>> i would like to thank you for joining us tonight in san francisco for your my name is peter and we are very delighted to have with us charlton d. mcllwain, vice provost of the faculty engagement and development at new york university. he's also the founder of the

center for critical race and digital studies and co-author of race appeal how candidates invoke the race in political campaigns, the winner of the 2012 a psa ralph's monkey award and also with us he'd david ellington's founder and executive chairman of the silicon valley block chain society, a global member driven ecosystem block chaining cryptocurrency related project across industries and for social impact. members are active investors primarily in technology, collectively representing more than 1.5 trillion in investment capital, and the motto is funded revolution. i love that. we are so pretty new that is very compelling story, very important story kind of lesser known in tech, but looking at people have been working towards a social justice inside the tech industry and the book is called "black software: the internet &

racial justice, from the afronet to black lives matter" of course by charlton d. mcllwain and published by our friends at oxford university press. gentlemen, pleasure to have you both with us. welcome. [applause]. >> think you are the introduction and thank you for all that have come out and maybe a few others will trickle in along the way. so, this is a great place to be. i'm wrapping up what's been about a month and a half long to her promoting this book and i can become no better place to end up, this part of the two were in this historic moment. i was just talking to these general and before we started when i got up to the west coast and was telling everyone when i was headed next and i said city lights and everyone forgot about the book. they just says, my gosh i grew up there and spent all this time

there, yet to do this. there's a bar across the corner so it's a great thing to be here to talk about this book and to talk with and thank you david for joining me tonight. we will give you some back story about the book and get into some conversation. i don't know where it will lead. i have a starting point but i've a feeling we may jump off course and throw out the q&a to the audience at some point. i thought i would start by telling you how black software came to be or at least where the journey started for me and that was simply to explain or try to explain black lives matter. here was this movement, movement that was powered by digital technology, by folks who

harnessed these new digital tools to do something that people had not managed to do central in the late 1960s and that was to put the issue of racial justice and really the issue of the way that black folks suffer at the hands of the us criminal justice system back onto the us public agenda. not since the early 1970s had that happen, but 2014, 15, 16 you sought everyone across the country even beyond the country knew who black lives the matter was, new what they stood for, new with the message was and even some folks who were not predisposed to agree with their position founder themselves agreeing saying yes, black folks are treated differently in this country and particularly in the terms of control justice so i wanted to understand where did this movement come from.

had the good sense to know things like this don't just materialize out of thin air so where did it come from, where was the genealogy, where did these folks trace their lineage most in terms of the social and rachel-- presold justice work but also technology in the facility and knowledge of relatively new technology. that's where i began and i thought i knew the story i was going to write so this is for anyone that's written a book, i don't know if there are any, but you know the anxiety various when you think you know what you are writing about and find out you have no idea what you're writing about and that happened over and over the course of about three years of writing this book because it didn't really start off as black lives matter and of the mori started

going back in time finding folks like david here and we will talk about this much more, the story just began to change, discovery after discovery of different people, different times and in different stories then compelled me too say there is something bigger, there's something broader, but let me start where i first began which was the '90s when the web comes online where everything happens, natural place to start, but those of you-- everyone except for maybe a couple you all remember the '90s. if you are thinking about black folks and technology in the 1990s, what are two words you undoubtedly remember or talked about? anyone remember? you are too young in the '90s.

