TikTokers take down Trump in Tulsa, a former-Google exec starts an anti-Google Google and John Rice on how to get more Black people in leadership

If you're waiting for your AI to turn into ROI

and wondering how long you have to wait,

maybe you need to do more than wait.

Any business can use AI.

IBM helps you use AI to change how you do business.

Let's create Smarter Business, IBM.

Support for this show comes from Robinhood.

Wouldn't it be great to manage your portfolio on one platform?

With Robinhood, not only can you trade individual stocks and ETFs, you can also seamlessly buy and sell crypto at low costs.

Trade all in one place.

Get started now on Robinhood.

Trading crypto involves significant risk.

Crypto trading is offered through an account with Robinhood Crypto LLC.

Robinhood Crypto is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the New York State Department of Financial Services.

Crypto held through Robinhood Crypto is not FDIC insured or SIPIC protected.

Investing involves risk, including loss of principal.

Securities trading is offered through an account with Robinhood Financial LLC, member SIPIC, a registered broker dealer.

Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

Hey, Scott, how was your weekend?

What went on for you?

Did you go to the Tulsa rally?

No, nobody did.

Nobody did.

My weekend was great.

I had a great Father's Day.

I decided to be my dad, and I woke up at 6 a.m., gave everyone a hard time for not getting up earlier.

I complained about the coffee maker, bought a local newspaper, ate a bunch of seafood, called the GPS stupid, and reorganized the garage.

The great comedy of Simon Holland.

This guy is amazing.

This guy is a good idea.

Are you repeating?

He brings so much joy to my Twitter feed.

Oh, good.

Good, good.

That's good.

But you had a good time.

I saw that you had prom.

Prom.

We had prom.

My son did a prom for his girlfriend.

He didn't get to do prom because of COVID-19.

And so he set up his prom.

And it was like, it was like the end of contagion, really.

That's what it was.

It was just him and his girlfriend.

And he set up lights and crepe paper in this barn that we're near, we have a barn, like an empty barn.

And he was beautiful.

It was beautiful.

And he dressed up.

He just did a, he did a beautiful dinner before.

He's just such a, my son is really wonderful.

I'm sorry.

He's really the best child.

So, anyway, so he was great.

So, I took some nice pictures.

He's better than the other one.

Is that what you're saying?

No, not at all.

The other one is great.

The other one is great.

The other one wanted to play basketball during the prom because there's a basketball hoop in the barn, but we didn't let him do that.

We thought it was not the time to do that, but it was lovely.

No, they're both amazing.

All my children are amazing.

I love them.

I had a nice Father's Day too because that's what they said.

Happy Father's Day to me.

That's what I do.

I rank them when I post the ranking.

No, I shall not.

They all have their own qualities.

Anyway, there's so much going on.

Let's talk about teens.

Speaking Speaking of teens, the K-pop TikToker users encourage your fans to snatch up free limited seating tickets to Trump's Tulsa rally.

It's unclear whether they really did have an impact, but I love the whole prank.

The result they said was that fewer Trump supporters actually attended the rally.

I'm not so sure.

I just think people didn't want to go because of COVID and because the act is getting a little

long in the tooth.

But it was a really kind of an interesting movement that these kids did this, this teens.

It was sort of,

you know, someone was like, you know, it's it's just like the movie Star Wars, the Death Star gets taken down by a bunch of untrained teenagers.

Because Death Star was what Brad Parscal referred to as the Trump campaign, which is kind of a stupid metaphor, of course, but he is not the smartest man on the block, I guess.

Anyway, it was interesting.

What did you think of this?

What did you, I think it was an interesting attempt.

I don't know, no one's going to figure out whether it caused, they're denying it.

The campaign says it didn't happen, but it kind of did a little bit.

What do you think?

Well, it initially kind of tickled my tribal sensors.

And then as I thought about it, I thought if the GRU had figured out a way to use platforms to reduce the turnout at a Hillary rally, we'd all be screaming that it was election interference.

I just don't like the idea of

platforms that are domained in countries outside of the U.S.

monkeying with our

elections

in any way.

So I, you know, my first thing was kind of a thrill because I don't think

it was also a K-prop group.

It wasn't just TikTokers.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I I think, look, like, pranking has been a part of campaigns.

This was like U.S., you know, like it was not out of a foreign country.

I think the difference is enormous.

Okay, but if this happens, if this happens for Biden, will you have the same sort of

cute tongue?

Yes, I will, because Biden doesn't have these campaigns.

What I think is,

I don't think so.

I think I would.

I think I would because Trump is playing basketball outside my makeshift prom right now.

No, I am not.

No, listen to me.

Listen to me.

Look, Biden doesn't have these things, but Trump spends a lot of time bragging like a million this.

They lie continually.

and to be found out on a lie is this is a very different situation.

I do see, like, it does tickle you, but it's at the same time, it's just kind of, I like pranking and politics, like pranking.

This was not what was going on.

I don't think it did impact the numbers.

I think the numbers were down because, and of course, the campaign lied almost continually, which even Chris Wallace at Fox was like, oh, it was the protesters.

No, they didn't block anything.

Oh, it was this.

Oh, it was that.

