We Need All CEOs to "Speak Clearly and Unequivocally: Black Lives Matter."

While we have many mutual friends, I have never met Dara Khosroshahi personally. But today I felt like I saw him sitting at this desk and writing this heartfelt letter to his cohort. He is letting them know that he has a SPECIFIC plan, his company has a STRUCTURED plan to end this horrendous racial bias that made many of us feel embarrassed and ridiculed in a world where once upon a time, we were leading to create a better place for everyone to live.

Getting up early morning today, cleaning up my mailbox still full of irrelevant junk mails from insensible advertisers who seem, even at this time, having nothing to react on, rather than making a buck for unconscious businesses, I thought Uber has sent me an offer too that I would delete without blinking! But I was wrong! Here is what I got:

I was glad to see a worthwhile message delivered to my mailbox that has something to say about what is happening in our country. It was heartwarming but why don't we get a similar message from every CEO to "speak up", saying they support the movement is not enough. Why don't they all let us know that they too have a plan to put a definite end to a disaster that is dividing our nation! Many of us feel we are living us among zombies of ignorance, cruelty and intolerance! "We can't breathe"!

Yes, we have the most incompetent, prejudiced and frankly deranged commander in chief sitting in WHITE HOUSE who has turned the lights of his residence, brain and heart off to our nation. Unlike many other dictators he is not even pretending that he wants to save us from harm. He has exhausted us with his arrogance, indecisions and bad decisions that he is making in his sleep or in consultation with know it all Fox personalities. But the United States has 52 states, sensitive governors, mayors, competent and kindhearted souls that are representing us, people, in senate and congress and most importantly thousands of CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICERS who can all be the master of change in their small or big organizations! We all should be able to explain what is happening to our customers, vendors, employees, sons and daughters and explicitly layout our plans to heal this vicious and now cancerous wound!

I start from myself:

• I'm going to be vigilantly pushing color blindness and stop working with anyone around me who still dares to make a comment, joke or a slight reference that is racially hurtful.
• Across all of our portfolio, we will actively push our CEOs to seed and plant an equal blend of-all-colors-workforce.
• We actively find and fund entrepreneurs from different ethnic and religious backgrounds.
• I will make sure our children and grandchildren are raised colorblind and tolerant!

Let's show to the world and our next generation that "We are not TRUMPS, We are America!"

Read more on Dara Khosroshahi, Uber CEO's letter; BLACK LIVES MATTER here.

It was heartwarming to receive a message from my good friend Hadi Partovi, Founder of Code.org Founder in reaction to my post about their thorough plan on supporting Black Lives Matter cause:

• Creating a more supportive workplace for our Black employees.
• Leveraging Code.org's megaphone.
• Utilizing data and research to identify CS education gaps for Black students, especially young Black women.
• Using all our education and policy-focused programs to better support Black students.

Read about Code.org program here

And here is another amazing step by step plan by Dave McClure, Founder of Practical Venture Capital, 500 Startups

1) interview & hire people who are women, minorities, POC, LGBTQ, other disenfranchised groups; target 20% min for team (and eventually aim for parity with local/global hashtag

#s); hire at senior levels & give them authority / agency; give junior hires a path to senior roles; recruit board / advisors / mentors for company and exec team from same groups

2) evaluate and invest in fund managers and founders / CEOs who come from same groups as above; again target 20% min (ideally higher over time, measurable path to parity)

3) be transparent about metrics for 1 & 2 (both top of funnel and output) and publish to stakeholders

4) encourage LPs, fund managers, CEOs we work with / invest in to do the same and be transparent about goals, actions, metrics

5) challenge all parties to set specific, attainable initial goals, then increase over time to reach parity with local/global

Looking forward to more of similar plans that I can add it here.

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