that was the way in just which we began to think about black folks and technology from that point on and as much as larry irving and other policymakers had good reasons for pointing out the gap between access to technology that there was a tremendous erasure that was affected and so in some of these talks were ipad projections and usually put up on the screen a number, 5.6 million. 5.6 million where the number of people in 1995, number of african-americans who had computers at home and who were online in 1995, but that's a story about 5.7 million, 5.6 million we know here nothing about because we presumed the story was black folks don't have

access, therefore they have contributed nothing to this new medium in this platform and so my story began trying to understand who were the 5.6 million, what were their stories, would they do, where they come from, where did their journey start and that's where i first met david ellington, so i went to start the story there with reading just a small portion of the book and i didn't know david had not got his copy from oxford yet, so maybe this will be a little bit of surprise we will same: to read it and then david will ask you to finish out the story tells a little bit about what's at this moment meant. chapter eight, it's called the battle for black cyberspace and

it starts here, beginning april 12, 1861 america engaged in the great civil war. january 1, 1863 president abraham lincoln emancipation proclamation gathered legal force and for two years, five months 19 days thereafter nothing change for many slaves and then major general granger and union troops arriving galveston, texas. there he read the proclamation. the people of texas are informed in accordance with the proclamation from the executive of the united states as slaves are free involving an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves in connection existing between them becomes that between employer and free labor. no space was three and tell-all slaves or free and some black people commemorated the day calling it jim t, the date of slavery and a brief period of in

-- reconstruction 130 years later to the day david ellington and malcolm symbolically assumed general granger's role. their announcement was as revolutionary as a historic moment when the last slaves received word she was free. it started in 1994 timothy jenkins works, meanwhile malcolm that kim david back down to the budget in their malcolm gave day-to-day claims of the future. i will stop reading right there, but david, tell us about that beginning, that moment and it may be a little hyperbole, but tell us about what ultimately became net know are in the significance of what it is you, malcolm and the team of

technologists and others launched. >> of course, first, thanks for inviting me and hosting. you just kind of blew me away. i completely forgot that. the-- specifically, that was the day we launch the service intentionally and we did tie it to june team is coming so it was tied to friedman emancipation but your eloquence there, but i was an entertainment lawyer in los angeles. i had gone-- well, i need to backup further, why would i care about or do something in african culture just because i'm of

african descent, african-american, so i went to howard university for graduate school and got a masters degree in african politics in the 80s. i then-- if so, i had a passion. i wanted to know my culture and there is the myths in the black community we walked around like kings and no, i wanted to know that true so i went for two years and that this degree and was always a part of my life, but then i knew i wanted to go to law school so i ended up working to make it very long story short i ended up going to law school in washington, georgetown. go to georgetown law 91 when it to start at least by practice on the west coast's. i lived overseas in asia for a bit so i wanted to be on the pacific rim. i went to tokyo for a while, came back, went to law school when i graduated i said let me beyond the specific rim so i moved it to la.

la only entertainment law and all my clients were black, surprise. mostly this early stage, this thing called hip-hop and r&b and so there was also the time when gangster rap is just starting so i had to do with knuckleheads on death row in all that, but i realized i was really getting my feet wet in this medium and i was like really excited about it and this guy since i lived in tokyo i still kept in contact with folks there. okay, there were seven or eight black people in tokyo at the time. [laughter] guess what, we all knew each other especially in that age group, separate from the military guys who were in tokyo, so anyway there was this one guy with a wild background. his name is kenny and he was a dj, but morning south africa,

raised in libya, but his family was refugees because they were being persecuted in libya so they went to sweden, tall, beautiful handsome guy, a model in tokyo. i was at some event and saw him, a brother, okay what's up and we became friends and stayed in touch. moved back to america, go to law school than la. we stay in touch over the years. he reaches out to me, hey david there's this kid malcolm who's really smart over here, went to mit undergrad and he's going to stanford, but i'm telling to visit you in la first. i said okay, fine. he came over, he was on a motorcycle comes up to stanford and starts school there. he was undergrad computer science and was going to get his masters at stanford. are now practicing law and of course i'm an entertainment

lawyer in los angeles so my parties are better. so, he comes down all the time he thought he was just going to go to school. of course, he was always sleeping on my couch. eventually i go to visit him and i like what you do up there, so i went again made a long story short i went to visit him once and he was at stanford living in palo alto. apparently the computer science students called the lab the dungeon-- the dungeon. so, he's-- he's in grad school at stanford so we always has work to do. he said you can command my work to do to come down to the lab that i can't walk you through i have to finish a project. he sits me down in front of a big computer, chunky stuff, keyboards and i'm trying to keep