The issue is that this particular, and I think it's a media thing, is not working anymore this show is getting tired even for its most uh i agree most users

are going to get exhausted well it's tiring it's the same old same old him drinking water his walking his dumb jokes it's like it's literally like looking at like um

henny youngman today right he's not dave chappelle anymore let's just say he's not like he's not

yeah you do you well after a while it gets tired i'm just saying all these actions my wife please please right that's always a great joke But I have to say, after a while, it gets tired.

And he has to have something other than he is an aggrieved person, other than the media's fault, other than, you know, it's just the same.

It's like the greatest hit.

Someone said it was like, you know, someone coming out and singing like Freebird for the 200th time.

So I don't know.

I just feel like he's got to have actually something to say, just like any politician.

You can't just rely on

the administration to slow down testing, which I think makes a lot of sense.

I think that makes a lot of sense.

Today they're doing a flippy-doo and saying, actually, we're going to have a fall resurgence.

I mean, the whole excuses

are ridiculous.

I know, yeah, right, whatever.

I just think he needs some message that is not this.

And so he's got to come up with some message, just like all politicians.

And I think people are bored of it, bored of it, and they need something else.

And they're bored of the exhaustion, too, because all he does is make trouble.

And now he's in charge.

He's got to actually have a plan.

And I think that's really, I think people are tired of no plans.

Anyway, I don't know.

It was a media disaster for him.

And it was of his own making.

You know, it wasn't the media.

It wasn't anybody else.

And everybody was waiting for it to happen.

Agreed.

All right.

Pinterest, we talked about this this week.

Business Insider reports that at least 11 employees, several of whom,

several of them were black, have come forward to say they were pushed out of the company with no explanation, while others say they were verbally abused by managers.

So Pinterest has some recording to do.

I talked to a lot of Pinterest people over the weekend, especially in the alumni groups, and they all are sort of talking about this in these groups.

And one of them said,

you just can't

add on diversity.

You can't just add it on at the, when, now that you have this reckoning situation.

It was a really,

it's really interesting.

No, there's not an app for that.

No.

Diversity now.

I think this is going to go through all these companies.

Like, there's going to be story after story after story.

You rip through.

You rip through 100%.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Well, I don't know about that, but it was, a different thing.

But it's how do you get it?

I get that.

I get what you're doing.

But what would you, what do you, how do you, would you advise these companies?

I mean, it is what it is.

They behaved the way they behaved.

And so, what do you, what would you, what would be the best thing to do to respond?

Well, I can tell you what

I'm trying to do, or what I think I'm telling companies to do, or these companies are trying to do,

and we're dealing with this.

I'm on a lot of advisory and

boards, private and public.

I think the first thing you got to do is

it starts at the top.

The board of directors picks the CEO.

The CEO picks people,

the senior managers around him and her.

And there's just a natural tribal instinct to develop relationships with people who look like you.

So you have to mix it up.

You have to have some form of affirmative action.

Not being overtly racist is not enough.

And so I think at a board level, you have to immediately commission searches to make sure your board looks, smells, and feels like not only America, but your consumer base and your company, and most do not.

I also think there is a

transition, and that is this is no longer about communications.

This is no longer about Edelman and your agency.

This is about not only committing to actions, but taking action swiftly, and word will get out.

Just as word gets out on whether your hotel has bad towels or whatever because of the transparency of these platforms, your actions absolutely get out.

Also, and this is less aspirational, I think there need to be some firings.

It just strikes me that when we're talking about this, that

people seem to be very forgiving of these organizations where you found out, oh, there was this kind of accidental systemic racism.

Like, what can we learn from this?

You know, at Google, at Facebook, and at retailers, they fire people if they figure out the wrong trend in pants two seasons in a row.

And all of a sudden, there's all this empathy for managers who have accidentally overseen systemic racism.

Well, guess what?

There needs to be, I believe there needs to be some some firings.

And most of these people, the reason why senior managers make two to 300 times or exponentially more than the average salary is that the buck stops with them, full stop.

I've been fired before.

It sucks.

Sometimes it's not your fault.

But just as you get an undue amount of the upside and the credit when

unfortunately, accidentally things are really good, when unfortunately, accidentally there's been systemic racism in your company, heads got to roll.

That's what I would do, Karen.

Scott, I agree with you completely.

Heads rolling is what we're looking for.

But let's move on to big stories.

Speaking of someone who's trying to change things, a former Google exec who was at the top of Google and, in fact, was one of the people in contention for CEO, is building a company with a goal of competing with the mega search engine.

Neva is the new search engine.

It won't show any advertisements.

The CEO, Sridhar Ramaswamy, says it will not collect or profit from user data.

The company plans to make money on subscriptions from users paying for the service.

Sridhar was, I've known him very well, was at Google for 15 years running the company's ad business.

So he was in charge of its biggest

money maker, and he knows pretty much everything about how Google works.

He felt disillusioned with the company after major advertisers were inadvertently making money off of illegal content like child pornography.

It's a pretty ambitious plan,

considering that Google owns about 90% of all global internet searches.

Scott, would you, and they're using a Bing, which everyone made fun of, but Bing is actually a very good technology.

It just didn't hit like Google did.

Would you, I want to stay away from the Bing part, but you, you know, talked a lot about DuckDuckGo

and others and wishing there was an alternative.

Is it possible to compete against Google?

And would you invest in the company?

Not only, yeah.

