August 17, 2021 • 48 mins
Black Tech Pipeline CEO chats with Leo to explain why the diversity issues in tech aren't a "pipeline issue." Leo connects Pariss' past career experiences as an actress, wax specialist, and software engineer to her current business as a recruiter. Finally, Pariss gives solid advice on how to get a leg up in a new career path.
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By: Leo Yockey
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:15):
Hello, and welcome to anotherepisode of the Leo Yockey show,
the podcast where I, Leo Yockeyinterview guests about how their
unique life path led them todefine success and fulfillment.
We're connecting all the dots tosee how someone got from
seemingly unrelated beginningsto where they are today. And
(00:39):
that's exactly what I do with myguest today, Paris, Athena. Now,
a common thread a common themein a lot of our episodes, so
far, have been about networkingand meeting people and finding
community. And while it's greatto find like minded people, no
(00:59):
matter what it is that you'redoing, I think it's important to
remember that listen, everythinghas a good and a bad side, a
light and a dark side, we'vetalked about this before. And
it's great to be able to find acommunity of like minded people
and to build something withthem. But what's the potential
(01:19):
downside here, if you're onlystaying within your little
bubble of people staying withinyour echo chamber, so to speak,
there's there's a couple ofthings that can happen here.
One, you may be closing yourselfup from opportunities where you
can get some new perspectivethat you've never thought about
before. And to potentiallydepending on who you are, you
(01:41):
could be perpetuating systemicbarriers to access. I don't
think any of my listeners wantto do that. But seriously, if
you're trying to be a leader ofany kind, and you look around,
and most of the people in yournetwork have the exact same
background as you What good isthat do? Of course, there are
(02:05):
exceptions to that if you're ifyou're trying to make something
that is specifically catered toan underrepresented group, or a
historically oppressed group,you know, that's one thing. But
that's a whole otherconversation of nuance for
another day that I don't want toget into being in tech, being a
(02:27):
black person in tech, being atransgender person in tech, I
got to see a lot of places whereleaders just kind of dropped the
ball. And they thought, I workedwith people who truly thought
that they were being diverse orwere embracing diversity. But
(02:49):
the reality was that they justweren't, they were so close to
the problem, that they couldn'teven see what they were doing.
You know what I mean? What Ilove about Paris Athena's
business is that she solves thisproblem directly. And it's a
problem that I care aboutdeeply. I'm very grateful that
there are people like her inthis industry. Listen,
(03:13):
diversity, and inclusion takeseffort. It really does. And it's
a skill that can't just bewilled into existence overnight.
And so I'm really glad thatpeople like Paris are out there
doing the work for blacktechnologists. And I hope that
there are people out there doingthe specialized work for other
(03:33):
marginalized groups. You know,we had Valerie Phoenix on the
show recently, and she she worksmore directly with the
technologists, whereas Parisworks more directly. I mean, she
works with the technologists,but she's also working on
building relationships directlywith employers. And maybe
Valerie is doing that too. Idon't know. Anyway, I can ramble
(03:53):
on about this forever. This is atopic that I'm very passionate
about. I've been directlyaffected by in my own life and
have a lot of trauma, honestly,that I have to heal from. And so
I am grateful for people likeher that are doing the work to
make sure that these traumaticexperiences can be less
frequent, you know, so, anyway,here's Paris.
(04:24):
All right, Paris, what's up? Howare you doing today? I'm good.
I'm happy to be here. Yeah, I'mhappy to have you. You're one of
the you're one of the peopleactually one of the first people
that I was like, I gotta, Igotta get her on to the show,
because I just I love whatyou're doing with black tech
pipeline. I think there's, youknow, I've had a few people from
(04:45):
the tech world on this show sofar. But I think there's a lot.
There are a lot of aspects ofwhat you're doing that I think
really, really tap into the waythat the world is changing in
that opportunities are becomingso Much more. So much more
accessible to be able to takewhat we're doing, take the value
that we're bringing, and makemoney off of it. So I'm so
(05:09):
excited to have you, I thinkthat this is going to be a great
conversation. Yeah, spoileralert for the listeners, we're
in for a great conversation. So,um, so let's dive into it. So
before before we even talk aboutblack tech pipeline? Who, who
Who are you? What if you'remeeting people, you know, what
(05:29):
is kind of the elevator pitchthat you give for yourself? Who
is Paris? Athena? Um, so that'sreally hard. I don't know why.
Hard to answer. Um, it'sprobably the hardest question
anyone ever can answer for sure.
Um, yeah, I'm Paris Chandler.
But I go by Paris, Athena, fromCambridge, Massachusetts. And
(05:54):
I've had a roller coaster of acareer. I've done a lot of
things in life, and I'm very wasit? Is it entrepreneurial, or
like, I like to dive into somany different things. I'm just
very curious. And I'm a mom, I'ma Yonsei. And this is really
(06:15):
hard to answer. So. So yeah, Iguess that's it so far.
Well, it makes you feel anybetter. That should be the
hardest question of wrestlingshould be easier. We should it
should be smooth sailing forhere. So I'm glad that you
already said you had a rollercoaster of a career because you
(06:36):
do have a very interestingbackground that I did not know
about until I was looking you upfor the questions for this you.
I know that you're the founderof black tech pipeline, which
I'll let you explain. I'm sureyou have the elevator pitch for
that a little bit more down,Pat. So I'll let you explain
that in a minute. I knew thatyou had some sort of career in
tech, I didn't know that youwere a developer specifically,
(06:56):
for some reason, I thought youwere a project manager or
something. But you were asoftware engineer, but you were
previously an actress, a waxspecialist, whatever, whatever
that means. Yeah, what what iswax? But do you mean? Like you
were, like, just gave peoplelike waxes like like hair
removal wax? Yep. Yeah. Okay. Iwas like, I'm from LA. So I'm
(07:19):
like, this could be like, likesome some woowoo? Like
candlemaking? Like out or no?
Right, right. Now, so yeah. Soyou've landed now as the founder
of black tech pipeline, havingnever been a recruiter before?
So what what is black techpipeline? What's the elevator
pitch for that?
Yeah, so black tech pipeline, weare a service based platform
(07:42):
where we offer a recruitment anda job board. But we, our whole
thing is like diversity, equityand inclusion of black
technologists specifically. Sowhen we recruit candidates,
black technologists intocompanies, we stay on the job
with them for 90 days, becausewe want to ensure that they're
happy, safe and healthy in thoseenvironments. And we want to
(08:03):
make sure that we can relay thatinformation over to the
employers so that they know, youknow how to improve every hires
experience and just do better onthe D AI front. And then we have
a job board, where we just kindof give this really transparent,
you know, information aboutevery company on our job board,
and applicants can decide ifthat's a company they want to
(08:23):
apply to or not, but it's basedon, you know, what this company
is doing to have a safe space,you know, have values that are
meaningful, and people arelearning like, you know, where
are these companies doing? Inregards to diversity, equity
inclusion, like what sort ofpractices and policies do they
have? What are their initiativesaround it? To see, like, you
(08:45):
know, do I feel like thiscompany is being performative?
Are they being actionable? Andpeople apply based on that?
Yeah, I love that. So, I want tofocus in a little bit on the
name itself, right, black techpipeline. Now, I have a lot of
feelings on this topic. I knowyou do, because you started a
whole damn company around it.
But, you know, for the listenersthat aren't super familiar with
(09:06):
the tech industry, although thisis probably an issue that
happens, you know, in a lot ofindustries that lack diversity,
what we hear oftentimes, Iactually heard this at my last
job that I that I quit my verylast tech job. You know, people
at the top, the decision makerswill say something along the
lines of, I would love to havemore diversity, I would love to
(09:28):
have more black people, butthere's a pipeline problem.
They're just not applying. Theyjust I you know, they're just
not around. They're just not,they're just not here. So, like
I said, I can I can go off aboutthat. But I can you speak to
that, like, from from yourperspective, like, how you feel
about that, like what what yourthoughts are on that, you know,
(09:48):
I know that of course, yourresponse now could just be like,
sign up for blackjack pipeline,but kind of, you know, beyond
that, in a more general sense,you know what, what comes to
mind for you when you hearpeople We'll say that ignorant
ass bullshit.
Yeah, so it's been a pipelineproblem. It's a network problem.
And it's a personal networkproblem when you predominantly
(10:12):
white companies, because they'refull of only white people,
that's their network is alsoother white people. And so
companies love to do the wholereferral thing where it's like,
tell your friends and familiesto come work here and you'll get
the referral bonus, or whateverit is. And they're referring
their other very white networks.
And so you continue buildingthis very light, like company.
And when they put out, you know,job postings, or whatever, well,
(10:37):
where are you putting those jobpostings? Is it on, you know,
like, indeed, and LinkedIn andthese predominantly white
platforms? Well, there you go,that those are, those are people
who are seeing it, those arepeople who are applying. And
when you're not going out andmaking an effort to like, build
a diverse network, then I don'treally know what you expect,
people aren't just gonna applybecause your company like people
(10:57):
don't know, first of all, theydon't know your company exists.
They don't know you exist. Andthat's why it's important,
again, to build a network.
That's what social media is for,if you don't go out and actively
do it, you know, on a physicallevel, you can do it online, you
have Twitter, you can literallyGoogle, you know, black tech
platforms, black tech jobboards, and you can do that for
(11:20):
any sort of likeunderrepresented community. It's
literally like a Google away.
And so I just think like, thewhole pipeline problem is a
bullshit excuse. You're justbeing lazy, and you don't really
care.
Exactly. And it's escaped code.
And it's so you know, it's it'skind of a self fulfilling
prophecy type thing, kind of,like you said, it's like, if
someone is saying that, youknow, there's a pipeline
(11:43):
problem, it's like, you can'tsay that there's a pipeline
problem. And then also live inthis world where you know, that
everything is connection based,everything is network based, you
know, it's not what you know,it's who you know, and you're
right. Most most employers feelmore comfortable hiring people
that they know, you know, both,I worked in two major tech jobs
before, before leaving theindustry, the first one, I knew
(12:06):
someone in that company, emailedthem directly, and said, Hey,
this is what I'm doing. Now. Iknow how to code blah, blah,
blah, whatever. They referred medirectly to their recruiter got
the job, when they weren't evenadvertising a job opening. The
next time around. I knew again,I knew someone that worked
there, it was actually, mybootcamp mentor was working
(12:28):
there. And so she was able tovouch for me, say, I think they
had to advertise a job at thatpoint. But same thing, just very
easy to get in. And so whenyou're, when you most people
only know people with similarbackgrounds to them, right?
