Building a tech start-up in Silicon Valley: ‘Not only am I Black, but I am also a former athlete’

  • Date: 09-Sep-2020
  • Source: CNBC
  • Sector:Technology
  • Country:Oman
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Building a tech start-up in Silicon Valley: ‘Not only am I Black, but I am also a former athlete’

This is part of CNBC Make It's series on what it's like to be Black in Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley has long been a culture dominated by white men, with a fraught record of following up on commitments to fix its race problem, from major tech companies that have barely moved their numbers on diversity to a lack of funding for Black founders. Here, CNBC Make It spoke with Black professionals to hear their experiences.Mike T. Brown figured that after he spent four seasons playing professional football “” one season in the National Football League with the Indianapolis Colts and three seasons in another pro league, the equivalent of today's XFL “” he would go on to Rice University in Houston, Texas, to get his MBA.But then a friend and former teammate told Brown about the legendary venture capitalist