41: Coming Out as Gay, then Creating a World Class Impact for LGBTQ Communities // The Story of Arthur Woods

You know, I would say rock bottom for me was that moment of.

And there's more people that are looking to hear your story than you probably even realize. You're actually more important than you might realize at all. And you could have a life changing impact on someone simply by sharing your story like Arthur is right now. That's my perspective and I think that Arthur, you would share a similar sentiment. Is that right?

Absolutely. I mean, you took the words out of my mouth, but absolutely.

Welcome to From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. I'm your host, Eric Gilbert Williams, and this is the podcast where we explore personal stories of people who hit absolute rock bottom, then got back up, wiped off the dust, kicked failure to the curb, and now they're rocking it like you'd never believe if you didn't hear it. Live right here we cover subjects in business, sports and life in general. If you like this podcast, please share it. These interviews are intended to inspire, to motivate, to give hope and vision. So please share this episode with someone who needs it. Use your Instagram account, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. Hand signals, trained pigeon sent smoke signals up in the air. Use Morse code, whatever you like, just share the love and share this episode. Also, email me anytime. Podcasterrickgilbertwilliams.com Send me questions you would like to have asked of future guests and I will incorporate them. Or just send me some suggestions on how to run a better podcast. Or just say hello, I'd love to hear from you. That's podcastericgilbertwilliams.com I know you're going to love today's interview, so let's get started. With us here today on From Rock Bottom, the rockin it is Arthur Woods, a talented entrepreneur. His current venture just finished raising another 4 mil, bringing the total raise to just over 6 million. That's across about a dozen investors, as per the public Crunchbase profile of his company Matheson found at the URL Matheson IO. Now, what's particularly interesting to me about Arthur's company is its focus being that of hiring for diversity. Now, when I say diversity in this context, and of course, Arthur will explain it in his own words very soon. What we're talking about though, generally is the lgbtq, race, color, all the above, minority communities. Now we're talking about breaking through barriers or shattering through the glass ceiling. The old school societal image of what success looks like that just putting on the table somewhat stereotypically being the straight, white, tall male is a very bygone era. It's just not applicable anymore or at least it's one that's being phased out. And that's really the hopes is to move forward and be a more inclusive society. In my perspective, anyway. So, in my own words, we're entering an era where all humans are just treated as humans. And the only differentiating factor is someone's skill and their talent and their dedication and grit and perhaps their good naturedness in dealing with other humans. So Arthur's written a book about this subject on hiring for diversity, which we'll talk about as well, and he'll tell you where to find that while we're chatting. And without further ado, Arthur, welcome to From Rock Bottom, the Rocknit. How you doing, man?

Hey, thanks for having me, Eric. Yeah, great to be here.

Yeah. So did I say anything wrong about what your company's at? I mean, it looks like on Crunchbase you closed another good little funding round. You're pushing forward and do some growth. And tell me, what are you doing? What's Matheson all about?

Yeah, well, the category of the work that we're in is what we call equity technology. And it goes without saying right now that every employer is thinking about diversity more than they ever have before. And as organizations are growing, they're trying to cast a wider net to ensure they have greater representation on their teams. And to do that, we've created technology in a SaaS platform that helps companies not only source candidates from underrepresented communities, but take steps to ensure when they walk into the hiring process, they actually successfully advance. And we have measurement system that helps companies reduce bias in their process and actually shift the behavior of their team so that when they're hiring, they're ensuring that folks are actually advancing. And we really believe that a single point approach of sourcing alone, without addressing the systemic bias that has prevented people from getting jobs, has to shift in order for us to achieve this new, more inclusive and equitable workforce we all envision.

So let me ask you a question. So on episode 31 of the show here, we had Muyinza Kasire, who, if I remember correctly, was from Kenya. And we talked a lot about Black Lives Matter, about inclusion of the black community. And maybe that's a bit different than lgbtq, but we're talking about inclusion of any minority generally. And I remember he said to me to make sure that I interviewed in equal amounts of candidates that were black. And I thought, okay, well, sure, of course. I mean, I never really thought about it conscientiously one way or another, and maybe I will give it some Extra thought. So I did. And in my last three hires, I specifically kept my eye out for the concept of inclusion. And part of that, of course, is to have a diverse workforce and to be a properly represented workforce. So looking at the candidates, I was like, man, like, they're just. To me, what I found, which is a bit surprising, I did not have that many candidates who applied who were of that particular minority, in this case, color. And so I thought, well, geez, well, now what do I do? Right? Like, I wanted to do something more diverse. And there were a couple candidates that. But frankly, out of however many, what, 150, 200 applicants, there was maybe like five. That's just not enough. Now, if one of them was a star, like a rock star quality and stood out amongst all the other 150, sure, that's great, but the math is working against that one. So tell me, what would Matheson do sort of differently? How do you source candidates of a minority group?

