charlton mcilwain. he is also a professor at the steinhardt school. he is also the founder of the center for critical race and digital studies and co-author to appeal how candidates in u.s. political campaign. it is the winner of the 2012 a psa award. also with us, is e david ellington the executive chairman of the silicon valley block chain society. he is a global member driven ecosystem supporting block chain and crypto currency. the latest projects across the industry and for social impact, the members are active investors primarily in technology, collectively represent more than 1.5 trillion in investment capital. the motto of this is fun the revolution. i love that. we are celebrating a book tonight that is very compelling story, a very important story, lesser-known intech history but yet really looking at people who have been working toward social justice inside the tech industry, the book is called "black software", the internet, from the afro net to black lives matter. it is a book by charlton mcilwain and published by a friends at oxford university press. it is such a pleasure to have both of you with us. welcome to city lights bookstore. [applause] >> thank you for the introduction. thank you for all of you who have come out, maybe a few others will trickle in along the way. this is a great place to be, i am wrapping up about a month and half long to her promoting this book and i can think of no better place to end up this part of the tour in this historic moment. i was telling these gentlemen before we started, when i got to the west coast and i was telling everybody where i was headed next, i said city lights and everybody forgot about the book. they said oh my gosh, i grew up there and spent all this time there, you have to do this in a bar across the corner, so it is a great thing to be here to talk about this book and to talk witr joining me out tonight, we're going to give you a little bit of back story about the book and get into some conversation, i don't know where to lead, i have a starting point but i have a feeling we might jump off course, who knows we might throughout the q&a to the audience at some point. so i thought i would start by telling you how "black software" became to be or where the journey started for me. and that was very simply to explain or try to explain black lives matter. here was this movement, a movement that was powered by digital technology by folks who had harnessed the new digital tools, something that people had not managed to do since the late 1960s. that was to put the issue of race, racial justice in the issue of the way that black folks suffer at the hands of the u.s. criminal justice system back on to the u.s. public agenda. not since the early 1970s had that happen but come 2014, 15, 16, use all that everyone across the country even beyond the country knew who black lives matter was, knew what they stood for, knew what their message was and even some folks who were not pre-exposed to agree with their position found themselves agreeing and saying yes, black folks are treated differently in this country and particularly in the terms of criminal justice. i wanted to understand where did this movement come from. it doesn't just materialize out of thin air. where did they come from, where was a genealogy, where did these folks trace their lineage mostly in terms to social justice work but also technology in the facility in the knowledge of relatively new technology. so that's where i begin and i thought i knew the story i'm going to write. so for anyone who has written a book, you know the anxiety that there is when you think that you know what you are writing about and find out you have annoyed you what you are writing about. that happens over and over and over the course of three years or so writing this book because it didn't really start off as black lives matter. and the more i started going back in time and finding folks like david here, we will talk about this much more, the story just began to change. discovery after discovery of different people, different times and different stories compelled me too say there is something bigger, there is something wrong here. let me start where i first began, the '90s. this is when the web comes online and everything happen, a natural place to start. but those of you, everybody except for couple you all remember the '90s. if you are thinking about black folks in technology in the 1990s, what are two words you undoubtedly remember talked about anyone remember? you were to young and the '90s. [laughter] the digital divide. that was a way in which we think about black folks in technology from that point on and as much as larry irving and other policymakers had good reason for trying to point out the gap between access to technology, i thought there was a tremendous erasure that was affected. so in some of the talks were had projections i usually put up on the screen a number, 5.6 million. 5.6 million was a number of people in 1995, the number of african-americans had computers at home and who were online in 1995. but that is a story about 5.7 million or 5.6 million that we know here before nothing about. because we presumed the story was black folks do not have access, therefore they have contributed nothing to this new medium and this platform. so my story began trying to understand who were the 5.6 million, what were their stories, what did they do, where did they come from, where is their journey starting. that is where i first met david ellington. so i want to start the story there with reading a small portion of the book and i know david hasn't got his copy from oxford yet. so maybe this will be a little bit of a surprise for some. we will see. but i want to read it and then ask you to finish off the story until is a little bit about what this moment meant, chapter eight is called the battle for black cyberspace. and it starts here beginning on april 12, 1861 american engaged in the great civil war, on january 1, 1863 president abraham lincoln emancipation proclamation gathered legal force. for two years five months in 19 days thereafter nothing changed from any slaves. then major general arrived in galveston texas, there he read the proclamation, the people of texas are uninformed with the proclamation from the united states, all slaves are free. this involves an absolute equality of rights and property of masters and slaves in the connection of existing between them becomes that between free labor. no slave was free until all slaves were free. until black people commemorated the day they called it juneteenth. the day in slavery in a brief period of reconstruction. 