Whether it's, you know, the samebackground and sexuality, same
(12:48):
background and race, samebackground in class and class
upbringing, and to say that, oh,people must not want to, you
know, be involved in thisbecause, you know, we're just
not seeing that. It's like,Where are you even looking? And
so that's a huge, that's a hugegap. You know, and you're and
(13:09):
you're filling that gap. So Iknow that a big part of what
what got you into this was thethe hashtag black tech Twitter,
you're you're the founder, Iguess. Oh, co founders right
word for hashtag creator? Yeah,something like that. Like you,
you kind of started this trendblack tech Twitter. So can you
(13:32):
can you kind of explain thoselike how, how you came to do
that? And and like, Whatinspired you to put that hashtag
out there?
Yeah, it's actually reallyfunny. Um, yeah, so I was on
Twitter, not even for that,maybe a month or so. And that's
where I discovered that therewas a really tiny community of
(13:54):
black technologists. And beforethat, before I got on to
Twitter. You know, I was workingin tech as a software engineer.
But every company that I workedat, I wasn't like, just the only
woman on the team. But I wasliterally the only black person
in the entire company for everycompany that I've worked at. So
I was convinced like, there justaren't really black people in
tech. And I was proven wrongonce I got onto Twitter. And I
(14:18):
wanted to know, like, how manymore of us are out there? Like,
it's so small, like, I justfigured I'd post a tweet. And I
didn't really I also like,didn't think anything of it. It
was just a tweet, just like wetweet every day. So I posted you
know, what does black Twittersince black Twitter is a thing
in tech look like? So I postedthat tweet, left it alone and
(14:38):
then came back to my phone hourslater. And the tweet was just
like blowing up. And blacktechnologists from all over the
world were posted them postingthemselves into that tweet. And
it created a really long threadof like, their pictures and they
were, you know, capturing whatthey do in the industry like,
Oh, I'm a, I don't know I'm a mlengineer. I'm a this that like
(14:58):
all these careers. I never Heardof in tech. And I was like, Oh
my god, like, this is reallycool. And it wasn't until
someone tweeted to me like, Hey,I think you did something. I
didn't realize like only, like,I think this is like a new
community. And it was it was theblack Twitter community. It was
almost like we kind of foundeach other overnight. And that
was pretty cool. And from that,like, you know, I got a lot of
(15:20):
coverage in terms of likeindustry leaders were tweeting
about it. The media was reachingout to me to publish things
about the this new community.
But then also employers wereseeing that tweet, they were
seeing all the engagement andall these new technologists, and
they were like, Oh, my God,there isn't a pipeline problem.
Right. And right. And so theystarted reaching out to me very
(15:43):
consistently, asking if I wouldrecruit candidates from this new
community into their companies.
So I said, maybe this questionis like, ignorance around like,
not understanding how Twitterworks. well enough. But so
you're saying you're gettinglike media opportunities and
stuff like that? Because Yeah,like this thing kind of blew up
(16:05):
overnight? How? How does it thatas it grew, and this kind of
became a community in and ofitself? How were you able to
kind of stay on top of like,people being able to point to
you as, as the one who startedall of that, like were, were you
kind of putting yourself outthere, as the person that
(16:25):
started it. Were thesejournalists kind of digging up
the original tweet and findingit. And that's how they're
reaching out to you like, what,how did how did that part kind
of come into fruition?
Yeah, it was both. Um, and, andthere are also people who didn't
know that I like startedeventually. But when it first
kind of blew up, like, you know,people were writing about it on
(16:47):
their own people were doing likenewsletters and like news
articles or whatever. But then Ialso had media like reaching out
to me like, Hey, can we do astory on this? Like, let's talk
about the pipeline problem.
Let's talk about, you know,what's it like to be a black
technologist and things likethat. So I did a lot of those
stories. But I also wasn't likeon Twitter saying, hey, look,
it's me. I started somethingwasn't like that. I was, I was
(17:08):
kind of just chilling and kindof going along with it.
Yeah, that's really cool. Okay,cool. So So you started. Okay,
so you did this, mostly? Becauseyou were like, I feel isolated.
I don't even know where where mypeople are. And you're almost, I
don't want to put words in yourmouth. But maybe you're starting
to get discouraged at thispoint. Like, am I even in the
(17:29):
right field? Like, where isanybody? Like, am I going to
constantly feel like I'm kind ofswimming upstream? Always being
the only one in the room? Wasthat was that kind of some of
the feelings you were having?
When you when you put that tweetout there? No.
No, that was how I felt when Ifirst entered the industry. And
mind you like when black techTwitter started, I was I wasn't
(17:52):
even in tech for a whole yearyet. Like I had entered the
industry. And it was like aculture shock for me. Because
before getting into tech, I waslike, a waitress and a hostess
and a wax specialist and thingslike that. And I was always
surrounded by people who looklike me. So thinking about my
race just wasn't, it wasn't athing. Like I was always
surrounded by people who looklike me. So it wasn't an issue.
(18:14):
It wasn't until I got into techthat I noticed that I was always
the only black person like inthe room. And so when I got onto
Twitter, I that's where I sawthat there was already an exists
a small, existing black, blackcommunity, black tech community.
And all I want to do is see howmany more of us were in the
industry. And that was it.
(18:35):
Yeah, that's really interesting.
Yeah, that's a very different,you know, I feel like I've
always felt like the outcastanywhere that I go. Like, I
would never think to dosomething like flat like hashtag
black tech Twitter, only becauseI'm just so used to always being
the only one like, Oh, I'm theonly LGBT person here. I'm the
only black person here I'm theonly this I'm the only that. And
(18:56):
so for me, it's almost like mydefault is being the outcast. So
I come in attack. I'm also theonly black person I was the only
black engineer at my first job.
Towards the end, I was one ofthe only black employees period,
I was the only black employeeperiod for a very long time at
(19:17):
my last job up until like maybethe last couple months or so we
hired a second black engineer.
So there's a whole two of us. Ijust I but for me, I'm just
like, yep, makes sense. Like I'malways the odd one out I was
usually like the youngest in anygroup like always so for you it
was almost like, well, thiscan't be right. Like because
you're just so used to like ofcourse, there's other people
(19:38):
that look like me all aroundbecause that was kind of your
your experience all throughoutall throughout life. Yeah. What
about in school? Because you'reCambridge is that's a suburb
that's like the Boston area,right?
Yeah. Well, yeah, it's likeGreater Boston. But Cambridge is
very, very diverse. I'm like,now Not as much because
(20:01):
gentrification. But back in myday, very diverse, like we had
more people of color than whitepeople in school. And so again,
like I just it thinking aboutbeing like, the only black
person just wasn't a thing.
Yeah. And so it's like you getin and you're just like I said,
(20:26):
it's almost, for lack of abetter term. It's almost like I
can't, like how am I going tooperate like this like now like,
let's let's go back to normaland go back to homeostasis,
which for you was like, beingaround people who are like you
and not having to feel likeyou're the only one.
Right? I yeah, I like when I'maround. My people. I don't ever
feel like I have to assimilateto a new culture. Like, I just
(20:49):
feel like, we understand eachother, I guess. Yeah. Like, I
don't know, we talk the same. Weunderstand, you know, things
about each other and ourfamilies and just, there's so
many things that we understandthat are unspoken, I guess. And
then I come in like to this newenvironment. It's predominantly
white. And, you know, people aretalking about things I've never
(21:11):
experienced people are, youknow, having conversations I'm
not interested in. Like,they're, they're talking about
experiences they've had that I'mlike, Yeah, I could never afford
to do that. So no, I'm there.
And, like, people were just alsolike, straight up ignorant and,
and straight up racist. And sothat was uncomfortable. And it
was different.
(21:34):
Yeah, I think I think that'sreally interesting. So So, at
what point I mean, the notice,like not having to assimilate in
the past, then all of a suddenbeing like, this is weird. Like,
I think that makes sense, too.
Because going back to, like,always being the odd one out.
And also, you know, like, I havean immigrant parent, my dad's
from Tanzania. And immigrantparents can generally fall into
(21:56):
two camps, right? There's theone that like, tries to almost
raise their kid as as if they'renot even in America, right? Like
there's so they, they completelysurround their kids with their,
with their culture, theirmotherland, that they know
everything about the culture inand out. And then there's the
other ones that say, I can't inAmerica, that my kids can be
(22:17):
American, like kinda kinda, youknow, kind of, they're like,
what past what would have beenand my dad is kind of in that
latter camp. I mean, I have mymom's German last name, for
Christ's sake, like, justcompletely assimilated. And so
for me again, it's like, I'mjust like, all of these things
that you're talking about withlike having people that have
(22:38):
like, you know, they're talkingabout things that don't interest
you, or you can't relate to,like, I can relate to feeling
that way. But my response to itwas so different was just like,
yeah, this is life. Like, I'mjust always gonna be the weirdo
outcast, you know. And so, Ithink that that's so interesting
how, like, our, you know, whatthe things that we are in aren't
(22:58):
willing to tolerate based off,like, what our background is,
like, why would you suddenly asan adult be like, well, I guess
I'm gonna go into my box afternever having to feel like that
all the way, you know, all theway up until it was 2017 2018.
That's you got an attack? Yeah.
So, yep. Yeah. So it's like,why, why all of a sudden do
(23:22):
that. Whereas for me, I had to,like, kind of understand, like,
wait, I don't have to do thisall the time, like coming to
find black tech, Twitter wasthis like, like, it was like
this whole new world for me,because I didn't it, it just
never occurred to me that itwould even be possible. It's
just so interesting. had someoneon the show recently, Megan
(23:42):
parrot, she has a community oflike, moms who are
entrepreneurs, and, you know,moms of young kids specifically.
And her whole thing was like,she was trying to find a
mother's group that wasn'treally focused on the kid. And
just like, this is what my kidsare doing. And I'm just like,
Anderson's mom or whatever, likeshe, and so she went out and
(24:03):
created it, right. So that'skind of exactly what you did,
like you'd recognizeimmediately, because like I
said, you were more equipped torecognize that than someone like
me was, you're able to recognizelike, Hey, there should be more
of us out here. Like, I don'twant to just feel like I'm the
only black person everywhere Igo, like, Where are y'all at?
