[Music] by the year 2045 America is going to be a majority racially diverse country and we believe that in order for companies and Brands to remain relevant they have to have a Workforce that's reflective of these changing demographics and consumer
habits and demands this is not about quotas no no no you got to do this because you want to retain the absolute best people about 2 years ago I attended Davos what dawned on me really quickly is that those individuals in the room have known each other for years let's
take the best element of all these existing networks and let's put that into 2045 and let's improve upon it I think you guys are going to have a really winning combination of need and solution well hello everyone it's Jim oasy with yet another infinite Loops
today's guest I have a special interest in let's get that out of the way up front because we're full disclosure people here at infinite Loops uh my guest Porter brasswell is the founder and CEO of an oasi Port oasi Ventures
portfolio company 2045 Studio A members only Network for accomplished leaders of color but Porter man like going through your CD I'm like is there anything this guy is bad at like you were the co- founder of uh jop uh what is it Jewell J jopwell jopwell
which is basically uh similar to what you're doing here we're going to talk about the differences uh during our chat uh but you're also like you were threee starting point guard at Yale for the basketball team won all sorts of awards you're an
author Porter welcome I think you had me at hello maybe during your pitch to us it's a pleasure to be here I'm I'm very excited to be in the portfolio and to have had a chance to have you know gotten some know you now and it's been
it's been awesome um it's been awesome being a part of the network let's start with the name 2045 studio um I think it's very cool but I want to let I want to let you tell the story yeah absolutely so the name of 2045 studio is that uh 2045 the year represents the
year of a majority racially diverse United States and we believe that in order for for companies and Brands to remain relevant they have to have a Workforce that's reflective of these changing demographics and consumer habits and demands and we believe that
companies are not situated yet to remain relevant because their senior level of leadership is not reflective of these changing demographics and so we're in the business of making sure that companies are retaining specifically
their employees of color so that by the next time that sea level turns over it's going to be more reflective of what this country looks like yeah and I think that the way you go about it too because my next question is is around how you're
going to execute against this mission that that honestly is what got me so excited and to make the investment in the company so if You' share with our listeners and viewers the way you're going to execute against this Mission I I think is quite absolutely
so basically if you've been doing diversity Equity inclusion work over the last decade or two it's been a really siloed experience there's been a chief diversity officer who's been tasked with doing it all maybe there's a diversity
division that it's their job to make these workforces of Tomorrow our perspective is that especially with the changing landscape of what's going on within Dei right now is that you have what we're calling an inclusion Gap because Dei is going to be going from
being this sideload experience into being distributed to all so locally at the team level leaders have to be inclusive leaders so that all employees can feel seen heard inv valued which leads to higher retention and promotion rates we believe that
there's power in first and foremost Executive coaching inclusive Executive coaching specifically and that regardless of one's racial Identity or background everybody can benefit from our framework of inclusive Executive coaching uh it allows individuals to
show up as good leaders um those individuals that identify being of color we know also need additional support and so we make them 20 45 members and by being a 20 45 member they get access to a network of other individuals who've been tapped and identified by their
company as being Future Leaders and there's power in finding Community with those that are that want to be retained and promoted at their company so that as this community grows up within these organizations they have a um really valuable Network that they
have been able to find in 2045 of other leaders of color who similarly are dealing with the same challenges and obstacles that they're experiencing but there's a general commitment from that Network let's remain employed by this
company let's stay here let's go through the challenges and obstacles so that when we get to the top we'll have this network of people that have climbed together within companies those that don't identify being of color so typically allies we have an ally Network
for them to talk about their experience and their vulnerabilities and what they're insecure about in terms of how they show up as being an inclusive leader um and we create space for those conversations to happen and then our perspective is you then bring these
groups together we break bread we we understand each other more we have we have better empathy for for for you know my colleague for the next person and then ultimately that's how you create a more inclusive culture so we recognize
that Executive coaching is powerful for all different communi need to find communities that they can engage with and be open and honest with each other and then it takes everybody to build inclusive cultures of tomorrow so that eventually Again by the year 2045
companies remain relevant yeah and I I I like I love the organic nature of it I love the network joining nature of it because the as you and I discussed before we invested this sort of siloed approach uh to Dei kind of invited kind
of the backlash that we've seen recently because it was an other right it was like it seemed like a bolon and and and the way you're doing it is no no no we're going to be completely organic we're going to take the things that everyone agrees on right
mentors are good uh allies are good we're not adversaries here we can both as you put it break bread together and and discuss these things in a much less charged environment I also I immediately thought of when examining your company uh I used to belong to YPO
young president's organization and and you have a lot of the similar elements to what you're doing there talk a bit about that and you it's basically I love the fact that you also are having real spaces right so you've got a great space in New York I think
you're planning on opening spaces in other major cities um I just the way that you're approaching this as hey this is this is the natural way that all of this stuff got done um and now we're just gonna you're not going to copy
you're going to improve but talk a little bit about that yeah so I've been fortunate to have been in many rooms throughout my career um and about two years ago I attended uh I attended Davos and it was the greatest professional experience of
my life and what dawned on me really quickly at attending that conference is that those individuals in their room have known each other for years The Backs slapping the hugging it was like wait a minute they've known each other
and when they show up at a gathering like Davos there are such good feelings and sentiments and business is getting done and I yet consistently I like most times I found myself being the only I was one of the youngest people there I was one of the only African-Americans
that I that I came across there a lot of there's a lot of representation from different parts of the world but I think you know I I felt that there weren't many young African-Americans attending that conference and so I didn't have my