130 years later to the day david ellington and malcolm symbolically assumed general greens role. their announcement was a revolutionary at that historic moment when the last labor receive word that she was free. it all started in 1994, timothy jenkins worked back east, meanwhile malcolm and david backed into the dungeon. there malcolm gave david a brief of the future. all stop reading right there. david, tell us about that beginning, that moment and it might be a little hyperbole, but tell is ultimately what became in the significance of what it is you, malcolm in the team and not just others who watched it. >> of course thank you for inviting me in hosting this. you just kinda blew me away. i completely forgot that. specifically, to tie it and remind me about juneteenth was the day we launch the service intentionally and we did tie it to juneteenth is coming so this is tied to freedom and in anticipation but of course your elegance is really kind of capturing it better than i could have. i was an entertainment lawyer in los angeles, i had gone -- i need to backup further, why would i care in african culture because i'm an african dissent. -- and african-american. i went to howard university and i got a masters degree in african politics in the 80s. i then -- i had a passion i wanted to know my culture in the black community, we walked around like kings, no come on, so i went for two years, got the degree. and it was always a part of my life but i knew i wanted to go to law school. so i ended up working to make a very long story short, i ended up going to law school in washington and georgetown. i go to georgetown law and i knew i wanted to start my practice on the west coast, i lived overseas in asia for a bit so i wanted to be the pacific wind, i wanted to tokyo for a while and came back to the law school and graduated and said let me be on the pacific rim so i go to l.a. , l.a. is doing entertainment law and all my clients are black, surprise. mostly the early stages called hip-hop and r&b and so it was also the time i had to deal with the knuckleheads in death row and all about prid that. i knew i was getting my feet wet and was really excited about it. and this guy, since i lived in tokyo, i still kept in contact with some people there. and there was only seven or eight black people in tokyo at the time. [laughter] and guess what we all knew each other. especially in the age group. of course there's different ages but separate from the military guys that grew up in tokyo. anyway, there was this one guy, a while back on, kenny. he was a dj but he was born in south africa, raised in libya but his family was refugees because they were being persecuted in libya so they went to sweden. tall, beautiful, handsome guy, he was a model in tokyo. i was like brother, hey what's up, we became friends and stayed in touch. i then moved back to america to law school went to l.a. we stayed in touch over the years. he reaches out and says hey david this is ken malcolm, he's really smart and bright and he went to mit undergrad, he's going to stanford but i told him to come visit you in l.a. first. i said fine, he came down and came over, he was on a motorcycle and he comes up to stanford and started school there and he was an undergrad computer science and going to get his masters in computer science at stanford. i am not practicing law, a force i'm an entertainment lawyer in los angeles. so my parties are better. [laughter] so he comes down all the time. he thought he was just going to go to school but always sleeping on my couch. so eventually i go to visit him and i said what are you doing, so i went again, to make a long story short i went to visit him once and he was at stanford and apparently the computer science students called their lab addenduadungeon. so i go any at the computer science at stanford, he always has work to do but he said come and i have work to do come down to the lab i can show you but i have to finish this project and i said cool, he sits me down in front of a computer, and i'm trying to keep myself busy in a plane around on this thing and it's a room full of computers, not a pretty room, and dungeon in the bottom of the building on a campus before the fancy stanford we have today. i'm looking at this stuff and clicking around and somehow one of my favorite games was open all of, whatever it's called. you will be from black to white black to white. and i was playing this game and it turns out it was in a university of stock holds, some kind of something. this was back in the day all text. so i try to get out of it and i'm sitting there and there's a chinese guy sitting next to me at the computer and i'm like i cannot figure this out and i cannot find malcolm anywhere. in this guy -- and he brought me back out and he said look if you want to find stuff here's the thing i created. it was called, that's what he was doing is working on his phd, he said it's called a list of text, if you click on it you customer and come back. it was called yet another hierarch organization. it was jerry yang who became later carrying became jerry yang. and his partner david. this is the world i got exposed to and when i saw that in the entertainment lawyer and knowing my culture, i saw there was nothing on all of those clicks, only 2000 links, text links, this is before the world wide web which means