Like, you kind of threw up thebat signal like black Check
Twitter where y'all that? Youknow, and you you created that
(24:27):
that community? So yeah, I thinkthat that's really cool. When
did you start? Yeah, when didyou start seriously helping with
like being that plug forrecruitment? So like, how long
after that initial tweet? Didyou really start like kind of
playing a role for free in likekind of helping employers find
(24:48):
other black technologistslike that started immediately,
honestly, like he or the night Iguess the night of that was
going like, viral like I hademployers all in my DNS. Like,
and so I feel like it just kindof started immediately. And for
me, I was like, oh, like thiswould be really dope. Like to
get more black people in tech?
(25:08):
Yeah. I was like, I can't bethat hard to like, just
introduce people and recruitthem. And so what I did was I
created a discord community atfirst. And that's where I kind
of led all of like black techTwitter to go and continue
networking and like buildingrelationships and stuff. So I
led them into this Discord. AndI would also use that discord to
(25:29):
recruit people. So it startedoff that way. Like, I was like,
Hey, I'm currently recruitingfor this employer, do you want
you know, I just said, you wantto talk to them? people be like,
yeah, and so I would introducethem, and then the employer
would take over from there andinterview them. And people were
getting hired, like, left andright. And so it was like,
really simple to me. I had mynine to five as a software
engineer, and then I'm, youknow, people are being recruited
(25:50):
into companies. And I was doingthat for a long, long time. And
the reason why, like black techpipeline came to be, was because
a lot of the people that Iactually recruited into
companies, they came back to me,or they publicly stated it, and
they were like, you know, I leftthis company, because, you know,
it's the same thing, like, youknow, they're performative. They
(26:12):
hired us to check a box, youknow, we weren't learning or
growing, and like, it was justthe same bullshit that we deal
with everywhere. Yeah. And Ifelt horrible. And I knew it
reflected badly on me. And aslike this new leader of a
community, which I had neverdone before, I felt bad because
I didn't vet any of theseemployers who reached out to me.
(26:34):
I just said, like, yeah, yeah,this would be dope, of course,
I'll recruit for you. And sofrom there, I was like, Alright,
like, if I'm gonna do this work,you know, I want to be ethical,
and I want to do it. Right. Sothat's where I built like, a
black tech pipelining createdthat new recruitment model that
I have.
Yeah, that totally makes sense.
So were you. Were you doing anyof that work to start vetting
(26:56):
the companies before turningthis into a company? Or was that
kind of how that evolutionworked? Was?
Started once I found out thatpeople were like, quitting and
or even like, getting fired forlike, really dumb shit. I was
like, Okay, I actually stoppedrecruiting for a while so that I
could build black tech pipelineand, and create this new model.
(27:20):
Wow, that's really interesting.
So because I was gonna add, mynext question was was going to
be like, at what point did youkind of like, realize that this
was something that you couldlike, make money off of like,
were like switching from likedoing it, like voluntarily on
the side to making it abusiness? And it It sounds like
at least part of the motivationwas like, hey, my reputations on
(27:41):
the line, like, I don't want tokeep like, sending people to
these unvetted companies andhaving it not work out, like I
actually care about thiscommunity that, that that's kind
of inbuilt in this Discord.
Right? Yes. So was that was thata lot? Like, was that kind of
the main thing? Or like, wereyou still thinking at that point
(28:01):
that this would kind of besomething on the side, and he
just wanted more structure?
Like, at what point did the Oh,I can really make a profit off
of this thought and strategykind of come into the picture?
Yeah, so I honestly wasn't goingto turn this into a business, I
really wanted to only focus onbeing a software engineer and
getting really good. But I waslike, you know, this is like
(28:22):
their software engineering. Andthen there's like, really like
being able to, like leadsomething and actually make a
difference and be the one makingthe rules and create an impact.
So I was like, hey, like, whatif I just like, like, actually
recruited people, companies payme, but but they don't only pay
me to recruit. It's like, I'malso checking in to make sure
(28:44):
that these companies aren'tbeing performative. And people
aren't going through the samebullshit that they were when I
was last recruiting.
Yeah, it's like half recruitingand half consulting.
Right? And I'm like, like, cuz Iwant to hold employers
accountable. And I want to makesure that these hires are happy,
safe and healthy. Because ifthey're not, I don't want to
continue working for these typesof employers. And so that was
(29:06):
like the turnaround for me.
Yeah, so do you? Do you misssoftware engineering ever? Like
what how is it felt to kind oflike, step away from that? What,
what what led you to checkinitially? Like, what was your
main motivation to become asoftware engineer? Like, did you
really have a passion for orwere you just like, here's a way
to make some money, like money,money, money, you know what I
(29:26):
mean?
Yeah, it was. So it was twothings. I guess. Like at the end
of the day, it was money. Like Iwas realizing that without a
technical background, you'reprobably going to get left
behind and people were beinglike, replaced by machines as
they say. And like, for me, Iwas a whack specialist full time
and it felt like this would havehappened like anytime soon, but
(29:48):
I was losing some clientele tolaser hair removal, which is a
machine and I was like, I'mactually being impacted and I
didn't realize it till likesomeone told me. I was like,
okay, like I guess I'll do likelearn coding. And the only
reason why I got into coding wasbecause that's the only thing
that I knew existed in tech.
Yeah. But I didn't know codingwas a thing. Like literally
(30:10):
until like 2016 2017. And so I,that's just what I did. I was
like, hey, like, how can I learnto code? I was in online school
at the time. And so I wastalking to like my little
counselor, and they're like, Oh,hey, like, if you want to learn
to code, there's this boot campcalled resilient coders where
they pay and teach people ofcolor from underserved
communities to code. And theyhappen to be holding a hackathon
(30:33):
that weekend, where they choosepeople to join their cohort. And
so I went to that hackathon, Iended up getting chosen to join
the cohort. And then like, a fewweeks later, I quit my full time
job and went straight intolearning to code.
That's cool. Okay, so yeah, soyeah, so so it was never
necessarily like, you wanted toget into tech, but it was never
(30:56):
necessarily important that youdid software engineering
specifically. So kind of kind ofmakes sense how you're able to,
like, walk away from it. Now, doyou think, do you think you
would have like pursued adifferent route into tech if you
had a better understanding oflike, the different avenues and
ways to be involved in techwithout coding?
(31:17):
Yeah, I'm, like reallyinterested in design. And
specifically for like, virtualreality, I thought that would
have been really cool. But sinceI didn't know that existed,
like, I'll just stick to coding.
It's not like I hated coding.
But it was definitely like, Ialso didn't wake up early in the
morning. Excited to do it, ifthat makes sense.
Yeah, I feel Yeah. Um, were youwere you self employed? Or as a
(31:44):
as a wax specialist ever? Or isthis the kind of your first
foray into entrepreneurial shipto that no,
no wax, but I was, I went toschool to be an aesthetician,
and I became a specialist fromthat, and I was working at like
this big chain for waxing. So I,you know, I wasn't like, self
employed. But after learning tocode, I also didn't do like any
(32:06):
type of freelance or anything Igot, like jobs at companies.
Wow. So you, wow. So this isactually a pretty, pretty sharp
left turn for you in multipledirections, you didn't have any
experience recruiting? You know,like didn't, and also hadn't
like started your own businessever before. So this is, this is
(32:27):
kind of a pretty big leap offaith that you took here, like,
yeah, that have been reallyfucking scary in the beginning,
wasn't it?
It wasn't that it wasn't. I feellike I've always kind of been
that way. Like, you know, Imoved to New York, by myself to
go to school. And then I movedto LA by myself to try and
(32:47):
become an actress. And this islike, without a networker,
people who I know. Yeah, so Itook leaps before, this was a
little more scary, because Ialso had a child. Right, but I
have bills to pay advocate tofeed out the feed myself. And so
like, I was not going to fail.
Like, I just, it couldn'thappen. So when I when I went
into this, like, I knew that Iwas going to like, sacrifice
(33:11):
everything and like, learn thisshit and get good at it and
thrive. Because I don't have anoption.
Yeah, I think that's reallycool. So So you mentioned you
went to New York and LA, you youwere in LA to pursue acting. You
had no network? You youspecifically pointed out you had
no network. Did you? Did youfeel at that point? Or did you
(33:34):
kind of understand later on inretrospect, it's like, the
difference that having a networkwould have made if you had like,
moved to LA, like, knowingpeople, like At what point did
you kind of really becomeconsciously aware of that?
Yeah. So for LA specifically, Inoticed that people wanted
(33:55):
absolutely nothing to do withme, because I didn't have a
network. Yeah, I didn't knowanyone I couldn't. I wasn't
beneficial to anybody. And so itwas really hard to build
relationships at all. It washard to make friends. It was
hard to be taken seriously. Andso that's how I realized I was
like, Wow, it's really about whoyou know, for some industries.
So that's like, where I firstlearned that truth.
(34:19):
Yeah, definitely. So did you Sobetween, between, like acting
and then before you get intotech, like, Are you are you
doing any work to kind of builda network as you're learning how
to collect? Did you feelyourself like being more
conscious of building networksin any in the careers that you
had after acting after havingthat experience?
(34:43):
Not so much with what Well, Iguess with waxing, I didn't have
a choice but to build a networkbecause I had clientele. I just
happened to be like, the bestwaxer there. And so I had I had
like really big clients. I hadlots of celebrities. I had lots
of like, influencers and thingslike that who came to me and I
was always booked. And from thatthat's actually like when I
(35:04):
first learned that codingexisted one of my clients was an
engineer for Rent the Runway, Ibelieve. And she was like, get
into tech. There are no women intech, like coatings really easy
this and that. And I was like,Yeah, maybe. And now here I am.
But like, yeah, that's how Ilearned about coding at first.
(35:25):
That's very similar to how Ilearned about coding I, I was
working casino security inVegas. And there was this
vendor, we ran the like parkinggarage, because he had to, like
pay to push. So we had like, oneof our people would work the
parking booth. And so they wereinstalling a new gate for the
parking booth or the parkinggarage, and the guy that was
(35:45):
like programming it andinstalling it. He like, looks at
me, he's like, how old are you?
I was like, 23. How much moneydo you make $12 an hour. He's
like, dude, you got to learn howto code. Like, same thing. It's
so easy. We know, no bow line.
