MIRA award 2017 - Jeff Bussgang

Good evening. Good evening. It gives me great pleasure, and I mean it. Great pleasure to introduce our next 2017 honoree, Jeff Bus Gang. You might be asking yourself, why does this give Muhammad such a great pleasure? Well, I'm going to tell you. About seven years ago, I had my first meaningful conversation with Jeff. Of course, I was immediately taken by his charm and good looks. I mean, look at the guy. That's his wife leading the cheers. But there was more. It was something he intangible. It was a deep care. A deep and genuine care for everyone. Look, I meet a lot of wealthy and powerful people, many of whom are great philanthropists. But I meet few with such deep, genuine care. I became fascinated with Jeff, not in a stalkerish sort of way, but needed to find out why he was such a good person, what motivated him. I talked to many of his friends and colleagues, and I got some answers. Some attributed this to his father, Julian Busking, who is sitting with us today. An immigrant, a holocaust survivor, and a brilliant entrepreneur who gave back to his community. Others said Jeff was born that way, and both his mom, Faye, and his wife Linda makes sure he stays that way. And then my favorite answer came from, let's call him David to protect his anonymity. Quote, you are wrong. Jeff is not a nice guy. He would not let me play at his softball team because he said I wasn't good enough. The guy is so damn competitive.

Well, none of us are perfect, but.

Jeff comes pretty close. In the Jewish tradition, there is a concept of tikkun olam, defined by acts of kindness performed to perfect or repair the world. Jeff lives that concept every day. He is a successful venture capitalist overseeing over $600 billion in investments. In his spare time, he created Hack Diversity to enable more African Americans, many of whom are immigrants, to participate in technology. He created the alliance for Business Leadership for Businesses to help the world be a better place. And he created the global entrepreneurial residence program to allow immigrants to stay in America after graduating from universities and to create jobs. With that, I give you the man of the hour, Jeff Busge.

You know, only in America could a Muslim guy named Mohammed give such a beautiful speech, including Hebrew in it, to the son of a Holocaust survivor. Thank you very much, Mohammed. By the way, my mom and my mother in law are both here today and they may ask you out for coffee to talk more about me. Just so you know, it's great to be here. I want to also thank Mira and acknowledge the extraordinary work of over the last 30 years. And I also want to speak everyone Here has spoken about the extraordinary role that immigrants play in America. But I want to speak for a minute about the extraordinary role each of you are playing in America. I don't know if people saw across the way here was a senior prom. Did people see all the 17 and 18 year olds very nervous at the prom? That was the Lexington High School senior prom. I'm a Pratt graduate of Lexington High School, so I felt very connected to that event. And many of you may be going to high school graduations and commencements of family and friends. About five years ago, I had the privilege of going to the high school graduation of my niece at Wellesley High School. And the commencement speaker was a teacher named David McCullough Jr. Many of you may know David McCullough, the famous historian who wrote the music, many biographies, including Truman, David McCullough Jr. As his son. And his commencement speech was very powerful. And what he said to those privileged Wellesley graduates was, you're not special. That was his message to them. And I reflect on that message. I stand before you because when I look back at the work that I did in this creation of the global EIR program, you know, I'm not special. I'm not an elected official. I'm not a lawyer with great expertise in immigrant law. I'm not a CEO of a very large company. I'm just a citizen who saw a problem. I'm the son of an immigrant who is an entrepreneur who sought an entrepreneurial solution to a problem. In my case, I skilled immigration. In my world of technology, we often refer to hacks as things that you pursue to work around problems, a solution that you put forward. Mohammad talked about hack diversity, a program that I helped create to address the diversity issue in tech. Well, the problem that I saw was that we were seeing all these extraordinary entrepreneurs come to America and we were kicking them out after we inspire them with our incredible economic and innovative ecosystem. And I thought that was wrong. It was a social justice issue and an economic development issue, and that's why this program was created. But you know, I'm not special. I don't have any power to create these kinds of programs. So what did I do? I went and found experts in the world of immigration law like Jeff Goldman and others. I went and talked to the officials that sat at the time in the Patrick administration and controlled such matters, like Assistant Secretary of Economic Development Jennifer Lawrence, who's here today. I talked to legislators, I talked to UMass, and together we created this workaround, which is that if a university sponsors a visa for an entrepreneur they can avoid the lottery, the dreaded H1B lottery, because universities are exempt from the lottery. And so with this team from the Patrick administration, from the legislature, from the immigrant law folks from UMass, we created this program. That program was supported by the Baker administration. And I said, only in America could a Muslim give such a beautiful speech about a Jewish kid. Only in Massachusetts could a Democratic administration program be supported with such vigor by a Republican administration. That's what's so amazing about this state. And you fast forward to today. That program has issued nearly 40 visas to entrepreneurs that have created 40 companies that employ 400 employees, that have raised over $100 million. And then again, not being a special person, not having any power to take this program nationally, I reached out to friends who were in other states and we created together a non profit that has rolled this program out nationally. And the program has now been launched called the Global EIR program. As you heard, it's now been launched in New York, Chicago, Boulder, and most recently in San Jose. And helping immigrants in all of those areas get H1B visas. But here's the message for you. I think David McCullough's speech to those Wellesley High School kids was to take them down a peg. My point to you, I hope, is to lift you up a little bit. Because as the Attorney General said, these are crazy times, but these are times for citizens like you to step up. I did it because I saw a problem that I thought should be solved, and I found people who could help me in addressing the issue. You all know many, many of the problems that are out there. And together you all can come up with many, many of the solutions if you step up and pursue it. And that's my message to you. Be that special individual that steps up. Because if we all can do it, we can impact the lives of many and we can really make a difference and seize this very unique moment. Thank you very much and thank you.