myself busy and i'm playing around on this thing and there's a room full of computers, not a pretty room. dungeon in the bottom of the building on the campus before the fancy stanford we have today. i'm looking at all the stuff clicking around and somehow one of my favorite games in the day was a fellow fellow new clip from black to white, black to white and i was playing this game and it turns out it was in the university of stockholm's-- a site that was some kind of something back in the day when it was all text still. i tried to get out of it and i'm sitting and there's a chinese guy sitting next to me and i'm like i can't figure this out and i can't find malcolm anywhere and at this guy so i said look do you know how i can-- he click, click and brought me back outside if you want to find stuff you can use this thing i

created and it was called because i said what he doing he said he's working as phd and it's called-- i said what is it called and he said a list of text and click on and go somewhere and come and is called yet another hierarchal organization, yahoo comments jerry yang who later became jerry yang. so i'm like-- he was just giving his phd, him and his partner. this is the world i got exposed it to and when i saw that being an entertainment lawyer and knowing my culture, i saw there was nothing in all those clicks -- like 2000 links, text links before the world wide web which means there was dubbed, death, when all graphics and sound and video is added, before it was text, mostly scientists and the department of defense designing bombs, so i decided

that there was something here, so when i went back to la: that's when i had-- i just started, started bantering with him on the phone back and forth and that's when we-- finally said something super narrow placket-- no, not black that's too hard, so i came up with no are and we came up with that more scenic i went to read a part has as one of my favorite parts of that particular conversation in the book. we suddenly this is you and malcolm-- let me start early, david was the approaching middle-age lawyer. malcolm was-- >> in print? really? i was only 30. >> this was malcolm malcolm's--

>> i will talk to him later. >> malcolm was a young geek and david took the lead. his vision was dead on but malcolm was there to remind him of his, his proposal backed a technological charm. we suddenly realize the idea of a network of black culture was an opportunity that the two tossed around potential names for the venture that began exposing in their mind and afro net was first out of the gate and they ruled it out they discovered a company with that name already existed selling hairnets not to mention malcolm pointed out there was an online service named after it that already existed. malcolm's suggested cyber black and david squashed it, to hardy said. i could have easily gone down the path of trying to be the blacker than black service but i had to say were about to enter the 21st century about communication and creating a place where people to talk,

debate and have fun. to-- to me the business model of the next centuries about inclusion and then it happened in tandem. malcolm said net and david said no are. >> unbelievable-- that's great, i mean, we are doing a project together, but that's exactly what happened. >> of them the story moves on ultimately you have this plan for the company and you come before ted who is magic man handing out buckets of money looking for great opportunities and brought you all in. you made your pitch and the rest as they say was history. so, in a previous version of the book there was a chapter titled remember when the internet was black. it had everything to do with the

company in that moment and the realization about your idea, malcolm's idea and recognition from aol that hey, this is going to be big. >> welcome sm by the way to tie the last piece up we built the thing for six months in the early part of 95 and juneteenth is when we flipped it on on aol. it's really also because of my then wife who has since passed, wendy marx, she was working for a company called red key communications that was the president of the founder was ted lyons'. steve case bought communication and made ted president lost the was ceo and ted's first initiative was i'm going to find

and identify and fund and because-- as soon as he announced the company wide my girlfriend at the time said you should submit your idea and she introduced it to ted and we were the first company funded by america online so today another branch you may know called brought-- motley fool, so six of us. that the second what he wanted. he new content would be compelling why people would want to join and pay monthly for some service and those of you that remember online services we talked about her early the 1200, the 2400 baud and finally in the american online carpet bombed america with all these diskettes and that was back in the day when there was prodigy and jeannie and compuserve and apples in the world so that's