there was no www.or graphics and videos added, before it was text, it was internet and scientist in the dod to department of defense to design bombs. so i decided there was something here so when i went back to l.a., that's when i had started i started calling them on the phone back and forth and that is when we finally said somethin something -- know not black, that's too hard so i came up with it. >> that's one of my favorite parts of that particular conversation in the book. you and malcolm -- let me start earlier, david was approaching the lawyer -- [laughter] >> malcolm -- malcolm was a young geek, david took the lead, his vision was dead on that malcolm was there to remind david that his execution, his proposal lacked a technological term. he suddenly realized the idea of a network of black culture was an opportunity. the potential names for the venture that began exposing in the minds. after annette was first out of the gate, they rolled it out and discovered a company with that name already existed selling hairnets. not to mention malcolm also pointed out there was an online service named afro net that already existed. malcolm suggested cyber black, david squashed it, too hard he said. i could've easily gone down the path of trying to be the blacker than black service but then i had to say hold it, were about to enter the 21st century and it will be about communication, creating a place for people to talk, debate and have fun, to me the business model in the next century is inclusion then it happened and malcolm said that and david said nor. >> unbelievable, he's in los angeles now and we were doing a project together but that was exactly what happened. the story moves on you ultimately have this plan and you come before ted who is magic manned handing out buckets of money looking for great entrepreneurs. and brought you all and, you made your pitch and the rest as they say was history. what was that in a previous version of the book i had a chapter that was titled remember when the internet was black. and it had everything to do with net nor in that moment and that realization about your idea, malcolm's idea and recognition from ted and aol that hey, this is going to be big. >> yes, we built the thing for six months in the part of 95 and it continued when we launched and flipped on aol. what happened, it's also because my wife who has since passed, windy marks, she was working for company called communications, that was owned and the founder was ted and steve bought it and made ted president of america all the whilst he was ceo. intense first initiative was i'm going to fund and identify in then fund intrapreneurs, that was his big thing. and because -- as soon as he announced the company, my girlfriend at the time said you should see this idea called new or and she introduced it to ted and we were the first company funded and today another brand is motley fool, another one still around. so there were six of us, i golf in one or two or three others, and that's exactly what he wanted. he knew the content would be compelling and why people would want to join and pay monthly for service and those of you with online services meant we talked about earlier before you got here, the 1200 bought, and the 2400 bought and then america online. and that was back in the day when there is prodigy and coffee served an apple and all those things. so that's how they wanted to step away and crush them. because of what they did. we were able -- we got from ted and we were intrapreneurs, he was putting something aside, i think he got $200,000 for 20% of our company. 199,000, a week number, and then he would have 5% of the company, we would have a million-dollar evaluation so it made us like in the mob, that's when i went to venture capital and that's where we were different also, we were the first venture-capital professional money invested. because a lot of people started things including new york online, that was omar in his partner at the time, that was truly just new yorkers primarily. in a bunch of other ones as you well know. but we were the ones who got the first and they were like there's an opportunity so that made us not only a corporate strategic partner in distribution but also the venture-capital shack. so corporate money from ted on america online and then from syncom which is terry jones who funded world space and also the same person refunded et. >> what does it mean for you to think that -- to know that, to have lived the first big commercially successful venture-capital backed property online that brought millions of folks to the medium as were talking about before nobody knew what the hell it was going to be for what was it about and what good was it. to think about a black internet service that featured black content, black owners, tell us about the significance of the moment both for that time and also looking back knowing what we know now about the current technology, landscape. >> of course there was a lot of hype and a lot of media attention. malcolm did as well. we were novels, we fortunately were not in the digital divide basket because we were a business. they tried to put us there but we were doing pretty well so it's at 5.6 was really our target market. if think about if you have black folks online they put you in certain categories just like white folks. or anybody. so we showed we could demonstrate the mercedes-benz, this is ray should advertise and all that came about. how did it feel, my dream was to make sure i had gone through all these conferences and i will never forget, i was at the theater in san francisco and it was packed, 500, all white guys, pocket protectors, and they were announcing the grateful dead cd-rom. in the cd-rom which is obviously not online and on the internet but that is how it evolves, we went from literally from cd-roms to online service and then you could doll up to an online service and obviously the internet. but the point being that is when it hit me that i was determined, a guy