{ "text" : "
\n Kim Crayton: E Tell me if you remember low telling if you remember. Well, I'll never forget the Oh,
\n C J Silverio: Welcome to the hashtag called the scene podcast. The show focused on the strategic disruption of the status quo and technical organizations, communities and events
\n Kim: E
\n C: Hello, everyone. And welcome to the days episode of the hashtag cause a scene podcast. This is a guest that I've been, excited about. I actually, she was on stage and I don't think she actually gotten off stage before I sent a d. M. Saying, Hey, you need to come on the shelf. So she was on stage at 2019 J is coffee. You and I'd like everyone to welcome CJ CJ, could you please introduce yourself?
\n Kim: Hi, my name's CJ Silverio. I'm an over 50 woman in Tech, which is a rare breed. I'm told I'm shocked because tech is a really fun place to be. But I think I understand why were rare in tech. I've you probably know me from JavaScript package management, but I had a career before that and I've having a career after that.
\n C: All right, so we're going to dive all into that this conversation. I'm anticipating everyone. Thio kind of meander on. Did you know that's how I do it? I figure things. All right, So this one of these veterans, this is ah, woman over 50 in text. So there's a lot pack because you are definitely a unicorn and I don't use those terms, but yeah, so let's always let's start how we always start. Could you answer my two questions? Why is it important to cause a scene? And how are you causing a scene?
\n Kim: It's important to cause a scene because the only way you ever get significant progress made is by disrupting what's present. You overturn the comfort levels that people have with where they are and you show them Hey, wait. You know, when you put these pieces back together, it's better than it Waas. Sometimes it takes a short, sharp shock to wake them all up. I'm causing a scene right now because I feel that the entrenched situation with JavaScript package management is not good for anybody. And I'd like to see a different thing happened.
\n C: All right, well, you know, we don't pull any punches on this show, so I don't want to get some background. So the first time I met you was at my first very first tech conference when I spoke as Scotland Js
\n Kim: What's that? Your first tech conference. Oh, whoa!
\n C: OK. Scotland J as 2016 was my first tech conference, and I met you then and I don't even think we talk because I was so overwhelmed. I
\n Kim: Remember that now. You were
\n C: Yeah, Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it was It was It was Bring that up. Because Scotland J s is no longer, Scotland. Js coffee. You is no longer and its current form the places where I really have found community. Let's be honest. Let me be honest white people that I trust. It's like where my space is going where my is going. It's hard. Yeah,
\n Kim: Because it takes work, right? Thio, organize the space where people trust you trust is God. Trust is so valuable and so, so often given. And then your fingers were burned,
\n C: Right? yeah, that the status quo believes that trust should be ordained, on them just by default. Right? And and when is it? They gets upset, but marginalized people understand that to do that it will come at our harm will come at our detriment
\n Kim: Chase, can't you the organizer's set up amazing space, make it safe for everyone to be there and safe. And then once that's the case, people go. But even there you had people who were freaking out about the fact that there was a space for people of color and what
\n C: We've had that yeah, had Simone on because we talked about we had to unpack that because it was that was a traumatic experience. So the impetus was to create a space specifically for Black indigenous people of color to go and just for the first time, just fucking relax and breathe without
\n Kim: Having to have a wall of defense.
\n C: Us? Yes. And we felt so comfortable we were in there just having a great time. But just to protect the door of that space. How much push back How much vitriol, How much I'm white and I deserve to be in this space. And why are you excluded? Me was so it was so traumatic. It was just it Z and this is and I'm being bringing this up because this is how it is in tech period. It's we have to justify having not only first of all, we're not included in spaces. And then when we create our own spaces, we have to justify why those spaces don't include everybody else.
\n Kim: It z this OK, I gotta talk a little bit, please, if I can a little bit of a white white feminist, right? OK, I'm a white woman, and I'm absolutely look at me, absolutely
\n C: Tasty. Everybody knows I have problems with white women in tech, so let's unpack
\n Kim: Right now. And, realizing that even though I have had this fight to be a woman attack and to be untold, er person in tech, that doesn't like Intersectionality realizing that your yes, your your struggling but the other people have struggles. And it this doesn't detract from either one of you that sometimes the right thing for me to do is just shut up about my stuff and let somebody else have center stage Doesn't mean my stuff isn't valid. It's just that my stuff is not the only thing. And these these moments where you confront your privileges like What do you mean? This is space in this conference that I can't go to. Actually, there are all kinds of spaces in that conference that people can't go to. Exactly.
\n C: You can't go to the catering space. You can't just make the fuck back there. You can't
\n Kim: Go to the nursing mothers spaces. The speakers were like, What? What? What is it about this space?
\n C: Exactly. Oh, my God. You just OK. So we haven't even talked about that. That is an excellent point off there. Every space we go with, there's created spaces that you that are not for you. Why is it the fact that when Black indigenous people of color decide to have a space for themselves? white people believe that default by the fault, they if they're not invited, that needs to be a reason. And it's reverse racism or whatever the hell that shit iss
\n Kim: Itt's. I don't know. I don't understand this fundamentally right. And then I push myself to tryto find it in myself to like, where's where's my discomfort level? But following you on Twitter is amazing to me. I am e get I get angry a lot When I read things you post, I learn stuff that I've never known before. And I often feel profoundly uncomfortable because, like I get pushed into examining like ways in which, as a white feminist, I have stopped on my own feet and made an ass of myself in the past. OK, great. What can I do now? But try to do better now? And it's just trying to understand, Like take that moment in myself where I say, OK, wait a minute, that's not fair. Oh, no, Actually, it's not about usage is never about you and realizing that that's what's going on with them, like it somehow becomes about them. I don't know why, but it
\n C: Z well, I could tell you why. Because whiteness is always center in anything. Doesn't doesn't send a white is not it za problem. That's that's the honest truth that people do not want to wrestle with, and and when they wrestle with it, what they want, it's like, Oh, I got it and I'm done and it's like, No, there's always e can always find another button to push for you to like, Oh, shit, I'm learning this stuff all over again. And by even as a Black female over at 50 in tech. I recognize that there's some people I need to be quiet and create space for because this is why when the most vulnerable a prioritized everybody is protected.
\n Kim: Right? Right, right, right. This is This is, we're rambling a little bit here, but this is you protect the most vulnerable. You bring them into your space. You give them a place to be who they are and to express what they know, which is not what you know, because their experience in life is so fundamentally different. And from this we make better products. We better like, What are we here for? Like I'm in tech to build things for people. I've been in Texas 30 years because I love building stuff. I'm not everyone I can't build just for myself. That's a tiny fraction of the world. I need to work with people who tell me what other people experiences other people whose experiences are. And in order to hear them, I have to sometimes shut up E square on this podcast.
