimimo
Abi from Isuzu, where we invested in their around back in July 2021.
And six months later in January 2022, theyraised a b round at a $10,000,000,000 at a
(40:47):
$1,000,000,000 valuation.
Sorry.
That's me being that's a Freudian slip.
That's a nice b.
Still an ice b.
So and this market is still a nice b.
So yeah.
Yeah.
So I'm just saying that because I'm hoping thatIsuzu becomes a $10,000,000,000 company, by the
time we exit.
So, you know, and by meeting these two founderswho at that time when they were in late late
(41:09):
twenties, I could just tell that they were sofor real because they were tackling a specific
area within fintech and financial inclusionwithin fintech that is about helping renters
get on the property ladder and become owners.
We have building their credit score.
And that is a very simple proposition thatanybody could understand, but not everybody
could execute on.
(41:30):
Yeah, yeah, I got so I got three comments,right?
So in this market, somebody asked me this.
I was on a panel in D.
C.
A couple of days ago and they're like, hey,what are the exciting markets in a recession?
And, you know, any market where you're puttingmoney into somebody's pocket, especially in
these times are saving money.
Feel like it's a it's an amazing business andit's also an opportunity, especially if you're
(41:53):
making, you know, good, good amounts of growingrevenue, but you're also putting money in
somebody's pocket.
I feel like in my opinion, you know, on thefintech side, that's an amazing business in
these times.
And then another point that I want to respondto is just what makes fund managers different.
You know, I run a fund accelerator and thatsame point is what I hear often.
(42:15):
You know, there could be five climate changefunds.
They all look exactly the same and they youknow, the things that they're talking about
sound exactly the same.
And what I've also heard from specific LPs islike, you know, the pedigree is so great that
it's kind of boring, you know?
So, you know, you know, we would you got a teamthat, you know, worked at NEA.
(42:36):
They went to Harvard and, you know, theythey're already on their fund too and they've
already delivered DPI.
But what's the real story?
And I think that's what really gets people tokind of want to be behind that person,
especially if they're building a firm, amultigenerational firm.
So I think kind of what what's beyond the theinitial table stakes, which is performance,
(43:00):
track record, pedigree, knowing that you can dothe job in this market has got to be more
right.
And I think it's you got to take people on thatjourney.
So that was my, you know, response to that.
But then I think one thing that can be done topenetrate, you know, the table stakes is, you
know, kind of building your own personal brand.
(43:21):
So you and I, I'm going to I'm going to bringthis back because you and I were talking about
some tools that people can use for for podcastsand community building.
So, I don't know if you've seen people thathave been doing a good job in terms of kind of
building their own, you know, maybe personalbrand that's kind of tied to the funds brand as
well.
Because essentially, if you're an emergingmanager, you're the brand of the fund at the
(43:42):
end of the day.
Right?
So I mean, people are backing you.
So, you know, what what are your comments interms of content creation?
You know, what have you seen, with with brandbuilding, you know, across?
You know, there's a lot of different channels,Right?
So I'm doing video, because it's just morecomfortable for me.
I don't do a lot of editing.
So this is live.
Right?
But some people are great at some people aregreat at doing blogs.
(44:05):
Some people are doing great at doing audioonly.
So kinda like, what do you like doing in termsof content creating?
I know you like doing film production, and anda lot of, like, high end, video content.
But, you know, what do you like doing?
And then I guess some of the entrepreneurs orpeople that are in your circles, what do you
appreciate that they're doing as far as brandbuilding?
(44:25):
Well, that's evolved a lot over the yearsbecause I started, as I said, as a monthly
magazine Mhmm.
Editor and publisher.
So every month, I would put out a new issue ofTrace Magazine, and I would host a party with a
cover star, whether it was Alicia Keys orRihanna or whoever it was.
Mhmm.
And we would just basically document hip hopculture on a monthly basis, and that was fine.
(44:48):
After that, when we got funded by Goldman, wewere able to launch a television network called
Trace TV
Mhmm.
Which was very much a competitor internationalcompetitor to BET.
Right?
And and and that company is now owned by TPG.
It's it's it's big.
You know, I have not been involved with thatcompany since 02/2010, but I guess my point is
I was very much, raised on old media, you know,TV, magazines, and I used to do a lot of radio
(45:13):
stuff as well.
Now, I've kind of evolved that the TV work thatI used to do has evolved into documentary
features.
Right?
So I produced two award winning documentaries.
And
yeah.
What were the documentaries about?
They're both about climate change and howclimate change affects populations in the
global South.
