Black CEO in NC sells his startup, 25 of his employees become millionaires

[Sonny Bonds]

It's not just engineers that get rich. It's the product people, sales, marketing. The facilities and office manager too.

 

[Neo. The Only. The One.]

I'm guessing these guys are software engineers? How many black SEs you guys think are out there? I work in a large company and I'm the only one. National average is 5%? Software Engineer Demographics and Statistics [2022]: Number Of Software Engineers In The US

That's why I'm always telling people to get into IT. Companies really do want to diversify away from "white male middle-upperclass nerds." There's more Indians than white guys in my team that's how hard up the country is for talent. My graduating SE class I think was 3/12 black though

Yep. I've probably interacted with just about every black software engineer at some point or other online or on forums. And I'm not saying there's not a lot, there's thousands of us. But there's enough where I can see a name and be like "oh yeah that's ole boy".

Way too few of us. Which is more than likely why a company like this doesn't have a bunch of black employees.

 

[⠀X ⠀]

Damn. That's like when someone posts a gorgeous Black woman, and you scroll down to see her with a white boyfriend.

 

[Obreh Winfrey]

And me….

@Obreh Winfrey is GriffithSet

And I get 33%

 

[UberEatsDriver]

It's not just engineers that get rich. It's the product people, sales, marketing. The facilities and office manager too.

I’m trying to master this. People think you have to actually have to physically do tech to be rich in tech

 

[get these nets]

I see your hand, and raise you.

M&F Bank BOARD OF DIRECTORS

.
Flashback: In 2020, he led a campaign to get more of the Triangle's tech scene to place part of their cash reserves at Black-owned banks, including Durham's M&F Bank, one of the oldest Black-owned financial institutions in the country.

• Several tech companies, including Raleigh's Pendo and Global Data, put millions of dollars in the bank.

M&F BANK CORP INC.
​

When William Spruill recently raised $3.5 million for his technology company Global Data Consortium, he began to think about where to park the company’s growing assets.

The choice was likely to be a large national bank, which could offer the best interest rates on the account. But after George Floyd’s killing in Minnesota in May, Spruill, one of the few Black CEOs in the Triangle’s tech scene, wanted his money to have more of an impact on local communities of color.

So, he opened an account at M&F Bank, a Durham-based bank that is one of the oldest Black-owned banks in the country.

He ended up putting $3 million of his company’s money there, where he believes it’s more likely to be used in loans to other Black entrepreneurs and businesses.


Spruill didn’t stop there, though. After opening the account, he also challenged other members of the tech community to open accounts at M&F Bank.

The call appears to be gaining traction.

James Avery, the CEO of the Durham-based advertising startup Adzerk, said he has opened a personal account at the bank and is looking into a business account as well.

Raleigh-based K4Connect, which makes tech for retirement communities and recently raised $21 million from investors, confirmed it had opened an account at M&F Bank.

And Pendo, perhaps the Triangle’s most promising startup, plans to move $3 million of its money over to the bank
Pendo CEO Todd Olson told The News & Observer that the company’s decision came after hearing Spruill’s call

 

[JLova]

I’m going get some flack for this but we need to be honest if we’re going to make change. We simply do not have enough black tech talent for anyone to have a 40 person team of all black people concentrated in one area. The average age of people in that photo is like 40+. How many 40+ year old black people do y’all think exist in Raleigh that would have had the knowledge, talent,and expertise to help build that company? Black people are going to have to hire and utilize the talents of other races and I don’t see a problem with this as other races utilize the talents of black peoples to build their shyt too. He’s using the money he made from this hopefully grow and develop the black talent in his area.

companies are unwilling to take a chance on black people like thry do other races. Especially tech. I’ve been in the field a long time and seen the shyt first hand. I’ve had black bosses twice and in both cases they took a chance on me. White bosses I had to move mountains.