with african politics in the entertainment world in l.a., his clients knew all the content, we were the pop-culture intimately athletics. so i wanted to make sure that our culture was not left out of this revolution. i was determined. i was passionate about that. so of course we want to think where is the black thing, what am i going to do with that. and that is how -- i was determined, malcolm was different, he was a undergrad, grew up on a farm in pennsylvania, literally he was champion and now getting -- from japan, his second language is japanese, now is going to stanford, he's just a nerd with a personality. so it was not as much of an issue but he bought into a pretty got it and knew the values. it was important. there is definitely a mission driven business that was fortunate enough to turn into a bit of a business. >> tell me, also to wrap up and will do q&a with the audience. but you reminded me about three or four weeks now doing an interview on science friday npr and midway through, there was a line to callers and there was a woman, and forgetting her last name, she came on and said i was part of the netnoir team engineer came from harvard, et cetera and remembering the magic of that moment, but what was it like for you and malcolm, of course she had all the attention but you had a team with you. >> most definitely i am glad you mentioned. i was totally a team, we had 150 employees at a time, between 150 employees and consultants. which think about, i was in san francisco, i was in south park, and to see that many black folks walking around south park even today is a shock let alone it was pathetic in 2019, 2020. but it was truly, for those folks and those people involved directly, yes. it was a magical, and anyone can empathize, you can imagine, we are doing the hottest cutting-edge tech called the internet in my culture, everyone's looking at it, we were in magazines and tv interviews. i lived it so this is been an amazing experience for me to even look at it and the lens of, that would be exciting, that was amazing. i got up every day and was ready to go and in less energy. and yeah, it was magic and i am glad that everyone involved, the overwhelming majority of people involved felt it, were a part of it in the culture is that kind of role, you don't work for me, we work together and you have a role in you stay in your lane and deliver and i deliver in my lane but let's do this together. . . . thing. but not since. and leticia called up and said the same thing said hey, nobody's ever gotten the story of all of us the black technologists and engineers that were part of this. and so there is a sense for me and which black software, was two stories, and if any of you have read it or seen in nursing the table of tense there is book one in book two. that is because they represent two stories that i ultimately found and felt compelled to tell. the one being the story of you and folks like you who are celebratory in finding folks that people had missed, that history had missed. in these revolutionary moments. but the other story, was the other part of black software and usually when i've done this talk of had the title of black software, one book, two stories in a little cocaine. so i'm going to talk about the cocaine to wrap up. this is one of the stories that my wife says i don't understand why you had that cocaine step in the book. [laughter] it's real. number one it's just one of those things you don't lose no matter what. it's going in the book somewhere somehow. so in the 1980s, silicon valley had the second high-tech revolution from its bay area core, the the region radiates outward from stanford university out to the left it was named for invention enter -- the region had played midwife to industry. it helped to birth the microchip. but in the 1980s, cocaine was the valley's newest purest and most distributed high-tech curio. you see the valley sold dreams, its sprawling intellectual and industrial spaces. including its stand for connected labs and government-sponsored research centers provided a new frontier for imagination to wander. each fed the impulse to build new tools the mass of the universe. it's financed years i-uppercase-letter's investment in and fantasies. the new tools brought to market in droves provided the satisfaction that comes from dreams not deferred. cocaine was tailor-made to fit the valley's technological eco- the daily grind, the demand to create value. its pervasive drive to succeed and its capacity to aspire. the section goes on to talk about what we know and are all too familiar with which is that cocaine, and the 1980s took a trip down from this area, down the coast to south-central los angeles where it changed the technology, chemical technology than read havoc on los angeles and ultimately the rest of the country in the form of crack cocaine. we are also mill your with the aftermath. when people ask me what is black software, it really is these two stories. the cocaine story in the book is really about thinking how a nether kind of technology -- you guys engineers and so forth they were doing this years ago and my friends would say what the hell you're talking about? black software? can software be racist or can the internet or technology be racist? and i'd say what the hell you're talking about. i wanted to provide a different kind of analogy if you will, different technology cocaine that we could very well see how it changed and in its transformation, change the way it's engaged with different communities. black and white. so black software, and that metaphor becomes a way to talk about not just the ways that we were able to marshal and use technology to build wealth, to build community, to push revolutionary politics. but the point back to the ways in which these technologies were first introduced, produced, and utilized to neutralize the threat that black people posted to the system. that is book two. so there is a sense for me, when all of that came crashing down in the '90s, there