The very first one, the Great Green Wall, wasvery much driven by this huge project called
(45:40):
the Great Green Wall, which is an 8,000kilometer wall of trees that is being planted
across the Sahel in in Northern Africa fromSenegal all the way to Ethiopia and how
desertification is forcing populations to kindaget on these rickety boats, to migrate to Spain
or Italy, many of them end up dying, and howclimate change is affecting lives of everyday
(46:02):
farmers and, you know, how young people cansupport can feed themselves, can support their
families, and what are the solutions?
Because my documentaries are always very muchsolution driven.
This new one that was launched a couple weeksago, Blue Carbon, which is gonna be shown on
CNN films in in The US and on Canal plus inEurope, is very much about populations that
(46:22):
live in coastal areas and have to deal withcoastal erosion and the solution that are that
is a mangroves and salt marshes.
You know?
How do you know?
How does nature create natural solutions tomitigate the climate disaster?
And, you know, that one we shot in Brazil, weshot in in Florida as well, but we also shot in
(46:45):
Colombia and Senegal.
So I always look at telling climate changestories from the perspective of of of the
global South because I feel like a lot of theclimate change issues always focus on the
concerns of people living in the Western world.
Yeah.
And a lot of my work has been about bridging,again, the gap between the Western world and
the global South.
And then so that's that.
(47:05):
And then I also have a podcast called theMidwest Africa every year, 30 episodes to come
out every week Mhmm.
For thirty weeks around development issues forAfrica.
You know?
Mhmm.
What is a start up scene in Africa?
What are some of the solutions for the creativeindustries in Africa?
You know?
And that's really rewarding as well because italso complements the work that I do with the
(47:27):
equity lines, which is really about identifyingthese extraordinary emerging fund managers and
these founders that we mentioned earlier.
So I love the fact that, you know, I have apretty good balance between the creative work
that I do as a content producer and also thework that I do as an investor looking at, you
know, investing in outstanding startups and andfund managers in The US.
(47:51):
Yeah.
What I've also been seeing too is a lot ofthese celebrities and successful artists now
get into a lot more philanthropy.
So I think there's a lot of education.
There's a startup called Ocho that is trying tounbundle that in terms of like there's a lot of
things that are demystified, especially whenyou come into wealth.
And this is good education for family officesof like, how do you protect your assets?
(48:14):
How do you set up a trust?
You have a business trust, you have a personaltrust.
So those are all things that I've been kind ofnerding out on as well, you know, in terms of
like, you know, what's the next stage?
Because when you think about your career, whenyou think about my career, you know, I was I
was working in tech, you know, became aninvestor.
But then as you kind of think about your yourlegacy, your family, you know, how our family
(48:36):
offices kind of thinking about their portfolioconstruction, you know, should they only do
real estate and then maybe a small percentageof venture and then, you know, those proceeds
you got to take advantage of QSPS.
So all of those kind of like long term legacybuilding activities and kind of like asset
protection.
Those are kind of things that I've seen a lotof, you know, successful entrepreneurs and
(49:00):
successful investors start to really thinkabout like building their own family office,
you know, and kind of how that's going toevolve.
So I don't know if you've been talking to anyother like single family offices or LPs in
terms of how they're thinking about that,because that's a great way to partner, you
know, for them to partner with people like youas well, because a lot of times they need that
(49:22):
access to, you know, interesting opportunitiesand trends and expertise that they may not
have.
So I know that was a loaded question, but
Well, it's it's absolutely not a loadedquestion.
It's almost as if you were reading my mind,Joel.
I have to tell you because I've been spendingso much time thinking about this because you
know when I raised money from my former startupthat I mentioned and that grew into a bigger
(49:48):
company, I never knew what QSPS was.
Mhmm.
And the amount of money I would have saved onmy tax bill if I'd known what QSPS was Yeah.
I wish I knew then what I know now.
Mhmm.
And so a lot of the work that I do withfounders is tell them about these things that
I've learned.
Yeah.
And and to be honest, now that, you know, myson is six and he's an only child, my wife and
(50:11):
I are talking about how do we set up a trustand how, you know, how do we kind of plan for
his future because my dad died, he didn't haveany money.
Of course, I didn't benefit from any inheritedwealth, but I would like my son, you know, not
to be a spoiled trust fund baby, but to be ableto have, the benefit of kind of what I work my
(50:33):
entire life building as in I do have assets andreal estate and investments and and all kinds
of things and how do you actually structurethat?
Yeah.