network that I was backs slabbing and hanging out with and I was trying to figure it all out but it was clear to me that there must have been other communities that these individuals were part of so that when they showed up here they had known each
other came back to the state started doing some research came across YPO vistage other incredible organizations that have been around forever and it was shocking to me that there wasn't a community that was intentionally built for influential Professionals of color
now there have been small nonprofits that do fabulous work that have networks of people who gather at conferences there are are family organizations I grew up in a Thing Called Jack and Jill that's been around forever so there are
these moments where families of color have gathered or Executives of color have gathered but typically you find that it's only for black people or it's only for Hispanics or Latinos and so it's very isolated and there hasn't been like the network of the networks and
again what's startling to me that I realized is that by the year again 2045 America is going to be a majority racially diverse country and if you think globally right now that's already the case so how come that container hasn't been built at scale for the
world's majority and that was what was so so shocking to me and so decided to go out and build that and decided let's take the best element of all these existing networks and let's put that into 2045 and let's and let's improve upon it so
you as you think about YPO like the Cornerstone of what they do is is a forum it brings together groups of 6 to 12 individuals they meet regularly there's very it's very strict on in how they show up and how they are expected to engage um the confidentiality that
goes into that the commitment that goes into that but and while that's great they don't have consistent space so they might meet at somebody's home they might meet at somebody's Country Club they might meet you know wherever the case
may be and they may or may not involve their family members and so I thought well let's have let's call it a council so we have a council so for the Professionals of color that are in our Network they get placed in a group six to 12 individuals they can meet in
person or virtually and because our community may not necessarily belong to country clubs at the same rate that the YPO Community does let's have let's have a dedicated space so if you find yourself in New York we have a dedicated
space the 2045 Clubhouse you can show up to the clubhouse whenever you want five days uh five days a week we're open from 9 in the morning to 9: at night we have we host a wide range of events and activities and you can host meetings and
it it's a it's a club meant for our members and that's where they do their councils if you're not in New York you can do it virtually so we took those elements um we also recognize that you know one of the powerful things about like a YPO is that it's it's so senior
in nature that there's commonality amongst the members because they can relate to wealth they can relate to family building they can relate to running organizations but at that level within Corporate America there's not enough
representation if you look at communities of color to do something like we're doing at scale so the vast majority of our Network are people who have between 10 and 20 years of professional experience and at that stage call it roughly your 30 to early
40s something year old they're thinking about family for the first time maybe they're building their family they are like at that VP level they've gone through a lot of obstacles but they haven't gone through all the obstacles so there's there's there's commonality
amongst our members and at that channel companies can't afford to lose that talent because if you can retain that demographic at that stage you can have them cross over into like the next run of executive leadership you just got to
really invest in them at that stage in their career and so that's where we focus so we take a lot of the learnings and lessons and ultimately my vision is to have many of us attend DBL but have our own version of of Davos one day
where we bring together the world's leading Professionals of color we set the agenda we talk about what we where we think the world's going and and what we what we need as the majority um and uh and when that moment happens I know that 2045 will have been successful
there's just so many things about that that I really like um The Clubhouse in particular uh one of the ways you really get to know another person is spending time with them H and and I found that some of my uh best relationships people
I trust the most it wasn't because you know we did this deal or that deal it was just that you know I got to know them informally we spent time together without agendas um and you know uh virtual I do a lot virtually so it's not that I'm opposed to Virtual but I really like
that in real life component that you have because it's great to just drop by right you say N9 to9 if you're in New York and I know you you're opening in other uh large cities how great is it to drop by at 10 o'clock run into a couple of people oh
hey and then you have a just a conversation that wasn't on an agenda it wasn't on any kind of formal thing I I find that in the you mentioned conferences conferences now there's been some notable changes recently in conferences trying to kind of reinvent
them but people people tend to be much more formal and this is all people I thought right much more buttoned up uh and you know a lot of the good I used to joke when I went to a lot of conferences the best part of the conference was like
at the bar after the conference was over right because that's where people were really being themselves and I think that the other thing that is great is you're focusing as you note you're focusing on a level that is going to ascend
to that that top SE Suite uh area what are some of the common concerns worries uh that you find in that cohort and I also like and I'd also like you to talk about you you have two ways of joining an individual can join um and you could
also uh do a deal you've done deals with fizer some uh Mancan Ford Etc talk talk me through that but let's start with the what what are you as you're sitting in these conversations is there something that emerges just kind of as like a common theme or are you
like wow I never I never knew people were thinking or talking about that so I would say the thing that probably gets overlooked the most that if you don't identify being of color you wouldn't you wouldn't recognize um is that for folks for folks
like me right um 99.9% of the time I am in the minority I live in Connecticut there's no place that I would go where I'm going to step in and I'm going to be in the majority 2045 is the clubhouse is such a rare opportunity for me and all of our
members to physically show up to a location where we are in the majority that literally never happens and it's and there's just power in being in a space that for the time that you are in the clubhouse you es you escape reality to
some degree because you are not the only and so all of the commentary and feedback that we get is that people feel safe they feel like they can be their authentic self and when people say oh what does that mean to be your authentic self it means that you don't have to
think about how you're laughing that you don't have your corporate laugh versus your social laugh it means that you can dress the way you want to dress without being concerned about how people may judge you it means that you might choose
to dab somebody up rather than Shake somebody's hand being your authentic self means that you don't have to worry about all those other things you have to think about when you're entering a space where you're not in the majority but that doesn't happen for us and so our