how they wanted to step away and really crush them and they did so we were able to-- we got printed ted and we were on server doors. think we got $200,000 with 20% of our company come over 199,000 -- by doing it-- oh, that he would have 5% of the company so instantly a million dollar valuation like the mob right, a made man. we wrote this check and that's when i went to venture-capital and that's part of the reason we were dis--- different in the marketplace. we were the first venture capital professional money. a lot of people started things including new york online. that was purely just new yorkers primarily, it was really a

predecessor to us and a bunch of others, but we were the ones who really got-- they were like there's an opportunity here so that made us a corporate strategic partner and also venture capital check so corporate money from ted and america online and venture capital money from sim card which is terry jones also funded world space. >> what is that mean for you to think that-- to know that to have lived that the first big commercially successful venture capital back property as it were online that brought millions of folks to this new medium as we talked about before no one knew what the hell it would be poor, what it was about, to think about a black internet service that featured black contact,

black owners, tell us about the significance of the moment both with that time and also looking back knowing what we know now about the current technology landscape and-- >> there was a lot of hype. i got a lot immediate attention and malcolm did as well. novel, it was different. we fortunately were not in the digital divide basket because we were up and running. they tried to put us there like but we were doing pretty well so is that 5.6 was really our target market and if you have black folks online it puts me in a certain category, so we could demonstrate to mercedes-benz this is where you should advertise so all of that came about. how did it feel? my dream was to make sure you know i had gone through all these conferences and i will

never forget i was at this theater in san francisco and it was packed, 500 almost-- was all white guys, pocket protectors and they were announcing the grateful dead cd-rom and cd-rom obviously not online, not connected to the internet, but that's how it evolved. we went literally to cd-rom and then online services because you put it in an dial-up and obviously then the internet. the point being that's when it hit me that i was determined. i had studied african politics, was an entertainment lawyer in la whose clients knew all the content, we are american pop culture and certainly athletics, so i wanted to make sure our

culture was not left out of this revolution. i was determined. i was passionate about that. i went to howard, of course i'm going to think about where's the black thing, what am i going to do about that and that's how i was determined. malcolm was different. mit undergrad, grew up on a farm in pennsylvania, literally and he was a chess champion and he's now getting-- he was in japan, second languages japanese and now is going to stanford. he was like i'm just a nerd, nerd with a personality. so it wasn't as much as an issue but he bought into it. he got it. it was that importance. definitely a mission driven business that was fortunate enough to turn into a bit of a business. >> tell me, i will wrap up and we will do q&a with the audience , but you reminded me about three or four weeks now

doing an interview on science friday, npr and midway through they open up the line to color-- callers and there's a woman-- i forget her last name now, but leticia came on and said i was part of that net noir team, engineered, come from harvard etc. and remembering kind in the magic of that moment, but what was it like for you and malcolm. of course yet all the attention that you had a team with you. >> most definitely. totally a team, i mean, upwards of 150 employees at one time, between 150 and consultants which, think about, i wasn't in oakland, i was in san francisco in south park and to see that many black folks in our even to this day was a shock. pathetic in 2019, 2020, but it

was truly for those folks and those people involved directly yes, it was-- anyone can empathize. you can just imagine wow, we are doing the hottest cutting edge tech thing called the internet and our culture and everyone's like looking at it and we are in magazines tv interviews, i lived it so this has been an amazing experience for me to even look at it in the lens of that was exciting, that was amazing. e-mail i got up every day and was ready to go, endless energy and yeah, it was magic and i am glad that everyone involved-- the overwhelming majority is people involved felted or part of a in the culture like with any company i do is that kind of

role. you don't work for me, we work together and you have a role when you deliver your lane and i deliver my note let's do this together. >> on going to move onto one last thing i would be i think remiss to read a little chunk of given where we are and it has everything to do with the fact that by the end of the '90s you are transitioning out, net noir was transitioning and aol being sold and so forth, malcolm was out. many other folks, black folks that were building things in the technology space along with the cross generally technology started to come, although this is gone, all of you were i would say not forgotten, but i remember you telling me like we were in the magazine and we were a big thing but not since.