Well, the first thing is, when we think about sourcing and when we think about how to grow diversity, it all starts for us around a more holistic and inclusive way that we define diversity itself. So a lot of systems have emerged in the last two years that limit the definition of diversity to be about gender and ethnicity. And what a lot of these systems do is they scan a person's name and picture and they guess their gender and they guess their race. And this is really problematic. It's oftentimes not accurate. And it basically means that if you're a company that does care about different dimensions of diversity beyond those two alone, if you're using those systems, you're not only potentially not accurately finding out the community that a candidate is from, you're greatly narrowing your scope. Right. So what we've done is we've created a system that uses AI and uses a network based sourcing model to predict the different networks that candidates are coming from. And we take the open jobs that a company is hiring for, and we cast a really wide net out to all of these communities, ranging from the disability community to the LGBTQ community, to even communities like the older experienced worker community. And we build pipelines of candidates that match skills and are from across these communities. And what's really powerful about it is it gets beyond these visible aspects of diversity and it ensures that we are indeed finding greater talent and greater reach without narrowing our scopes. From there, we actually have a system that helps employers assess across their hiring process. Where is their potential bias? You know, where are we at risk of a candidate that we source dropping out at a very critical stage because they don't have a fair and equitable experience. And we know that so much of that work is also about changing the behavior of team members that play really critical roles. In writing our job descriptions and interviewing our candidates, we've actually created tools that you can use to equip them to take action. And we really sort of bucket it all as a full system because we don't believe that any of these single pieces alone are possible to really mobilize without doing them all together.

Let's dig backwards for a second here about the motivation behind diversity. What is your definition of a diverse workforce, and why is that important right now, fundamentally?

It's a great question, Eric.

I have my own reason, by the way, but I just want to hear it in your own words.

And it's one that we're hearing. More and more folks are in agreement around there being a massive need. I mean, the quick thing I'll say, and I love your thoughts. We know that not only is this what's best for the world, there's an equal distribution of opportunities and not an equal distribution of representation in those opportunities. And we really know that there have been systemic barriers across the board, from early education all the way up to how people enter the workforce and advance in it, that have prevented people from getting jobs, especially the more senior we go in the workforce. So diversity not only is what is fueling innovation and driving company performance. There have been multiple studies to prove that companies that actually have diversity, greater diversity, outperform others financially. It's also what's best for our culture. And in a market where 40% of people are leaving their jobs, we have to do everything we can to cast the widest net to find the best people. And for organizations that not only want to compete and get ahead, but need to just have the capacity to survive, diversity doesn't feel like an option anymore.

Yeah, I understand that, too. And when I think about diversity and tell me what you think of this. This is what comes to mind for me when I think about why is diversity important? I mean, to me, you listed the very, very practical reasons. I mean, it's a multicultural world, right? That's what we're in. And that includes not just race, color, but includes LGBTQ communities, too, which have been, I think it's fair to say, arguably excluded in many ways, or at least made to feel like they have to hide who they are or excluded or both. And before I dive into that, actually, the impact to me, when Tim Cook came out and listeners on the show, people that don't really understand or know the story. And please correct me if I'm wrong in any of this, Arthur, but to my understanding, Tim Cook was the very first CEO of a Fortune 500 company to come out as a gay person. And to do this with not only just come out, but could do it with such conviction of such a powerful company and simultaneously just blow the world away with new products and innovation and take Apple in a whole new era. What type of impact and do you think about that a little bit? What are your thoughts on what Tim Cook did there for the LGBT communities and in business overall?

