ing their own company or investing in one and they want a piece of it. That’s why I left Wall Street. I wanted to focus on investing instead of advising. Most of my clients were billion dollar, white, institutional and family office clients. I wanted to not only work with them but work with my own community. I wanted to offer my community the same type of investment advice that I was offering my clients at Goldman Sachs. The Source: Why? Rashaun Williams: Because we weren’t getting that level of access to education. Just go to my Instagram and you will wonder why there aren’t 50 other Black VCs out there helping Black investors and founders learn how to invest. Not only invest, but are there no other Black VCs teaching our people how to raise money. I am working to bridge this gap between pop culture, technology and investing. That is why I left Wall Street. The Source: You are different from other entertainment execs in this space (Troy Carter, Steve Stoute) because you bring something that they lack. While they bring their entertainment knowledge to the table, you bring finance to the table. Would that be accurate? Rashaun Williams: Yes. I would not say that these guys are not as sophisticated as I am, but we all have a different approach to the same goal. I never sat down and spoken to them about their strategies, but my approach is two-fold. My first approach is education first. Everything that I do and everything I learn comes from a space of educating people. And what makes me different is that you can see this for free. You can see it in things I say in the press. You can see it on my IG. You can see it on YouTube. You can see it on my website. Most people know me because I have taught them something about investing in tech. Now, very few people have actually invested with me. So that is evidence of how I first lead with education. The Source: Are there any stories of athletes or entertainers that made you sit back and say, I got to help them? When you look at the landscape are you thinking that you have to educate them first because they are the leaders in culture? Rashaun Williams: Celebrities and Influencers are at the pinnacle of our culture/ community. There is value across the board. I have taught sixth graders and college students, but I have also taught nurses and doctors. These are all people that look like us. What we all have in common is that we were not taught financial literacy. So when you consider celebrities, of course, they get most of the attention, but the work that I have done goes far beyond athletes and entertainers. I did not look at our culture and see a particular thing and said, this thing has sparked an interest. It was more so watching other cultures make billions of dollars every year and watching how they institutionalized the process of making billions of dollars. By doing that, I noticed how we did not have that. I thought to myself, look how successful they are and how they transferred this through generations. The same way that we transfer NBA players through generations, we transfer Hip-Hop artists, R&B singers through generations. There is no coincidence that Zion Williamson is going to be the next Lebron. That thing has been worked on for decades (maybe before he was even born). That system is not only culturally celebrated but there are systems in place like the AAU, high school, colleges, scouts, they will have you carrying a basketball all around all day. That young man because cool and celebrated in our community but in other culture, other things are celebrated. I am hoping I can help our culture also celebrate finance and education. And who better to focus on that the leaders of our culture. The Source: Where do you teach? At the Kemet Institute campus? Rashaun Williams: Kemet like I said earlier Kemet is a 501 c3 non-profit. We provide services to schools and to individuals. Anyone can learn from this institute. We came up with a concept called “L.I.F.E Schools.” L.I.F.E. stands for Learning Integrating Financial Literacy and Entrepreneurship and we go to schools and help them infuse financial literacy and entrepreneurship into their curriculum.
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