Hi there! You’ve likely landed on this page because you heard that, along with my co-founder Jesse Middleton, I launched a venture capital fund called The Community Fund. You’re likely wondering “what is this fund about and who is Lolita Taub?” Well, the short of it is that through the fund, we’ll invest in community-driven companies destined to become unicorns through an investment team, taking a page from XFactor’s playbook. As for me, I’m an unlikely VC fund manager. Yes, I have fourteen years of experience as an operator and investor in
August 13 marks Black Women’s Equal Pay Day. This is not a celebration. Instead, it represents the date that Black women must work into the new year to catch up to what White non-Hispanic men made at the end of the previous year. That’s an extra 226 days of work for Black women, who make just 62 cents for every dollar earned by non-Hispanic White men. This translates to corporate leaders attributing Black women’s worth as roughly three-fifths of the value of White men. This pay gap has a devastating impact. It means
Divided into winter and summer batches, US seed accelerator, Y Combinator (YC) invests $150,000 yearly in selected startups in exchange for 7% equity. However, starting from next year, the ticket size will reduce to $125k for the same amount of equity. Usually, these startups spend three months with the San Francisco-based accelerator before finishing off their activities with a Demo Day. But things have been slightly different this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. While the 197 startups from the Winter batch had participated in some sessions in the Valley, they had to virtually
There’s a mad dash in the professional world to improve diversity. Every high-profile company is working to boost the statistics in hopes of a favorable public profile — one in which people from all backgrounds and ethnicities are welcome. The tech industry, especially, is at the forefront of this diversity movement as it’s come under fire more than other business categories. However, diversity statistics are just that — statistics. Without inclusion, diversity just creates another problem. That problem is tokenism. Tokenism is defined as the following: “the practice of making
Latinx founder numbers are growing at a faster rate than any other group and we’re expected to yield $1.4 Trillion in US GDP. A couple of years ago, I started my journey in supporting Latinx founders as an investor at Backstage Capital through the Accelerator and with this post. And I believe what I wrote then even more now! TL;DR Latinx entrepreneurs are a strong force to be reckoned with! With capital and support, we can grow our businesses to produce in the trillions — trillions that can better the lives of our
The “Pipeline” is Blocked At The Top — With the recent uprising against systemic racism in our governmental institutions and society, there has been an increased focus on the on the lack of funding for underrepresented founders. Only 1% of VC funded startup founders are Black, Latinas have received .04% of VC funding, women of color can expect an average of $42k seed funding vs. the average seed funding of $1m, the list of stats goes on. Yet the problem is far deeper than startup founder-level stats. It exists at the other side of
As a 13-year-old, it was hard for me to understand why my mother insisted that I cut off my baby dreads or that I get rid of any oversized jeans that imperceptibly sagged. Dating back to my adolescence, my parents instilled in me this notion that, as a black man, I had to carry myself a certain way if I wanted to be successful. Even more imperative than what I wore or how I looked, I distinctly remember a conversation with my father where he explained that I would have
Today marks four years since I joined Google full-time otherwise known as my “Googleversary.” I keep waiting for some sort of graduation announcement or ceremony that would indicate the end of an era and the start of a new chapter, but I suppose that’s not exactly the same, after college. Today, I contemplated finally answering the million-dollar question I get too often “so, what do you do at Google?” But instead, I’ve decided to take some time today to reflect and simply celebrate some of my favorite moments over the
Subscribe To The Techish Podcast On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, And Other Platforms. In this episode of Techish Abadesi and Michael discuss: Congress vs Big Tech (08:05)Megan Thee Stallion and Social Media (27:27)Slack vs Microsoft (12:10)Black Emmy Nominations (11:00)Who is Rich? (31:34) Extras: Techish on Patreon: Advertise with Techish: Please rate and review the Techish podcast
This post was initially published by Abstract! It highlights the career achievements and thoughts of Senior Front End Engineer Andrew McCloud. What personal passions bring you to Abstract? Design communities! I’ve been installing/building software for managing communities of designers since I was in high school. Shoutout phpBB, celerondude, Pixel2Life! In 2010, I attempted to create something similar to Abstract called Pixelcloud, inspired by Facebook’s internal design collaboration tool. What’s one childhood lesson that you still carry with you to this day? I can usually avoid the pain of finding out something on my
