A Jamaican-American entrepreneur discusses why startup founding feels risky compared to stable corporate jobs, especially in families that value traditional careers. He argues you need visible role models to believe entrepreneurship is possible, and notes that many wealthy Black professionals built wealth through corporate or government work, not startups.
Like, the concept essentially is, and you were probably taught the same thing too, you were supposed to go to school and then get a good job, right, Ryan? Oh yeah, I bought that hook, line, and sinker. Exactly, right? So we were supposed to go to school. So as a Jamaican American, my family's Jamaican, I was raised in the United States, I was supposed to go to school, get good grades, go to college, get a good job. Like, that's it. You take care of your family. And so I think this question is talking about how do you make a— raise that awareness for folks to say, oh, I can also be a startup founder. And that's gonna take years, in a lot of cases, deprogramming. A lot of folks are familiar with the saying of, like, you know, you can't be what you can't see. And so that's why we need a lot of these folks to be able to get these wins out so that other people can see that they can win. But I think the other part of this that we need to make sure to cover, and I'd love to get Mariah's thought on this, is that we have to also acknowledge, like, some of the wealthiest Black people in every city and state are state, state, uh, employees, um, have been teachers, have pensions, have worked for various departments of the government. So like, there's ways to create a good living having done the corporate path or working for government. So like, as we're looking at how to create wealth, like, that is a huge opportunity. I don't want to discourage anyone from it. At the same time, we do need to try and think through, okay, how do we create more opportunities for folks to get educated on being able to start? You've got, you know, you know, Black Girls Who Code, you've got Code2040, and all these different organizations. But I think that part of it is just acknowledging that everyone doesn't have to be a startup founder and that everyone plays a role in the ecosystem.