community members just having a space where they can just be is by far the most powerful thing and it's something that I fully didn't appreciate until I received the feedback from others because again it's like this weird thing that like we my our
community knows that like we're never in the majority but when you find yourself in it and you can consistently tap into that feeling I haven't I haven't had that opportunity previously so I think that's been the consistent feedback
across the board from all of our members and it's what I feel every day when I go to the clubhouse um it really takes my breath away because we're we're on 45 East 20th Street like outside of that Clubhouse in that area you're not going
to be in the majority and so it's um it's been uh it's been amazing to see and then in terms of the corporations that we work with you know we're really fortunate that we got the benefit of the doubt because I built job wall so my first um became the largest diversity
recruiting platform in the country I built the company for about eight years at our Peak we're about 150 employees we worked with 400 companies and we were really the first for-profit diversity recruiting solution in America um and when we sold the company
a little more than a year ago and at that point I was the executive chairman of the company I was thinking about what I wanted to build next because so many companies use jopo to diversify their Workforce we got the benefit of the doubt when I went back to those
companies and said I to help you retain that Talent now and so we're coming up on a year we have 40 large corporations that work with us and um and they they trust us that we are going to do right by their employees and so we take that
responsibility um you know we know that it's a it's a it's a responsibility we take that seriously and so we value quality over quantity we value deeper larger relationships than you know working in a really transactional way with an organization for a company to
partner with us table Stakes it's a two-year commitment we don't do one-year commitments because this work isn't completed over a year so we're very intentional about the companies we choose to work with because we're going
to invest a lot of time energy and resoures and our brand into that organization so we take that seriously and so all of that is on the to b side on the B to C side if you're an individual and you're not from a large company you're an entrepreneur you're a
professional athlete you're in you're you're an actor actress and you want this community this space we allow you to apply and um and if you're willing to engage and you're willing to be present and show up will allow you in as an
individual um and so it's both B2B and B Toc the B Toc is kind of what gives the space The Vibes it's what keeps it active during the today and the B2B is where we have um larger relationships and we could be more influential with with Workforce Development and inclus of
Executive coaching and a lot more offerings and so I think both need to exist um in order for 2045 to um to hit all of the right tongs one of the things that I found very compelling uh about your uh business plan your mission uh is that you know you've said endlessly
listen this is not about quotas this is not about um you know you you've got to do this because you know fill in some sort of political reason what you stress is no no no you got to do this because you want to retain the absolute best
people you want to be you want to have people with super high agency stick around and the the thing that I just loved about that is you are you are uh really looking at just very sensible ways to retain what as you point out
will be the majority of the population if you don't have that and 2045 comes around you kind of maybe out of business companies CEOs have a responsibility like increase shareholder value make sure that you're being a good Steward of your company if that's true
and you're looking at a macro perspective perspectives you have to have a Workforce that truly understands what these consumers want that like America is going to look like my daughters my daughters are are black and Lebanese and
you look at them they're racially ambiguous like they're going to grow up so differently than how I grew up and that's what America is going to be and you have to have a Workforce that starts to understand that like hair textures if you're
and like skin tones and like products you're putting out into the world are going to have to evolve to meet the needs of these consumers it's good business and if you think about like people push back and say oh that's not fair you you have programs for certain
demographics well equal is different than being Equitable and it's diversity equity and inclusion and if you go back to if you just want to remain relevant and you want your company to thrive if there is a population of individuals within your
company who are disproportionately impacted and being affected you have to put things in place to close that Gap that's an equitable Solution that's okay that's not that doesn't have to be politicized there's a group of individuals that are valuable to your
organization you need to retain that Talent so you have to put things in place to support them otherwise you're going to lose that talent and if they're going to continuously be disproportionately impacted that's it's not to say another group is not valuable
it's not to say you can't invest in other groups it's it's missing the point the point is you're trying to like you're trying to increase shareholder value there's many ways that you go about that but the most important thing you have to protect are your people it's
your most important asset many companies say that and so you have to meet your employees where they are you have to recognize their existence in the workplace and outside the workplace and you have to be able um to have empathy
communicate transparently you have to talk about why you're doing certain things it's it's human capital it's human Capital Management it's it really is like it doesn't have to be this labeled thing this is just building good
workplaces yeah and and you are particularly good at using like when a political aspect comes up which which I really dislike honestly because what it's like we we've been overp politicizing everything in my opinion and you're particularly skilled at
diffusing those kinds of conversations and you Advocate the Socratic method for having them G give us an example of uh you know the other thing I really liked about you is it's it's people actually talking to each other it doesn't matter
if you're white a person of color you know whatever it's just human beings talking with each other and and not getting grabbing on to that I hate labels right and that I'm I'm an ex right and and well what what does that mean walk through how you use the
Socratic method to to get people to think oh you know what maybe I've been thinking about this all wrong you know I think all of it just comes back to understanding and Trust like if you can understand somebody's perspective or how
they got to where they are and they understand that by you asking them questions trying to get to the root of like where they where their form of understanding comes from it's not challenging them it's trying to understand them better so you can get to
a place of like aha I get it let's build from there but if you can't find common ground or things that you can both agree upon it's hard to engage in any conversation I mean with my wife you know we have two we have a four-year-old and a two-year-old two girls and when we
get into the heat of the battle I'm like wait a minute wait a let's take a step back we want our girls to have the most fulfilled life in all Realms is that is that right Jules like is that accurate and like we'll find understanding in