\n C: Oh, yes, girl. Yes. Oh, hell, yes. Fuck yes, e have to shut the fuck up sometimes. There you go. We curse on this podcast on DSO, and then this is the thing. And it Z, this is the These are the pieces that we miss in. It's not only creating spaces, it's about. And let's go back to your earlier point about trust without trust, nothing happens so you could bring my Black ends into your organization. But if I don't trust you, I'm not helping you build shit. I'm gonna sit there because every time I open my mouth, you're gonna say something or you're gonna do something that tells me you know what? It's not safe to me to challenge what you have to say, and you get no value for me as an employee. The
\n Kim: Reality The reality is that because of people's past experiences, you have to do better than that. You have to actively build trust. You have to actively build safety. You have to signal in a number of deep, consistent ways that you are, in fact, to safe workplace. That people are are not going to get crab
\n C: Way we have to move beyond. We have to move beyond assimilation and accommodation. So it is not bringing people in and say You need to fit our culture fucking fit. That's not what we're saying. It's saying When people come in, your culture needs to shift with every individual that comes in that space and
\n Kim: This is again like like I think people often feel like like they're being told they're bad human beings or something like OK, Mm, It's the It's the hierarchy from identity to behavior, right? Like when? When? When people pull things close themselves, it's very hard for them to take criticism or to think about what they're doing about like what they've done and because of its identity. You are a bad person because you messed this up in the past. If you move it to. I did this thing and it wasn't useful. It hurts somebody. Then it's It's a little bit further away from you. You could say Oh, I behaved badly. I can fix that on DSO. If you could just say OK, these spaces have not been safe in the past. Doesn't mean you're a bad person. You could express it. You're a good person, but actively working to make them better.
\n C: OK, so let me explain to you why this is why that's a challenge. OK, let's do it. Let's unpack this. So, first of all, this is great classroom management, cause this is how you deal with students. You correct the behavior and not so it's like you did a shitty thing. And this is the student shitty thing we won't do again. But it's not like you're a bad person. So those things are very separate. But the reason why people have a problem with this it was whiteness is an individual and everybody else is a
\n Kim: Group s
\n C: So so you have to be a good if I say you did something wrong because you're an individual. Whiteness takes it as a I am a bad person. Where is they? Accept me when I do something because now I represent my whole community. Or if I do some bad, I represent my whole community. And this is the U whiteness has a problem with understanding. This is why my default is all whiteness is racist and can't be trusted by the fall because I don't want to get into these conversations. I don't wanna I'm not going to discuss this. It's you are because you need to decide on what? On the spectrum of racism, are you actively white supremacists or you actively, as you said actively anti racist? Because that's the only way you could be a trust and safety for me?
\n Kim: Yes, and this is the This is the essence, like the the hard road journey of learning What privileges for me is realizing it? Z connected to that assumption of default. This I am a default. So I am an individual. You are other. So you are group right? No, let's flip that. See what that feels like from the other side who that's not comfortable. Guess what that That's like If you're not following him on Twitter, why why are you not following you? Get this experience for free? It's amazing, but you have to be willing todo
\n C: It talks it, but it it breaks down all of these things because again, it's not again when I and that's why I want to bring that up about the classroom management. You're racist by design that is, this your the system that you were brought, It's not. You didn't create it. You benefit from it, and many of you leverage it to your benefit. Now that's when it's a problem. Those individuals who say, Hey, I'm seeing this and I don't wanna be completed, so I'm gonna actively work against this. That's one thing, those who say, But this is a good thing I got. And I'm gonna keep doing this whether it harms people or not. And then I'm gonna play dumb with someone. Brings that shit up to my attention. Those are the people I like to just go the fuck after. I'm just like yeah, yeah, it's time to play. Yep, get comfortable. And then it's time to play
\n Kim: My entry path for this was it's like, OK, I gotta fuck up again in my life. I just know it, you know, like it's fine. I'm like, OK, CJ, it's fine if you fuck up. What matters is what you do with it and what you whether you make amends or not. And whether you change your behavior or not, right? My path, this understanding, this point of view is a white feminist is Thio. Look at all how I model men and how I think about like male privilege works and then just turn that around and say OK, in what ways does that? In what ways Does this work for me? In what ways am I acting like that? OK. And in American society I can't help but be racist. I can't help but benefit from racism. It's like structural. Yes, this is the insight, right? It's not personal. It's structural.
\n C: Exactly. And that's why I like to talk about it as a system level, because this is the systemic. It's not individual. Most people aren't making the individual choice. Most people are just I have bought into the system as you and I are having the same experience and because we're having and you have this something that we having the same experience. The fact that I'm not at the same place is a default in me instead of the system,
\n Kim: Right? Yeah, this is this this insight, it's constantly going for me. And I work right now. I just I just got I don't know if it was promoted demoted, as I'll call it from, ah, technical design position of the company working for it to management company working for. I have like 30 people working on a team that I'm on now and the company I work at now is, cannabis delivery. Illegal cannabis deliveries in California and Oregon. This Oh, boy. You wanna walk into an industry that has a rich and fascinating history with American and racist policing and racist laws and what looks like, you know, deliberate attempt by the Nixon administration to break the back off, Black political movements by imprisoning their leaders for cannabis crimes. I'm not even, like, read about Nixon. The drug laws.
\n C: Yeah. And then you see now how white people are profiting from this very thing
\n Kim: This and OK, but I'm pointing at myself here. Here's a white person benefiting from this. All right, look, let's look at the company. Let's look at what the company is doing systemically to do harm reduction in the communities that have been disproportionately policed to explicitly go out of the way and higher aggressively among people who are underrepresented in tech and overrepresented in those police communities on bond to not take on all this profit too, or white VC nous eso I'm looking at the most diverse Silicon Valley company I've seen in ages right now. It's amazing.
\n C: Yeah, well, that talks that brings us into the why was I d m and us? eso I suck that. So I met c j and 16. I saw CJ. So in 2018, was gonna be the last, Scotland Js It is always the closing keynote of Scotland Js. And so, Peter, who was the organizer? Peter was the organizer of Scotland. Js said, Hey, Kim, I had this idea. People don't know that I'm that I'm not doing this, but I'm not going to do this thing anymore. And I've asked CJ he's just telling me about it, and he's like, Yeah, SCC jsa closing Keynote. But I've asked her if she doesn't mind not being the closing keynote. I was What do you talk? Because I might talk. Didn't even get accepted. So I was like, OK, I want him to be here, right, So and so he's like, Yeah, I want you to be the surprise closing keynote. I was like What? Yeah, I want you to be the surprise closing keynote, and I'm like, What do you mean you're not gonna be on the schedule? You're not gonna do anything. I just want you to go up because I want to end my conference, with a with a exclamation point of what needs to happen. Absolutely. Get it s Oh, you get up and do your closing keynote. Even my friends don't know what's there's like Like, they're like, Kim, Where you here? I'm like, I'm doing my conference and they're like, OK, yeah, all right. And so So Peter brings it CJ ends and everybody clapped because they're like, Oh, this is over. This is great. And so Peter says, Hey, if you've ever spoken at the conference, come up front and then he just drops the bomb, I'm not gonna be doing this anymore, and everybody's looking like what the fuck? But I knew what was going on. I was like, OK, Andi. Then he says, So I'm out to stay on the stage and he's everybody's giving these applauses. And then he said, What do you do at the end of something? A t end of the concert. And everybody's like, stand innovation. And then he starts clapping. And then everybody leaves but me. So I know there was some right now as white people right there, because they couldn't let not leave. And I talked about that technique a Hippocratic oath, and it's so funny because I just was, like, so on a roll. I just said everything you did in that talk, and it was so funny cause my mom watched it and she's like, Are those right people running out of you? And I was like, Yes,
\n Kim: Yeah, Pete Peterson does an amazing job, is just stepping out of the way. He really is one of the sweetest people. He asked me if I minded and it's just like, shut the fuck up, CJ, and get out of the way for somebody else like, No, don't mind. I've got everything I could possibly want. I don't need
\n C: More Hello, all For many of you, 2020 has turned out to be the year that I've been waiting for the moment for you to realize that fundamental, systemic changes necessary for us to move forward as an inclusive society. Many of you have also realized the importance of protecting and supporting independent voices like my own enforcing this necessary change. This work requires independence because the status quo i e. Corporate blackface doesn't change when power privilege and money can be leveraged against the truth. Which means that your financial support via becoming a hashtag cause a scene sponsor is required. Please visit hashtag called the scene dot com and become a monthly sponsor of the community. Thank you and have a wonderful day.
