Aaron Samuels has revealed his roadmap into the venture capital space. Samuels, co-founder and former chief operating officer (COO) of Blavity — w ho now leads a venture capital firm Collide Capital — has worn various hats in a career that spans more than a decade. He was a performance poet who spent nearly 10 years traveling and went on to secure roles as a director of operations (Dialogue Arts Project); senior associate consultant (Bain & Co.); and product manager (TeleSign) between 2011 and 2016, his LinkedIn mentions. For the next seven years, Samuels helped co-found Blavity Inc., a platform catering to Black Millennials and Gen Z amplifying areas of entertainment, politics, technology, and culture. It was created alongside Morgan DeBaun (CEO), Jeff Nelson (now COO), and Jonathan Jackson. Serving as the COO laid the footprint for Samuels’ foray as founder and managing partner of Collide Capital, which was founded in 2022 alongside Brian Hollins to provide resources, operational...

GV, the company formerly known as Google Ventures, just got its first Black female partner. Fortune reports GV — an Alphabet-backed venture capital firm that has made investments in GitLab, Slack, and Uber — has just promoted Principal Terri Burns to investing partner. This title will grant her the ability to write checks and at age 26, Burns will make history as the firm’s youngest-ever partner. Burns, as a Black woman, is a unicorn in an industry long dominated by white men. In the VC world, slowly but surely some progress has been made. According to All Raise , the number of female decision-makers grew from 9 percent at the end of 2017 to 13 percent this past February. Only one Black woman has been named partner at any VC firm in 2019, per Fortune , and Black people made up just 0.67 percent of all entrants to the industry between 2010 and 2015. Prior to spending three years at GV as a principal, Burns was an associate product manager at Twitter and had already made out checks...

Trouble is brewing for one of the top legal executives of Google’s parent company, Alphabet. Chief Legal Officer David Drummond is embroiled in investigations connected to possible liaisons with female employees . Drummond is scheduled to exit Alphabet at the end of the month, prompting many to believe that his departure is connected to recent inquiries about misconduct. Drummond began working for Google nearly two decades ago, eventually rising in rank to become its corporate development officer. During that time, Drummond shepherded the company through a host of legal triumphs . However, questions about his behavior with subordinate staff began to sideline some of his professional victories. In the early 2000s, Drummond, who was then married to his first wife, began an affair with Jennifer Blakely, a subordinate on the legal team. The extramarital affair produced a child, causing Google to present its policies of preventing superiors and subordinates from engaging in romantic...

Most people don’t think of drones as a way to get things like coffee delivered to your door, but that may be changing soon. On Tuesday, Wing — a startup owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet — announced it had become the first certified air carrier for drones in the United States. The company received Air Carrier Certification from the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). This is a big milestone because without it Wing wouldn’t be able to pursue commercial deliveries. “This is an important step forward for the safe testing and integration of drones into our economy. Safety continues to be our Number One priority as this technology continues to develop and realize its full potential,” said U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Elaine L. Chao. Wing noted that for communities across the country, the ability to deliver commercial goods by drones opens up a lot of new opportunities. The company said, “Goods like medicine or food can now be delivered faster by drone,...

Friday, April 4, 2025, marked the second consecutive day major U.S. stock indexes fell sharply, a downtrend that follows President Donald Trump’s recent tariffs announcement and China’s Friday morning declaration to impose a 34% duty on U.S. goods in retaliation. According to NBC News, significant market losses included Tesla , Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company, which fell by approximately 10%; agricultural equipment leader Caterpillar, down about 6%; and top AI chip manufacturer Nvidia, which declined by approximately 7%. The S&P 500 index, which tracks 500 leading U.S. companies, dropped more than 4%, down more than 16% from its peak. The Russell 2000 index, which follows stocks of smaller U.S. companies, plummeted by 5.3%. Global markets also experienced significant sell-offs, with European stocks declining 10% from recent highs and Asian markets facing sharp drops. After the market had closed on Wednesday, April 2, 2025, Trump announced from the White House’s Rose Garden that...

Google has launched Career Dreamer, an advanced artificial intelligence analysis tool that evaluates users’ skills and experiences and suggests personalized career opportunities. According to a Feb. 19, 2025 blog post from Grow With Google Founder Lisa Gevelber, Claire Thorn, a military spouse who spent nearly 20 years as a stay-at-home mom before reentering the workforce , was one of the early testers of Career Dreamer. After answering a few questions about her background and interests, she learned how to translate her life experiences into skills and new career opportunities. “(Career Dreamer) helped identify skills that I take for granted and showed me that they’re important and useful in the workforce,” said Thorn, per Google. “Now, I’m armed with the confidence of knowing that I already possess exactly what employers need.” Career Dreamer identifies patterns and connects the dots between unique experiences, educational backgrounds, skills, and interests. The platform then...

In a decision reflecting a broader trend in the corporate world, Google has eliminated its diversity-based hiring targets and quietly erased language relating to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) from its annual report. This decision isn’t just a corporate policy update. This move aligns with a growing trend of companies scaling back public commitments to DEI in response to evolving legal and political pressures. The ripple effect of this change reaches far beyond Silicon Valley, raising urgent questions about the future of workplace diversity, corporate responsibility, and the very fabric of inclusive leadership in America. Google Shifts Away From DEI Metrics According to Reuters, Google’s move came after the company abandoned its diversity hiring goals, which were initially designed to foster a more inclusive workforce. The company cited the impact of recent court decisions and executive orders from the Trump administration as pivotal factors influencing this change. These...

Costco is doubling down on its decision to maintain its DEI policies. This comes amid several major companies retracting their commitments, such as Google. CNBC reported that Google had established new programs to empower Black staffers following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. At the time, its CEO, Sundar Pichai, stated the intention “to build sustainable equity for Google’s Black+ community, and externally, to make our products and programs helpful in the moments that matter most to Black users.” The company aimed for a benchmark of 30% of leadership being composed of underrepresented groups by 2025. However, in the years since, Google has fallen significantly short of that goal by reducing staff and shrinking programs related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), as has its parent company Alphabet. By mid-2023, DEI job postings by companies in general were showing a downward trend. Job site Indeed offered data that revealed a drop of 44% in postings compared to the...