I love it, Eric. And as a young gay man who came out halfway through college personally and who entered a corporate job, my very first corporate job, and struggled to even know if it was safe to come out, to my colleagues, it was a very empowering move to see the CEO of one of the biggest and most successful companies in the world come out, and he's been an amazing advocate, and it was very powerful. So I think it sent a really important message around business as usual, being about diversity and embracing who you really are and being safe to do that, and that being something that companies that really want to be at the leading edge of, of empowering their workforce, needing to embrace. So that was a really powerful move, and I applaud Tim. And I think there are many leaders, sadly to this day, who don't feel safe to come out at work or are from a different underrepresented group and have faced significant barriers and don't always believe it's safe to embrace their identity at work. And that's something I hope that really does change, especially as we all continue this work together.

If anyone who's listening right now hasn't seen the movie the Imitation Games, it's one of my favorite movies. The story about Alan Turing and essentially breaking the Nazi encrypted code on the Enigma machine. Sorry if that's a little bit of a spoiler, if you're not up to date on your history, but anyone who hasn't watched it, I mean, just a fantastic movie historically. And the acting is amazing as well. By the time we got to the end of the movie, of course, you know, my heart broke and probably most people watching it felt the same way because I didn't fully understand that this was Benedict Cumberbatch's main role, Alan Turing. I did not understand, you know, that it was illegal to be gay and that if you were gay in this era, it was considered a mental illness that needed to be cured, so to say. And it really hit me so hard when I just didn't know. Like all my gay friends today, I had no idea that if this was 50 years ago, it would be a very different dynamic.

I could not agree more. And actually, Eric, our company, Matheson, we named it Matheson in honor of Alan Turing. His middle name was Matheson.

No way was it really. Wow.

I didn't know that it was Alan Matheson Turing. And he really is kind of an inspiration for us because he's someone who achieved such an extraordinary impact cracking the Enigma code In World War II, as you mentioned, faced significant persecution at the end of his life and couldn't be his full self. To take someone who's that heroic and was that brave and persecute them for being themselves, it just really was the antithesis of everything I think we all stand for. And it's definitely a driving force behind what we do. And our goal is to very, very similar to Turing, to use technology to make an impact. And so love that you're so connected to that story. It's definitely one that we really are motivated by every day.

I had no idea. That's so powerful. I'm kind of in awe right now that you named your company. I didn't know this coming into this. I did not know you named your company in honor of what Turing did. Wow. I'm going to have to digest that one.

We need to do a better job of telling that story. For sure.

I wondered, because I checked the URL I saw, I was like, well, what's Matheson? Arthur's name isn't Matheson. I don't see. Maybe there's another Matheson somewhere. And. No, this is a game changer.

Oh, my gosh. It's definitely a powerful kind of story for people to hear.

When we go into the concept of diversity and why it's important we were talking about earlier, there's obviously some very practical applications. There's such a large percentage of the community that's LGBTQ and need a home. They need to feel comfortable. And it's a complete squandering of talent to be exclusive towards powerful people, for example, like Alan Turing and others that are similar. It's such a detriment to our civilization as a whole, as a race, as a human species, to be limiting people in their contribution to society by sexual preference or identification or whatever the words and the terminologies are in that world, which I'm not super familiar, but to be excluding and limiting Our entire species from brilliant people like this is something that obviously needs to stop if we're going to have any chance of surviving as a species through climate change and through all the challenges that are ahead of us. We can't be excluding some of the smartest minds.

First of all, not agree more.

Right. And I think that's touching on what you were saying in many respects. There's also an element of how do we make up for the damage that was done? And it can't be made up for in many respects. I mean, I just saw Australia gave back thousands of acres of land back to the Aboriginals and you know, good for them.

Right.

That doesn't make up for the damage that was done. You know, in B.C. and Canada here, there was a construction site being dug and they found an old schoolyard from like the 1800s. And buried beneath the school or beside the school with unmarked gravestones was an entire graveyard filled of, you know, Aboriginal or Native American children. And because they were just killed back then, that's just how they dealt with it. It's very Nazi ish in the approach. And you can't fix those things. They're done. They're part of history. Alan Turing's final days are not something that anything that you or I, as much as we want to, can really change that. We can't fix it. But how do we move forward in a way that perhaps prevents anything from that, like that ever happening again and gives proper respect and credit to those people who did contribute in a massive way, or maybe didn't even have the chance to contribute in a massive way? So how much of the concept of diversity and the motivation of diversity do you think might be maybe guilt based or trying to fix something that can't be fixed, separate from just being practical and obviously including brilliant minds? Is that something that pops up from time to time?