\n Kim: You can have it. Oh,
\n C: Yeah, That was one of those Amazing. Yeah, that was one of those amazing moments where someone who and I love the fact that they don't he yon and like, the team from, Js company you They don't call themselves ally Simone. They don't do that.
\n Kim: Yeah, that shit's like people who call themselves allies have, in my opinion and experience, been the most the people to watch out for I don't know why it is like eso is something about the need to claim the label, right? I don't
\n C: Know. Well, its's again. I'm a good guy. It's the whole I'm a good person. I mean, you can't. I did this one thing and you can't say that you don't like this thing or this thing didn't help you because I'm Someone told me years ago that I was good at this and so Damn it, I'm gonna be good at this. And you can't take that away from me because I'm on your side. Oh, I love those conversations when I was like, No, fuck your aren't I'm on your side. No, no,
\n Kim: Only you get to say whether somebody is on your side or not, right?
\n C: And that Zatz the power thing, It's like, How can you What? What about what you just said? It's like if you even sat down and thought about it. As you said, when you think about it as a man, as a feminist, if a man tells you this, why would that make you feel? But and it's like people have a hard time self reflecting
\n Kim: Its painful right. OK, like one. It's hard. It's hard to see yourself in the outside like it's why do you Why do I pay a therapist? Because that's very hard to do. And I can't like you active practice and doing it and often active feedback saying, No, C. J. You were just a really bad spouse to your partner there, you know, from from that level on right, and also it's just like this. This shame thing like of course, you feel shame when you when you realize that you've heard people. I said something homophobic to a friend of mine when I was 19 years old. Freaking haunts me, right? But it's not about like it. It's not about me. It's about him and how our relationship is now and how he feels now.
\n C: OK, It's not about your intention, but your
\n Kim: Impact.
\n C: OK, so c j is on the stage. So when I get when I get thio J s coffee, you I'm hearing these whispers. People are like, Oh, my God Damn were being I'm like, What the fuck is going on with NPM? Because I'm like, people are just sorry to me. And I'm like, I'm like, have I? I've been dealing with this so much. I've missed this whole story and they're like, first is gone. And these things I'm like
\n Kim: What
\n C: Exactly? Exactly. So I'm hearing these whispers, and then C J is the closing keynote on the first day. And so I just happened. So I don't People should know me. No, I don't go to talks. I go to my talk and then I usually get the hell out of there because it's just too much emotional labor and just tired. Oh, yeah.
\n Kim: Speaking of,
\n C: Oh, my God, it's exhausting. But I have been hanging out in the BIPAC space and so I was chilling. So I was like, Let me go see CJ So I'm sitting on the on the little couches to the side. I'm not even in the, like, the really good seats. I'm just like, sitting off to the side and I'm playing on my phone and C J stars to talk. And I started looking at her slides and like, oh, shit! And then he goes on like, Oh, whoa! Oh, shit. Oh! Oh, shit. Oh, shit. She said it. Oh, shit. Way. Got to talk about money, right? Right. E I want you to take some time and tell people what this talk was about because I was just like, Oh e Oh, damn. Yeah,
\n Kim: I pitched this talk. I pitched this talk to Young like late in 2018. It's funny you talk about like I go home from Scotland gs to find that my company has a new CEO and everything has changed. I was out very shortly thereafter. But I pitched this talk to Young Leonard because I thought, OK, I have a version of the story of MPM that is, it's unique to me, and all of these stories are like they come with points of view and they come with, like, in perfect information. But I thought, There's an awful lot of people in JavaScript who don't know how NPM came to be. Don't know why it's in the position it's in and don't aren't aware that there are options. At that point, I had sort of decided that there needed to be another option. And in December, when I pitched the talk, I didn't have another option. All I wanted to do was say two to job script users you take. This is a fact of life. But there was a time before it, and there could be a time after it, and you might actually have to contemplate this time afterward, after it, because companies don't last forever. Why do companies not last forever? Because because they exist for a very specific purpose. This is about money about VC capital. We often go to these conferences and we're thinking, this is a community experience. We're talking about the fact that we all happened too, right? Websites and this brings us together and we don't often think about the way. Don't often just call attention to the underlying motivations of the flow of capital in all of this and how it affects everything. And we don't think about the fact that one company owns all of open source JavaScript, but it has owners and those owners might not be aligned with the needs of the community. I wanted the community to ask the question. OK. Is this what we actually wanted? It kind of happened, and most of us came along after it was a fact. But But if we had to think about it and make a choice, would we do it that way? What's where? The trade offs, right? S o I I wrote this talk. It was it was actually kind of depressing because, you know, I talked about the story of mpm know how the story of, like, how job script package management, like all language package management, is expensive. People, people build a lot of open source software and they just install it from places they get it from Get hub. It costs them nothing. Don't think about the cost of what it takes for that thing to be there in the first place. And those costs air. Really, I had just lived them for four years, so I I knew, you know, intimately what it costs or mpm to bring. What it brings to the job script community about. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about who's making the money from. This isn't making the money from this and what control we give up. Let somebody else own it. Eso there's there's a million things to say. I didn't say any fraction of them when I had this incredibly
\n C: Depressant. Well, I thought it was. That's what they say. It was depressing. End up depressed. It was quite yeah, energizing. Quite. It was quite like, Yeah, let's go March. Let's do this thing. Let's create this thing. So
\n Kim: That was That was a twist one month before the conference, one month before the the date I had to give it, my dear friend and colleague Chris Dickinson left in P. M. And I said to him, Hey, Chris, you're out now. I have this design document. Could you are you may be interested in taking a look at it. He says, Well, I haven't written code at ages. I would just love to do this. And so he took my design document, and he he gave it back to me with only one sentence remaining for my initial draft. That was the sentence where we should use Ember. Eso literally. He changed everything on. And it was It was It was the most refreshing experience I've had had in a while. And so one month before, jazz coffee, Utah, Chris and I just came up with a design for our Federated Package
\n C: Ecosystem. Oh, shit. I thought you'd been wonderful. Wow.