So if Shridar calls me and lets me invest, I'm in.

This is, there is a huge opportunity.

If you think about the most impressive or innovative e-commerce company of the last 10 years, most people would immediately say Amazon.

I would say relative to where it was 10 years ago, I would argue that it's Shopify.

And these companies become so dominant.

And they can't resist but to leverage their monopoly power to the point where they create a pool of ill will the size of the Atlantic, which creates huge opportunity.

In steps, Shopify, we're not taking your data.

We're going to let you keep the brand.

And boom, they build tens of billions of dollars in value.

The opportunity for an anti-Google Google is enormous here.

And while people, critics immediately go to, well, they're just white labeling being search engines similar to what Ashton said, no, they're not.

They're actually, they will go into your email files and your own files and search them.

But because they're not advertising driven,

Because they're not like Google that used to take you to the best place, but now it takes you to the next place that they can monetize if you go to subscription you return to the purity of search and it immediately unlocks an ability such that even if he doesn't have the 7 000 engineers of google he can build a superior search engine because his business model is not cancerous.

It's based on subscription engineers.

It's sort of like Apple, sort of the fancy,

they can focus on privacy.

So why is it different from DuckDuckGo?

Because you made, you know, people

their model.

So DuckDuckGo, their model is we don't use data for targeting, which gets you halfway there, but it's still an ad-driven model.

It's not a subscription model.

The gangster move here, the reason why this could be the next $100 billion

value company is they're going Netflix, they're going iOS, and they're saying for people who don't trust Google, for people who recognize that Google runs on rage, for people who recognize that Google has a profit incentive to ignore child pornography or the radicalization of young men, I am willing to pay five, 10 bucks a month for better search and a better organization.

It's a different business.

I think this is incredibly exciting.

So would I invest?

Yes.

All right.

Now, he, Shudar, I'm talking to him later today for a column.

I've known him for a long time, and obviously he wanted to be CEO of Google, even though he kind of denies it, but he was definitely in the running.

It was Sundar and he, he was at the top of that company.

He created this.

So what do you say to him?

Like, is that he's, you know, he's found the light or what, why is he better suited given he's the one that made Google into what Google is today?

Well, there's a lot of these guys.

And I think there's, I think there's correct scrutiny when you make, a lot of these people see the light, like a Republican senator sees the light around Trump about the time they announce that they're not running for reelection.

And there's a lot of former Facebook executives that once they've cashed their check or their options, all of a sudden they decide Facebook is evil.

But he's not, I don't think he's lecturing Google as much as he said I wasn't comfortable with some of the where this had evolved I've left and I'm starting a competitor I don't more power to him I'm I'm I'm excited about this I don't know if it'll be successful I think they are an aggressive I would pay for it I would certainly pay for something street R would do I have to say every time sign up a little problem let's sign up but but let's let me let me ask you a question Dave Morin left Facebook a million years ago people forgot about path and remember it ended up selling to some billionaire from Thailand I think I forget where it got sold.

But

he tried that.

He tried to create a better social engine, social service called Path, where people were together.

I was in it and people paid for it.

And it didn't work.

It didn't.

And he was a top executive at Facebook, one of the creators, one of the, I would say, a very important early creator of Facebook.

What would you say he needs to do here to prove out his point?

Oh,

look,

we no longer live, unfortunately, we no longer live in an innovation economy.

We We live in an exploitation economy.

But beyond that, if you look at the majority of the market capitalization gains over the last five years, you can reverse engineer it to a driver who's making less than minimum wage, a teen that's depressed.

I mean, we have moved into full-blown exploitation.

However,

if this guy can build a search engine in a unique way of helping you get to the best place, finding you the best information as opposed to the information Google can further monetize, and he's clearly, it sounds to me like he's got the chops.

And most importantly, in this age of monopoly, this monopoly era, attract a ton of cheap capital such that he can build his future.

I think he's got a real shot.

But yeah, the odds aren't good.

It's just that on an asymmetric, on a risk-adjusted basis, if this works, the upside is pretty dramatic because this market is gigantic.

And if and it's 93% of it is controlled by one player.

It's good for Google.

It's good for Google, one, to have competition and two, to be like, look, there's other people innovating.

Because there has not been a new search engine since forever.

I mean, really.

I mean, Google should be in the crosshairs of the Justice Department.

And this creates, anything that creates more innovation is something I am for.

All right, enough of that, Kiara.

Let's take a break.

When we come back, we'll speak to our friend of Pivot.

As a founder, you're moving fast towards product market fit, your next round, or your first big enterprise deal.

But with AI accelerating how quickly startups build and ship, security expectations are also coming in faster, and those expectations are higher than ever.

Getting security and compliance right can unlock growth or stall it if you wait too long.

Vanta is a trust management platform that helps businesses automate security and compliance across more than 35 frameworks like SOC2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and more.

With deep integrations and automated workflows built for fast-moving teams, Vanta gets you audit ready fast and keeps you secure with continuous monitoring as your models, infrastructure, and customers evolve.

That's why fast-growing startups like Langchain, Ryder, and Cursor have all trusted Vanta to build a scalable compliance foundation from the start.

Go to Vanta.com slash Vox to save $1,000 today through the Vanta for Startups program and join over 10,000 ambitious companies already scaling with Vanta.

That's vanta.com/slash box to save $1,000 for a limited time.