Absolutely. And I think it's really important to note that when we're making this shift, we're not simply just changing some small practices. We're changing hearts and minds and systems. And it's very complicated, it's very complex. Right. So there are a few things that really come to mind immediately. I mean, one is that we can't think for a minute that all of this work is going to happen overnight. It's going to take us shifting a lot, and it happens long term. Any organization that's trying to move impulsively quickly and believes that they snap a finger and all of a sudden everything changes. It has to go back to the historical context, like you mentioned, Eric, that these historical inequities that have existed in our systems truly since the beginning of time won't be changed and dismantled overnight. And in fact, if we try to make that kind of change too quickly, it will really be performative and could not only come across as inauthentic, but could have actually really negative impacts. And so we try to really talk to leaders about the need for that. You know, the need to be methodical, be thoughtful and bring everyone along in this work, but also acknowledge that it's going to take time. It's not going to happen overnight.

Eric here. I hope you're enjoying the episode today. This is a passion project that I put together. I really wanted to do this. I really want to help people out there. I had so many people reach out to me when I was younger and when I was having a tough time and struggling. I've written a book about it. You can check it out on my website. Please do. But most importantly, reach out to me. Give me some feedback. What could I do better with this podcast? What am I doing that I should stop? What am I not doing that I should do? Tell me your experience, give me some tips and suggestions. I really want to design this to suit your needs. And all you got to do is send me an email. It's ericericericilbertwilliams.com or use the contact me button that you'll find on my website. Just send me an email. We'll have a phone call or we'll chat online, doesn't really matter. I would love to hear from you and figure out how to make this show even better for with your help. So please reach out and don't be shy. I am really enjoying the intellectual aspect of some of this. This is, like I said, a conversation I was waiting to have. I'm going to take a step back for a second and I'd like to ask you, perhaps on a little more of a personal note, if you don't mind your story coming into this, I have to assume, and it is an assumption because I haven't particularly seen that yet, but I have to assume that that your experience growing up ended up somehow influencing your career path and choice here. And if I could just give you the floor here, could you share with listeners today your story growing up as a boy and starting to discover who you are and how to and where to and where you can't express and how did that all go down? Basically?

Thank you so much for asking, Eric. And it's really where we love to Start every conversation in our work because our personal identities are so deeply tied to the work that we do. Trying to separate those truly like, removes the person from the whole equation. So a couple things. I grew up as an evangelical Christian in a very rural town in Northern California. I was in a single parent family, raised by my mom. She's an amazing person. Raised me to think big and to embrace a lot of cultural aspects of, you know, different cultures and also different perspectives. So she, you know, very kind of global minded household. But I was an evangelical Christian. I was taught in school and in my community that being gay, for example, is a sin. And I entered college, I was one of the poorest kids in my class and I came out halfway through college. And so I kind of had two strong feelings of being an other. Right. One was, from a socioeconomic standpoint, really not fitting in with a lot of my classmates who came from wealthy backgrounds in private schools. And the second was honestly being gay in a Catholic university at a time when it still was not as widely accepted. And there was a whole kind of identity crisis based on how I also was raised and the community that I grew up in. So I started to beat to my own drum in many ways. And I explored entrepreneurship at that stage. This is largely what got me interested in the early days. I kind of realized if you don't follow other people's rules, then as an entrepreneur, you kind of create your own rules. And that really was a powerful and kind of liberating feeling. When you start your own venture, you are by default beating to your own drum. And something that I've always really loved about the startup world and part of why I think some of the newest companies are the ones that are making some of the greatest social progress because they are defining their own sets of values. And honestly, those values are typically very altruistic. The long story short, Eric, is I entered the corporate world and experienced homophobia in my very first jobs. And I didn't come out right away to my colleagues. It wasn't until a couple years in that I kind of got the courage to come out and in many cases bring my full self to my work. And a lot of the work that we do now. And one of the main inspirations for me to get into the field of HR technology was this idea that work is ironically, not a very humanizing place for most people. In many cases, work is not working for people. And we have so many examples of stories where people have experienced a great deal of inequity and microaggression. And have not felt celebrated as their full selves. And I really believed that we could start to build technology that addresses that. And if we can't change everything overnight, we can start to shift systems, we can start to build transparency. We can start to also equip individuals that have an intent but really want to change behavior. And this is, I think, where 21st century technology comes in and can be really, really powerful right now. So that's been the inspiration behind what we do at Matheson and definitely the journey that we're all on together.