It sounds easy, but unless you have somebodyguiding you through that process, it it can
feel like a maze and so it's interesting thatit's only now that I'm really starting to focus
on that, because I feel like it's extremelyimportant as we start planning for his college
(50:57):
years and his future depending on whatever whatwhat he wants to do.
Yeah.
There's even creative things.
I think there was something that I saw on myfeed about Beyonce, you know, paying her
daughter as an employee.
So, you know, there are unique things you cando.
Obviously, talk to your CPA.
This is not financial advice, but or or taxadvice.
But, you know, I've seen some interestingthings in my feed in terms of, you know, hiring
(51:20):
your kids to actually be part of your companyand, you know, do real work.
And, you know, there's tax benefits to thattoo.
And, you know, like you see Beyonce's daughterin a lot of her videos, you know, so I can
imagine tax benefits to that.
But like just thinking about those things, youknow, how can you you know, it's not about like
how much revenue and, you know, how muchcapital can you grow and appreciate, but how
(51:42):
can you do that, you know, tax efficiently aswell as well.
I
mean Yeah.
Wonderful.
See, I'm gonna look into that.
I didn't know about that.
Wow.
I didn't know about that.
That's so clever Paying your kids to work foryou.
Some people do that.
Mean specific projects you give them.
Yeah, mean, so yeah, and there's things theycan do, right?
They can do some coordination work.
(52:02):
They can some people have hired their kids asmodels to do some, you know, media work, know,
they do Instagram videos with their their kidsand that builds like a lot of authenticity with
your audience, right?
So I think that's kind of interesting to seehow, you know, people are people are looking at
all these different strategies for for that.
(52:25):
What are some?
And I know we're out of time, but, what aresome of the things that you've been that you
you've learned recently, maybe in the lastquarter?
You know?
We talked about a lot of stuff in terms of justbeing present, you know, leaning into founders.
Anything you wanna share?
Yeah.
What I've been learning from our chairman andmy mentor, Dick Parsons, is the importance of
(52:49):
under promising and over delivering.
Mhmm.
One of the reasons he became so successful incorporate America running all these Fortune 100
companies is by under promising and overdelivering.
I feel like sometimes in New York we're allpushing so hard, all being busy trying to make
stuff happen that you know it's reallyimportant to set expectations and manage
people's expectations as opposed to thinkingthat just by working harder, just because
(53:13):
you're ambitious and you're known for taking ona big workload, you are able to, again just
make it all happen and do everything and youknow as someone who has suffered in the past
from planning fallacy, I don't know if you knowwhat that is, but planning fallacy is kind of
(53:33):
taking on too much and thinking you can do itall and not being able to finish everything
that you took on.
Yeah.
As somebody who kind of suffered from that inthe past, I'm careful now to not take on too
much and to literally under promise and overdeliver on what I took on.
Mhmm.
No.
I was you literally read my mind because thereI actually you were gonna ask me that question,
(53:55):
I've proactively started to deactivate like twoor three projects.
And, you know, I think I think you can takethem all on because people like you and me will
probably just lose sleep and get all the stuffdone.
But what happens is when you get older, likeyour health gets impacted and, like, the
quality probably goes down too, you know?
So there's kind of, like, repercussions with,you know, not getting a good night's sleep and
(54:20):
and, you know, kind of focusing on your health.
So one thing I've been trying to do too is,like, looking, like, I don't work out two to
three times a week like I used to when I wasyounger, but now I try to like just squeeze in
that run and I just do it first because once Ilook at my phone, I'm like, man, I got let me
let me knock out these tasks first and thenI'll work out later.
So I've been trying to like put my health, youknow, because you also think about your, you
(54:46):
know, as you get older, you think about yourmortality, you think about like, you know, you
want to make sure that you're around for yourkids and and your family too.
So you want to kind of be conscious of that tooand kinda be have that be blended in your flow
as as you're as you're doing all these things.
So so I totally agree.
I'm glad we we were able to come full circleback to flow as we end this conversation.
(55:09):
It's been a real pleasure, Joel.
I really enjoyed talking to you.
This has been really
fun for Absolutely, Claude.
Thank you so much for your time.
I know I know your time is very valuable, sothank you.
And this would be really a huge treat for theaudience.
So again, thanks for your time.
And we got some time, I think in the nextcouple of weeks.
So I'll catch you in person, I think next weekor the week after.
(55:30):
Absolutely.
I look forward to that.
Take care.
Have a beautiful day.
Take care.
You too.
Bye, Joel.
Thank you.
Bye.
Bye.
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