So that same night, like startedlooking into it. And that
started my journey. So again, Imean, that's, that's the network
thing. It's always, you know,you never you never know where
(36:08):
that like spark of inspirationis gonna come from, like, you
know, when when people you know,for the listeners, when people
tell you something, give you asuggestion, it sounds even
remotely interesting look intoit, because it could change the
entire direction of your lifelike you have no idea. I think
that's really cool. Oh, yeah. Asyou're learning to code like I
did. So. Were you doing anythingto try to network? Yeah, like
(36:32):
what What had you done tonetwork prior to the black tech
Twitter tweet.
So during boot camp, is actuallywhat I loved about like
resilient coders. Specifically,they made you like you didn't
have a choice but to network, orelse you would get kicked out of
the program. And the way theymade sure that you networked?
(36:54):
was you had to bring in acertain amount of business cards
to them per week, and you haveto show it to them. Oh, wow. Oh,
yeah. So when I tell youthroughout that whole program, I
went out like literally everysingle night with my cohort and
mind you, my cohort became likemy family. We loved each other
to death. We always have funtogether. So we were in Boston,
(37:15):
which is this massive tech hub.
So we were going out to everyevent like every meetup,
everything we went out everysingle night, we went listen to
talks, you know, got involvedwith community things. And
that's how we network and thatpeople got their business cards
had coffee chats with them. Wewe always had to have coffee
chats as well. Yeah, I had nochoice but to network. And so
that also made my career.
(37:38):
Yeah, that's really cool. I lovethat. So once you once you're
out of the boot camp, and youlike kind of stops. Oh, yeah,
once you're out of the bootcamp, did you kind of like stop
networking for a little whilebefore before getting on a trip?
Looking like No, absolutely not.
And the hustle never stops.
I love the I just I startedloving it. Like I don't feel
(38:00):
like I was ever really good atit. I'm really bad at initiating
conversation. But I'm reallygood at going out. Like I love
going out everything and like,you know, conversation, because
just kind of happens naturally.
It's helpful when you go withother people, because sometimes
there's someone who's willing tostart that conversation and, you
know, you just meet people. Andso, yeah, I just enjoyed it.
Because I was literally goingout. And I just so happened that
(38:23):
I got to build a network likethat as well.
Well, I will say it is hard tobuild, just initiate
conversation person, much easierto do online. So you know, to be
able to cuz that's what you didwhen you start, you would
literally started theconversation, right? So I think
(38:44):
that that's really cool. So if Icould summarize, we're just
about out of time here. If I ifI can summarize, you grew up in
a very diverse area and stayedin mostly diverse fields with
Well, yeah, I guess that is anexception in acting, you know,
acting is not a super diversefield and you came to LA, and
(39:04):
you realize very quickly Oh,shit without a network, like, I
don't have anything like I'm notgonna be able to get anywhere.
So you know, you you, you comeback to the east coast and
you're you're building thisclientele with waxing. And
you're, you're kind of seeingthe power of networking. And
again, you're surrounded by yourpeople. So you're not really
(39:25):
having to assimilate much. Youget into tech, you're really
really learning how to networkor going out to events, you're
literally having to show proof.
Networking is becoming a biggerand bigger and bigger part of
your career and how you keepyour career going. And once you
get an attack and you realizelike, Oh shit, no one even looks
like me, which probably mighthave even been more of a shock
(39:47):
because it sounds like resilientcoders was probably diverse and
so then you people of color.
Yeah. And then you get is likeOkay, you guys all get to split
up now. Good luck, right? And soyou're like, oh, like this Got
your first time not really beingin a community where you felt
like you could be yourself inthe workplace. And so you're
(40:08):
kind of taking everything andjust going on to Twitter and
being like, okay, Where iseverybody? Like, I know, I, you
know, like, you kind of know,like your roots are to network.
So you're like, Okay, like,let's see who's out there. And
and now here you are, and likehaving that like flexibility and
willingness from doing so manydifferent things to like, you
(40:28):
know, if you had never gone outto LA to pursue acting, who who
knows maybe that leap of faithinto pursuing black type
pipeline, maybe that would havebeen too much. But you, you
known that like, you've beenable to take risks and land on
your feet, even even if itdidn't work out the way that you
wanted to? So like, why the hellnot? And you had already built
this reputation so so why thehell not? So I guess the main
(40:52):
thing for the listeners is like,you know, when you feel like
something is is missing, kind ofsee if there's something in your
past, where you know, that thatis missing specifically, like
for you. It was like the, youknow, you never felt like you
had to assimilate. And now youdo so what, what can you do to
feel like you don't have toassimilate anymore? Go find that
people who were like you, right?
I think that that's really cool.
(41:15):
And I love again, that you'refilling this need, and that's
why it's working out, right.
Like there are people who kindof understand that the pipeline
problem is bullshit, but theydon't know where to start,
because they don't know anybody.
So you're becoming that, youknow, a person that they that
can be in their network that,you know, it's kind of a two way
(41:35):
street of trust, like you'revetting the companies, but
you're also vetting theengineers. And so you're you
know, and it all kind of comesback to your reputation being
important to you. I think. Ithink that's really cool. I love
it. Thank you. Yeah,yeah. And not, you don't only
have to reach out to blackpipeline, like literally get on
to Twitter. Yeah, and find somany different communities on
(41:56):
there. It's literally insane.
get jobs off of there theopportunities like Twitter is
the goat.
Truly, truly, yeah. I mean,seriously, like anybody that's
that's thinking about gettingit, I was actually just telling
my friend earlier today, she'sshe's looking into boot camps
and stuff, and isn't gonna beable to start for a little
while. I was like, honestly,she's doing like little free
(42:17):
coding things here. And there. Iwas, like, honestly, you're
better off building yourcommunity right now like that
boot camp will teach you onceyou get in, like, who cares
about that part, build yourcommunity now. Because that's
what's going to be really,really valuable. And so, yeah, I
love that. And that, and that'strue that I mean, tech, you
know, Twitter happens to bewhere a lot of the tech people
are, that might not necessarilybe the same for every industry,
(42:39):
like I know, in in comedy, whichI'm like, was kind of pursuing
for a while now. I wanted to bemore of a hobby, but that, you
know, there's there's a lot ofpeople on Twitter, but there's
also a lot of people onInstagram there. I know, there's
a tech community on Instagram. Idon't think it's as big as on
Twitter. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Solike, finding out where the
people are, and, and beingthere, right, even, you know,
(42:59):
like, if you're trying to date acertain type of person, you need
to figure out where they're aton Saturday night and be there.
So same thing for your job, likewhere are those people go hang
out there social media isnothing if not virtual coffee
shops, basically, people arehanging out and spending their
time in between work and familytime. And and just hang out,
(43:21):
like comment on posts just kindof be around mingle, and you
never know what might happen.
Exactly. Very cool. Well, thankyou very much for coming on
Paris, I, I like it. Like Isaid, I love what you're doing.
And again, I mean, that's theother thing to take away. It's
like when you see that peopleare really appreciating what
you're doing. And you're puttinga lot of effort into it, find a
(43:43):
way to turn it into a businesslike Paris did with black tech
pipeline. I mean, you you couldhave stayed volunteering to do
this, but then that would havebecome unsustainable at a
certain point, because you dohave a kid and a partner and you
had a whole other career at thetime. So like, trying to do all
that and actually be of use inservice to that black tech
pipeline community. At a certainpoint, it would have become
(44:06):
unsustainable, it wouldn't havebeen able to grow the way that
it has now. So I think it'sreally cool that you like
recognize that need and we'rewe're able to do it. It's
awesome. Thank you. So do you.
Do you have anything else thatyou that you want to say that
you feel like you'd be remiss ifyou if you left it out? Before
(44:29):
before we wrap things up here?
I just literally always tellpeople please utilize social
media like please engage and beactive and build relationships
on there because I promise you,there's just too much
opportunity that you will missif you are like not active. Just
Just go for it. Just do it. Justtweet it. Just post it just do
it and things will happen.
(44:51):
set another way. shoot yourshot. shoot your shot. Yes,
exactly. Don't be shy. Just doit. Exactly. Yeah, like Mackie
hoof, just do it. I love I lovethat awesome parents, is there
anything that you would like topromote?
Head over to black tech pipelinecomm for our job board or to be
considered for jobopportunities, or if you're an
(45:13):
employer to hire us forrecruitment or to use our job
board, and join the community,by going on Twitter or even
LinkedIn and Instagram, you canliterally just search the
hashtag black tech Twitter andyou will find us add yourself to
the thread on my profile, whichyou'll find at Paris. Athena on
Twitter, and follow at btpipeline on all social medias.
(45:34):
Awesome. And the links for allthat are in the show notes.
Again, Paris, thank you so muchfor coming on. Tell Nick that I
said hello. And oh, he'sliterally right there. Hey,
Nick. All right. Hi. I didn'tknow you could hear it. Hey,
hey, Jake. Welcome to welcome tomy podcast. Maybe, maybe I can
(45:56):
get a slot on that. I stoppedmyself. Oh, I'm lacking the
confidence. Yes, yes. Well,absolutely. Have you on to Don't
worry, Nick. I gotcha. Allright. I'm just gonna hit stop.
But uh, but yeah, thank you forcoming on. And I will talk to
you later. Yeah, thank you enjoythe rest of your day. Thank you.
(46:19):
All right. Once again, that wasParis Athena. Very cool to see
how her humble beginnings as anactress and a wax specialist,
got her to where she is today asthis recruiter and she really is
the plug, she bridges the gap.
If you're like I said before, ifyou're one of those leaders,
where you look around and andeverybody has the same
background as you and have thesame perspectives and have the
(46:41):
same blind spots, as you, youknow, pairs can be one of those
people that you can add intoyour networks that you do have
that perspective. I think that'sreally cool. Thank you again,
for listening to the show. Thankyou again for all of your
support. If you've enjoyed whatyou heard here today, please
leave me a five star review. Awritten review would be
(47:02):
fantastic. It's like currency inthis world. Take a screenshot
Make this your Instagram story,tag me at Leo Yockey. That's
LEOYOCKEY link in the shownotes. And you know what, I know
I've been a little bit back andforth with this, but we actually
are going to be wrapping upseason one pretty soon here.
(47:23):
Next week, I have a reallyspecial episode, it's going to
be the best of season one. Andjust all my favorite clips from
this season so far, followed bya really, really special season
one finale with my friend, asomatic healer. We're gonna be
talking a lot about the body andintuition and healing and it's
going to be good. And then we'llbe rolling right into season
(47:47):
two, and we'll have a slightlydifferent format for that, but
I'll get into all that later.