Support for Pivot comes from LinkedIn.

From talking about sports, discussing the latest movies, everyone is looking for a real connection to the people around them.

But it's not just person to person, it's the same connection that's needed in business.

And it can be the hardest part about B2B marketing, finding the right people, making the right connections.

But instead of spending hours and hours scavenging social media feeds, you can just tap LinkedIn ads to reach the right professionals.

According to LinkedIn, they have grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals, making it stand apart from other ad buys.

You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority skills, and company revenue, giving you all the professionals you need to reach in one place.

So you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience and start targeting the right professionals only on LinkedIn ads.

LinkedIn will even give you $100 credit on your next campaign so you can try it for yourself.

Just go to linkedin.com slash pivot pod.

That's linkedin.com/slash pivot pod.

Terms and conditions apply.

only on LinkedIn ads.

All right, welcome back.

Let's move on to Friend to Pivot.

We have a person on the line.

His name is John Rice.

John is the founder and CEO of Management Leadership for Tomorrow, a nonprofit that works to empower and elevate black and other people of color into leadership positions in order to close economic disparities.

John, welcome to Pivot.

Thank you so much for having me.

So you recently wrote an op-ed in The Atlantic, which I thought was great, called The Difference Between First Degree Racism and Third Degree Racism.

Can you talk a little bit about this and what you were getting at in the essay itself?

Yeah, so my thesis was really to

think about

how do we move forward in a

time now where at this moment we've seen a lot of encouraging statements from leaders.

I think there's a real realization and kind of what I call kind of employer America in particular that where we are is not acceptable.

And I think

there's a thirst for needle moving actions and not just talking about problems.

And

so

as I think about it from a needle moving standpoint,

is there a conviction

for

change?

And I'd say I'm optimistic, just as context here in terms of, because I just think that there's really, for leaders in this country, there's nowhere to hide.

And

I think they're feeling pressure externally and internally in their organization.

So my thesis in the piece was essentially that what we need to do now is to think about how to increase the cost of racist behavior.

And I try to dimensionalize racist behavior in three ways.

And I felt that

our first challenge when we think about how to move forward on racism is we don't we're not really aligned on what it looks like.

And we're pretty clear that

around

the core doing racist and prejudiced things like calling someone the N-word and

discriminating against someone openly, policing black people different than whites, that's sort of pretty clear.

And there's real movement as it relates to policing reform.

We just need to elevate the cost of bad policing.

And that's not as easy as it sounds, but that will move the needle.

But then I wanted to focus on the other two areas that I think are important, which is what I call this sort of second degree racism, which essentially is not standing up to anti-racist

actions.

And then the third, which I've really focused on the most of the pieces, is

what it's really a category of, I think, what

most people would consider to be

institutional racism.

And I took a little bit of a different tact in the sense that, in calling this racism in the third degree,

which is that where we're not trying to really hurt anybody, but we created the conditions where somebody else's aspirations were really shattered for their future.

And so

this, I would argue, is the catalyst for for really moving the needle on race overall.

Can I ask you the idea of the third area, which I think people have been talking about, not saying you're not racist, but being actively anti-racist is one thing.

And the second part is how do you bolt it on to companies?

Because I was in some of the Pinterest groups this weekend.

I know you advised companies.

You've advised Fox Media, I believe.

Is that correct?

Yep.

And others.

How do you advise them?

Because bolting on this after the fact or trying to sort of say the words, but not actually do the action, so many people of color have told me they get people in there and then they don't do the training, they don't change the actual system, and therefore there's a higher failure rate of making this a diverse.

How do you get them bolting it on to do it?

What has to happen in order, not just realizing it, but doing something?

Yeah.

Well, let me start by sort of painting the picture of probably you put some context around the kinds of responses that you get when you're

engaging CEOs, especially in tech and beyond, you know, sort of, you know, well, you know, kind of how do we get there, right?

And I think the context is that,

you know, we're clearly not doing what I would call sort of racism in the first degree.

You know, the doors are open to these organizations

and no one's holding people back from getting in and

so forth.

But

that kind of environment now, where we are sort of post-civil rights movement, allows folks to convince themselves that their organizations are meritocratic.

And it also helps you discount the noise when you hear individual cases of folks

not performing the way they should.

So in the context right now,

here's the first problem, which is

we're in a world where,

and I'll use the old axiom,

when failure is not punished, failure proliferates, right?

So there aren't costs to being bad.

And then there also aren't really many benchmarks around what good looks like.

And then the third component is

that organizations and leaders actually don't feel they have a clear how-to move the needle.

And that's not just internally, but it's also people on their boards and folks from the outside, the advocates are actually struggling

for

the how-to playbook.

And so when I think about, and I'll give you the example,

when you hear, and I know you've heard, we've all heard many times, leaders say, well, we'd love to move the needle on diversity, on tech talent in particular, but

until we address the pipeline issues, there's only so much we can do.

The reality of that,

it's not the pipeline that's small, it's actually the number of folks that they know is small.

And I asked,

so you ask a leader, well,

how many people color

were at your wedding or at one of your kids' weddings?

And when you think about the pipeline, Kerry, I use the

analogy.

It's sort of in the oil business, right?