that and it's like great we're on the same page we're on the same team let's build from there let's make decisions with that common goal in mind what does that look like let's talk through it so that when we butt heads at least we know
that we're trying to we're trying to get to the same place the same outcome now it's much easier to work through those things because we we have the same intention and it's the same thing when it when it comes to any of these conversations it's like can we all agree
that we all want to feel like we belong we all want to walk into a place where we feel like we can just show up and be and not have to think 30 steps ahead like can we agree on that because if the answer to that is yes then let's also
unpack how do we get there because it might be different for me than it might be for you and that's okay and let's talk about why those things might be different because now you're going to get to know me and a side that you probably wouldn't have gotten to know if
we didn't find that common ground so I think all of this comes down as conversation it's assuming the best intent it's giving Grace it's giving space it's it's thinking about an individual in the context of them being an employee and a colleague but also
somebody outside of work and just getting to know them and if you understand like who I am when leave this place you might be able to relate better to me or you might be able to understand why I do the things that I do the way I
do them and and maybe we can build from there so it's it's um it's I don't know a lot of it feels like common sense to me I I think I might have even said that to you uh when we decided to invest in you it it really does seem like common
sense to me as well and uh one of the things that just has been irrit ating me for a while is this uh sort of B this this false binary dichotomy that everyone wants to impose on other people right like you're either this or that you know you're you're GNA you're for or
against that I don't know how many humans you have talked to recently but um your average human doesn't isn't like that at all and so I I love the idea of hey wait a sec let's just uh take a step back and and find out where we all can
agree and then build from there I like the win-win aspect of the way you're approaching this um you know in in the old days of Wall Street firms were highly segregated not by color but by religion basically um Ben Graham the the famous author of the intelligent
investor um uh couldn't give Warren Buffett a spot at his uh at his firm because he basically said to Buffett I have to Rel I have to reserve that for a Jewish uh Jewish person and and so like in the old days Merl Lynch was the Irish
gues uh Goldman Sachs was the Jewish firm and and then like that existed for a long time and then it all just like disappeared and and I I think that there there might be a lesson there and and I think you you're you've got the right approach I think one of the
reasons it disappeared was because people were like wait a minute like he's got really good ideas why why AR we wanting to hire him like that that doesn't make any sense right and and I also think that the era of you know for all of the strum and drong of social
media like oh it's so horrible and all these things I think one of the things it does really well is it allows people to discover people they might not naturally bump into around the world and and I think that that's the way I've
used it for example I I my team is globally distributed uh of all of all cues uh religious Creeds and everything and it was just because I had this huge opportunity to watch people do their thing for a while and then the ones that
I was really attracted to I I would approach and we a relationship but it also gets back to what you've said several times that's how you build trust you build trust by you know be going back and forth and just seeing that person time and time again kind of doing
the thing that they said they were going to do you know and and and so what are some of the programs that you because I know you bring speakers in I know you have the The Forum like uh YPO uh what do you think is the best of all the things that you're doing that
really does help kind of cement that trust uh where because after you get to trust that's where all the really great stuff starts happening absolutely so I think it starts I think the best thing we do it starts with us setting
the expectation of what it means to be in the 2045 Network and like anything I think you know um you're in power with when when and if you have leverage and I think the leverage that we impose Upon Our members is that if you want to remain in this
network you have to be an active and engaged individual and we are very clear around what that means so if you're in the clubhouse and you see another member our expectation is that you go up and you introduce yourself and we try to normalize that so if we don't see it
organically happening we'll we make it happen we we'll say Sean do you know Lucy Lucy do you know Shawn and we'll put people together and there's that you know jumping off of a diving board sensation when you want to introduce yourself for the first time but we find
that just by doing that one that one action it starts it starts it really starts their journey in 2045 um and it's become this culture like they that people have come to expect so now it's normalized so as a as a member if you've been there for a
while you go up and you introduce yourself and the reason for that is because I you know I belong to um I belong to a country club and I wish that had happened to me when I first joined I wish it was like a normal thing to approach new members and shake their
hand and say hi I'm so and so how can I like how can I help you and I had my crew and people who sponsor me and whatever like I you know but there's still this feeling of some people are just not approachable and even though we
belong to the same Club I still feel awkward at times like if I'm sitting by myself it's not normal that somebody would come and just sit with me right and so I hate that and I don't want to build a club where that's the case I
want if you're going to be in this network you're going to engage I think once we have established that then the Executive coaching the councils the dinners the Fireside Chats all the things all the other programming elements it just takes it to the next level
because you're not sitting awkwardly and not knowing the people next to you you you've bumped into them you've talked to them and we force relationships and and I think that that has um been an accelerate to the trust being created
between our members how do you approach the mentoring and the coaching segment do you have a uh is there a formalized uh course that you ask mentors to go through walk me through that yeah so um so this is all on the B2B side so as a company if you choose
to um sponsor your employees to have access to 2045 uh those individuals get six hours of 101 Executive coaching with a certified executive coach so that happens either in person or virtually and you schedule the time as it works
for you you could do six hours consecutively you can do once every other month it's for you to use those six hours however you see fit uh the councils you get access to six consuls a year and typically that happens every other month and so that's on your
calendar it gets added so you know when it's coming up you can see the people that are in your Council and and you can engage with them before or after um uh but again that's that's six of those and those counsels are 90 minutes uh each
session then every month we have dinners for what we call 2045 laders those are the individuals that are sponsored by their company and at those dinner tables you can in the Clubhouse you can meet other leaders outside of the council you can um uh form your own table you can