How old were you when you realized you were gay?

I was 19 years old.

How long did it take you to have the courage to come out?

So I was. What's interesting about my story, which is probably a little bit unique, is that I actually did not realize I was gay until basically the day that I came out. And I didn't come out to many people, but I was halfway through college and I realized I had feelings for another guy. And it took me probably a year after that to actually tell everyone I knew. And it was a bit of a process, honestly. And it was a lot of me also coming to terms with it myself, personally.

Did anyone basically have an issue with it or were your friends very supportive and loving around that?

It was a mix, but the vast majority were extremely supportive. I went back home to the evangelical Christian community where I grew up, and I have to say that it was probably a little alarming for some of the folks I grew up with to hear the news, but everyone was really embracing. And my mom, who has always been just my biggest champion, was enthusiastic beyond belief to hear the news. And so I was really blessed to have an amazing support system.

Yeah, I think you really are. A friend of mine who came out as gay, I think he was in a Catholic background, actually, and frankly, he was disowned, period, from his family, end of story. And that is tragic, and it happens a lot. And, yeah, I think you are very blessed indeed to have a support network inside a religious community, specifically Christianity or Catholicism or in that realm, totally different story. A friend of mine grew up in a very, very Christian household. And if I had to identify with a religion, it certainly wouldn't be Christian, just because that's who I am. I would probably say pagan. And that's just a whole different story. We'll talk about another time. But we talked about religion a lot because I seek to understand a lot and to understand what's driving these motivators and what's driving these beliefs. And why would I be considered an evildoer in this religion when clearly I'm not. What is the mentality? Why is gay? Why did my friend get disowned? What's going on in the religious circles here to feed that? And one of the answers that my friend gave me was, look, they're talking to me. And it was on a different subject. It was on just the fact that I don't believe in the Christian faith. And it's not that I'm anti. That's just not who I am. And the assessment was. And the words were, I am going to hell because I don't believe in Christianity. And they're okay with that because they're not. So they'll be my friend anyways, okay? But once we die, they're going to heaven and I'm going to hell. And that's just the way that they see the world, and that's the way they view me. But don't worry, we can be friends anyways. And I'm like, well, why would I want to be a friend with you?

Wow. Yeah. That's a tough conversation. That's a tough. It's a big pill to swallow.

And it's the same pill that anyone. I think in many cases, again, you were very blessed there. But in many cases, people who are coming out as gay or trans or whatever it happens to be, they don't get the support that you got. They end up disowned or somewhere in the middle, and they have to deal with it and swallow that pill. And that's the context that I bring.

Up the story, and it's really powerful. And I'm glad that you did, because, honestly, this is also a good reason for us to think long and hard about how we create cultures of belonging for people at work. Because we can't assume that everyone has a support system at home or in their upbringing that has empowered them to be themselves. And it may be actually the workplace for the very first time, where someone feels like they belong and like they're embraced for who they are. And we know that work is playing an even more critical role in people's lives right now. You know, and so while the job, maybe of 20, 30 years ago was be your own person at home and then come to work and be a professional, we are now telling people to bring their authentic selves to work, and we have to meet them where they are. Right.

What would you say is your rock bottom moment in all of this going on in the past here? What was the moment where, you know, maybe you didn't see the light and you're like, this is rock bottom. What is that for you?

Yeah, it's a great question. Rock bottom in terms of just realizing there was such a need here, or rock bottom in terms of mindset and.

Approach in your own life experience. And I don't know if that's related to being gay or not. It could be something different. I don't really know. I'm just wondering, what is that for you?

You know, I would say rock bottom for me was that moment of fear of coming out. And it. But it really only propelled me to, you know, in coming to terms with who I really am at my core. It's been a source of power. So I would say that, you know, when I think of rock bottom, I guess I never think of everything, sort of anything ever falling below. It's like every new lens that we get every time we learn more about ourselves or even hit struggles, I think it's actually a source of strength. And I think it's been a very humbling experience generally to realize in this line of work that we're in that there is always a new lens. There's always something new to learn, a different perspective to gain. And our work is never complete. And so I never see us sort of falling backwards. It's only like realizing there's more work to be done.

There's always work to be done. It's never ending. Right. It's an ongoing process, isn't it?

