- Someone is willing to give me this salary,
which seems astronomical to the average human being,
then how much does that person have?
And how did he get that?
Or how much is our game actually making?
You know, that's when you see what wealth really is.
You know, I tell people all the time, like you know,
I do okay for myself.
But there's still a large wealth gap.
- Great to see you Andre. - Good to see you too.
Good to see you, Lee.
- You made it a point many times to point out
that a lot of athletes get into
almost stereotypical businesses like car dealerships
and franchising and real estate.
What led you into tech?
- I think you just look at all the opportunities
that are out there, you know, not just the ones
that fit the mold to the athlete.
I think you look at, you know, who inspires you
or from a business standpoint, who are those
that are shaping the world?
Who are, you know, disrupting the world?
And tech has been doing that for a long time now.
And I had the opportunity to be a free agent
and had the option to play for the Golden State Warriors
which is right in the heart of, you know,
the most disruptive companies in the world,
so why not take advantage of it
and try to be disruptive myself as an athlete
and get into a sector that not too many of us have got into.
- Tell me about your relationship with Andreessen Horowitz.
- Well Andreessen Horowitz has been very,
their arms were open when I came to the Bay.
It was one of the few companies that, you know,
venture capitalist companies that, you know,
came with open arms, like, you know,
we'll show you the rope, but you gotta put the work in
and show us that you're ready to work.
And Jeff Jordan was a key figure that showed myself
and my business partner Rudy Cline-Thomas that,
you know, I'll give you access but you gotta show me
that you're, you know, you're here for the long run
and this isn't just some, you know, vanity play.
So, it's been a very fun process
and, you know, I don't know where we would be
without, you know, the likes of a Jeff Jordan.
- So, you said that they came with open arms.
How did that even happen?
Because you were one of the first players, probably,
who really thought this way and put it into action.
- Well, I try to surround myself with those
with lofty ambitions and I think that's why
myself and my business partner, like I said,
Rudy Cline-Thomas, we've kinda clicked and we've gelled
and grown over the last 10 years we've known each other.
You know, we've set our sights high and we continue to,
you know, try to raise the bar, not just for ourselves,
but for other athletes and, you know, starting a platform
where we can help as many athletes out as possible.
So when we made the decision
to go to the Golden State Warriors, you know,
we sent out emails to everybody.
You know, can we get a meeting?
Can we get our foot in the door? And, you know, we knew
where there was gonna be some, you know,
some that would be reluctant to let us in
or bring us along.
- Why?
- I think it was just, you know,
it wasn't the norm for them.
You know, there's a sense of, you know, that boy's club.
It's very exclusive.
You're seeing more women,
you're seeing more African-Americans
getting their foot in the door.
You know, you see the AfroTech, you see Black Girls Code.
Yeah, you're seeing everyone, you know.
They were the original disrupters, but you know,
we're all saying we're gonna be disrupters as well,
and we have a lot to bring to the table too.
- Mm-hmm.
And when I last checked your deal sizes,
they range from about 25k to about 150k.
Is that still the case?
- Yes, that's right. - Okay.
So any plans to push beyond 150k?
Or is that okay with you?
- For now it's good with me.
I haven't exited any of my investments yet.
But I've had a lot of companies that have grown,
you know, 7x, 10x,
so I've had a few companies do really well.
I've had a few companies on the opposite end of the spectrum
where, for various reasons, the company just didn't work.
You know, you have some companies that have great ideas,
great products, just bad timing.
It won't work, maybe it would've worked 20 years ago,
maybe it will work 20 years from now,
but right now it just didn't work.
So, it's a growing experience as well.
Like, I always look at it at that.
You know, you might lose, but like I said,
you have to be willing to understand that
that's the money that you don't mind losing.
And at the end of the day, worst case scenario,
you learned a lot.
- So this was a childhood dream.
You saw playing in the NBA when you were a kid
as something that was a viable option.
- That's an interesting question as well,
as far as basketball was something I was really good at
and I had a passion for.
And as a kid all you watch was the NBA
and Fab Five was big to be, but as I got older
I didn't know that it was reachable.
I did it because I loved it.
I didn't do it to make money.
I didn't do it because I said I'm gonna go to the NBA
but when you're seven, eight, that dream is there.
But coming from Springfield, that small place,
you know, you can kinda get trapped in that environment,
especially being a black athlete, you know.
Not too many tend to get out, you know.
They go to school for a year, those with the talent,
they go to Division I for a semester or two
and they can't get the books quite right
and they end up right back home.
So there weren't too many role models
that I can say he made it out.
We got Kevin Gamble who was about 20 years older than I was,
so he was a little bit removed,
but I saw that as an opportunity to try to be the influence
on the kids coming up.
- In reading about you, I'm really struck
by your time in Arizona, because your time in Arizona
you majored in African-American studies
and there was something that I read where you said,
"I learned a lot of things that I wasn't taught
in elementary school and high school."
- Well, there wasn't much African history at all
from K-12, just growing up in Springfield, Illinois.
I mean even in the month of February you mighta had a week
where you spoke very briefly about African-American history.
Obviously, you know, about the Underground Railroad,
there was actually one of routes of the Underground Railroad
ran through Springfield, and I learned that
outside of public school education.
So, you know, you glanced over it,
you spoke about Martin Luther King, you know,
you spoke about Harriet Tubman, and you talk about,
you know, George Washington Carver, but they didn't go deep
into, you know, the changes that were really made
from these individuals.