bring folks together it it's a space to meet other members and to break bread um every month we have a fireside chat where we bring in a notable individual it happens virtually and in person uh so depending on where you are at the time
you can do it in person or you can engage virtually um but it's a chance to learn and listen to you know incredible leaders we've had uh Miguel mikeli we've had from who's the co-founder of Wei work um uh Danny Green NBA player I mean
a wide range of of of of of of incredible individuals across all different you know Industries um that you get a chance to engage and meet um and then you get the ability to have access to our networking so every month we have a social where it's for all
members the BC side and the B and the B2B side and in in the Summers especially we have this incredible roof and it just become you can in friends and it just becomes this incredible um uh event that I love showing up to and so it's like a camp I
mean you you get out what you put in and you meet people and you build relationships and um our vision is that wouldn't it be incredible if this existed in every major metropolitan area around the world and then we have our coming together once a year for all
different all the chapters of 2045 and at those events do you find that there are significant differences between say a New York Chapter versus an LA chapter um and if so like how does that emerge and uh uh show itself yeah um I
think the major difference is that are the industries that are represented in New York it's uh a lot of Finance Tech Consulting law firms um you know more of like the industries of the tri- state out west it's a lot of creatives and entertainment um and so I would just say
the the probably the biggest difference would be the industries but what's been amazing and and I we've done things in Canada uh in Montreal we had a little Meetup and what's amazing in the consistency is just breaking bread with impressive
people who look like you and you're like I've never I don't get a chance to do this and that's consistent and so when you take these groups and you put them together which we haven't done yet we haven't had our annual thing we're not a
year old yet but I anticipate when these cuz I get to see it I selfishly have bounced around to all these different groups when we bring everybody together I think that uh and which we're going to going to do early in the fall um it's going to be really cool I I can
see it very clearly what has and I know it's early days but what what has been something thing that happened that really surprised you in other words like you're like whoa I was not expecting that I would say and everybody warned me about
this but I didn't fully uh appreciate it it is really hard so that it's really hard to do multiple businesses inside one business and that's probably not where where you want where you know where you thought we were going to go but it's
been surprising to me how hard it is to manage a physical space manage a b Toc business and manage a B2B business those are three different businesses um and it's doable but it is it is hard and so our learning and lesson and the most shocking thing is
that the space matters but it's the people who choose to come together that matters the most and so the space could be a restaurant it could be a townhouse it could be a club it could be somebody's home that's actually not as interesting as it is the people who
choose gather and how they CH and the engagement that they do so the insight for me as I think about scale and and how we take this globally is that we will always have dedicated space but it may not be it may not be space that we
do long-term leases on we might do it in partnership with other organizations who have space but they're not activating the space so that there could be consistency for our community to gather a network but it takes away the burden for us to have staff and you know all
the things that go into managing a space big operation to do that so if we can remove that burden then at least we're removing onethird of the complication of what it takes to run a company like this and so I in California we're about to Launch
lach um our second location and we're doing it at a existing Club where we're getting our own dedicated space within that club and our members will have access to all the amenities of that club and with that we don't have to have a really robust physical operation because
we're leveraging the assets that that existing network uh the existing Club infrastructure has already brought to the table and that's been really exciting because I've identified other potential opportunities around the world
where we could do something similar so now we're back to looking at a B2B and a b2c business which is which is something that I I think I could do and manage relatively well so that's just been from a you know from a entrepreneur perspective that's been a really
interesting thing because it's my first time entering into this type of space where it's beyond just technology there's Gathering and um and you would appreciate this because you're like me and many entrepreneurs like as long as we're learning it's it's very enjoyable
and so this is I I love learning every day one of the things uh that I noted was there's certain things that I would just rather Outsource you know what I mean um like I've watched my friend Brent bore and my son Patrick build this
Capitol Camp into this uh amazing gathering in Missouri every year and I had an opportunity to talk to the guy who actually runs the logistics of capital c and wow what an eyeopener that was because it's hard it is really really
hard to pull off all of that stuff uh simultaneously and flawlessly and so are you pursuing it sounds like you're kind of pursuing that on the physical space locations yeah yeah so one of our lead investors is Tish Inspire and we chose them because
they have physical space in 36 Global markets they're you know behind Rockefeller Plaza in New York they have a lot of incredible assets around the world and they have several businesses that are contained within the container of
tishman spire one's called studio and for their uh larger tenants they have spaces called zo spaces and it's a competitive Advantage for us to have them as an investor because they have space we can activate that space and keep it dedicated to our members when we
activate that space But there there are there are a tremendous partner for us to have because of that we can scale globally because of that and uh are you finding uh similar ways to work with other organizations that allow you to kind of
plug and play uh in in the same manner or what what walk me through about how you are building out your own internal uh uh staff and colleagues to address certain area like B2 B2B is very different than b2c um so so how are you building out your internal uh group of
employees so the beautiful thing and probably and a potential you know risk that investors take investing in this type of business is that this business works and it works really well if the community chooses for this to work right
like I can build the container but at the end of the at the end of the day the community has to choose to leverage that container show up and and engage and so how that then translates is we rely heavily on our community to do the programming they tell us what type of
programming to do many of our community members raise their hand to be moderators of the different events that we have they invite their networks and when that fly will gets going it's a very beautiful thing to have happen because it's it's a win-win win for
everybody um so from a internal building perspective we don't have to hire fulltime employees to do a lot of the things that you may you may not realize because uh the community is willing to do it they want to do it they feel like