It is completely. And I think any leader that believes they're going to reach some destination is fooling themselves. Right.

Some of the listeners on the show, those who aren't gay or have very close gay friends that don't understand what this is like. We have to imagine a world where. Yeah, I mean, this is a good context. We're still, to some degree, and I don't know exactly to what degree, maybe you can advise me on that, but to a degree. There is a culture in specifically certain communities. You and I are both in the technology industry, which is obviously changing rapidly, but it certainly is a stereotypical driven industry to some degree, and at least it was in the past. The experience of coming out is one that most people don't understand who haven't gone through it, and there's no way to get them to understand if you haven't gone through it. What did that look like for you when in a job, for example, maybe you had some conflict on that. You said, look who you are, became known to everyone on the team. And was there ever an issue and what did that look like? What happened?

In my earliest couple jobs, I would overhear colleagues use homophobic slurs, and that would throw me off. As with any underrepresented community, I've observed the stereotypical behavior of really misunderstanding the rich diversity in the gay community and in the LGBTQ community and in using, you know, just stereotypical language that I just think is, you know, just doesn't recognize that not everyone, it's. It's not a monolithic community. And I think that's been, you know, those very minor microaggressions, I think, are only a fraction of what many people have experienced. And so, for me, this has been a reminder that anytime I've seen that kind of thing, I have a great deal of privilege being a white man, you know, cisgender man. And anything that I've experienced must be a fraction of what other folks live with every day. That has been somewhat of the reminder for me.

And now you're making an impact. How do you measure. Do you measure the impact that you're having on minority communities right now at Matheson? And if you do, how do you measure that?

Great question. So part of our big innovation has been to introduce new kinds of measurements because the work has been largely immeasurable, in our opinion. You know, a lot of organizations have simply just set arbitrary, you know, representation diversity goals without accounting for all the different things they can possibly measure. And so part of our work has been introducing the fact that we have. We can measure the accessibility and the equity of our process. We can basically, you know, we've been able to quantify across the full lifecycle, the full talent lifecycle, the specific changes that we need to make and the optimizations that we can make to ensure that we have a more accessible experience for everyone. Right. So that's been a huge piece. The second is, you know, we can really start to measure the sentiment of our team members, the feedback that they have in terms of the culture they experience, the feedback we have from candidates around how accessible and inclusive the hiring process was. And so we've really tried to introduce different types of metrics to really bring this all to the fold and not simply just focus on representation numbers alone.

How many minority people have been hired through your platform? Are we talking hundreds, thousands? Tens of thousands?

Yes. I mean, it's hard to fully quantify because we're not integrated in every applicant tracking system, but we have just countless folks across the board in the last couple years that have been hired and really inspiring stories. Honestly, Eric, of oftentimes Underrepresented mid to senior level candidates that weren't on the radar before that were hired into oftentimes very senior level roles because we were able to connect them to great organizations committed to inclusive hiring. And we have also countless stories of organizations that have shifted major aspects of the way that they hire, the processes and governance they put in place to ensure greater equity and accessibility for everyone. And that's also been a win just to see actual processes change.

What's your favorite success story of all the ones that have come flowing in the doors for you?

I like talking about Theory, the apparel company that we work with, because in just less than a year, they've made significant changes to the way they hire, who they've hired, how they've trained their team in this work, and to see stories like that where even in just a short period of time, with the right intention, you can make such progress, that's been amazing to witness.

For anyone listening on the show. I don't really talk about what I actually do for business because this isn't the show to talk about it, but there's a very relevant aspect that you'll understand why in a second. So right now I'm running this social media platform. I call it the Anti Facebook. Right now, I also call it Meme Paradise. It's a social media platform all about memes and everything that you could possibly imagine to do with memes. And when I'm studying the type of engagement that people are having on the site, and typically it's Gen Z, millennial audiences, so, you know, they're kids or young adults, however you want to call it. And what I've noticed is a particularly significant amount of activity, like at least 25% of the activity on the site, at least in recent days, have been LGBTQ related.

That's awesome, right?

Yeah, memes. People, in making an anonymous account on the site, are presented with this opportunity, and the only way to talk on the site is through memes. That's it.

Okay. That's cool.