\n Kim: No
\n C: Way
\n Kim: We wrote. We wrote it was absolutely It was It was such pleasure. I he and I, we wrote a version of the M Pam registry of the that used the m p m. A p I. We wrote that we got it working and he said, You know what? This isn't the right idea. We threw all our code out and then we came. Then we came. We we wrote the AP That was ours. Onda, We, who wrote the federation design doc, and since then have been moving forward very slowly on on the rial implementation much more slowly this time because it has to be built to last. And because I got this terrifying demotion in the management, she has consumed my brain. But it's so
\n C: Funny. It's so funny that you talk about that because I'm sure you're aware of since you follow me, you're aware of the girl development debacle.
\n Kim: Oh, God, yes.
\n C: And that I'm on the chairman of the board of a new organization called We Pivot. Oh, yeah, that came out of that debacle. And we're moving slow slowly for that very reason we're being very deliberate. We're being very intentional. Were being very think long term. Yeah.
\n Kim: So long term. Don't go for the short s.
\n C: Yeah, we are. We started in Theo end of last year, beginning of this year, and we're still we're just at, we have some identify beta chapters, and we're just, trying because we're doing from a bottoms up strategy. Where is every community on disses where these organizations are? I think a lot of them failing and fall into the issues that they fall into is, although we are will be our national organization. Every community is different. And so that means that community leads in. Each community must do a needs assessment. If we're saying we're prioritizing the most marginalized, I need to see data that tells me what you've done to identify what they what the who those individuals are and what they need. Because I could tell you like Atlanta, we don't way have a chapter here run by Alicia Car. We don't need classes. We got classes coming out the wazoo. How else can we support the most marginalized in tech community? So each community is gonna look different and that takes
\n Kim: Time? It's far more work, but
\n C: Up front funding exactly, because we have a needs assessment and then that information is gonna be funneled And what the national, what we're doing as a board. Our role is to support what the community's air saying so that, communication processes air in there. Legal processes are in, their financial processes are in there. We have 501 C three all those things, so they don't have to worry about those things. You just have to do the work on the ground, and that takes time.
\n Kim: Structure. It's about
\n C: People, well, everybody. For me, it's about It's got to be about process procedures and on and policies because most people currently do not have a business organization. What they have is an organization and a product or service. They do not have a business because there's no product. There's nothing that's replicate herbal. There's nothing. I mean, it's like they're making it up the same shit up every time it happens. It's, this
\n Kim: Is such a waste of time. Someone has done this before. I learned from them, right. A process.
\n C: Write it down. You wanna automate the human out of every damn thing,
\n Kim: You know, this is this is how we This is how we do things more effectively. You know, this used this freaking automation to do good things or just just don't reinvent wheels people. You don't have to just everything
\n C: Well, and and And this is one thing I tweeted about this the other day. Unfortunately, much of the innovation that happens in tech has a negative versus, effect on marginalized communities.
\n Kim: Oh, God. What was that? was the essay. It was five truths about Tech. It was like every disruptive technology hurts someone. It takes something away from someone. This this God, I have to find the society
\n C: Because because it is perfect and it's the It's the equalizer. It's No, it's not it Z. Even if we had the most diverse teams providing the most diverse solutions, Tech is going to supplant something.
\n Kim: Yeah, well, your audit, your automating right. This automates people out of a job like it's very obvious, like very classic example of the manufacturing sector in the United States, which manufacturing is coming back to the U. S. But it looks
\n C: Very, very different.
\n Kim: And this is inevitable. The people who will invent this disruption will tell you because they have built in incentives to tell you this. It's fine. It's great. It's an unalloyed good. But in fact there's always there's always winners and losers. Someone gains by that automation. And
\n C: And that's why I beat people over the head with Tech is not neutral, and it's definitely, definitely not a political.
\n Kim: Did you see the article in the verge where they interviewed the man who built the retweet button for tweet Twitter?
\n C: Yeah, he's Yeah, He's like, Oh, I made a mistake that did it,
\n Kim: You know, because you don't think he I think he woke up after the fact that oh, wait. Taking friction away from this action had a whole set of consequences. It wasn't on. And I like, good. The same thing that lets me retweet that so that your picture of pair of links kittens also lets people retweet absolute crap.
\n C: Mm hmm. But the thing, though, is there's another part of that. People have people who are the most marginalized, have learned, figured out ways to adapt to that, and so that we've learned. We've we've come up with strategies like OK, we understand, cause we've always had challenges and everything we do. So we're like, OK, this is the playing field. How do we make how do we make this work for us? And so you wanted to re examine the likes and the Retweet button is not the issue. My issue is everybody's everybody's, language or conversation is not equal. And that's what I need you to deal with. I need you to deal with the harmful racist, bigoted bullshit on there and leave the retweet in the like button. Leave what? You've taken care off. We could deal with the stuff. It was because the fact But again and and I'm I'm talking through this. The reason that the Retweet button is a problem is because it's an effect of the fact that you treated all languages saying, Yes, everybody the same. So it's not Don't put it on the damn Retweet button the Retweet but is not the problem. It was the conditions and the understanding of the privilege and the lack of perspective. Have Thio believe that Oh, every all languages equal. Let's be centrist. And so that's how you got that out of hand. Same thing with bots. Same thing with a whole bunch of stuff. You don't need somebody's, birth name too, to verify them. So you don't have to out somebody you have. Everybody has to damn have the email to get on there. Why the fuck are some people? Have the blue check isn't blue Check? You said it was for verification. Why the fuck did I have to do it three times and still not get verified because you told me all it was was to prove that I am who I am. What else can I give you? Asked besides, what the fuck I gave the government to get my passport to to prove that I'm who the fuck I am.
\n Kim: Why you're so many men verified. And somebody Oh, my God.
\n C: Now. And not only that, but now, since they stopped those since they quote unquote stopped verifying, why are people who are getting verified? No people at Twitter. So now you've created it Worse situation.
