Friday, 13 March 2020, 12 pm Pacific | Fireside Chat with Edgar Villanueva

Edgar’s book, Decolonizing Wealth, has been making waves in philanthropy and beyond as he interrogates its history and roots in the same systems it purports to change. Read Edgar's bio here.

Sunday, 15 March 2020, 10:30 am Pacific | Zebras vs Unicorns: Money and Power in the Valley

Capitalism is a hell of a drug. When used responsibly, it can create freedom, innovation and efficiency. But unchecked, hoarding, exploitation and careless behavior can run rampant. The tech world has created a great example of this with venture capital and “unicorns.” It’s not greed and growth at all costs…it’s just business. Right? Wrong.

We’re entering a new age, one where entrepreneurs want to create solutions to improve the human experience and quality of life without playing a zero sum game. This is the age of the zebra. Learn why purpose and profit do not have to be mutually exclusive, why creating alternatives to the venture capital status quo is a moral and economic imperative, and how innovation in business financing can help us solve the world’s big challenges.

Further Reading:

Zebras Unite: Sex & Startups; Zebras Fix What Unicorns Break; Zebras Unite to Fix What Unicorns Broke; How a Zebra could Rise from a Unicorn’s Fall; New Stripes for Zebras Unite 

New York Times: More Start-Ups Have an Unfamiliar Message for Venture Capitalists: Get Lost

Wall Street Journal: Venture Capital and Its Discontents

TechCrunch: The meeting that showed me the truth about VCs

Recode: Why venture capital doesn’t work for everyone

The Economist: The wave of unicorn IPOs reveals Silicon Valley’s groupthink

Fortune: ‘The Cheap Money Era’: 2019’s IPOs Have Delivered Some Harsh Lessons to Venture Capital

American Affairs Journal: Uber’s Path of Destruction

Buffer: We Spent $3.3M Buying Out Investors: Why and How We Did It

Strong Words: Indie VC v3 Terms

Village Capital: Alternative Investment Strategies to Drive Inclusive Innovation

Entrepreneur: Out of $85 Billion in VC Funding Last Year, Only 2.2 Percent Went to Female Founders. And Every Year, Women of Color Get Less Than 1 Percent of Total Funding

Kauffman Foundation: We Have Met the Enemy…and He is Us: Lessons from Twenty Years of the Kauffman Foundation's Investments in Venture Capital Funds and the Triumph of Hope Over Experience

Sunday, 15 March 2020, 12 noon Pacific | Lisa Osborne and Stephanie Dinkins

Lisa Osborne of Black Public Media in conversation with transmedia artist Stephanie Dinkins about the intersections of Artificial Intelligence (AI) with race, gender, aging, and our future histories. 

Monday, 16 March 2020, 12 pm Pacific | Who gets to Decide? Flipping Power Dynamics in VC

Allie Burns, CEO of Village Capital, leads a conversation with Charli Cooksey (invited), Melvin Hines, and Liesel Pritzker Simmons about flipping the power dynamics in venture capital and making it more inclusive.