Yeah. You can do direct messages to people, like, with text. Sure. But in terms of the public facing, it's all memes. Everything's memes. So these people are latching on to the opportunity with an anonymous account to make memes about coming out, about, you know, their first boyfriend, or about, you know, anything related to lgbtq. And, you know, it is because sometimes their usernames are like, I just came out. You know, and then they're. And then they're making memes about. About that subject. And we have A really strict rule about no hate. It's just not allowed. It doesn't matter what the subject is. It's just not allowed. So we are really quick and our volunteer moderator group are really quick at banning or removing memes that are insulting in nature to any degree, which obviously includes LGBTQ as well. And this has seemingly fostered an environment of supporting the vibe and supporting people having this comfort and joy of sharing memes that are often comical in nature about being gay or similar. Now what I'm really wondering about is how do I not just prevent it from being destroyed by, you know, dummies that are being negative, but how do I actually support it? And this question, I think, applies broadly into any organization as a whole. And that was just my little segue into it.

I love it. Is the fear, Eric, that it doesn't get destroyed or, like, kind of overly tokenized or, like, what do you feel is the kind of the stem of the major concern right now?

Well, you know, as a. As a tech entrepreneur, I need to understand who the users are on my platform and make sure they're getting what they want. And there's enough people on the site that clearly are enjoying and want the freedom of speech and the enjoyment, the laughter around memes of LGBTQ and about their experience with it that, you know, I want to cater to them. And this is my business mind now. I'm like, okay, well, if there's a growing LGBTQ community on my site, I need to make sure that they got what they need. I don't know what they need. I want this momentum and the energy to continue building. I mean, it's good for my business. It also makes me feel good and it makes them feel good. This is a true tri circle win.

Yeah. I love it. I love it. We have an expression, fish, where the fish are. Right? The fact that a, this is a safe place for the community to convene and to express themselves, and there's a chance to really lean into that and I think to continue on with what you're doing. Clearly, it's a place where people feel safe and heard, and it seems like just an organic output of all the great work that you've done. And it is really neat to see that now that we are able to look so inclusively, the communities that we're serving through the lens of equity and representation, we're noticing sort of patterns and oftentimes trends that we didn't normally see when we weren't looking at everything through that perspective, that lens. And I think part of that is also just to better understand and be mindful of where are people naturally feeling like they belong? And I think that's a huge opportunity because not only do we know that a lot of folks struggle with belonging at work, but we know also that there are entirely new models out there in terms of how people find a sense of community that have not been explored. And I think it's a tremendous opportunity to innovate. Right now.

A bunch of my friends are CEOs as well, and a bunch of them listen to this show. So, yeah, this is dedicated. You know, who you are, if any CEO right now, if you were to provide one little suggestion or tidbit. And, of course, let's assume that they want to hear the suggestion. What could a CEO do right now? And actually, let me paint the picture. So we got a CEO of XYZ Corporation who knows what they've never really thought, secondly, about how supportive their organization was or was not. And maybe they're listening to the show for the first time, like, okay, well, what can I do? What can I do today to be a little more supportive and inclusive in my organization of the LGBTQ community? What would you say to them that anyone could do right now, today, in a executive position that could be helpful and supportive of this mission of inclusion?

Well, I mean, a few things. One is to be cognizant of your pronouns, and I think any executive who can actually add pronouns to their signature, to their LinkedIn page, to their Zoom name, just to really embrace the fact that gender identity is something that's in the realm of awareness for the individual, and it really does create a safe environment for people to represent their pronouns. When you see a senior leader do the same thing, and that's just something that everyone can do right away. Right? The second is ask people about their lived experiences and their stories and lead from. Lead by example, by sharing yours as a leader, you can be a white ally that doesn't necessarily identify with maybe an apparent underrepresented community, but share your personal story and why you believe creating an equitable and inclusive workforce is so important, and it really invites everyone else to share their stories. And I think the more that we, you know, as leaders, as senior leaders, don't ever try to treat the LGBTQ community as though it's monolithic and limited at all. You know, and the more that we really acknowledge and represent the fact that it's a community that is rich in diversity, and the more that we hear different people's perspectives and stories, it is what helps Us more inclusively support everyone. We really believe in this idea of sharing your personal story and inviting other people to do the same thing. And it really dismantles so much of the barrier that a lot of people have to meaningfully engaging right now.

Just like you're doing now, sharing your story.

Absolutely. That's something every single leader can do. It's a great way to open up meetings or introducing. Rather than jumping into tactics and strategy, let's focus on starting with who we are and what we stand for. The world would be a much better place if that were the way that we led out of the gate.