Again, thank you for being partof the show. Thank you for
listening. I'll see you nextweek with the best collection
stay evolving.
Hello, and welcome to anotherepisode of the Leo Yockey show,
the podcast where I, Leo Yockeyinterview guests about how their
unique life path led them todefine success and fulfillment.
We're connecting all the dots tosee how someone got from
seemingly unrelated beginningsto where they are today. And
(00:39):
that's exactly what I do with myguest today, Paris, Athena. Now,
a common thread a common themein a lot of our episodes, so
far, have been about networkingand meeting people and finding
community. And while it's greatto find like minded people, no
(00:59):
matter what it is that you'redoing, I think it's important to
remember that listen, everythinghas a good and a bad side, a
light and a dark side, we'vetalked about this before. And
it's great to be able to find acommunity of like minded people
and to build something withthem. But what's the potential
(01:19):
downside here, if you're onlystaying within your little
bubble of people staying withinyour echo chamber, so to speak,
there's there's a couple ofthings that can happen here.
One, you may be closing yourselfup from opportunities where you
can get some new perspectivethat you've never thought about
before. And to potentiallydepending on who you are, you
(01:41):
could be perpetuating systemicbarriers to access. I don't
think any of my listeners wantto do that. But seriously, if
you're trying to be a leader ofany kind, and you look around,
and most of the people in yournetwork have the exact same
background as you What good isthat do? Of course, there are
(02:05):
exceptions to that if you're ifyou're trying to make something
that is specifically catered toan underrepresented group, or a
historically oppressed group,you know, that's one thing. But
that's a whole otherconversation of nuance for
another day that I don't want toget into being in tech, being a
(02:27):
black person in tech, being atransgender person in tech, I
got to see a lot of places whereleaders just kind of dropped the
ball. And they thought, I workedwith people who truly thought
that they were being diverse orwere embracing diversity. But
(02:49):
the reality was that they justweren't, they were so close to
the problem, that they couldn'teven see what they were doing.
You know what I mean? What Ilove about Paris Athena's
business is that she solves thisproblem directly. And it's a
problem that I care aboutdeeply. I'm very grateful that
there are people like her inthis industry. Listen,
(03:13):
diversity, and inclusion takeseffort. It really does. And it's
a skill that can't just bewilled into existence overnight.
And so I'm really glad thatpeople like Paris are out there
doing the work for blacktechnologists. And I hope that
there are people out there doingthe specialized work for other
(03:33):
marginalized groups. You know,we had Valerie Phoenix on the
show recently, and she she worksmore directly with the
technologists, whereas Parisworks more directly. I mean, she
works with the technologists,but she's also working on
building relationships directlywith employers. And maybe
Valerie is doing that too. Idon't know. Anyway, I can ramble
(03:53):
on about this forever. This is atopic that I'm very passionate
about. I've been directlyaffected by in my own life and
have a lot of trauma, honestly,that I have to heal from. And so
I am grateful for people likeher that are doing the work to
make sure that these traumaticexperiences can be less
frequent, you know, so, anyway,here's Paris.
(04:24):
All right, Paris, what's up? Howare you doing today? I'm good.
I'm happy to be here. Yeah, I'mhappy to have you. You're one of
the you're one of the peopleactually one of the first people
that I was like, I gotta, Igotta get her on to the show,
because I just I love whatyou're doing with black tech
pipeline. I think there's, youknow, I've had a few people from
(04:45):
the tech world on this show sofar. But I think there's a lot.
There are a lot of aspects ofwhat you're doing that I think
really, really tap into the waythat the world is changing in
that opportunities are becomingso Much more. So much more
accessible to be able to takewhat we're doing, take the value
that we're bringing, and makemoney off of it. So I'm so
(05:09):
excited to have you, I thinkthat this is going to be a great
conversation. Yeah, spoileralert for the listeners, we're
in for a great conversation. So,um, so let's dive into it. So
before before we even talk aboutblack tech pipeline? Who, who
Who are you? What if you'remeeting people, you know, what
(05:29):
is kind of the elevator pitchthat you give for yourself? Who
is Paris? Athena? Um, so that'sreally hard. I don't know why.
Hard to answer. Um, it'sprobably the hardest question
anyone ever can answer for sure.
Um, yeah, I'm Paris Chandler.
But I go by Paris, Athena, fromCambridge, Massachusetts. And
(05:54):
I've had a roller coaster of acareer. I've done a lot of
things in life, and I'm very wasit? Is it entrepreneurial, or
like, I like to dive into somany different things. I'm just
very curious. And I'm a mom, I'ma Yonsei. And this is really
(06:15):
hard to answer. So. So yeah, Iguess that's it so far.
Well, it makes you feel anybetter. That should be the
hardest question of wrestlingshould be easier. We should it
should be smooth sailing forhere. So I'm glad that you
already said you had a rollercoaster of a career because you
(06:36):
do have a very interestingbackground that I did not know
about until I was looking you upfor the questions for this you.
I know that you're the founderof black tech pipeline, which
I'll let you explain. I'm sureyou have the elevator pitch for
that a little bit more down,Pat. So I'll let you explain
that in a minute. I knew thatyou had some sort of career in
tech, I didn't know that youwere a developer specifically,
(06:56):
for some reason, I thought youwere a project manager or
something. But you were asoftware engineer, but you were
previously an actress, a waxspecialist, whatever, whatever
that means. Yeah, what what iswax? But do you mean? Like you
were, like, just gave peoplelike waxes like like hair
removal wax? Yep. Yeah. Okay. Iwas like, I'm from LA. So I'm
(07:19):
like, this could be like, likesome some woowoo? Like
candlemaking? Like out or no?
Right, right. Now, so yeah. Soyou've landed now as the founder
of black tech pipeline, havingnever been a recruiter before?
So what what is black techpipeline? What's the elevator
pitch for that?
Yeah, so black tech pipeline, weare a service based platform
(07:42):
where we offer a recruitment anda job board. But we, our whole
thing is like diversity, equityand inclusion of black
technologists specifically. Sowhen we recruit candidates,
black technologists intocompanies, we stay on the job
with them for 90 days, becausewe want to ensure that they're
happy, safe and healthy in thoseenvironments. And we want to
(08:03):
make sure that we can relay thatinformation over to the
employers so that they know, youknow how to improve every hires
experience and just do better onthe D AI front. And then we have
a job board, where we just kindof give this really transparent,
you know, information aboutevery company on our job board,
and applicants can decide ifthat's a company they want to
(08:23):
apply to or not, but it's basedon, you know, what this company
is doing to have a safe space,you know, have values that are
meaningful, and people arelearning like, you know, where
are these companies doing? Inregards to diversity, equity
inclusion, like what sort ofpractices and policies do they
have? What are their initiativesaround it? To see, like, you
(08:45):
know, do I feel like thiscompany is being performative?
Are they being actionable? Andpeople apply based on that?
Yeah, I love that. So, I want tofocus in a little bit on the
name itself, right, black techpipeline. Now, I have a lot of
feelings on this topic. I knowyou do, because you started a
whole damn company around it.
But, you know, for the listenersthat aren't super familiar with
(09:06):
the tech industry, although thisis probably an issue that
happens, you know, in a lot ofindustries that lack diversity,
what we hear oftentimes, Iactually heard this at my last
job that I that I quit my verylast tech job. You know, people
at the top, the decision makerswill say something along the
lines of, I would love to havemore diversity, I would love to
(09:28):
have more black people, butthere's a pipeline problem.
They're just not applying. Theyjust I you know, they're just
not around. They're just not,they're just not here. So, like
I said, I can I can go off aboutthat. But I can you speak to
that, like, from from yourperspective, like, how you feel
about that, like what what yourthoughts are on that, you know,
(09:48):
I know that of course, yourresponse now could just be like,
sign up for blackjack pipeline,but kind of, you know, beyond
that, in a more general sense,you know what, what comes to
mind for you when you hearpeople We'll say that ignorant
ass bullshit.
Yeah, so it's been a pipelineproblem. It's a network problem.
And it's a personal networkproblem when you predominantly
(10:12):
white companies, because they'refull of only white people,
that's their network is alsoother white people. And so
companies love to do the wholereferral thing where it's like,
tell your friends and familiesto come work here and you'll get
the referral bonus, or whateverit is. And they're referring
their other very white networks.
And so you continue buildingthis very light, like company.
And when they put out, you know,job postings, or whatever, well,
(10:37):
where are you putting those jobpostings? Is it on, you know,
like, indeed, and LinkedIn andthese predominantly white
platforms? Well, there you go,that those are, those are people
who are seeing it, those arepeople who are applying. And
when you're not going out andmaking an effort to like, build
a diverse network, then I don'treally know what you expect,
people aren't just gonna applybecause your company like people
(10:57):
don't know, first of all, theydon't know your company exists.
They don't know you exist. Andthat's why it's important,
again, to build a network.
That's what social media is for,if you don't go out and actively
do it, you know, on a physicallevel, you can do it online, you
have Twitter, you can literallyGoogle, you know, black tech
platforms, black tech jobboards, and you can do that for
(11:20):
any sort of likeunderrepresented community. It's
literally like a Google away.
And so I just think like, thewhole pipeline problem is a
bullshit excuse. You're justbeing lazy, and you don't really
care.
Exactly. And it's escaped code.
And it's so you know, it's it'skind of a self fulfilling
prophecy type thing, kind of,like you said, it's like, if
someone is saying that, youknow, there's a pipeline
(11:43):
problem, it's like, you can'tsay that there's a pipeline
problem. And then also live inthis world where you know, that
everything is connection based,everything is network based, you
know, it's not what you know,it's who you know, and you're
right. Most most employers feelmore comfortable hiring people
that they know, you know, both,I worked in two major tech jobs
before, before leaving theindustry, the first one, I knew
(12:06):
someone in that company, emailedthem directly, and said, Hey,
this is what I'm doing. Now. Iknow how to code blah, blah,
blah, whatever. They referred medirectly to their recruiter got
the job, when they weren't evenadvertising a job opening. The
next time around. I knew again,I knew someone that worked
there, it was actually, mybootcamp mentor was working
(12:28):
there. And so she was able tovouch for me, say, I think they
had to advertise a job at thatpoint. But same thing, just very
easy to get in. And so whenyou're, when you most people
only know people with similarbackgrounds to them, right?