to show sort of called up and was the same way like no one has ever gotten the story of all of us black technologists and ginger near so a part this so there was a sense for me in which black software was two stories and if any of you read it or seen it and seeing the table of content you know there's but one into and that's because they represent two stories i ultimately found and felt compelled to tell with the one being the story of you and folks like you that was celebratory in finding folks that people had missed, the history of missed annie's revolutionary moments, but the other story was the other part of black software and usually when i do this talk again the title of black software, one

book, two stories and a little cocaine. i'm going to talk about the cocaine to wrap up and it's one of those stories my wife is like still don't understand why you have the cocaine stuff in the book and i'm like it's real, number one. it's one of those things you just don't lose no matter what once you discover it. it's in the book somewhere somehow, so in the 1980s silicon valley heralded a second high-tech revolution permits bay area core. the region radiates outward from stanford university to the west and up to daly city past san jose over to hayward named for invention, innovation and not to ignore. the region had long ago placed mid life to industry. in the 1980s cocaine was the valley's newest purest most preferred investor strip it high-tech curio. the valley sold at dreams, the

sprawling intellectual and industrial spaces including a stanford connected lab and government-sponsored research centers providing a new frontier for imagination to wander. each had the impulse to build new tools with which to master the universe. financiers capitalized investment and fantasies, the new tools brought to market in droves provided the satisfaction that comes from dreams. cocaine was tailor-made to fit the valley's technological if those, the daily grind demand to create value, pervasive drive to succeed and its capacity to aspire. the section goes on to talk about what we know and are all too familiar with which is that cocaine in the 1980s took a trip down from this area down the coast to south-central los angeles were changed, technology, chemical technology

and then the reek havoc on los angeles and then ultimately the rest of the country in the form of crack cocaine and we all are familiar with its aftermath. so, when people ask me what is black software it really is the two stories in the cocaine story in the book is really about thinking of how another kind of technology right because you go to engineer and so forth. my friends would say what the hell are you talking about black software or can software be racist or can the internet or technology be racist and they're like with hell are you talking about and so i wanted to provide a different kind of analogy, if you will, a different technology, cocaine we can very well see how it changed and in its transformation change the way it engaged with the

different communities, black and white and so black software that metaphor becomes a way to talk about not just the ways that we were able to marshal and use technology to build wealth, build community, to push revolutionary politics, but to point back to the ways in which these technologies were first introduced, produced and utilized to neutralize the threat that black people pose to the system and that is-- that becomes both timber to, so there was a sense for me that when all that came crashing down in the '90s there was a sense of inevitability that it was great, but couldn't last too long that black folks were not going to be able to profit and really have a stronghold in this new medium and so there was a course correction, if you will, but

maybe let's wrap up and go to questions. if you will to reflect on a question that we talked about briefly several times and that is why it all disappeared, why is it that we look out on the internet and technology landscape and see so few folks like you back in the day, folks that are owners, commercially successful in the tech arena. where did it all go? what happened from your point of view? >> a variety of things. the early nature of the internet was media driven and sorting was around advertising and i remember-- over here we had a company for six years, 6-year old company and during that six years the young at the advertising agency, the young

executive like the young kid who just joined would be given the digital stuff. every year i would go back it when a new person so i'd have to education-- educate them about this audience of black folks, black professionals and became super frustrating. those folks-- you know here's my demographic, here's the numbers, no, no, no, but is it still really about value? i can reach those black people and get more money to yahoo or at the time who matter, google whatever else so that's one piece of revenue to sustain that business was a challenge, but i think there was a really weird period in san francisco, i didn't see any black people, and got down to like three or 4% of specially 2004, 2005, but lately i see black kids walk around and

they are all working for twitter, google and i'm like where did you come from. they are not so much starting their own. in fact, which is a little twist for you is when they do's been out-- some are starting businesses that are totally mainstream. that's the difference, not like this vertical target, that's number one. or number two, starting venture funds, trying to start a venture fund or join one so they want to invest. everything is about roi now, return on investment, but you see a lot more young black professionals that can code and do all of that, just as geeky as all the others and not necessarily as interesting as i would've hoped to talk to. you can see them walking around town all the time.