I 1000% agree. To me, the whole concept of this show in the name, even in the name from rock bottom to rockin it. The concept of this show is to bring a platform to people to share their story, whatever it happens to be. Obviously in context of mental health, which is a very broad subject that goes into a lot of different rabbit holes. But for me this is the purpose of the show is to allow people and help people share those stories so that everyone listening knows they're not alone in whatever it is that you're experiencing as your own personal rock bottom. And people that are listening to the show, you guys know that I say this time and time again, you have a story too. And you have a story that could help someone else as well. And you also have the courage to share it with other people. And there's more people that are looking to hear your story than you probably even realize you're actually more important then you might realize at all. And you could have a life changing impact on someone simply by sharing your story like Arthur is right now. That's my perspective and I think that Arthur, you would share a similar sentiment. Is that right?

Absolutely. I mean you took the words out of my mouth, but absolutely. And again, I think that is how we're going to do this work. We're going to really move this work forward in a meaningful way is that we all sort of take up a personal responsibility in it and we all also recognize that it is going to take a village to get done in a really meaningful and impactful way. Right.

Okay. So I grew up in construction for a long time, had a company, built it up several million ARR, 60 people sold it and made a huge pivot going into technology. Construction is just a whole different world than technology. And I spent a couple years just listening to every podcast I could and reading books to figure out how this world works. And here I am out there with a tech Startup and we did a seed round and growing and scaling and have a cto. You don't need a CTO in a construction company that's maybe chief transportation officer if anything, but definitely not technology in most cases. Anyways, I've been biting my tongue not asking you about Google and your time growing up in the tech world. And I think that you have some pretty powerful rockin it stories in that context. What were you doing at Google and did that relate to Matheson at Google?

I was spearheading. Yeah, yeah. And I realized we're. Wow, the time is flying by, Eric.

Okay, rocking that story all out. No hold back. All of it.

Rapid answers here, though. So basically I joined Google and actually ended up moving over to the education division over at YouTube and we were just launching this department and I helped spearhead operations there. And it was all centered around the idea of building an educational vertical that really was built around the idea that anyone around the world should be able to go to YouTube to learn anything. So it's a very kind of cool mission. And as you can imagine, the equity inclusion piece was core to what we were doing around the idea of access and sort of minimizing barriers. Right.

And obviously that gave you a foothold that led into Matheson and here we are today growing and scaling and using the experience you gained.

That's exactly it. And I feel like each of these kind of parts of our story do inform how we approach everything in a new way. So I love that our portfolio builds together as we continue to navigate this work. We draw from all of our past lived experiences to do it.

Well, Arthur, I could keep chatting with you for a long time. I have no limits on this show, so I'm going to try and respect their time and wrap up right now. Thank you for coming on. Everyone that's listening, keep in mind that your story is powerful and you're not alone and you have a positive impact on the world wherever you go. Keep on listening. Share this episode with someone you think needs to hear it. That's the whole point. That's all I ask of you guys. So for now, we'll talk to you guys next time on From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. Arthur, thanks again.

Thank you, Eric. This was so fun. I loved it.

All right, we'll talk to you later. And that's the end of the show.

All right, my friend. That was so good. And I'm sorry. I should have budgeted an hour and a half. This was awesome. I realized we got off to a little bit of a late start because of our zoom issues. I apologize about that.

That's all right. I could just keep on going. So I'll let you know when it's edited.

Oh, man.

I love it.

You're such a great host. I just love the way you ask questions and I really enjoyed that conversation.

Cool. That's great. I just do it for fun. I don't make money on it and hopefully it helps people. That's really the intention.

I think it does. I think it does. And it's just awesome hearing people's stories. We can't ever take that for granted. Right? Yeah.

I'll keep in touch and likewise, reach out anytime. If there's anything I can help with. I'm one email away.

Thank you, Eric. We would love that. Okay, we'll see you soon. Thank you, sir. Bye.

And that's it, my friends, for this episode. We will see you next time. Please send me an email, say hello, give me some feedback. Let me know what you think. Give me some tips and suggestions. I'd love to hear from you. Also, please share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, doesn't matter. Just get it out there. I really appreciate it. And we'll see you next time on from rock bottom to Rockin It. Have a rockin it day, Sam.