 

[Bryan Danielson]

The price of the percentage bout to go up unless you wanna see the Lord

 

[get these nets]

I’m going get some flack for this but we need to be honest if we’re going to make change. We simply do not have enough black tech talent for anyone to have a 40 person team of all black people concentrated in one area. The average age of people in that photo is like 40+. How many 40+ year old black people do y’all think exist in Raleigh that would have had the knowledge, talent,and expertise to help build that company? Black people are going to have to hire and utilize the talents of other races and I don’t see a problem with this as other races utilize the talents of black peoples to build their shyt too. He’s using the money he made from this hopefully grow and develop the black talent in his area.

Interesting viewpoint. Also the point about a lean startup.

I read articles about this story weeks ago. Board was having technical problems, so I couldn't post. The article alludes to some of the elements of the story that were spoken about in greater detail in the interviews. You picked up on some of them.

They said that the 25 were current and past employees. As a startup, couldn't pay them what their skills/experience would dictate in the marketplace, so they retained employees by waving the carrot stick of equity/payout when company was sold. The past employees likely couldn't tough it out and went somewhere else to get paid.

As you pointed out, these are 40 somethings and likely their colleagues from previous jobs.
Said that the Triangle used to be a major tech hub. It's not the case now, and younger talent is being recruited by the current hub cities.
After cashing out, Spruill will invest in Blach tech startups and encourage the others to do so, to retain. and cultivate the talent in the region.

I would have loved to see a company picture of Black faces and freshly minted millionaire employees, but that's just not the case. I see this story as a win, Black man bets on himself and it pays off for him and the ones who helped build up the company. He's responsible for a Black owned/run bank gaining at least 6 million in deposits, and he's going to make concerted effort to cultivate Black tech entrepreneurs in his region. Looks and sounds like a W.

 

[King Poetic]

Congrats to him

at least the employees are taken care of for life

Ask the people who worked at Enron or these other dirty companies what they did to their employees lives

 

[Field Marshall Bradley]

If you can acknowledge like y’all do every couple posts that we’re in a uniquely diminished position…Then we need to be uniquely able to move the ball. We can’t be happy some nikka who very likely doesn’t identify as Black worked his ass off, started his own company then sold it to enrich whites on both sides of the deal. That’s never- never ever ever- gonna lead to Atlanta being the new Silicon Valley or whatever wishful ass shyt u nikkas tell yourselves.

It’s no way you nikkas thought it was goin any other way lmao. Y’all gon learn about these feel good ass articles.

 

[get these nets]

Right. They only raised $1.2 million in 10 years. They likely weren’t paying their employees much and scraping by until this buyout/exit.

So in order for there to be an all black team doing this you’d have to do the following;

1. Find 40 black people who have the skills and expertise

2. Find 40 black actually interested in this specific discipline. Because there may be 40 black people with the skills and expertise but who says they all want to work for you and doing this?

3. find 40 black ppl with the aforementioned in Raleigh or willing to relocate

4. find 40 black people with the aforementioned willing to likely take a huge pay cut

5. find 40 black people willing to grind for years at lesser pay than their peers with no guarantee of any future reward


When you actually break it down you’ll say how impossible what ppl in this thread are asking for is.

Recent interview he did , here he answers questions about the history of the company.

About 4 minutes

Like I said, you picked up on details that the article suggested. Others might have to hear it directly from Spruill.

======
I know nothing about the current tech ecosystem in that area, or how Black people fit/navigate it. But, Spruill seems to be taking steps to be the mentor for future Black tech entrepreneurs that he didn't have. And he's going to invest in and help develop the Black tech community in Raleigh and the Triangle.

 

[SAINT]

You think only black people exist in the world? Turning some good feat into another weird coli dap fishing thread. Mental illness

 

[get these nets]

........and on a lighter note

Spoiler

The G stands for GET PAID

"$250 is my salary, Sal $200 million is the amount, for my company, LESG"

 

[Luke Cage]

This thread is the definition of a crabs in the bucket mentality. Can't be happy for brotha who made it and became successful unless he made some arbitrary number of other black people successful too.