changed a significant chunk of the culture of san francisco meaning they bought into that and that too they are, but they identify black and they still know their culture and tie into that, but they work at twitter etc. and they want to deliver on what needs to be delivered on. really interesting how that's evolved so, no, i only see the occasional maverick or just i'm determined to build business, but it's like the only business i have seen intact, i actually rarely see businesses now intact targeted towards black folks and black culture. we ended up broadening out to like market ourselves that if you like anything about black folks, music come to net noir and aol ultimately positioned us as well. that's how it happened same xo much to say and we could go on for hours, but i don't think we will keep the room all-night.

questions from the audience, comments for david, myself, anything about the book? stunned audience. >> is there any fear or do you see any iteration of the-- i know i have seen fbi black identity politics is what they are going after. >> yeah, good question. when you read the number two of the book and i will put it this way, about a year or so ago i remember i pulled out my phone from the intercept and the crux of the story was that the nypd was sharing their image data

with ibm to build a new ai system that would target folks as suspects by skin color, so they put the lid off of this and said this is happening and then they said the other big story is that it's been under wraps for five years and there was a moment-- i had already finished the book and i sort of just chuckled and i was like you got it all wrong because this is not a five-year story, it's a 50 year one and there's a very real direct thread that everything we see today in terms of facial recognition, in terms of algorithmically derived surveillance practices, all of that has a through line back to a moment in the mid- 60s, a through line right back to ibm, so this was just the perfection of something that started long ago, not the beginning and so to

answer your question, there is a lot to be afraid of. there's a lot already going on and a lot more coming down the pike that is in many respects-- i see it as a course correction, that is we had this struggle of technology. it is there. we use it, we marshal it for our interest, but you saw this in black lives matter and twitter. it was powerful till cops decided i can get on twitter also and i can find you. i know exactly where you will pop up. i don't care where else in the country you will be even if it's all at the same time, so there is this push and pull that i think is the inevitable struggle around technology particularly when comes to issues of race. >> going back to the probe

moment or the continuing 50 years arguably going back with earlier technology in terms of surveillance and control, there is a certain amount of capacity of people, citizens, to push back against the state, when the state is the kind of policing that the fbi did. in the private sector and of course there's the relationship between the private sector and the government and people moving in and out with the different sectors. there seems to be on the one hand there is the power of the capacity to mobilize with this new technology and to educate and organize. on the other hand, where-- how do bounds get put on the use of data that is collected by these private enterprises and

amendment shared or bought by the government entities that we don't like doing the things we don't like? >> another good question. i think in part you answer already, which is in know part of me doesn't want to give short shrift to black lives matter and other movements who have used in digital tools powerfully, but i think the one thing they demonstrate over and over again are the limits, not a sense there is no other way or venue to push a people are pushing, but there's a limit to technology that you don't own, that you don't control and in some respects for some parts of the population are simply not familiar with that inhibits your ability to push back and then to think about what is on the other

side and that is the free flow of data as you mention between private companies, government, shadow governments and other entities that is just almost insurmountable. i mean, think about everything going on down at the border, to control the threat, anything to contribute particularly on the-- >> well, i mean, i think-- i'm sorry i'm very pessimistic. let's say there's not one more bit of data gathered, the amount of data and if it's organized and processed at the way it's intended to or some folks want to use it, there's no privacy period and it's interesting i've spent time in china and of course here and there's this