\n Kim: Twitter. Twitter is an absolutely fascinating example of this. Like the political choice to say free speech is an absolute right. That's kind of the early Twitter founders like thing free speech is an absolute. The problem with that is, of course, that they're white got their white men. Their their default experience of the world is radically different from the majority around them who have a very different experience. Refusing Thio to suppress speech that they find unwelcome actually means that the diversity of speech is reduced because people, people are silenced. People are afraid to speak. People are gated
\n C: Off tools. You put in the place for that have been used against the people were speaking out against it. They end up
\n Kim: With less speech rather than mawr. Is that actually what they wanted? Probably not. But can you get them to think that way? I don't think anyone has succeeded to get Jack Dorsey to
\n C: Think No. Because every time, Jack, because the interview or hey talks about shit, that doesn't matter to me. I'm like, Dude, how the fuck did your parents get verified? What the fuck? I don't care if they're on Twitter. Why do they need to be verified? I'm going after. Who the hell are they? If they could be verified is Jax mother and father? Why the hell cannot be verified? It's Kim crazy. At this point, I could give a fuck about being verified. I actually give a fuck about followers because what I found is, I have, what, 606,000 something followers. I'm gonna tell you. Only 10% of them are actively engaged. Actually, support me financially or whatever the rest of you the rest of these lazy ass people are just hanging on and doing that and getting a free education and giving absolutely nothing back and being the parasites that most people are. And I that's just me. So I I don't care about Twitter followers, so you could take them. They asked to, they mean absolutely nothing to me. I'm a Black woman running the business if you're not helping me financially are giving me into a community or net helping me network to build my business. All right, all this is a one way street, and I'm like, Yeah, I could take that away from you anytime. My damn want
\n Kim: Thio,
\n C: Tell people that's why I started that on the home page. It's just like PBS. If you believe in this work, you can sponsor me for $100 a month. This community has it. And no, I'm not Lauren it because there are enough people who can afford $100 a month that the people who can't you subsidizing them as well. You're lazy. Sorry ass people. I'm giving you shit for free. You can Well, I'm not giving it for free. You need to support it because this is the problem. People want inclusion and diversity until it means you have to do something. It's not even giving up something because most people in tech piss away $100 in in in the evening.
\n Kim: Yeah, they go out and God needs sushi. In San Francisco, there's 100 bucks gun.
\n C: Exactly.
\n Kim: Yeah, this is my friend. And I would challenge you continue to do a matching matching political donations thing. And she she named a sum that I thought, Oh, that's I'll notice that money. And I'm like, Yeah, that's the fucking point. You'll notice that money. Let Z You're rich. Literally like wealthy white person in tech it. I'm over 50. I'm making good money. This just makes me remarkably unusually United States. I can say little bit
\n C: Away. So I So I expect you to start sponsoring. Yeah, that's just step. I expect you to start sponsoring the podcast. And how does one sponsor you kids? It's on the home page. Hashtag I'll just seen dot com There's ah, sponsorship button right there. It's $100 a month. Yep. Mm. There you go. But I want to talk about more about this federation because what problems as it is it actually solving? Because we've got into it in the talk. And I really want people to understand, because I'm having this conversation now with these VC funded boot camps. Because I see, I see a really issue a misalignment with how
\n Kim: Land of school in particular, right?
\n C: Yeah. How How How effective learning happens when it when it tries to align with V C money.
\n Kim: Thing is, this is this is an interesting trade off the centralization versus federation tradeoff. Ok, we were just talking about Twitter. This is a great launching point, right? Twitter is centralized. This is extremely convenient for everyone. Using Twitter, you sign up on one place, you get a bunch of APS, they'll twitter introduces a new feature. It's introduced everywhere all at once. They scale it now that they've solved that problem. You you know, you tweet and 100,000 people see it in seconds, which is, quite frankly, in a great technical achievement on all that is possible because they centralized. They have one server. They managed everything. But this has a downside in that that the those that bank of servers, the mass collection of things that is twitter, it's super freaking expensive to run it costs a lot. And one rule. Jack Dorsey gets to decide what is acceptable speech for everyone on his platform. And he gets Thio ban people for quoting the princess bride. Just literally something that happened to someone in the why
\n C: They got the first time I got banned was because somebody came after me and I told him to go play in traffic and they reported me for us inciting suicide.
\n Kim: Yeah. Yeah, that's that's That's not that was not the meaning of your speech.
\n C: Particularly when you attacked me. That there's a Yeah, you I was gonna be banned. I would have said something much worse than that, then. OK, Right.
\n Kim: Eso so? OK, centralization, Twitter. What do you do about it? There's this This, this thing called Mastered on over Over exists in the world right now. Like thousands and thousands of people using vested on, it uses an open a P. I called activity pub in the Jeremy way. We all we have of naming our specs, anyone could run a mastered on instance set up rules for themselves, but what they allow and what they don't allow set of rules about like what content they allow in and what they don't allow in. And at the same time, because everything is using the same a p I. You can trade messages back and forth, so most of the time I'm not actually posting on Twitter. I'm posting on mastered on talking to master on people on a wide variety of servers, all of which are like catering to their own groups. And they might have entire communities that exist that I can't see because they're over there doing their thing. But we can interact. And so that's federation. It's actually a really old fashioned idea for the Internet, the Internet, and it start was Farm. Or like this email, in essence, is Federated. There's no one single central email server. There are millions of email servers that talk the same AP that exchanged messages all the time. He was net. Ah, very old Internet, concept was another like Federated Thing, where you had a set of rules for trading messages around Ah the recently Europe the Internet did. This is centralization was like, literally impossible. There wasn't enough bandwidth for everyone to go toe one website or one thing one server, get all the email you had to distribute the load because it was cheaper and everyone that just use less bandwidth for you. You only needed the bandwidth for what you wanted,
\n C: Thio. Because now I'm thinking about this is when I seen in my Internet history when it was at colleges and it was when it was at university government. Yeah, Yeah,
\n Kim: Exactly. It wasn't. It wasn't It was still expensive by modern terms because, like like having an Internet connection, being on the Internet was unusual,
\n C: But it was. But the packages gold jump. It wasn't like a straight shot. Exactly.
\n Kim: Yeah, but we saw in the two thousands and through the teens is huge. Huge centralization push because it's just convenient. It's much more easy to just go to Facebook, where everybody is than to run your own blogged or post on Tumblr.
\n C: OK, OK. So now you're OK. Let's say I love these conversations because now you're talking about this is why I went on medium. And now why the fuck I'm coming off medium and putting off? Yes, this is exactly e don't like Yes, yes, medium was fine. And now they're acting the ass. Trying to people in all kinds of craziness and medium
\n Kim: Is medium is the same. It's the same thing as the MPM story. Again, like medium is a OK. All right, it's BC and one of the early Twitter people. Who the heck is that? That's F ev Williams. Hey, sold blogger block spot or something to Google he's been doing. He's been in reinventing the same thing over and over again. But medium has a profit motive. Right? And they're making these changes now. They're requiring people to have a log in in order to read the the messages to direct with them because they need a way to monetize. Why did they need in my eyes? So it's expensive.
\n C: Yeah, but And also they make it. This is one of these. So I coming off and I want to go back to the free account. Why can't I find the shit that I get that would cancel my membership? Why can't I find it? Why does shit is that? Why is that so hard to find? Oh, Goto, Because you signed up with iTunes. It's not in iTunes. Where the hell is this? Why? Why Can't I stop giving you my money? Oh, that was just me ranting.
\n Kim: What incentive do they have to make it easy for you to stop? Exactly.