was a sense of inevitability, that it was great but couldn't last too long. black folks were not going to be able to profit and briley have a strong in this new medium. there was a course correction, if you will, but maybe let's wrap up and go to questions. if you will just kind of reflect on a question that we talked about briefly several times. that is why did it all disappear? why is it that we look out on the internet and technology landscape and see so few folks like you, back in the day, you who are owners and entrepreneurs who were commercially successful in the tech arena? where did it all go? what happens? >> a variety of things. the early nature of the internet was a media driven. and so everything was around advertising. i remember at a company for six years, a 6-year-old company and i am still going in -- and during that six years, the young at the advertising agency, the young exec, this is like the young kid who just joined, he was given the digital stuff. so every year abigail back and have to educate them about this audience of black folks, black professionals. it became super frustrating the other folks didn't have to keep explaining -- here's my demographics, here are my numbers. that is still a value. i can reach those black people through -- i can give more money to yahoo or two at the time that mattered was google or whoever else. so that is one piece. so revenue to sustain that business was a challenge. i think, you know there was a really weird. here in san francisco where i did not see any black people it dropped down to three or 4% of the city for the early oughts. but lately, i see black kids walk around and they are all working for twitter and google and pinterest. and i say where did you come come from? they are not so much starting their own. in fact, which is a little twist for you, is when they do spin out -- some of them are starting businesses that are totally mainstream. that is the difference. it's not a vertical target. that is number one. or number two, they are starting venture funds are trying to find a venture fund so they actually want to invest in entrepreneurs of any kind. and new talk about return of investment. but you are seeing a lot more young black professionals who went to grade school, can code, and do all of that. just as geeky as the others. and maybe not as interesting as i would have hoped to talk to, you see them walk around town all the time. they change a significant chunk of culture in san francisco. that means they bought into that and that's who they are. they still identify black, they know their culture. they are still tied to that. but they've definitely work it pinterest or twitter and they deliver what needs to be delivered on. it's really interesting, how that has evolved. so no, i only see the occasional maverick, or i am just determined to build this business. the only business i have seen intact -- i rarely see businesses intact that are targeted towards black folks in black culture. because even we ended up broadening it out to market ourselves if you like anything about black folks, music or then come to know know are and that's a low position. >> so much to say we could go on for hours but i don't think they are going to keep the room all night. any questions or comments for david for myself about the book? stunned audience. [laughter] >> is there any fear or do you see any generation of the. [inaudible] in today's imc and the fbi talked about. >> that's a good question, when you read book two of the book, i'll put it this way it's about a year or so ago i remember -- i didn't pick up a paper, what i talking about. i pulled out my phone from the intercept, and the thrust of the story was at the nypd was sharing all of their image data with ibm to build a new ai system and surveilled folks in suspects by skin color. so they blew the lid off of this and say this is happening. then they said the other big story is that this has been under wraps for five years. and there was a moment, i had already finished the book, and i sort of just chuckled and i was like, you've got it all wrong it's not a five-year story it's a 50 year one. and it's a very real direct thread that everything we see today in terms of facial recognition, in terms of algorithmically derived surveillance practices, all of that has a through line back to a moment in the mid 60s. through line right back to ibm. so this was just the perfection of something that started long ago, not the beginning. to answer your question, there is a lot to be afraid of. there is a lot already going on and a lot more coming down the pike that is in many respects -- i see it as a course correction. we have this struggle of technology, it is there, we use it, we marshal it for our interests, but you solve us in black lives matter and twitter. it was powerful until cops decided i can get on twitter too. and i can find you, i know exactly where you are going to be popping up. i don't know where else in the country are going to be even if it's all the same time. so there's this push and pull that is the inevitable struggle around technology particularly when it comes to issues of race. >> going back to that calling tell probe or that continuing 50 years arguably going back with earlier technology in terms of surveillance and control, there is a certain amount of capacity of people -- citizens to push back against the state when the state does that kind of policing and races that the fbi did. in the private sector, and of course there is a relationship between the private sector and the government, and people moving in-n-out of the different sectors. there seems to be on the one hand there is the power of the capacity to mobilize with these new technologies and to educate and organize. on the other hand how do bounds get put on the use of data that is collected by these private enterprises and then shared or bought by the government entities that we don't like doing the things we don't like. >> another good question