they are taking ownership of the community so again they want to host these events they want to they want to do the invites and and when it works again it's great and when if that's not working then it becomes really expensive
because we have to hire everybody to do those actions and that becomes really expensive so um so we've taken the approach of having as small of a team as possible of a false common employees but leveraging and tapping into the community as much as possible because we
want them to feel like they in large part own the experience that they're driving the experience and we are there to be supportive of that experience so where we invest in headcount it's on sales um it's on um you know operations um uh some marketing
technology but we we're we're not investing in um things that a healthy Community should want to take ownership over yeah which is a a really uh clever way to approach it I think because why reinvent the wheel if there's all sorts of uh people out there who you can
partner with with um yeah and and also it's a you know if the business is working or not uh it you you you you get to the answer you know being an early stage investor like you are being an early stage entrepreneur like you want to get to the answer quickly you want to
understand like is it working and and if it is working what's working really well and then triple down on that thing so you can you can uncover it you can uncover it a lot a lot quicker I think in this type of uh framework let's shift
gears for a minute because I recall you telling me a story uh about you the fir you met Magic Johnson and I thought that was a really cool story and I would love it if you could share it with our listeners and viewers yeah I'm fortunate to have many
stories with with uh with with Mr Johnson um I'll say this he out of all of um the investors of jell he was an investor in in in jell um you know investors say they promise you the world uh they're going to open their relationships and they'll
be there for you and on and on and on he has upheld that more than anybody else um to a point where you know I I felt I feel if it became he's like an advisor Mentor friend it it trans it it it went beyond an investor and how that played out was the
first time I met him uh we get a phone call that said Mr Johnson's in New York City he would like to meet you before he invested like are you available and I was like yes I'm available and like 45 minutes later I was I was standing in uh in in in the
hotel where he was staying with my co-founder and I remember actually he opened the door and I remember thinking do I call him magic Bing Mr like what and and he's he's tall I'm like I'm look basketball player and I I was just like I was like
this I was fumbling of my words um and he quickly recognized that because I'm sure I'm not the that happens a hundred times a day to him and he daps us up and welcomes us inside and we sit down and and um I think the most impressive the most impressive question
and back and forth dialogue I've ever had with an investor happen in that meeting where he said to me you you know I've done my research you played basketball at Yale talk to me about how difficult of a transition it was for you to going from
being um known as a basketball player to starting your career at Goldman Sachs and I and I almost got emotional because it's the first time I think somebody recognized that like when you're a college athlete everybody knows who you
are on your University you don't have introduce yourself like and your whole life leads up to that you've been training every single day for hours of your entire life for that D1 opportunity the day you graduate it's like cold turkey and when you transition
into the workplace it's a it's I can't I can't put it into words but for somebody to recognize how difficult of a transition that is and that was a part of the investment dialogue I was like he gets it obviously Mr Johnson gets it and
again thinking about relationships and forming trust like from that question on I have viewed him as again a friend and a mentor and you know my parent it's led to my parents meeting him in in Miami during one of his portfolio Retreats he
was gracious enough to allow my parents in the room to watch Ryan and me my co-founder and myself talk about the business and that was such a great moment for my parents because they you know I get to experience all these amazing things and they're never invited
but they were invited to that because he recognized how important that would be for my parents so I have like fabulous photos with them and I was in Chicago one time he happened to be there and I was with one of my employees and he was
like come out to dinner so my employees got a chance to engage with him and I got invited to his house and he was doing a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton I was fortunate enough to be invited and afterwards he you know grabbed me and brought me downstairs and I looked at
all his trophies and his trophy room and on and on and on and on and on and uh again like he has he's he's uh my favorite investor yeah he he's been more than that so that's such an awesome story do you find that uh recruiting
like people who were former D1 athletes I've seen a bunch of studies um that athletes uh exmilitary um had like some additional benefits that um were pretty specific to their having come up that way are are you finding the same in your own hiring uh
100% And and going back to the story with him I think one of the reasons why I was so emotional when I was answering that question is because you know as we talked about I went I went to Yale and so every time and again like you gota I
don't think people think about this every time I would meet somebody and they would say to me what college do you go to I would say yeah without hesitation they would say whatat sport do you play and the presumption was I the way I look could not have just gone to
Yale and the reality is I did play basketball but I was also a tremendous student I went to lawrenville I I'm a trustee of the school right now like one of the best academic schools in the country and I probably would have got to yel just by academics I also just happen
to be really good in basketball and so I always fought against the notion to make it awkward I when they said well what sport do you play I would say I don't play a sport and I would just see how they would react so part of the conversation with
him was and this gets back to your your your current question he was like listen never let somebody like put down what it means to be an athlete like being an athlete is you are the perfect individual to do anything in this world
you understand communication you understand what it means to be a team player you understand execution you're you're competitive you can multitask you go through you stick you stick it through you go through Journeys like you you're somebody that you would
want to be in the trenches with like that that that's who you want on your team that's somebody you want to be working alongside you like that's what an athlete brings to the table so don't let somebody take that away from you and
and I needed to hear that from him because he's one of the best of all time in basketball one of the greatest business people as well and and he is only that because he can leverage books and um so I look for that I look for athletic mentalities I look for people
who have all the traits of athletes whether they played sports or not I look for that mentality and those 100 out of 100 are the best employees that I've ever hir you know that they question what sport do you play that that's really interesting to me because that
opens a window for me right uh my daughter was Yale 2010 and my son-in-law got recruited to Yale uh for two sports and I bet very few people ask him uh what sports you play when he says Yale like those small things that like those