\n C: And you can always see the you for some for me, I can always see the rejected the the point when if they haven't had BC money before or or and it's there for. But I can always see the point in the in the in the operations, not in the business model, cause most of them are still trying to figure out the fucking business model. But you can always see in the operations it's time to start paying VC back or when because they start doing this strange shit. There's like, Wait a minute. Where is this coming from? It doesn't. It doesn't align with anything they've ever done in the past.
\n Kim: They've just suddenly had a reality check where they try to get another round of funding and we're told no pure numbers don't look enough. You're going to change them. Something was exactly true with MPs, By the way, there was a moment where they were trying to raise another round. The B. C said Nope. You gotta hire a new CEO. In order for us to trust you. This is It's completely typical. Move right, Azad Point, They brought in a new CEO. Who's got Who wants the pivot, right? M p m. As the company was always It was very mission driven. All of the people I hired a mission driven. I was myself hired because of the mission, which is run. Run the public job Script Registry. That was the only thing that mattered to me. Really? so absolutely fascinating experience I have. I've had a blessed career. I'll say this. Anyone who asked I've worked with some amazing
\n C: People. I mean, the fact that the 1st 1st were you Because I know Richelle Richelle was second. And you were third.
\n Kim: No, it was It was It was the first employee, and I was the second employee.
\n C: Yeah. OK, so I had to run. So it's like the first. The first two employees were women. What's a woman of color? So that right when you said that cause I didn't know that. And when you said that I was like So Rocky was the first? Oh,
\n Kim: Yeah. Yeah. She was number one
\n C: E love Rocky. It's like now I hope she made some money. Yes, I love Rocky. Yes, yes, yes. I actually met her the first time in Scotland. Jesse, that's what I love about Scotland. Just like that was my like,
\n Kim: She she was your Your company culture is set by the time you're 10 people, they say, And I kind of believe it. Robot was hugely influential on on M p m culture as it originally was. The fact that it was not a drinking culture and had chocolate in the office, not beer. That that we intentionally attempted to use inclusive language everywhere we had a guy's jar or if you accidentally said, Guys Thio refer to a mixed gender group of people dollar in the jar, you know, and eventually this it's like it. It serves its purpose. You start thinking about the words you're using. Thio refer to groups of people and just consciously controlling it in ways that I don't I personally don't care about guys or I didn't when I got started on that, But I'm like, OK, she wants this. I'll do it now. I like I feel like that was the revelation like Oh, shit, Yeah. Being conscious about language is maybe it's a little bit of work, but it's not exactly I don't feel better. I'm gonna do
\n C: It. I had a conversation with somebody recently about that. Now he's in the military. I was like, Do you coming out in two years? I need you to practice your civilian language. So eso eso if they like, if they want they and you think it's incorrect English? Who the fuck created English? white people. So if they this person says that they are they and they are singular person to you, they are fucking they That's
\n Kim: Just how it goes. That's like, Don't be rude thes things air mystifying to me now I don't definitely my So I'm gonna be a moved me changed me positively in these
\n C: Way Everyone in the hashtag called the same community shares the same common beliefs Based on a set of four specific guiding principles. One tech is not neutral. Nor is it a political to intention. Without strategy is chaos. Three lack of inclusion is a risk and increasingly a crisis management issue. And lastly but most importantly, four. We must prioritize the most vulnerable to find out more about the guiding principles and adding them to your Twitter profile banner. Please visit hashtag caused a scene dot com moved me,
\n Kim: Change me
\n C: Positively on. And that's what's That's why I was so shocked because I had heard so many great things about 10 p.m. And it seems like it turned on the dime. It was like, Yeah, it was like I was hearing these great thing. And now that I know what you said, you came back to Scotland. Yes, And when you came back, it was a new CEO. I'm like, Oh, shit, no wonder.
\n Kim: Well, you know, it turns out it turns out that, like people just say, I'm gonna be very careful. Yes, People call themselves allies aren't necessarily always allies. So time it's just a PR thing that they're doing it to attract people to their companies so they can hire them for less money
\n C: Than usual. Yes. Oh, my God. Yes, I got So that's what people ask me how the hashtag cause the same start. It was because I got sick of people wanted me to do because I'm first of all, not inclusion and diversity specialists. But people wanted me to talk about these things at these conferences and all flying me around the world, Andi Then trying to do the hallway track and pick my brain. And I'm like, No, that's a consulting film, not answering that question for free, But then you don't hear anything else. He's like, Oh, Rod, Rod! Rod, this is so great. And then they do. Absolutely. That shit happened. Me? I was so mad at no community. All the no Js community. Oh, I was them. I did. You know that to know conferences in 2017 Interactive November and it was right after Rod had the blow up on Twitter. And yeah, exactly. And so I specifically, no foundation brought me into two key note note interactive Had all these people in the com com team all these Great. Oh, yeah. We're gonna interview you. I mean, we're gonna hire you. That data never hear a fucking Pete from these individuals.
\n Kim: Nothing. Yeah, Yeah. The note community note, particularly the no foundation had some rocky times there. Yes, absolutely. Stand up, Human. Being Tracy is
\n C: Love Tracy Love Tracy. I
\n Kim: Will also say nice things about miles borns.
\n C: Who has? She probably was the one who brought me in.
\n Kim: Yeah, Methodically playing the long
\n C: Game. Yeah.
\n Kim: And he's Yes. Tyranny. Also bank. Yeah. Yeah, they have
\n C: Fixed it. Yeah. Yeah. And again, these are people. That's what I love about going to these conferences because you get to see these these individuals that you that just have this like because I remember the last 2018. And, Jay as coffee you Miles was d j.
\n Kim: I heard Miles d j at a early node camp. This was sort of the heart breaker for me. I know it was. This is gonna sound funny, but no, it was my first experience with open source. And, my very first tech conference community tech conference was Cascadia Js my It was followed my very first tech conference, which was note, note cough in that little camp in Marin. And, you know, all of these people were so welcoming to me. And like I met Rod Vague and my very first one, he he knew my name. He said, Oh, you wrote a module that used this because that's how small the community was It was just such a shocker to realize wheat, This guy. What happened, Thio? Did all this come
\n C: From its and see? That's why I have to challenge you. Your Yes, Exactly. That's why I challenge you. Because always waiting for the others are surprised when the other shoe drops. There is no to this shit white supremacist designed to get worse. So yes, these these individual was comfortable for him to hide. Well, I'm not gonna say hide it. Thes individuals didn't because the Costa cons because his issues were close to conduct. And so when he there weren't close to conduct, you didn't You didn't make him uncomfortable. It's in when you start doing things they say, Well, we might wanna rethink this behavior that it becomes he's in this part of these individuals come out just like everybody's like, Well, we were just in the US Were this country is different. Yeah, No, it's different for white people. This the same shit that Black people have been dealing with. So it's new for you, but it's not new for us. So that means you've been completely oblivious to the lived experiences of millions of people and It's like, Oh, my God, I can't believe this happened. You can't really really You keep
\n Kim: It was there was there along
\n C: I'm along all along. Eso some I saw something today. Some of some of the GOP is different from It was 30 years ago when Reagan No, Fuck, it wasn't. It's the same. They just had hoods on back then. There is no difference.