Whether it's, you know, the samebackground and sexuality, same
(12:48):
background and race, samebackground in class and class
upbringing, and to say that, oh,people must not want to, you
know, be involved in thisbecause, you know, we're just
not seeing that. It's like,Where are you even looking? And
so that's a huge, that's a hugegap. You know, and you're and
(13:09):
you're filling that gap. So Iknow that a big part of what
what got you into this was thethe hashtag black tech Twitter,
you're you're the founder, Iguess. Oh, co founders right
word for hashtag creator? Yeah,something like that. Like you,
you kind of started this trendblack tech Twitter. So can you
(13:32):
can you kind of explain thoselike how, how you came to do
that? And and like, Whatinspired you to put that hashtag
out there?
Yeah, it's actually reallyfunny. Um, yeah, so I was on
Twitter, not even for that,maybe a month or so. And that's
where I discovered that therewas a really tiny community of
(13:54):
black technologists. And beforethat, before I got on to
Twitter. You know, I was workingin tech as a software engineer.
But every company that I workedat, I wasn't like, just the only
woman on the team. But I wasliterally the only black person
in the entire company for everycompany that I've worked at. So
I was convinced like, there justaren't really black people in
tech. And I was proven wrongonce I got onto Twitter. And I
(14:18):
wanted to know, like, how manymore of us are out there? Like,
it's so small, like, I justfigured I'd post a tweet. And I
didn't really I also like,didn't think anything of it. It
was just a tweet, just like wetweet every day. So I posted you
know, what does black Twittersince black Twitter is a thing
in tech look like? So I postedthat tweet, left it alone and
(14:38):
then came back to my phone hourslater. And the tweet was just
like blowing up. And blacktechnologists from all over the
world were posted them postingthemselves into that tweet. And
it created a really long threadof like, their pictures and they
were, you know, capturing whatthey do in the industry like,
Oh, I'm a, I don't know I'm a mlengineer. I'm a this that like
(14:58):
all these careers. I never Heardof in tech. And I was like, Oh
my god, like, this is reallycool. And it wasn't until
someone tweeted to me like, Hey,I think you did something. I
didn't realize like only, like,I think this is like a new
community. And it was it was theblack Twitter community. It was
almost like we kind of foundeach other overnight. And that
was pretty cool. And from that,like, you know, I got a lot of
(15:20):
coverage in terms of likeindustry leaders were tweeting
about it. The media was reachingout to me to publish things
about the this new community.
But then also employers wereseeing that tweet, they were
seeing all the engagement andall these new technologists, and
they were like, Oh, my God,there isn't a pipeline problem.
Right. And right. And so theystarted reaching out to me very
(15:43):
consistently, asking if I wouldrecruit candidates from this new
community into their companies.
So I said, maybe this questionis like, ignorance around like,
not understanding how Twitterworks. well enough. But so
you're saying you're gettinglike media opportunities and
stuff like that? Because Yeah,like this thing kind of blew up
(16:05):
overnight? How? How does it thatas it grew, and this kind of
became a community in and ofitself? How were you able to
kind of stay on top of like,people being able to point to
you as, as the one who startedall of that, like were, were you
kind of putting yourself outthere, as the person that
(16:25):
started it. Were thesejournalists kind of digging up
the original tweet and findingit. And that's how they're
reaching out to you like, what,how did how did that part kind
of come into fruition?
Yeah, it was both. Um, and, andthere are also people who didn't
know that I like startedeventually. But when it first
kind of blew up, like, you know,people were writing about it on
(16:47):
their own people were doing likenewsletters and like news
articles or whatever. But then Ialso had media like reaching out
to me like, Hey, can we do astory on this? Like, let's talk
about the pipeline problem.
Let's talk about, you know,what's it like to be a black
technologist and things likethat. So I did a lot of those
stories. But I also wasn't likeon Twitter saying, hey, look,
it's me. I started somethingwasn't like that. I was, I was
(17:08):
kind of just chilling and kindof going along with it.
Yeah, that's really cool. Okay,cool. So So you started. Okay,
so you did this, mostly? Becauseyou were like, I feel isolated.
I don't even know where where mypeople are. And you're almost, I
don't want to put words in yourmouth. But maybe you're starting
to get discouraged at thispoint. Like, am I even in the
(17:29):
right field? Like, where isanybody? Like, am I going to
constantly feel like I'm kind ofswimming upstream? Always being
the only one in the room? Wasthat was that kind of some of
the feelings you were having?
When you when you put that tweetout there? No.
No, that was how I felt when Ifirst entered the industry. And
mind you like when black techTwitter started, I was I wasn't
(17:52):
even in tech for a whole yearyet. Like I had entered the
industry. And it was like aculture shock for me. Because
before getting into tech, I waslike, a waitress and a hostess
and a wax specialist and thingslike that. And I was always
surrounded by people who looklike me. So thinking about my
race just wasn't, it wasn't athing. Like I was always
surrounded by people who looklike me. So it wasn't an issue.
(18:14):
It wasn't until I got into techthat I noticed that I was always
the only black person like inthe room. And so when I got onto
Twitter, I that's where I sawthat there was already an exists
a small, existing black, blackcommunity, black tech community.
And all I want to do is see howmany more of us were in the
industry. And that was it.
(18:35):
Yeah, that's really interesting.
Yeah, that's a very different,you know, I feel like I've
always felt like the outcastanywhere that I go. Like, I
would never think to dosomething like flat like hashtag
black tech Twitter, only becauseI'm just so used to always being
the only one like, Oh, I'm theonly LGBT person here. I'm the
only black person here I'm theonly this I'm the only that. And
(18:56):
so for me, it's almost like mydefault is being the outcast. So
I come in attack. I'm also theonly black person I was the only
black engineer at my first job.
Towards the end, I was one ofthe only black employees period,
I was the only black employeeperiod for a very long time at
(19:17):
my last job up until like maybethe last couple months or so we
hired a second black engineer.
So there's a whole two of us. Ijust I but for me, I'm just
like, yep, makes sense. Like I'malways the odd one out I was
usually like the youngest in anygroup like always so for you it
was almost like, well, thiscan't be right. Like because
you're just so used to like ofcourse, there's other people
(19:38):
that look like me all aroundbecause that was kind of your
your experience all throughoutall throughout life. Yeah. What
about in school? Because you'reCambridge is that's a suburb
that's like the Boston area,right?
Yeah. Well, yeah, it's likeGreater Boston. But Cambridge is
very, very diverse. I'm like,now Not as much because
(20:01):
gentrification. But back in myday, very diverse, like we had
more people of color than whitepeople in school. And so again,
like I just it thinking aboutbeing like, the only black
person just wasn't a thing.
Yeah. And so it's like you getin and you're just like I said,
(20:26):
it's almost, for lack of abetter term. It's almost like I
can't, like how am I going tooperate like this like now like,
let's let's go back to normaland go back to homeostasis,
which for you was like, beingaround people who are like you
and not having to feel likeyou're the only one.
Right? I yeah, I like when I'maround. My people. I don't ever
feel like I have to assimilateto a new culture. Like, I just
(20:49):
feel like, we understand eachother, I guess. Yeah. Like, I
don't know, we talk the same. Weunderstand, you know, things
about each other and ourfamilies and just, there's so
many things that we understandthat are unspoken, I guess. And
then I come in like to this newenvironment. It's predominantly
white. And, you know, people aretalking about things I've never
(21:11):
experienced people are, youknow, having conversations I'm
not interested in. Like,they're, they're talking about
experiences they've had that I'mlike, Yeah, I could never afford
to do that. So no, I'm there.
And, like, people were just alsolike, straight up ignorant and,
and straight up racist. And sothat was uncomfortable. And it
was different.
(21:34):
Yeah, I think I think that'sreally interesting. So So, at
what point I mean, the notice,like not having to assimilate in
the past, then all of a suddenbeing like, this is weird. Like,
I think that makes sense, too.
Because going back to, like,always being the odd one out.
And also, you know, like, I havean immigrant parent, my dad's
from Tanzania. And immigrantparents can generally fall into
(21:56):
two camps, right? There's theone that like, tries to almost
raise their kid as as if they'renot even in America, right? Like
there's so they, they completelysurround their kids with their,
with their culture, theirmotherland, that they know
everything about the culture inand out. And then there's the
other ones that say, I can't inAmerica, that my kids can be
(22:17):
American, like kinda kinda, youknow, kind of, they're like,
what past what would have beenand my dad is kind of in that
latter camp. I mean, I have mymom's German last name, for
Christ's sake, like, justcompletely assimilated. And so
for me again, it's like, I'mjust like, all of these things
that you're talking about withlike having people that have
(22:38):
like, you know, they're talkingabout things that don't interest
you, or you can't relate to,like, I can relate to feeling
that way. But my response to itwas so different was just like,
yeah, this is life. Like, I'mjust always gonna be the weirdo
outcast, you know. And so, Ithink that that's so interesting
how, like, our, you know, whatthe things that we are in aren't
(22:58):
willing to tolerate based off,like, what our background is,
like, why would you suddenly asan adult be like, well, I guess
I'm gonna go into my box afternever having to feel like that
all the way, you know, all theway up until it was 2017 2018.
That's you got an attack? Yeah.
So, yep. Yeah. So it's like,why, why all of a sudden do
(23:22):
that. Whereas for me, I had to,like, kind of understand, like,
wait, I don't have to do thisall the time, like coming to
find black tech, Twitter wasthis like, like, it was like
this whole new world for me,because I didn't it, it just
never occurred to me that itwould even be possible. It's
just so interesting. had someoneon the show recently, Megan
(23:42):
parrot, she has a community oflike, moms who are
entrepreneurs, and, you know,moms of young kids specifically.
And her whole thing was like,she was trying to find a
mother's group that wasn'treally focused on the kid. And
just like, this is what my kidsare doing. And I'm just like,
Anderson's mom or whatever, likeshe, and so she went out and
(24:03):
created it, right. So that'skind of exactly what you did,
like you'd recognizeimmediately, because like I
said, you were more equipped torecognize that than someone like
me was, you're able to recognizelike, Hey, there should be more
of us out here. Like, I don'twant to just feel like I'm the
only black person everywhere Igo, like, Where are y'all at?