And as I got into college and took
about every African-American history class I could
while I was there, you know,
you start to go a little bit deeper.
- I get the sense that the personal and the political
are inextricably tied for you in some ways.
That you see your agenda of economic activism
as fundamental to what you want to see yourself doing
and other African-Americans doing in the business world.
Is that true?
Is there a tie between the two?
- I think it is a tie because my talent is being exploited.
I am being compensated for that and I would say,
you know, fairly because we make a great living.
But when you start doing your research and your homework,
it goes a little deeper than that, you know.
Because, as athletes, you know, you get in the NBA
and you have a lock-out and that raises a lot of eyebrows,
like I really need to know what's going on, you know,
as far as, you know, how does this split work,
you know, as far as the athlete and the corporation.
NBA is an actual entertainment company,
even though I'm playing a game of basketball.
- Colin Kaepernick has shaken up the world right now
with what he's doing.
Nike coming in and supporting him.
What is the significance of what he's doing?
- I think the slogan speaks
perfectly to what it is.
You know, sacrifice everything, you stand for something.
And a lot of athletes just start in that position
to where you've got one side that says, you know,
I gotta take care of my family, and I have this opportunity
to make the most of my talents, but that involves me
keeping my mouth shut and staying in line,
being the model athlete, and not being disruptive.
And then you have the other side that says,
you know, I see what's going on within my community,
and I don't like what's going on,
and I wanna see that changed.
And you really, you can't find any middle ground.
It's still tough to find that middle ground.
I think LeBron has done a really good job
because it seems like if you're not
one of the top tier athletes, no one will, you know,
you really can't voice it.
Or that voice won't spread as much.
And then you have a guy like Colin Kaepernick
who's took a team to the Super Bowl,
one of the few African-American quarterbacks in the NFL.
There's more and more, but there's still only a handful
of them out there.
And he decides to take a stance.
- Is it unfair?
- I think it is because those that don't like it
because they don't wanna see the change
'cause they wanna stay in that power.
Psychologically they keep saying
this is stance standing against,
they're kneeling to the, they're protesting the anthem,
and that's not what it is.
We continue to say no one's protesting the anthem.
We're standing against police brutality
against African-American men.
And until they realize that, we're gonna continue
to voice our opinion and continue to support those
who are making these courageous,
or doing these courageous peaceful acts to support that.
- What do you hope your legacy is?
- Well I think I have the, we all wanna have the opportunity
to do something that's never done before.
Only a few get the actual opportunity.
I think I have the opportunity to do something special,
bring a lotta fellow NBA players with me, you know,
on this journey, and I think we can
do a lot of great things.
And when you do that, you know, there's a wealth there.
When you have that wealth, it's not just for us.
You go beyond that, you think of, you talk about endowments.
You talk about establishing something for the community
that lasts a lifetime.
You know, that's something I've learned since being
in Silicon Valley, you know,
the endowments in some of these Ivy League schools
where they can just,
they can keep themselves afloat forever.
They don't have to touch the endowment
because the interest they make off of it,
that's how they run themselves.
And you look at some HBCU endowments that are
a little bit less, and they make the most of what that is.
- What I hear you talking about,
now, is economic collaboration.
You see the social collaborations--
- Right - Starting to come together.
- Yes
- But if these black players that are making
millions upon millions of dollars start to collaborate
not just with their words, but with their money,
is that what it's going to take to get to that level
that you're speaking of, of ownership?
- That's definitely a component of it,
and when a company says, you know, we'll give you,
we'll allocate you $200,000 to invest in our company,
you know, I can take the whole thing myself.
Or I can say, you know, I've got five or six athletes
that are in smaller markets that aren't in Silicon Valley
but that are interested in it, understand the business,
and wanna be more involved.
You know, I go get those guys and say hey, you know,
I got this much allocated to fund,
to give to this series
or this round, do you wanna be a part of it?
And they jumping right on it.
So that that's piece, you know,
bringing others along with me and that leads to that
which leads to something else, and we just try to continue
to grow until we get to where we wanna be.
- You grew up in Springfield, Illinois.
I can't imagine there were a lot of people there
that looked like you.
What was it like?
- Springfield was an interesting place.
It wasn't segregated, but it almost had that feel where,
you know, I grew up
on the east side of Springfield, Illinois,
and that's where the majority of African-Americans were.
I lived in the apartment above my grandmother's house.
She had a small two bedroom that I pretty much grew up in.
We looked through the back, through the alley,
and there was the housing authority.
It was the projects, so I shared the same bus stop as them.
But my mother was very strict with academics,
so I grew up with all the low income African-Americans,
but I was in the classroom with the white kids.
So I kinda was in two worlds constantly.
It gave me a good balance, and it gave me a decent view
of, you know, there's something beyond Springfield,
and go get it.
- And sometimes being smart is something that kids
try to hide. - Right
- 'Cause it often makes them a target.
Did that happen to you?
Did you experience any of that?
- Well the funny thing about me, I was very competitive,
and my mother was so strict that I would much rather
get made fun of for being smart than going home
and having to face my mom.
She was six feet tall, she is six feet tall.
So I wasn't taller than her until I was 16, 15 years old,
so she was, she didn't play any games.
So I had that appropriate fear for the majority of my life
and it kept me on straight road.
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