massive you know look at how bad they are in china because they rely on their government with all this data. i talked to plenty of chinese folks on the ground in mainland, that's okay because the government has it. it's safe. i haven't heard any american say that recently here, number one. amber too, how much we think it's okay the private sector has all this data about us and they are allowed to make money off of our data and we never get paid for it ever, but yet that's okay , so from now on we have a lot of issues and i think, i don't believe any of them will be solved at the way anyone of us wants and so comfortable anytime soon. that's my personal view unfortunately, but i like being directed. i have been in this game for a long time, since 95 collecting data. we want better advertising,

better content, of course our stuff was not as sophisticated back then, but now to constantly tell me that everything you are doing is what i want or for better for me, that's just a lie that you have rationalized your behavior in your conduct, in my opinion. that's my response. >> you mentioned some anger tech people are not quite as interesting. what with the right questions be for some of the younger people working in the tech industry to ask? what's some things they should be more concerned about? >> young folks, i think you know it's hard to respond to that. if you really step back-- look at this room, this is their turn, this is not our turned. it's not our generation.

we had our opinions and our parents that we were crazy so we have become our parents. they don't mind. to them, filming themselves, having sex and posting that is okay. wow. in fact, we have celebrities out there that that is how they cause started being celebrities and a couple are multi billionaires as a result, so if we live in a different era that maybe you and i don't get, so i don't know. they like to think they are now weeded in this impact thing, the impact for them as a button to click and never get your hands dirty as far as i'm concerned, literally roll your sleeves up and do something. so, it's just a detachment. all i can do-- i don't think

critique is rude and disrespectful of them. i can just comments on the observations, i can make observations and hopefully encourage them to think a bit more about the implications are impact of what their conduct is, but i'm in no position to be a judge anymore in my opinion. >> i will say something similar and it comes from having the good fortune over the last couple of months and instances like these and so forth to find a lot of young black folks, folks of color that comment and say hey i'm working at facebook. i'm an engineer. on that twitter, this, that and the other and they basically say the same thing, a, i need and want to make some money. that's real and that is part of that like i'm hard pressed to judge and say no, you should be all about the revolution right now. and it differed all of these things that i've already had my

chance, but they also all say i'm alone, i don't feel like i have the community, i see things that are not going the way that i think they should in terms of how this technology is being used, but of course, what can i do and say, so i think if there a question out there for them to ask it's simply when is the right moment and i think what keeps you optimistic is that they are recognizing-- i meet so many that are like yeah, we do this stuff and i'm not ashamed to say it is kind of [bleep] up -- sorry, can i say that i'm video? , but then it's the what next and the what do i have to give up or deferred to be able to really push this sense we need to do something better, so i

think that's a question for them. i think is the question for us, how do we support a make it easier for all of us to push back in some ways we think we should. >> they are starting it at google and other places where the they are finally sane know we don't you doubt that contract with the navy. that is at least a start. there's that element out there, but for black folks in particular it's really sticking out and out because we finally have a decent salary. in a student debt like everyone else and now-- because we feel that it's not necessarily true, but it's all we have it's like i'm not inheriting anything from grandma or grandpa or dad or mom , this is it. on the first one out the gate finally making real money and now you want me too risk all of this to do what and then i can be considered-- why did you leave facebook, well when you are looking for job at google or twitter or they all know they find out.

