When considering Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Outliers, most young blacks aren’t put in a position to be the next Mark Zuckerberg or Kevin Systrom.
For a better breakdown, let’s take a look at the rise of Kevin Systrom. By the age of 12, Systrom had a computer in his home; he took Computer Science classes in high school; he was accepted into Standford and met Zuckerberg and Sean Parker while there; he did an internship with Jack Dorsey of Twitter; he was hired at Google; he met Marc Andreessen at Google and received a check for $250,000 for his idea that later became Instagram. After one year of the initial creation of the app, Systrom and his business partner, Mike Krieger, had been given $7 million in start up funding. Systrom is now worth $400 million.
It’s not a mistake that Systrom created the hottest app today, but how many young black males would have the opportunity to develop the idea and be at the right place at the right time?