and i think in part you answer already, which is -- you know part of me doesn't want to give short script to black lives matter and other movements who have used digital tools very powerfully. but i think the one thing they do demonstrate over and over again are the limits. it is not a sense that there is no other way or venue to push, and people are pushing. but there is a limited technology that you don't own, that you don't control, and in some respects, for some parts of the population are just not familiar with. that inhibits the ability to push back, and then to think about what is on the other side, and that is the free flow of data between private companies, governments, shadow governments, and other entities that is just almost insurmountable when you think about every day of what's going on down at the border, to control the threat. >> anything to contribute particularly? >> i'm sorry i am very pessimistic. let's say there's not more bit of data gathered. the amount of data, and if it is organized and processed the way it's intended to, or some folks want to use it, there is no privacy. it's really interesting, i have looked spent a lot of time at china and here, and there is this massive look how bad they are in china because they rely on their government and it has all this data. but i saw plenty of chinese folks there on the ground in mainland that said that's okay because the government has it. it is safe. i haven't heard any american say that here. that's number one. a number two is how much do we think it's okay that the private sector has all this data about this and they are allowed to make money off of our data. we don't get paid for any of it ever, yet that's okay. from now on, we have a lot of issues and i think i don't believe any of them are going to be solved in the way we want or comfortable with anytime soon. that is my personal unfortunately but i like to be direct and frank and not come up with a cute answer. i have been this game for a long time, since 1995 i've collected data in advertising we want to have better content of course our stuff was not as sophisticated back then. but now to constantly tell me that everything you are doing is what i want, or for better for me, that is just live. that's you rationalized your behavior and conduct in my opinion. so that's my response. >> you mentioned some of the younger tech people are not quite ascension. i put this out to both of you though what would the right question be for some of the younger people working in the tech industry to ask? what are some of the things they should be more concerned about? >> young folks i think, it's hard to respond to that. if you really step back look at this room. do we -- this is their turn. it's not our turn. this is not our generation. we definitely had our opinions and thought things were okay and her parents that we were crazy. so now we look at them and we have become our parents. so they don't mind, to them having -- filming themselves having and posting that is okay. wow. in fact we have celebrities out there that that is how they got started being celebrities, and now them are couple multi- billionaires as a result. we live in a different error that may be you and i don't get. so i don't know what question -- they like to think they are now weaved in this impacts thing, but impacted them as a button to click and never get your hands dirty, as far as i'm concerned. literally roll your sleeves up and do something. so it is a detachment, all i can do is say critique because i think that's rude and disrespectful of them, but i can just comment on the observations. i can make observations and hopefully encourage them to think a little bit more about the implications of the impact of what their conduct is. but i am not going to judge -- i am in no position to be a judge anymore. that's in my opinion. >> i will say something similar that comes from having the good fortune over the last couple of months with instances like these and so forth. there's a lot of young black folks and folks of color that come and say hey i am working at facebook, i am an engineer, i am out of twitter this that or the other. and they all basically say the same thing. a kind need and want to make some money. [laughter] right? and that is real. i am hard-pressed to judge and say no you should be all about the revolution right now. and for all of these things when i have already had my chance. but they also all say i am alone, i don't feel like i have a community, i see things that are not going the way i think they should in terms of how this technology is being used. but of course, what can i do or say? so i think if there is a question out there for them to ask it is simply, when is the right moments? and what keeps me optimistic is they are recognizing this. so many have thought yeah we do this stuff, and i'm not ashamed to say it it's kind of fact up -- i'm sorry can i say that on video? but then it is the what next and what do i have to give up or defer to be able to really push the sense of we need to do something better. and i think that's the question for them. i think it's a question for us, how do we help support and make it easier for all of us to push back in some ways that we think it should. >> it's starting a google and said other places with her saying wait a minute we don't one should have that contract with the navy. in at least at the start. there is that elements out there. but for black folks in particular, it's really sticking our next out. because we finally are getting a decent salary. we all went into student debt. and now -- because we feel it's not necessarily true, but this is all we have. i'm not inheriting anything from grandma or grandpa. her uncle so dad or mom, i am usually the first one out the gate who's finally making real money. and now you want me to it risk all of this? to do what? why did julie facebook? when you're looking for a job at google or you're looking for a job at twitter. they find