Like, you kind of threw up thebat signal like black Check
Twitter where y'all that? Youknow, and you you created that
(24:27):
that community? So yeah, I thinkthat that's really cool. When
did you start? Yeah, when didyou start seriously helping with
like being that plug forrecruitment? So like, how long
after that initial tweet? Didyou really start like kind of
playing a role for free in likekind of helping employers find
(24:48):
other black technologistslike that started immediately,
honestly, like he or the night Iguess the night of that was
going like, viral like I hademployers all in my DNS. Like,
and so I feel like it just kindof started immediately. And for
me, I was like, oh, like thiswould be really dope. Like to
get more black people in tech?
(25:08):
Yeah. I was like, I can't bethat hard to like, just
introduce people and recruitthem. And so what I did was I
created a discord community atfirst. And that's where I kind
of led all of like black techTwitter to go and continue
networking and like buildingrelationships and stuff. So I
led them into this Discord. AndI would also use that discord to
(25:29):
recruit people. So it startedoff that way. Like, I was like,
Hey, I'm currently recruitingfor this employer, do you want
you know, I just said, you wantto talk to them? people be like,
yeah, and so I would introducethem, and then the employer
would take over from there andinterview them. And people were
getting hired, like, left andright. And so it was like,
really simple to me. I had mynine to five as a software
engineer, and then I'm, youknow, people are being recruited
(25:50):
into companies. And I was doingthat for a long, long time. And
the reason why, like black techpipeline came to be, was because
a lot of the people that Iactually recruited into
companies, they came back to me,or they publicly stated it, and
they were like, you know, I leftthis company, because, you know,
it's the same thing, like, youknow, they're performative. They
(26:12):
hired us to check a box, youknow, we weren't learning or
growing, and like, it was justthe same bullshit that we deal
with everywhere. Yeah. And Ifelt horrible. And I knew it
reflected badly on me. And aslike this new leader of a
community, which I had neverdone before, I felt bad because
I didn't vet any of theseemployers who reached out to me.
(26:34):
I just said, like, yeah, yeah,this would be dope, of course,
I'll recruit for you. And sofrom there, I was like, Alright,
like, if I'm gonna do this work,you know, I want to be ethical,
and I want to do it. Right. Sothat's where I built like, a
black tech pipelining createdthat new recruitment model that
I have.
Yeah, that totally makes sense.
So were you. Were you doing anyof that work to start vetting
(26:56):
the companies before turningthis into a company? Or was that
kind of how that evolutionworked? Was?
Started once I found out thatpeople were like, quitting and
or even like, getting fired forlike, really dumb shit. I was
like, Okay, I actually stoppedrecruiting for a while so that I
could build black tech pipelineand, and create this new model.
(27:20):
Wow, that's really interesting.
So because I was gonna add, mynext question was was going to
be like, at what point did youkind of like, realize that this
was something that you couldlike, make money off of like,
were like switching from likedoing it, like voluntarily on
the side to making it abusiness? And it It sounds like
at least part of the motivationwas like, hey, my reputations on
(27:41):
the line, like, I don't want tokeep like, sending people to
these unvetted companies andhaving it not work out, like I
actually care about thiscommunity that, that that's kind
of inbuilt in this Discord.
Right? Yes. So was that was thata lot? Like, was that kind of
the main thing? Or like, wereyou still thinking at that point
(28:01):
that this would kind of besomething on the side, and he
just wanted more structure?
Like, at what point did the Oh,I can really make a profit off
of this thought and strategykind of come into the picture?
Yeah, so I honestly wasn't goingto turn this into a business, I
really wanted to only focus onbeing a software engineer and
getting really good. But I waslike, you know, this is like
(28:22):
their software engineering. Andthen there's like, really like
being able to, like leadsomething and actually make a
difference and be the one makingthe rules and create an impact.
So I was like, hey, like, whatif I just like, like, actually
recruited people, companies payme, but but they don't only pay
me to recruit. It's like, I'malso checking in to make sure
(28:44):
that these companies aren'tbeing performative. And people
aren't going through the samebullshit that they were when I
was last recruiting.
Yeah, it's like half recruitingand half consulting.
Right? And I'm like, like, cuz Iwant to hold employers
accountable. And I want to makesure that these hires are happy,
safe and healthy. Because ifthey're not, I don't want to
continue working for these typesof employers. And so that was
(29:06):
like the turnaround for me.
Yeah, so do you? Do you misssoftware engineering ever? Like
what how is it felt to kind oflike, step away from that? What,
what what led you to checkinitially? Like, what was your
main motivation to become asoftware engineer? Like, did you
really have a passion for orwere you just like, here's a way
to make some money, like money,money, money, you know what I
(29:26):
mean?
Yeah, it was. So it was twothings. I guess. Like at the end
of the day, it was money. Like Iwas realizing that without a
technical background, you'reprobably going to get left
behind and people were beinglike, replaced by machines as
they say. And like, for me, Iwas a whack specialist full time
and it felt like this would havehappened like anytime soon, but
(29:48):
I was losing some clientele tolaser hair removal, which is a
machine and I was like, I'mactually being impacted and I
didn't realize it till likesomeone told me. I was like,
okay, like I guess I'll do likelearn coding. And the only
reason why I got into coding wasbecause that's the only thing
that I knew existed in tech.
Yeah. But I didn't know codingwas a thing. Like literally
(30:10):
until like 2016 2017. And so I,that's just what I did. I was
like, hey, like, how can I learnto code? I was in online school
at the time. And so I wastalking to like my little
counselor, and they're like, Oh,hey, like, if you want to learn
to code, there's this boot campcalled resilient coders where
they pay and teach people ofcolor from underserved
communities to code. And theyhappen to be holding a hackathon
(30:33):
that weekend, where they choosepeople to join their cohort. And
so I went to that hackathon, Iended up getting chosen to join
the cohort. And then like, a fewweeks later, I quit my full time
job and went straight intolearning to code.
That's cool. Okay, so yeah, soyeah, so so it was never
necessarily like, you wanted toget into tech, but it was never
(30:56):
necessarily important that youdid software engineering
specifically. So kind of kind ofmakes sense how you're able to,
like, walk away from it. Now, doyou think, do you think you
would have like pursued adifferent route into tech if you
had a better understanding oflike, the different avenues and
ways to be involved in techwithout coding?
(31:17):
Yeah, I'm, like reallyinterested in design. And
specifically for like, virtualreality, I thought that would
have been really cool. But sinceI didn't know that existed,
like, I'll just stick to coding.
It's not like I hated coding.
But it was definitely like, Ialso didn't wake up early in the
morning. Excited to do it, ifthat makes sense.
Yeah, I feel Yeah. Um, were youwere you self employed? Or as a
(31:44):
as a wax specialist ever? Or isthis the kind of your first
foray into entrepreneurial shipto that no,
no wax, but I was, I went toschool to be an aesthetician,
and I became a specialist fromthat, and I was working at like
this big chain for waxing. So I,you know, I wasn't like, self
employed. But after learning tocode, I also didn't do like any
(32:06):
type of freelance or anything Igot, like jobs at companies.
Wow. So you, wow. So this isactually a pretty, pretty sharp
left turn for you in multipledirections, you didn't have any
experience recruiting? You know,like didn't, and also hadn't
like started your own businessever before. So this is, this is
(32:27):
kind of a pretty big leap offaith that you took here, like,
yeah, that have been reallyfucking scary in the beginning,
wasn't it?
It wasn't that it wasn't. I feellike I've always kind of been
that way. Like, you know, Imoved to New York, by myself to
go to school. And then I movedto LA by myself to try and
(32:47):
become an actress. And this islike, without a networker,
people who I know. Yeah, so Itook leaps before, this was a
little more scary, because Ialso had a child. Right, but I
have bills to pay advocate tofeed out the feed myself. And so
like, I was not going to fail.
Like, I just, it couldn'thappen. So when I when I went
into this, like, I knew that Iwas going to like, sacrifice
(33:11):
everything and like, learn thisshit and get good at it and
thrive. Because I don't have anoption.
Yeah, I think that's reallycool. So So you mentioned you
went to New York and LA, you youwere in LA to pursue acting. You
had no network? You youspecifically pointed out you had
no network. Did you? Did youfeel at that point? Or did you
(33:34):
kind of understand later on inretrospect, it's like, the
difference that having a networkwould have made if you had like,
moved to LA, like, knowingpeople, like At what point did
you kind of really becomeconsciously aware of that?
Yeah. So for LA specifically, Inoticed that people wanted
(33:55):
absolutely nothing to do withme, because I didn't have a
network. Yeah, I didn't knowanyone I couldn't. I wasn't
beneficial to anybody. And so itwas really hard to build
relationships at all. It washard to make friends. It was
hard to be taken seriously. Andso that's how I realized I was
like, Wow, it's really about whoyou know, for some industries.
So that's like, where I firstlearned that truth.
(34:19):
Yeah, definitely. So did you Sobetween, between, like acting
and then before you get intotech, like, Are you are you
doing any work to kind of builda network as you're learning how
to collect? Did you feelyourself like being more
conscious of building networksin any in the careers that you
had after acting after havingthat experience?
(34:43):
Not so much with what Well, Iguess with waxing, I didn't have
a choice but to build a networkbecause I had clientele. I just
happened to be like, the bestwaxer there. And so I had I had
like really big clients. I hadlots of celebrities. I had lots
of like, influencers and thingslike that who came to me and I
was always booked. And from thatthat's actually like when I
(35:04):
first learned that codingexisted one of my clients was an
engineer for Rent the Runway, Ibelieve. And she was like, get
into tech. There are no women intech, like coatings really easy
this and that. And I was like,Yeah, maybe. And now here I am.
But like, yeah, that's how Ilearned about coding at first.
(35:25):
That's very similar to how Ilearned about coding I, I was
working casino security inVegas. And there was this
vendor, we ran the like parkinggarage, because he had to, like
pay to push. So we had like, oneof our people would work the
parking booth. And so they wereinstalling a new gate for the
parking booth or the parkinggarage, and the guy that was
(35:45):
like programming it andinstalling it. He like, looks at
me, he's like, how old are you?
I was like, 23. How much moneydo you make $12 an hour. He's
like, dude, you got to learn howto code. Like, same thing. It's
so easy. We know, no bow line.
So that same night, like startedlooking into it. And that
started my journey. So again, Imean, that's, that's the network
thing. It's always, you know,you never you never know where
(36:08):
that like spark of inspirationis gonna come from, like, you
know, when when people you know,for the listeners, when people
tell you something, give you asuggestion, it sounds even
remotely interesting look intoit, because it could change the
entire direction of your lifelike you have no idea. I think
that's really cool. Oh, yeah. Asyou're learning to code like I
did. So. Were you doing anythingto try to network? Yeah, like
(36:32):
what What had you done tonetwork prior to the black tech
Twitter tweet.