And in the oil business, you know, you would never, you know, wait for the stream of crude oil, you know, to explode out of the ground like in Beverly Hill Billies, okay, or flow right by your office and put a spigot on it, right?

What you do is you invest, you know, in the case of, you know, oil companies.

100%, right?

In identifying where that black oil may be, drilling down to find it, bringing it out of the ground, you know, and into our refineries, right?

So the key here, you know, for how to, in terms of the advice I give, is, you know, you have to invest in in cultivating that pipeline.

Set aside resources that will only focus in your recruiting operations, only focus on cultivating relationships with

talent of color.

And

think about this way.

It's sort of what you see right now at these, in particular at tech companies that are scale hiring organizations, what you see is their focus is

about

identifying jobs and trying to find people of color who fit those jobs right now.

And the reality is what you have to do is flip the script.

You have to say, invest in the, you know, in cultivate that pipeline and then find people of color, great talented folks, for, you know, first, and then find jobs for them.

Right.

And take a longer term approach.

And that's sort of the idea of like it's the framing is wrong and then the actual

tactics are wrong.

And all we need to do is actually tweak our recruiting and advancement

and machines in our organizations so that they work for diverse talent.

So it's not rocket science, but you actually have to have a rigorous approach, a rigorous plan, and then the how-to, and then the tactical bandwidth to execute just like you do everything else in your business.

Yeah, so we were talking about this off mic, John, or just before you came on.

I think it starts at the top that if you wanted to have the most impact,

you'd focus first on boards of directors, which would lead to more CEOs of color.

And so what is it, 13% or 14% of America is black, but in the Fortune 500, there are four black CEOs since we stand here today.

So less than 1%.

What,

you know, can you find or what do you think?

And I realize it's a complicated problem, but what do you think,

what's going on here?

Why do less than 1% of Fortune 500 companies have a black CEO?

Yeah.

We're going to need a bigger boat.

Well, first of all, I would say it is not the pipeline.

Okay?

No.

It's not tired of the pipeline issue.

Right, but there's got to be, I mean, honestly, if we're going to put the pipeline issue to bed

and take it off the table as an excuse, you know, we need to look analytically at that pipeline.

Okay.

And if you look back, and I just, I started to go back to the issue around, you know, in the tech sector, right?

But because I've done the numbers.

Oh, please do.

And,

you know, if you think about that as one of the areas in our country where they're really important important for wealth, you know, creation and job creation

and so forth.

So if you think about the pipeline for tech, and just talk about tech talent, which is where I hear, you know, many CEOs saying the pipeline is there.

If you look at, just go back to the National Science Foundation data from five years ago, okay, and I'm sure it's even better today, but

with 2 million or so college graduates, okay,

if you overall, okay, if you,

by the way, you know, call it, you know, 450,000 of those, 450,000

four-year college grads a year are black and Hispanic in this country, okay?

One, and then we go to tech and

kind of looked at the numbers.

And if you,

actually, if you dig down,

there are, you know, there are 100,000 folks okay of all backgrounds who are getting engineering degrees, you know, under, you know, BSs in engineering.

22% of those

are black and Hispanic.

And then you look at computer science degrees, 60,000, okay, nationally.

22% of those folks, another 13,000, math degrees,

you know, 5K.

So you got a pipeline of, you know, you have a pipeline of 40,000 black and Latino college graduates a year who are either engineering, math, or, you know, computer science.

That's 200,000 over the last five years, because that number is 2015 from the National Science Foundation.

So the argument that that you know with 200 000 you can't actually build your pipeline so that's the early stage okay and scott that doesn't address you know the the ceo but it it addresses the you know why we can't build the early pipeline actually it's there and it goes back to the oil you know analogy it's actually a refinery issue right what we're not doing okay is cultivating exposing and help uh and and helping to you know to prep that talent to make the transition from what they're learning in college to what you're looking for on the job that's all happening informally in our networks that are, you know, obviously

more weighted towards people who are not of color.

Yes.

I've never believed their pipeline argument, and I think their focus on unconscious bias, I'm always like, it's completely conscious.

I think

they sort of give themselves an out in that, a lazy out in that way.

But one of the things that I've heard from a lot of people of color who work at these is these HR departments that really don't work for the employees.

They work for the company.

And so a lot of the stuff is when each of them, whether it's not just people of color, but women women have an issue, it's always the onus is on the employee who is sort of, you're not fitting in right.

You're not, so everybody feels like something's wrong with them.

And I think just so many stories has this, have the same.

you know, trajectory to me.

And it's never the company that's the problem.

And it's because I think HR really does work.

They don't really work for the, they're not human resources.

They're company resources.

I don't know what else to call them.

How do you solve that?

How do you get that HR department on the side of employees?

Right.

To what Scott was saying, it starts at the top.

Okay.

And

it starts with understanding at the CEO level, you know, what is helping the people who are getting to the top?

What's facilitating their trajectory to the top, who are largely white and white male, okay?

And then what's different for people of color?

What they're missing is that the experience for black and Latino, Native American folks in these organizations is completely different than that of their white peers.

So we spend,

as a black male,

we spend literally a third of our brain bandwidth, our energy in every meeting of every day, twirling questions around in our head around, do I measure up?

Am I viewed as

capable?

Why aren't there more people here like me?