\n Kim: Oh, Reagan. They use code phrases.
\n C: Exactly. Way now. It's just, you know, he just flat out and I love it. Oh, keep talking, dude. Keep talking. Keep showing all the shit. Just please, please. I love it every time he gets on. I'm like, yeah, this is who you people are. And if you don't like this, then you better do something because he's gonna be president again. I've said it. We've got
\n Kim: Kids in concentration camps. Mm. Are as Americans. We're not better than that. That is
\n C: Exactly way are exactly didn't care when they were when they thinking Black babies from moms for years over this, let's go back to cannabis and all this. You didn't drug epidemic when it was crack, but now that it's opioids, we have to put all this money and give a fuck about it. Yeah. OK. Whatever that's happening. White people. OK?
\n Kim: Suddenly suddenly we have to medicalized Yeah. In prison
\n C: Instead of criminalizing. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
\n Kim: I e Oh, God.
\n C: Gotta love it. Gotta love. I'm just weeping, you know, we'll see. And that's what. But I don't People like how do you stay optimistic? Because I could not have this show. I could not have this movement. I could not have be doing any of this. When I met you, I was talking about mentoring. The election hadn't happened yet. I could not be having this conversation if you were for the results of that election. Because people were still saying, Oh, hell, we're post racial. We had a president like
\n Kim: President.
\n C: Why are you talking about race? Why are you being so sensitive? We don't have racism anymore. Blah blah, blah, blah, blah. And now I could just look and smile in your face and say, Fuck you.
\n Kim: Yeah, I don't It's really hard for me to believe anybody would say that like, this is where the post racist
\n C: Well, I don't think they believe that it so clearly not true. I don't know. Well, I don't see it again. You're giving whiteness to benefit it out. If whiteness does. If whiteness is never examined, you don't see it so you don't have to see it. You don't see you again believe that we're all having the same experiences. And if Kim says that something happened to me, then it must have been Kim. What did you dio? What? That that never happens to me. What? What? What? What? You must have done something.
\n Kim: This is It's so insidious. All of this stuff, like the questions I was reading just this morning. B C. S ask women founders different questions. They ask, what are the risks of women founders? And they asked the male founders, What are the upsides? OK, I want to see that study on what they do with found founders who aren't
\n C: White. First given, fucking give a fuck about founders in the way they think we don't even exist. So because,
\n Kim: You know, it's it's this This is where it lies. It lies in the unconscious questions in the things that come out. When you're not thinking in the questions, you ask like that I growth mindset man. I talk about this periodically, like how I think the only way we could survive in this situation is the growth mindset. Things can get better. We personally can change. It might be work, but it's possible.
\n C: And this is the reason I'm just trying to keep people optimistic. When I when I am, I am. When I'm in my moments of giving a fuck, it's We're trying to create something that was never meant to exist. We will mess up. We will make mistakes. We are all trying to figure this out. We just need Thio. If you prioritize the most vulnerable, these are the These are the guiding principles of hashtag cause a scene prioritized the most vulnerable tech is not neutral strategy, intention with our strategy is chaos and lack of inclusion is a risk management issue. If you could remember those four things when you're doing the work, we'll get there.
\n Kim: Lack of inclusion is a risk is a is causing risk. That's like one of the one of your themes that I just love. I think about that one. I'm pretty often like whose point of view might not representing here. His point of view, it could be hard
\n C: Who could be harmed? That I didn't even know about Because I don't have any idea of that perspective is like just sitting Tatiana and I talked about this, that you keep sending Canarias down the coal mine, they keep not returning, and you keep sending them down. At some point, it's like, Fuck, there's something going on in the coal mine. Yeah,
\n Kim: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're killing Canarias. Maybe you should. We've got the signal. Hang up the phone and do something about it, right?
\n C: Yeah, instead of OK, well, we need more data. Can you prove that this is your experience? We did it. And when? Oh, when they start that, that's when I'm just like no bitch. I don't have to prove my damn lived experience to you when someone from a marginalized community says they're being harmed. Just believe them the first time.
\n Kim: Yeah, you worry about well, this worry about false accusations. Oh, no. What about the person who's being harmed by the accusation? Goddammit! Your centering the wrong person.
\n C: That's what's that's What's that? That's That's what whiteness does. That's what white supremacy is all about.
\n Kim: Because It's the default,
\n C: Right? Exactly. That's why I don't tell me. African American. I am a U. S. Citizen. I'm a Black person in us because us is the default we use American default for there's a north, Central and South America. So why are we using this as a default globally? English fault? there's so many privileges we have as U. S citizens that are the default internationally that benefit us in so many different ways. I
\n Kim: Think about this when I think about OK climate change, climate change, and energy usage and resource usage. It is if either of us, as American citizens, US citizens, attempt to do anything about our energy usage. We have such a freaking hard time to do it because of the society around us that sets it, sets it up. That's very hard for us to be anything but absurdly wasteful. Compared Thio 22 people in nations without are like resource is overflowing at us. It's it's like it's structural around us again. Like I keep going to the structural metaphors to try to bring it
\n C: Home. Well, I'm happy you're doing it because I need people to understand these air systems. And this is another reason, because so even when the climate change our conversation or argument, you have these white liberals who are now Oh, let's talk about climate change. And then they get upset with with particularly Black people were like, You know what? Climate change issue is a nice toe half, but we need you to stop killing us in the street. That's a must. So, because you don't have those issues, you focus all your fucking attention on climate change. We'll get there. I mean, we ain't holding you up, but we like to know I'd like to leave, come back home safely every day,
\n Kim: I get shot and then have get shot, get shot on film and then have nothing done about it yet. General United States
\n C: Still doing what I did to deserve that. Yeah. I would like that to stop before we I can't even think about climate change, eh? So, yeah, climate change. I hate to see the plastics in the ocean. I hate to see all these other things, but you know what? I can't see the plastic in the ocean if I get pulled over or I get shot because some damn white man decided I said the wrong thing that was Here's
\n Kim: This is vessels hierarchy of needs. Yes, exactly. Basic survival stuff is here. And then you know this This thing that matters
\n C: Is above that goes back to when you're talking about intersectionality when you on Lee had. And this is my problem with feminism because feminism is and this is why defaults to white feminism. Because when you expect and often demand that I only focus on gender, What you're saying is you're erasing the other parts of me that are that are potentially harmful. And from a Black woman, I don't get I don't get harassed or whatever For my gender, it is my race. So this is how white feminism happens when you because everybody So it's like, Oh, we're gonna We're only gonna talk about those things. We have the same Well, you only have the one fucking thing. So you have all the energy, the world, the world talk about gender. I got I got a fight on two fronts fronts.