out. troublemaker. [laughter] >> you made an interesting point when you are identifying in your book this area regarding cocaine and san jose and silicon valley, in this area has always been an area of change. and being able to express a new thoughts, a new way of doing things. your own particular strain of black. and in the 80s, and the time you talk about the cocaine seems like there was flushed of its family values, it's family structure. a lot of people moved out of this area. the same family has moved to the sacramento, vallejo in this are area, and this area has raised the nerds you are talking about. because the whole structure and the community, the value of education and it has been flushed away. and it has been raised because i have a nephew who is one of those nerds. they have been raised with a different way of thinking. and the traditional family values have been cut. so now they are open to think in their own way, which is the way people down the block think. and okay so that's what so-and-so does. i can do that too. and without the limitations that we know are there. but they have to find out for themselves. does that make sense? they have to find out for themselves. i guess the support system and the old structure that used to give advice on how this way it went. i guess historically if your great-grandfather was a farmer and your grandfather was a farmer, and your father was a farmer, that's what you're supposed to do. that has been flushed away and now they are without a farm and trying to find themselves within this new society. and a lot of them have migrated to the computer. >> i want to ask your opinion about this too and that's really interesting with the angle of our those young black folks have been one missing the backbone of the community is still weak and warned that there is racism and that just comes out they don't feel it but they will eventually but may not know how to handle it. that is your point. but is their argument to that they are free to think i am going to be at, billionaire too. i may be the next jack dorsey. so it's like a double edged sword. and i kind of preferred that were they just go for it. and they look at it like life is down or my thing is i get slapped with race once in a while. seven get slapped because they are female because they are gay, so if that's really what societies doing at least in this tech community, i can live with that personally. but that is an interesting discussion. >> to dovetail on that look at bob johnson's $2 billion and look at now seeing not that many, as you talk the younger generation focused on a black product versus hey let's just sit in. i know you say like to be direct, what is your opinion, does the message get deluded when you're not focused on that? >> it clearly does, i'm progressive and my politics. so it's not just about getting rich, but i also live in america and our society has skewed that way which i had no control over. certainly as a person of color i had no control over. the white folks majority have decided that it is okay that a few people the topic and have a whole lot of money. somehow they have allowed that to happen. and i'm like wow. so that is bigger than me. so tying it back to your point or your question, i one sheet to be in the game, be successful in the game. not the black game, but in the game. so you know we had our era, there is a cotton club, then we had the cool school of jazz, and that gave birth to blues and gospel which gave birth to blues which gave blue bertha jazz which got a bigger role in that split it became hard rock, soul rock, motown, so let's just let it go. it's bigger than all of us, but i want this to be in the game and not sitting on the sidelines. that was my passion. let's tie this back to the book please understand i am so proud of malcolm and my foremost business partner of 30 years ago, to accurately described it that was the passion we were like no this is too big, we have to be here and we have to be right in the middle of it. and we have to make sure they know everything about what we do and how much we are a part of this thing called america. we are pop culture. we are hip whether you like it or not. you ever say man? who gave you that. you listen to blues? who gave you that? elicit a rocker rock 'n' roll or rock 'n' roll who gave you that? oh take us out of any sport? really? how would it look like? so we have our values at many levels as people. and a lot of it has to do with pure individual achievement. it's pure writing, athletic, singing it's that individual that comes out. who are we. i want to make sure that was on this new digital medium and i think we achieved it. >> it's a good time to wrap up. and i would just say -- i would probably say this anyway, but i think black software is an amazing book. it was an amazing book for me to it write. precisely because it's filled with folks like david who did amazing things, who have amazing perspective both about the time that they experienced and live through, but also reflecting back on that time. and really helping us understand a history that is simply not there. and in some ways not just their bet a lot of folks ask me and must have taken you years and years of painstaking research to find all the stuff. yeah, it took a lot of work. but it's not as if it wasn't there. that it was not in many ways easy to find, particularly will be gone back to the 1960s and then we think about the ways the computer revolution, the civil rights resin revolution were a head-on collision and not two separate things as most of our history tells us about. so the great part of me for writing this book was a moment after moment has been blown away by staff that no one has ever told me, that i never knew. even in the round that i know stuff about. it's a great book, buy it, buy several copies it's christmas time. [laughter] thank you all for coming out. i appreciate it. thank you again david. [applause] >> announce cspan2's book tv, more television for serious readers.