And those types of questions, okay, again, take away your bandwidth from focusing on the content.

and when you're dealing with those kinds of questions in your head, not um, it also leads to behavior that doesn't help you advance.

You, you're, you're less likely to take risks.

When people reach out to you, when you're trolling those types of questions in your head, and they're trying to give you constructive feedback, you're not sure where it's coming from, a place of building you up or taking you down.

When people are trying to mentor you, you're not sure, you're less likely to trust.

So, not only are you competing against white peers who are spending 0% of their day-to-day bandwidth and never distracted by those issues in any meeting of any day, but you're also

more prone to navigate differently.

So that's

the essence of the diverse experience in these organizations when you are one of a few.

And so the first step is for organizations to actually understand that these things are happening.

And then if they're happening, then you would say, well, we need to move beyond unconscious bias training, diversity training, right?

What you need to do actually.

And we also can't just focus on sponsorship and mentoring what you actually need to do is take a page out of the the world of sports okay you know which by the way is the only place in our society right now where if you have talent regardless of your race or socioeconomic background you don't get lost and then one of the distinguishing factors you know that we should bring to the world of

you know of to the professional world outside of sports where 99% of us are pursuing our career is is the understanding that to bring the high accountability safe place coaching the kind of coaching you get in sports that's distinct from mentoring you know the only way you deal with with those types of questions in in people's minds that i mentioned is actually to have the frequency engage and get a the kind of uh you know personal uh under the uh the surface relationship with folks in your organization to understand what they're dealing with and then to be to provide practical advice for navigating an environment where there isn't critical mass of diverse talent.

So you have to actually have different interventions, coaching plus mentoring plus sponsorship, and those would come out of a better articulation understanding of their underlying problems and underlying drivers of where you are and that's how you would solve it it's just like any other problem in business yeah all right i have one final question what advice would you have for white executives and board members if you had to give like from your perspective what when you give advice to these executives large most of whom are white um or the board members what is the hardest piece of advice you give give them from your perspective that they should listen to?

Well, it's twofold.

One, the first thing I do is I'll ask them, you know, do you have a strategic plan overall for your company, you know, for the next three to five years?

Of course, the answer is yes.

Do you have one for diversity and inclusion?

And they'll say, kind of, right?

Is it, you know, ask them, is it as comprehensive as your overall strategic plan?

And they'll say no.

I said, well, then how can you possibly

conclude that you're taking your best shot?

So I've really challenged them to unpack what they're doing currently and try to encourage them to elevate the level of rigor

around

their approach to diversity.

So

that approach to diversity doesn't compromise excellence, okay, and doesn't become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That's the first thing.

And the second thing,

when I get the question here

that, well, you know, we have,

you know, we're really making an effort to hire more diverse talent.

And this gets back to the CEO pipeline, Scott, you know, at this, we're at the mid and senior levels where, you know, we hire, we bring people in, they're A players on paper.

And for some reason, reason, when they get here,

they're B and C players.

They're not performing at the levels

that we would expect.

And

so the advice I give them is

to understand that.

I say, well, and I'll do this with a smile on my face.

I'll say, do you like to dance?

And most white male executives, not all, okay, but most white male executives

will say, well, you know, not really.

Okay.

I'll say, well, you know, those few occasions.

Oh, that is so unfair.

I feel triggered.

There you go.

So

I'll say to them, you know, those few occasions where you actually have to head out in the dance floor around, you know, with around people who are important to you, whether it's somebody's wedding, it's a corporate event, I'll ask them, you know, walk me through the feeling in your, you know, in your heart, in your mind that's going, you know, that you have as you're heading out in the dance floor, right?

And

what I will get, okay, in the vast majority of cases are a few adjectives, okay?

They are

everything from awkward, zero confidence,

to the Southwest Airlines, I want to get away.

And I say to them, okay, well, the good news is that

your confidence in your level of dancing is not ever going to hold you back from your career standpoint.

But if you think about it, when you are one of a few,

people of color,

the words that you're using to describe how you feel and dance for are exactly how we feel in every meeting of every day of our career.

And when you're competing against folks in our community,

so when they when they think of, when they get that and sort of feel the visceral understanding of what it's like, then

we can move on to

a set of action steps that they're much more prone to buy into because they understand the problem at a more granular level.

And my solution to the dancing problem is vodka, which doesn't sound like a purple rubber.

All right, John, Scott, do you have any more questions for John?

What piece of advice would you give to a 25-year-old person of color, young man or woman of color, who's ambitious, wants to be that CEO?

What one piece of advice would you give them in terms of their approach to their career?

The one most important thing that I would tell them is

to study the people who are getting to the top, okay?

And try to analytically understand what the bar is for the people who are getting promoted to those senior levels.

And that bar is going to include, you know, what are they really good at from a skill standpoint?

It's going to be what have they done from an accomplishment standpoint and who's been leaning in on their behalf, right?

And so you have to understand what is the bar to get to the next level and ultimately what's the bar to getting to the senior levels.

And the only way to understand that because of course in our organizations, we don't tell you what that bar is.

Okay, we don't tell you what you have to demonstrate.

So you have to look at the people who have gotten promoted to those levels, study them, and then

articulate, well, what have they done?

And then we have to emulate that.

So this is, you know, just, again, just like in sports, you get clear on what you have to demonstrate to get the next level, and then compare yourself.

from skills, from accomplishments, experience, from a relationship standpoint, compare yourself to that success model.

