Everette Taylor is one of the most powerful and influential figures in business and technology. The 34-year-old current CEO of Kickstarter made major inroads while working at Artsy, an online art brokerage, in addition to founding ET Enterprises, which includes marketing firm Milisense, social media company PopSocial, ArtX and GrowthHackers.
Recently, at Black Tech Week in Cincinnati, Taylor spoke with rolling out about Kickstarter and overall diversity within the tech field.
What has Black Tech Week been like for you so far?
It’s honestly always beautiful to see Black people congregate … but also Black people that are trying to improve their lives, that are trying to enrich their lives, learn something, connect with people, grow with people, want to mentor each other and help each other build each other up. We need more of that within the Black community. So to see that within the tech space is really inspiring.
How has Kickstarter incorporated its services in Black Tech Week?
Number one is just what we’re doing internally at the company. I dare you to find any company, any tech company more diverse than Kickstarter right now. Across the board, top to bottom from leadership, we just brought in our new CFO, Sindy Wilson, who was the No. 2 in finance at Lyft, and she’s been incredible. She’s in Atlanta as well. I can’t think of any other top company with a Black man and Black woman in the CEO and CFO seats.
Five out of eight of our top leaders in the company are people of color, many of them Black, across the board top to bottom, we’re very diverse. Making sure we bring in diversity internally within the company is super important.
Number two is elevating diverse voices on the platform. Creating programs for funds, putting money into the hands of Black tech creators, and Black creators across the spectrum. When I think about tech, I think about everything. There’s tech in film, there’s tech in music, there’s tech in fashion. Tech is enabling everything. Tech is everything on the platform, even if it’s different categories, it might not be deemed as tech. For us to be able to create a platform to support more diverse voices and Black people on the platform, that’s been incredible as well.
When you think about the world of tech now, how would you describe the tech world today?
Unimaginative, man. There are a lot of copycats. [There are] a lot of people who lack creativity. A lot of people follow the blueprint, I see people following my blueprint as well, but I love that. You want to be able to help people in the next generation, but at the same time, I just see, there aren’t a lot of new ideas under the sun, people are really copying one another. And I think the real excitement and creativity is happening with us, the Black founders who are creating in a space that sees things differently than our White counterparts. That’s where I really see the creativity.