are really good to hear and know about right because like uh I first off I I like find that really insulting um on on your behalf uh but like that's some I I love the way you turn that around uh and what were some of the responses when you were like yeah I I I
don't I don't play any sport was just like awkwardness very awkward just love that yeah it's um it's one of those things again where it's like you know if I say that to my friends who are black went to an Ivy League school and they happen to
play sports they're like I'm so I was so tired people like it's this thing that like it's it's why 2045 exists because we can talk about those things and we've all liveed through them personally and the outside world it's not bad intention I think they're trying
to they're trying to figure it out so I'm not mad at the first SC but they need to be taught a lesson and I think that there's a polite way to teach that Lesson by just being like I don't play a sport I it's also really funny because that
giv you the it gives it gives you the opportunity to just watch them try to process that right in real [Laughter] time because that's really are you sure [Laughter] I really love that um you know on on top of everything else you've also written
two books um talk talk a little bit about that like I said you are like the trifecta here man no I don't know about that I I I um I there's probably two things that allow me to like reset one is is playing golf I'm very passionate about golf
because it's the only time where I can be outside for four hours without a phone and be in the moment and not focusing on other things and I find that writing is a similar experience for me so those are the two worlds that I can escape um
and I chose to write a book for the same reason why I do a I do a podcast called race at work I which I did it with Harvard Business review and um and I do a weekly essay uh with Fast Company about topics that are interesting to me I I choose to do these things because it
allows me to have a dialogue that I would have oneon-one but to do it at scale so I remember breaking into trying to break into Tech um and reaching out to folks who look like me who worked in who were either investors or entrepreneurs when I was about to leave
Goldman Sachs to Bild jopwell and none of them took the time one of them took the time to actually meet with me and his name is Michael cyel former head of Y commentator and one of the greatest individuals of all time he took a
meeting with me when he didn't have to and it really changed the trajectory of My Life um jof W went through why combinator and Michael backed us and YC backed us and we got INRI like that all was because Michael took that phone call
but I reached out and I won't mention their names but I reached out to many people and he was the only one that said yes so I remember thinking to myself if I'm ever in a position where people reached out to me I would take the phone call so for the last decade I block my
Fridays and that's when I take those phone calls so I'm intentional about the days when I take them but I take them on Fridays it's every other Friday if somebody messages me they're trying to get on my calendar and they want to know
how I did the things I've done I take the call and it's and it's it's it's an intentional block on my calendar and what I was realizing is especially the the the my most recent book was called let them see you and I did that with pingman random house is that the
questions I was answering were all similar and it was basically how how do we as Professionals of color show up in the workplace and leverage your diversity as an asset and the entire book is about that because I felt that that would be the thing I could give
back to these conversations and say Here's a documented way to think about it in navigating Corporate America and that's why I chose to write that book and do you find that uh people uh who come not in through a corporation but
through the uh BDC uh where where they apply for membership have have they read the book have they read the articles uh or listened to the podcast is that where you're finding the most interest yeah I um I'm fortunate that I
have a relatively large following on On very specific platforms so LinkedIn I have a relatively large following and um um I put a lot of my thought leadership um I guess it's perceived us thought leadership I put a lot of content on that specific
platform and I have found my Lan and the people who respond best to my content so um so so if you have heard about 2045 or comeing through the community it's probably because you you engage with me on LinkedIn that's the platform of my
choosing a lot of the corporate Partners uh I connect with on LinkedIn um and so I find that leveraging social media and understanding which platform is most on brand for you where you have the best reach is something that's worthy of of of an investment in and so I I I it
spend most of my social media time on LinkedIn why do you think uh that people who should be long to 2045 uh but are hesitant or you know maybe that's not for me like what advice would you give to them in terms of like no AB absolutely
this is for you and and here's why and and not just the things that we've already talked about right yeah obviously there's a there's a really long list of things where you where people would go wow I get an opportunity to do this I'm GNA jump at it how how do
you get the the more reluctant Andor introverted or shy or what you know fill in the blank yeah was just kind kind of thinking about it well you know I would go back to one of the catalysts that um propelled me to start 2045 um I was coming home from work um and I was and
at the time I was running Jael and this is in like 2019 um and Joell was a large business at that point doing very well and I was in New York City and I was going from uh Union Square which is kind of where the office was based to Upper West Side
which is where I was living and I took the subway home and normal commute during rush hour um what started out as a normal commute during rush shower became anything but normal and that there was a there was a white woman standing directly across from
me professionally dressed looked like she was also coming home from work I had my earphones in but we locked eyes um as people know what that is like in rush hour when you're traveling in New York City and she was saying something to me
and I wasn't really paying attention I took my headphones out and she was um I don't like calling me calling mean words I would say and I was like that's a little weird but we've all experienced that in New York so I put my headphones
back in and I was like let me just like not pay attention and then my stop was about to come up and she kept staring at me so I took my headphones out again and I asked her like can I help you with something and she looked me dead in the eyes and she called me uh the
nword and everybody heard it around me and it was like time stopped uh I remember people pushing me out out of the Train everybody was yelling at her how disgusting she was and surrounding me on the platform being like are you okay sir I'm so sorry that
happened to you like that woman was disgusting and I remember like time starting again and I remember in the moment when she called me that I remember thinking to myself I can't react because if I react I'm going to be the angry black guy I'm going to be the
person who was like who started at all so I remember thinking like don't say anything and I started walking home and at the time I was uh uh I guess my wife now was probably we were just engaged or right before we got engaged and I shared
what happened and I was like I'm not just G to let this sit with me I'm going to write about this because I have this large following if it's happening to me in New York City if it's happening to me and if it's happening to me in New York