And it's probably not going to be a person of color success model, but that's, you know, that's fine.

And then you've got to go out and close that gap.

And if when it comes to getting senior, it may obviously take several years, but you have to take that one step at a time in two to three year increments for every promotion opportunity you have over the course of your career.

All right, John, this is really helpful.

John is the founder and CEO of Management Leadership for Tomorrow, a nonprofit that works to empower and elevate black and other people of color into leadership positions in order to close economic disparities.

John, thank you so much for having me.

Thanks for having having me.

All right, Kara, that was great.

We're going to take another break and when we come back, we'll do our wins and fails.

This month on Explain It to Me, we're talking about all things wellness.

We spend nearly $2 trillion on things that are supposed to make us well.

Collagen smoothies and cold plunges, Pilates classes, and fitness trackers.

But what does it actually mean to be well?

Why do we want that so badly?

And is all this money really making us healthier and happier?

That's this month on Explain It to Me, presented by Pureleaf.

Support for the show comes from Saks Fifth Avenue.

Saks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to shop for your personal style.

Follow us here, and you can invest in some new arrivals that you'll want to wear again and again, like a relaxed product blazer and Gucci loafers, which can take you from work to the weekend.

Shopping from Saks feels totally customized, from the in-store stylist to a visit to sax.com where they can show you things that fit your style and taste.

They'll even let you know when arrivals from your favorite designers are in or when that Brunello Cacchinelli sweater you've been eyeing is back in stock.

So if you're like me and you need shopping to be personalized and easy, head to Saks 5th Avenue for the best fall arrivals and style inspiration.

Okay, Scott, wins and fails.

What are your wins and fails or shall I go first?

Ladies first,

as they say on Hunger Games.

You go first.

You go first.

Well, you know, we were going to talk in the stories this week.

We had a long friend to pivot interview, but,

you know, I think Ben Smith wrote a column in the New York Times about something we talk about all the time, about Mark Zuckerberg's cozy relationship with the Trump administration, which I thought was interesting.

What I am interested in is what is it going to do if Donald, I mean, after, not just after Tulsa, but Donald's numbers aren't looking great, and he may pull it out.

I mean, let's just add that in.

But what is he going to do now, now that it looks like there's a possibility of a Democratic administration who seems more hostile to him and probably includes in some form Elizabeth Warren.

And then, secondly, you see some advertisers boycotting Instagram and Facebook.

Now, they're only doing it for July, like Patagonia and Northface and REI when you do not buy coats.

So it's not going to have that much of an impact on this company.

But

that to me is my

continued feel of Facebook not to be more in down the middle with people and the tight relationship with the Trump administration, which I would recommend listening to Ben, going to Ben's column and reading because it's more of what we talk about all the time, of course.

So,

that's my fail, I guess.

And my win is Reed Hastings become, once again, acting like the

really just

the kind of leader you want to see in tech.

He's pledging $120 million towards U.S.

historically black colleges and universities.

It's the biggest single donation to Rachel Justice since the George Floyd uprising started.

It's actually substantive.

It gets something done.

Of course, you know, Netflix has also been very,

has been more diverse than most studios.

So

I think that was pretty great on Reed's part.

Okay, what about you?

Yeah, I love Reed.

So my

win is a woman named Rebecca Jones, who was a data scientist working for the state of Florida,

putting together what was at one point,

was at one point considered a fantastic dashboard.

And then the kind of the fish rots from the head of the governor here and basically the administration has decided to ignore what is the forest fire of poor citizenship and just

head up your ass behavior that basically describes Floridians at this moment who have decided that, okay, even though we have record numbers of infections, that we're going to just ignore it and put our most vulnerable at risk.

And Rebecca

was put under pressure and asked to manipulate data.

Actually, that's not fair.

She was asked to withhold data or portray it in a way that wasn't accurate.

In other words, they were signed up.

They were specifically reporting all the negative tests.

You can take a test eight times and they would report all those negatives.

And if you test positive once,

So the ratio of negatives to people testing positive really wasn't an accurate reflection.

And she brought that up and she was basically, she was fired and she started her own dashboard.

So I think she's a gangster.

I love that kind of leadership.

I love the pursuit of truth.

Can I just say my mom, we're bringing her up from Florida and my mom is like typhoid Mary in the COVID department.

Like she's, we've been trying to keep her contained.

And so I was like, I went to that dashboard and was showing her the statistics for the county she's in, which is not great.

They've risen, I think, 9 to 15%.

It was an incredible number.

She was like, oh, it's not here.

And I'm like, actually, if you look at actual data, and I was using this without realizing that woman's name, but amazing job.

That's a great win.

She's amazing.

She deserves that.

I'm not sure that, but the state of Florida.

Of course, the governor's insane.

Well, and the governor's really, I mean, he really is.

His mentor is the president.

And in a racist trope, they're blaming the spike in infections and what is just a racist whistle call saying that it's immigrant workers.

in the in the western part of the state.

So, you know, of course, they're blaming this on Mexicans when it's not.

It's a bunch of mostly young, mostly white people who've decided that they don't really believe in the citizenship that's made this country great.

So I'm, anyways, Rebecca Jones is my winner.

My fail is

I think I don't, I really don't, Robin Hood announced some actions.