\n Kim: This this this particular was uncomfortable for me. Following you is confronting this and then you know you do some reading on the history of feminism, he realized. Oh, look, Heller. Isis. There the suffrage read this amazing article in The New Yorker about the history of the suffrage movement, which had its absolutely
\n C: Started guard. Yes, they got to choose. They got to choose, and they prioritize. Whiteness. Yes.
\n Kim: Yeah. And this after having these, like Native American peoples as models for inclusive societies and having Black women and key figures in the early suffrage movement, they just
\n C: Yeah, because they said that Black man, We're going to get the vote. No, no, no. Yeah, that's my thing. That's why I say whiteness is so fucking ignorant. You're ignorant of your own history. By design. You've been fed this history that, you know, whiteness is always the victim or the hero. It is never the oppressor. So when I say your oppressive than that, you have to go in attack mode and it becomes an individual. So now you again, we're circling back. I'm a good person. I can't be an oppressor. I'm either hero or victim.
\n Kim: But guess what? It's not about you. The human. It's not about you. Individually, it's about the category. It's about the structure it's
\n C: About, you know, it could be it could be you as individual if you If you also accept that is me as an individual and that's the problem because you don't accept me as an individual. It's never so. That's what I tell people. It's never about fucking equality. I don't need equality. If there is no way in hell you're gonna I'm gonna ever be equal to a white man and Tech because he has too many privileges that I need his ass to go to sleep like Rip Van Winkle. Don't wake the fuck up. I get access to his money, his his network, his his, his education, all this other shit. If he
\n Kim: Holds assumptions that people make when they talk to him, that he's
\n C: Competent you exactly all those things. And then if he ever wakes up that he crawls while I'm running, there's no because if he ever gets to my speed, he's gonna pass me because of all those things. Yeah,
\n Kim: This is It's so hard to get through to people. E don't know it. So it was. I'm sure there are ways in which I'm just failing to get it even now. But it's like, Wait, it's not your fault. This is what the invisible knapsack is. You aren't aware of this, but it's really and it's there. It's a structural benefit that you have that the people around you don't. If you care about that, it's up to you to actively take steps to put give boosts to people.
\n C: Yes, care whether they deserve it. That's why I'm not impressed with these people. Oh, my God. These white men in tech who have you know, the 50 k or plus followers and want to say, Well, yeah, what I do when someone asked me to speak is I say, Well, give my speaking opportunity Shit the fuck. I don't want your handoffs. What? I want you to create some shit for me. I don't need you to say Oh, I'm not going to speak or donate that money. No, I need to. When somebody comes to you Says you know what Kim needs to be. Not on Lee speaking there, but she needs to be paid that data and not what else am I gonna do? Oh, I know some people in my network who could benefit from Kim's work. That's how I'm gonna baby. I don't need no fucking speaking agreements. Let me speaking thing conferences. That's a one shot deal I need, if you're willing. OK, let me speak directly to white people in privileged who think they're doing something text if you're not. And this goes to, Black tech twitter. Paris. There's a young Black woman who's doing Black tech Black linked in If you all us individuals, If there's something you want us to do, I would say, Hey, Kim, let me let me D M Kim, let me email Kim and say, Hey, I have this network. How can I fit you into this network? Who can I connect you with? That's what the fuck I need. I'm not impressed with a speaking engagement. I get my own goddamn speaking engagements.
\n Kim: People should be People should be knocking down your door trying to get you to
\n C: Talk. No, they don't. You know how you know Good. Damn well, that night I make people way too uncomfortable. E rocket, reported for code of conduct violation. Dammit! Every conference on my speaking. Yes, but
\n Kim: Fucking I shouldn't be surprised.
\n C: Exactly see, I need you to stop being surprised. You know,
\n Kim: You're right. You're right. I shouldn't be surprised. Of course they do it. I
\n C: E no. Why? And there reason is and it's so funny because they'll say, Kim, I'm like, yeah, what they say Either She made me uncomfortable. This was inappropriate. It was the same shit. That's what my third slide is. Always much my content warnings. I'm here to make white people uncomfortable. I'll let you know up front that you're gonna be uncomfortable. But that's their That's the reason. So not sexual harassment. None of the things that are serious e made them uncomfortable and they thought it was inappropriate. I get so yeah, No, I'm not for everybody. And I understand that
\n Kim: The difference between punching up and punching down it's very hard for a lot of people.
\n C: Yeah, so that's what's so everybody who hears this, you are not helping me. If you're not helping me scale this message now that there's absolutely I could care less. But if you're not introducing me to your network, that I'm not impressed. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not impressed, and that's that's the problem. That's why I could give a shit about 16. I mean, 6000 followers, because shit, 5900 of them ain't doing shit.
\n Kim: I'm not doing enough. It's OK.
\n C: No, you're not. You're not?
\n Kim: No, of course I'm not right. Like it's like I don't know if there's ever going to be a spot in which I could ever say I
\n C: Don't know. It is not. Yeah, and that's what I need people. There is no finish line. There is no finish line.
\n Kim: When death comes over us, then we're done.
\n C: But then, no, I don't say that because I hope you left a legacy that continues on it. It helps benefit other people.
\n Kim: Yeah, that's really think about that. Like what really matters to me more than anything else lifting up everyone around me in whatever way I can and being lifted up by them
\n C: Because it's reciprocal because
\n Kim: It's reciprocal and we all end up higher up than we were.
\n C: We get there together or we don't get there at all. Yes,
\n Kim: This
\n C: Eso would you like to say in your final moments on the show? Well,
\n Kim: You know, I'm I'm hiring. I need some infrastructure, people. I need some I need some, you know, Web developers and needs to people who know how to write ghost service in the back end. Come work for a legal cannabis company in San Francisco where you won't be the first or the
\n C: Only person. It's a remote or you have to be in San Francisco.
\n Kim: I am hiring people who aren't in San Francisco. It's a little bit of an easier sell because I'm introducing the concept of distributed. Worked good this company because the Lord knows it is better.
\n C: Yeah, I work in this. Exactly. You
\n Kim: Won't be the first. It won't be the last. It won't be even the second person who isn't a 20 something white guy. A tech
\n C: Great. Well, C j This is a great conversation, I think. Yeah.
\n Kim: I hope we rent. I hope we ran into each other and more conferences. Anyone time. You want to take a keynote for me? Do it. Any time you have a chance to listen to this woman talk, take it because she will blow the roof off.
\n C: Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate that. I will not deny that I am the fucking greatest Thank you and have a wonderful day. Thank you. All right. E, thank you for listening to this week's episode of the HASHTAG called the Scene Podcast. And I'd like to thank all our current sponsors of the podcast and the hashtag called the scene movement off course. We strongly encourage everyone to become an individual sponsor of the hashtag called the same community. Just visit the website at hashtag called the scene dot com to sign up today on behalf of everyone here at hashtag called the scene, we'd like to thank you again for listening to today's show and have a wonderful day. Hi.
\n Kim: Hi. Hi. Tight tight.