City it's happening to everybody and I wrote about the story and I was very public about it and it kind of went viral went it got re uh republish on all these different you know Publications and websites and the most incredible thing happened
the community came to my defense so in the comments and across the internet the uh uh Black Panther had just come out I had cast members writing and saying that they had my back and that this also happens to them and and everybody kind
of surrounded me virtually and I felt for the first time like I belong in that word of belonging it's like what does that actually feel like I felt like I belonged and I was like wouldn't it be so cool if I could always feel like I belong like what would that look like
and that was kind of there should be a club for us and so this is a long-winded way of saying to that person who's hesitant to join 2045 unfortunately something's going to happen to you you're going to feel isolated and it's going to be because
the color of your skin and when that happens you're going to need a community of people who it's also happen to to surround you and we'll be here to support you when you're ready to join us wow you you've never that that's the
first time I'm actually hearing that story so uh what like I just first off congratulations on the way you reacted congratulations on making writing about it so that other people see like oh like maybe this happens a lot more because a
lot of things a lot of times people who for whatever reason have some idiot uh spout you know nonsense to them they they they bring it inside themselves and they feel like oh you know this is just me and and so what a great thing to do
that it's not just you it's like it it happens a lot unfortunately there are a lot of ignorant people in the world and what a great what a great way to respond to that um rather I love the pro the proactive nature of that because that you know that's how you loosen
I think though I I I don't know where those attitudes come from I mean honestly it's like I it's just maddening to me but what a great way to respond in a very positive way and then also make it very plain for those people who were
like oh wow if if that can happen to him all right I'm in I'm in I love it well so kind of wrapping up but what what's the like what's the vision for are you in every big city are you International what tell me tell me about the the longer term view so where we
currently are um is that we have our physical space in New York we're going to have our physical space in Los Angeles at the end of May which we're really excited about we have about 80% of our members are based in the Tri State 20% are spread out throughout the
US so everything we do is in person but there's also a virtual component and if we're having this conversation in s years from now I would say that there is a 2045 in all the major metropolitan areas of America but also including smaller
metropolitan areas we are in large cities around the world and we are having our annual Gathering for the network on Martha's Vineyard we'll see maybe maybe our own Island somewhere and and we are bringing the CEOs of our companies that we worked for
they're Gathering and we are figuring out ways to continuously keep our companies relevant and our voices are going to be the most heard voices in the room and I think that's where we'll be in seven years I absolutely love the positive way
that you are approaching this that's why we invest it we we just think everything about what you're doing is the right way to get to the result that everybody wants right like no no nobody wants to exclude talented people I don't think
there might be that like the idiot on the subway maybe she does I don't know but the vast majority of people want to retain their most talented people want them to be involved and like I just remember being very excited after we talked a couple of times that okay here
is a very practical proactive win-win way to to get to a place that everyone wants to get to anyway right in terms of retaining uh the best people and making them feel like they're part of the team making them feel like you know this just
normal now uh the way I uh the way I perceive it I think that is absolutely fantastic well we for our vision to be a reality we need CEOs of companies to Champion this type of relationship we need senior level Executives saying this is the program that we're going to
Institute throughout this company again like I'd rather work with companies I'd rather work with fewer who want to do the work than just focus on like you know whatever not doing the you know just having surface area vanity metrics
I want to do real work with companies who want to do this and it takes C Level buyin and commitment long-term commitment and um for our vision to become a reality that also has to be true and it's going back to like the community like if this is going to work
the community has to show up and engage that's on them if we're going to work in a corporate sense the CEO and the C- level leadership teams need to make this work we're going to be in the business of executing and building the containers
but we need the Partnerships on both ends yeah and that was the other thing that I loved about it because it truly is those who engage those who do the Deep work that's a really big competitive advantage to have totally and man I would much rather be on that
side than the people are like yeah I don't need to worry about that yeah well listen po listen Porter this has been absolutely fantastic uh you might know that at the end of all of these infinite Loop uh podcasts uh we wave a magic wand
and we make you the emperor of the world for one day you can't can't kill anyone you can't put anyone in a re-education cab but what you can do is we're going to hand you a magic microphone and you can say two things into it and the two
things that you say into it are going to incept the entire 8 billion plus population of the world whenever their morning next morning is they're gonna everyone on the planet's going to wake up with your two ideas and they're going to think that they are their own ideas
and they are going to do something very different they they're going to say to themselves you know what I'm going to actually start acting on these two ideas today what are you going to incept in the world's population to make things
better for all of us first concept would be to be a good person just be a good person and then the second thing I would say is learn from somebody learn from somebody today those be the two things I would say and do and hope people would do both
would uh I think make the world a vastly better place if we could each all of us wake up uh thinking and doing that's the important part it's the and doing part um tell us uh tell our listeners and viewers how how they can find out more about you uh more about more about
the organization Etc we'll put have it ma show notes but yeah um so the website's 2045 studio.com um I'm Porter brazwell I again probably my most active platform is LinkedIn um if you want to see families of my photos that's all I post on
Instagram so you should find me there I'm very basic and reach reach out to us um um on 2045 studio.com you can contact us if you're interested in being a corporate partner partner if you're interested in being a Community member um you can sign up directly on 2045
studio.com and I hope to see you in our clubhouse at some point too terrific thank you so much for taking the time uh to join me and as you know I put my money where my mouth is I I think you guys are going to have a really winning
uh combination of need and solution so uh I I can't say enough about how highly I think about you and your organization well thank you Jim I appreciate the the relationship and the investment in this type of platform and uh it means a lot so thank you