They're quote unquote putting

appointing of committed to recruiting.

an option specialist

in the face of the death, the suicide of a kid named we talked about this,

Alex Kearns, who threw himself himself in front of a train after believing he was down $700,000

and they denote they've donated $250,000 to suicide prevention and I'm in the world of all signaling my modest success I'm committing to donating a quarter of a million dollars to the Jet Foundation or raising a quarter of a million dollars for the Jet Foundation it's this fantastic organization that empowers teens and young adults with the skills and support to grow into healthy, thriving adults.

So, you know, Robin Hood has raised $900 million, has a valuation of $7 billion,

and pledged a quarter of a million dollars to this problem that, you know, they are obviously,

you know, very concerned about, but also very complicit in.

And so, you know, my word to Robin Hood is big fucking deal.

Big fucking deal.

So, you know, shots fired, a quarter of a million dollars, really?

Really?

So I'm going to match Robin Hood.

I'm going to, a professor from NYU is committing to raising a quarter of a million dollars, as is Robin Hood, who's raised $900 million and has a valuation of $7 billion.

Well,

are you serious about this issue, Robin Hood?

Well done.

Anyways, that's my life.

I saw you wrangling online.

I thought it was great.

I saw you wrangling with several people, and I felt,

I feel like you're on the right side of this.

It's ridiculous.

It's kind of insane that they're arguing about this, but again, it's another example of lack of accountability for their actions.

It's just this, it's the same thing over and over and over again.

In this case,

it's so obvious what's gone wrong here, and it's their glitch.

It's their mistake, and they won't take responsibility for it and putting a band-aid on it.

Why do we have an economy where the richest white people in the world at the other end of that is a teenage girl or boy thinking about suicide?

How have we gotten here?

Well, masks, everything.

The same thing you were just talking about just a second ago.

You know, it's the same idea of the governor of Florida putting people at risk, young people putting people at risk because they feel like they need to go and have a hurricane at a bar.

It's ridiculous.

It's just like, this whole mask thing is just exhausting.

You know,

it's a big baby America that just is so selfish and homicidal and suicidal at the same time.

That's what, you know, just like both.

And

it's really quite disappointing.

And it's such a small gesture of social solidarity.

And in this case,

you know, this company reminds me quite a bit of the reaction Jewel had.

You know, what I mean, as I said, and others, but it's just the same idea, it's the same lack of accountability.

And I admire you, and I support you in your effort.

And I will give you money also.

I will give you money behind you.

You and I are going to host a fundraiser at my place in Florida, Kiera.

I've already decided.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

We'll do whatever you need.

Whatever you need.

And I will slap back at the people who are going to be able to do it.

The Jeff Foundation.

Check it out.

Jeff Foundation.

Check it out.

Jeff Foundation.

Scott,

my admiration for you has risen 100%.

100%.

It's gone from little to just a little.

No, I like when you go into this mode.

I like when you go in this mode.

I like it a lot.

I think it makes you a better person.

I'm not signaling.

I'm just trying to be more attractive to people in the successful day.

I don't care if it's virtuous.

It's still right.

It's still right.

It doesn't matter.

Anyway, Scott, it's time to get out of here.

I'll talk to you later this week.

Thank you, Joe.

What do you got on Capitol?

What do you got going on?

Oh, still in Vermont.

Still in Vermont.

But I like it here.

I like it here.

I do.

It's so beautiful.

I I went kayaking.

I went biking.

I've been going biking every day.

Biking on bikes is harder than on Peloton.

Can I just tell you?

Just like I'm in such bad shape.

But

I'm here, and then I'm going to go back to D.C.

and get ready

to do working, be working, and having good internet access, actually, which is always a pleasure for me.

But lots going on this week with my kids.

I'm having a great time with them here.

And Amanda is wonderful.

And her family's house is very pretty.

Anyway, so we will talk to you next

later this week.

There's lots of news, of course.

Don't forget there's a story in the news.

If you're curious about it, you want to hear our opinion on it, email us at pivot at boxmedia.com.

We will talk about anything to be featured on the show.

Scott, can you read us out?

Today's show was produced by Rebecca Senanas.

Fernando Finite engineered this episode.

Erica Anderson is Pivot's executive producer.

Thanks also to Drew Burroughs.

Father's Day.

My father is 90.

He was a frog man in the Royal Navy.

He commuted to or came over to Canada on a steamship where he became a lifelong Maple Leafs fan.

He's been married and divorced four times.

And he wears a mask.

He swims every day, and he takes a walk on the beach.

and he wears a mask and I would ask all of us, let's give all our fathers the best Father's Day present and let's wear a mask.

All right, I like the scar.

I like all the virtual singing that's going on here, but you're absolutely correct.

Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.

If you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or Brankley, wherever you listen to your podcast.

And do wear a mask when you're doing it, okay?

Just practice.

If you liked our shows, please recommend it to a friend.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media.

Olivia loves a challenge.

It's why she lifts heavy weights

and likes complicated recipes.

But for booking her trip to Paris, Olivia chose the easy way with Expedia.

She bundled her flight with a hotel to save more.

Of course, she still climbed all 674 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

You were made to take the easy route.

We were made to easily package your trip.

Expedia, made to travel.

Flight-inclusive packages are at all protected.