>> troublemaker. >> you meet an interesting point when you identified in the book this area and regarding cocaine and how san jose and silicon valley appear in this area has always been an area of change and being able to express a new thought, a new way of doing things, your own particular string of life and in the 80s the time short talk cocaine seems like there-- family values, family structures, a lot of people moved out of this area like you are tight about years ago, the same family has moved to sacramento and this area now house raised the nerds like you

were talking about because there's that old structure in the community, value of education and it's just flushed away and they have been raised because i have a nephew who is one of those nerds and they have been raised with a different way of thinking and of the traditional family values, so now they are open to think in their own way, which is the way that people down the block frank and okay that's what so-and-so does and i can do that too. without the limitations, which we knew are there, but that i know for themselves. does that make sense? they have to find out themselves , but you know i guess the support system and the old structure that used to give advice on how this way wins i

guess historically if your great grandfather was a farmer and your grandfather was a farmer in your fathers a farmer-- no, no, that's flushed away and now they are without a farm trying to find themselves within this new society and a lot of them have migrated to the computer. >> went to ask your opinion also in the angle of our those young black folks then, they are one the backbone of the community it's a double-edged sword, we can warn you there's racism in europe to deal with this, now they just don't see it or if you live but they will eventually and may not know how to handle it is your point, but is there an argument also that i meet them and they feel free, i'm going to become a billionaire, the next jack dorsey, so it's

like a double-edged sword and i kind of prefer that where they are just going for it and look at it well, my thing is i get slapped with race every once in a while. someone gets slapped because they are female organic, so pay if that's really it at least in this tech community i can live without personally. [inaudible] >> interesting discussion. >> to dovetail on this, have you guys looked at bob johnson lb chief $2 billion in looking at now seeing not that many as you talk the younger generation focused on a black product, let's just fit in do you i guess i know you say you like to be direct, what's your opinion on does the message get diluted when you are not focused on that >> clearly it does, but i'm

progressive in my politics, so it's not just about getting rich but, i also live in america and our society has skewed that way, which i had no control over. certainly as color i have no control over. society, white folks, the majority have decided it's okay that a whole bunch of people-- very few people at the top can have a whole lot of money. they somehow allow that to happen and i'm like wow, so that's bigger than me. tying it back to your point or your question and i'm not going to-- i want you to get in the game, be successful in the game, not in the black aim, but in the game and so no, we had our era, it's like you know there was the cotton club, we had the cool schooling ended jazz and gave

birth to blues, gospel gave birth to the blues which gave birth to jazz which gave birth to rock 'n roll which then split it became hard rock and then became sole, motown so unlike okay just let it go, i mean, it's bigger than all of us but i want us to be in the game not sitting on the sidelines and that was my passion for net noir tying it back to this book that please understand and i'm so proud of malcolm in my former business partner of 30 years ago , damn near accurately described it as that was the passion. we were like not, this is too big, we got to be here and we got to be right in the middle of it and make sure they know everything about what we do and how much we are part of this thing called america you know we are pop-culture. we are hit whether you like it or not. ever say man, who gave you that? you listen the blues?

who gave you that? rock 'n roll, who gave you that? oh, take us out of any sport, really? how would that look? so, we have our value at many levels as people and a lot of it's based on pure individual achievement. it's pure athletic, saying, if that individual that comes out it's like wow, who are we and i want to make sure that was on this new digital medium. i think we achieved it. >> good time to wrap up and i will just say that i would probably say this anyway, but i think block-- "black software" is amazing though, amazing but for me too write precisely because it's filled with folks like david who did amazing

things, who have amazing perspective both about the time that they experienced and lived through and also reflecting back on that time and really helping us understand a history that is simply not there and in some ways not just not there but a lot of folks asked me, you know it must have taken you years and years and painstaking research to find this stuff and yet, it took a lot of work but it's not as if it was not there, that it was not in many ways easy to find particularly when we go back to the 1960s and think about the ways that the computer revolution, civil rights revolution were a head on collision and not two separate things as most of our history tells us about, so the great part of me-- for me of writing this book was moment after moment of things blown away by

stuff that no one has ever told me that i ever knew and even in the realm that i know stuff about, so it's a great book, buy it, by several copies if you like. it's christmas time. thank you all for coming out. depreciated. thank you again, david. [applause]. .. will be talking this week with a couple members of congress about issues such as privacy and 5g and with other