So during boot camp, is actuallywhat I loved about like
resilient coders. Specifically,they made you like you didn't
have a choice but to network, orelse you would get kicked out of
the program. And the way theymade sure that you networked?
(36:54):
was you had to bring in acertain amount of business cards
to them per week, and you haveto show it to them. Oh, wow. Oh,
yeah. So when I tell youthroughout that whole program, I
went out like literally everysingle night with my cohort and
mind you, my cohort became likemy family. We loved each other
to death. We always have funtogether. So we were in Boston,
(37:15):
which is this massive tech hub.
So we were going out to everyevent like every meetup,
everything we went out everysingle night, we went listen to
talks, you know, got involvedwith community things. And
that's how we network and thatpeople got their business cards
had coffee chats with them. Wewe always had to have coffee
chats as well. Yeah, I had nochoice but to network. And so
that also made my career.
(37:38):
Yeah, that's really cool. I lovethat. So once you once you're
out of the boot camp, and youlike kind of stops. Oh, yeah,
once you're out of the bootcamp, did you kind of like stop
networking for a little whilebefore before getting on a trip?
Looking like No, absolutely not.
And the hustle never stops.
I love the I just I startedloving it. Like I don't feel
(38:00):
like I was ever really good atit. I'm really bad at initiating
conversation. But I'm reallygood at going out. Like I love
going out everything and like,you know, conversation, because
just kind of happens naturally.
It's helpful when you go withother people, because sometimes
there's someone who's willing tostart that conversation and, you
know, you just meet people. Andso, yeah, I just enjoyed it.
Because I was literally goingout. And I just so happened that
(38:23):
I got to build a network likethat as well.
Well, I will say it is hard tobuild, just initiate
conversation person, much easierto do online. So you know, to be
able to cuz that's what you didwhen you start, you would
literally started theconversation, right? So I think
(38:44):
that that's really cool. So if Icould summarize, we're just
about out of time here. If I ifI can summarize, you grew up in
a very diverse area and stayedin mostly diverse fields with
Well, yeah, I guess that is anexception in acting, you know,
acting is not a super diversefield and you came to LA, and
(39:04):
you realize very quickly Oh,shit without a network, like, I
don't have anything like I'm notgonna be able to get anywhere.
So you know, you you, you comeback to the east coast and
you're you're building thisclientele with waxing. And
you're, you're kind of seeingthe power of networking. And
again, you're surrounded by yourpeople. So you're not really
(39:25):
having to assimilate much. Youget into tech, you're really
really learning how to networkor going out to events, you're
literally having to show proof.
Networking is becoming a biggerand bigger and bigger part of
your career and how you keepyour career going. And once you
get an attack and you realizelike, Oh shit, no one even looks
like me, which probably mighthave even been more of a shock
(39:47):
because it sounds like resilientcoders was probably diverse and
so then you people of color.
Yeah. And then you get is likeOkay, you guys all get to split
up now. Good luck, right? And soyou're like, oh, like this Got
your first time not really beingin a community where you felt
like you could be yourself inthe workplace. And so you're
(40:08):
kind of taking everything andjust going on to Twitter and
being like, okay, Where iseverybody? Like, I know, I, you
know, like, you kind of know,like your roots are to network.
So you're like, Okay, like,let's see who's out there. And
and now here you are, and likehaving that like flexibility and
willingness from doing so manydifferent things to like, you
(40:28):
know, if you had never gone outto LA to pursue acting, who who
knows maybe that leap of faithinto pursuing black type
pipeline, maybe that would havebeen too much. But you, you
known that like, you've beenable to take risks and land on
your feet, even even if itdidn't work out the way that you
wanted to? So like, why the hellnot? And you had already built
this reputation so so why thehell not? So I guess the main
(40:52):
thing for the listeners is like,you know, when you feel like
something is is missing, kind ofsee if there's something in your
past, where you know, that thatis missing specifically, like
for you. It was like the, youknow, you never felt like you
had to assimilate. And now youdo so what, what can you do to
feel like you don't have toassimilate anymore? Go find that
people who were like you, right?
I think that that's really cool.
(41:15):
And I love again, that you'refilling this need, and that's
why it's working out, right.
Like there are people who kindof understand that the pipeline
problem is bullshit, but theydon't know where to start,
because they don't know anybody.
So you're becoming that, youknow, a person that they that
can be in their network that,you know, it's kind of a two way
(41:35):
street of trust, like you'revetting the companies, but
you're also vetting theengineers. And so you're you
know, and it all kind of comesback to your reputation being
important to you. I think. Ithink that's really cool. I love
it. Thank you. Yeah,yeah. And not, you don't only
have to reach out to blackpipeline, like literally get on
to Twitter. Yeah, and find somany different communities on
(41:56):
there. It's literally insane.
get jobs off of there theopportunities like Twitter is
the goat.
Truly, truly, yeah. I mean,seriously, like anybody that's
that's thinking about gettingit, I was actually just telling
my friend earlier today, she'sshe's looking into boot camps
and stuff, and isn't gonna beable to start for a little
while. I was like, honestly,she's doing like little free
(42:17):
coding things here. And there. Iwas, like, honestly, you're
better off building yourcommunity right now like that
boot camp will teach you onceyou get in, like, who cares
about that part, build yourcommunity now. Because that's
what's going to be really,really valuable. And so, yeah, I
love that. And that, and that'strue that I mean, tech, you
know, Twitter happens to bewhere a lot of the tech people
are, that might not necessarilybe the same for every industry,
(42:39):
like I know, in in comedy, whichI'm like, was kind of pursuing
for a while now. I wanted to bemore of a hobby, but that, you
know, there's there's a lot ofpeople on Twitter, but there's
also a lot of people onInstagram there. I know, there's
a tech community on Instagram. Idon't think it's as big as on
Twitter. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Solike, finding out where the
people are, and, and beingthere, right, even, you know,
(42:59):
like, if you're trying to date acertain type of person, you need
to figure out where they're aton Saturday night and be there.
So same thing for your job, likewhere are those people go hang
out there social media isnothing if not virtual coffee
shops, basically, people arehanging out and spending their
time in between work and familytime. And and just hang out,
(43:21):
like comment on posts just kindof be around mingle, and you
never know what might happen.
Exactly. Very cool. Well, thankyou very much for coming on
Paris, I, I like it. Like Isaid, I love what you're doing.
And again, I mean, that's theother thing to take away. It's
like when you see that peopleare really appreciating what
you're doing. And you're puttinga lot of effort into it, find a
(43:43):
way to turn it into a businesslike Paris did with black tech
pipeline. I mean, you you couldhave stayed volunteering to do
this, but then that would havebecome unsustainable at a
certain point, because you dohave a kid and a partner and you
had a whole other career at thetime. So like, trying to do all
that and actually be of use inservice to that black tech
pipeline community. At a certainpoint, it would have become
(44:06):
unsustainable, it wouldn't havebeen able to grow the way that
it has now. So I think it'sreally cool that you like
recognize that need and we'rewe're able to do it. It's
awesome. Thank you. So do you.
Do you have anything else thatyou that you want to say that
you feel like you'd be remiss ifyou if you left it out? Before
(44:29):
before we wrap things up here?
I just literally always tellpeople please utilize social
media like please engage and beactive and build relationships
on there because I promise you,there's just too much
opportunity that you will missif you are like not active. Just
Just go for it. Just do it. Justtweet it. Just post it just do
it and things will happen.
(44:51):
set another way. shoot yourshot. shoot your shot. Yes,
exactly. Don't be shy. Just doit. Exactly. Yeah, like Mackie
hoof, just do it. I love I lovethat awesome parents, is there
anything that you would like topromote?
Head over to black tech pipelinecomm for our job board or to be
considered for jobopportunities, or if you're an
(45:13):
employer to hire us forrecruitment or to use our job
board, and join the community,by going on Twitter or even
LinkedIn and Instagram, you canliterally just search the
hashtag black tech Twitter andyou will find us add yourself to
the thread on my profile, whichyou'll find at Paris. Athena on
Twitter, and follow at btpipeline on all social medias.
(45:34):
Awesome. And the links for allthat are in the show notes.
Again, Paris, thank you so muchfor coming on. Tell Nick that I
said hello. And oh, he'sliterally right there. Hey,
Nick. All right. Hi. I didn'tknow you could hear it. Hey,
hey, Jake. Welcome to welcome tomy podcast. Maybe, maybe I can
(45:56):
get a slot on that. I stoppedmyself. Oh, I'm lacking the
confidence. Yes, yes. Well,absolutely. Have you on to Don't
worry, Nick. I gotcha. Allright. I'm just gonna hit stop.
But uh, but yeah, thank you forcoming on. And I will talk to
you later. Yeah, thank you enjoythe rest of your day. Thank you.
(46:19):
All right. Once again, that wasParis Athena. Very cool to see
how her humble beginnings as anactress and a wax specialist,
got her to where she is today asthis recruiter and she really is
the plug, she bridges the gap.
If you're like I said before, ifyou're one of those leaders,
where you look around and andeverybody has the same
background as you and have thesame perspectives and have the
(46:41):
same blind spots, as you, youknow, pairs can be one of those
people that you can add intoyour networks that you do have
that perspective. I think that'sreally cool. Thank you again,
for listening to the show. Thankyou again for all of your
support. If you've enjoyed whatyou heard here today, please
leave me a five star review. Awritten review would be
(47:02):
fantastic. It's like currency inthis world. Take a screenshot
Make this your Instagram story,tag me at Leo Yockey. That's
LEOYOCKEY link in the shownotes. And you know what, I know
I've been a little bit back andforth with this, but we actually
are going to be wrapping upseason one pretty soon here.
(47:23):
Next week, I have a reallyspecial episode, it's going to
be the best of season one. Andjust all my favorite clips from
this season so far, followed bya really, really special season
one finale with my friend, asomatic healer. We're gonna be
talking a lot about the body andintuition and healing and it's
going to be good. And then we'llbe rolling right into season
(47:47):
two, and we'll have a slightlydifferent format for that, but
I'll get into all that later.
Again, thank you for being partof the show. Thank you for
listening. I'll see you nextweek with the best collection
stay evolving.
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