After earning a company millions of dollars, Robert F. Smith wanted to be on the other side of the equation.

Robert F. Smith has made a move that has skyrocketed his private equity firm’s revenue.

Byron Allen has made history again, but this time, it’s outside the media industry.

A leading Black firm in venture capital is working with one of today’s top Black founders. According to a press release, Base10 Partners and Robert F. Smith’s Student Freedom Initiative have joined to provide Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) with more access to venture capital.

It’s time for Black men to take their health more seriously, and this new initiative is here to help! Kicking off Minority Health Awareness Month on April 1, Robert F. Smith joined forces with Steve Harvey, Chris Tucker, Cedric the Entertainer, and Charlamagne Tha God to launch the Mount Sinai Robert F. Smith Mobile Prostate Cancer Screening Bus. The overall goal of the new state-of-the-art technology-run bus is to help raise awareness around prostate cancer by providing an opportunity for testing for the disease that has significantly taken a toll on the Black community. “Perhaps the most concerning thing I’ve seen throughout my involvement with prostate cancer research efforts is the lack of knowledge within those communities hit hardest by this disease,” said Smith in an exclusive email interview with AfroTech. “Black men are 76% more likely to develop high-risk prostate cancer and twice as likely to die from it. And yet, until recently there was very little awareness about the...

Robert F. Smith is backing yet another initiative that aims to support Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The billionaire and his non-profit, Student Freedom Initiative, has teamed up with Prudential Financial to financially assist HBCU students, according to Black News. The new program, powered by the collaborative effort, is named Handling Everyday Life Problems for Students (HELPS). “Student Freedom Initiative applauds the leadership of Prudential Financial and their support for our shared mission of eliminating barriers of access for underserved communities,” Smith said. “By enabling the launch of the HELPS Program, a vital component of our work is to address the holistic needs of HBCU students and families, Prudential’s gift will provide long-needed and often overlooked aid and support persistence of those most vulnerable in our community.” Under the three-year pilot program, Prudential Financial is awarding $1.8 million in micro-grants to HBCU students “to...

Kevin Hart said he wants to be a billionaire before he turns age 45. Can he do it? Based on what we can see so far, the answer is most definitely “yes.” In an exclusive interview with CBS Sunday, the comedian & actor sat down with Gayle King to talk about his goals to reach that elusive billionaire status. For Hart, it’s about more than just the money — but about the message. And while he has a respectable net worth so far, he said he’d like the media to “tell a different story” in three years from now, when he turns 45-years-old. You can check out the full interview below. As AfroTech previously reported, Kevin Hart has an estimated net worth of $200 million. So, can he achieve the elusive billionaire status achieved by only a handful of Black men, so far? Will his net worth increase to that point? And what is his true driving motivation, anyway? We decided to take a look — and for the record, if his salary continues to increase, year over year, the way it has done so far, he will...

Goalsetter is making sure the next generation of Black and Latinx Americans is free from the financial burdens that have held us back for so long! As previously reported by AfroTech, Vista Equity Partners’ Robert F. Smith and Goalsetter’s Tanya Van Court announced the “One Stock. One Future.” initiative in October 2021. The initiative served as a call to action for both organizations and corporations to build up young people of color and set them on a path to financial freedom. It kicked off after Smith gifted five shares of stock — equivalent to about 15,000 total shares — to nearly 3,000 students, educators and staff members at the Eagle Academies for Young Men, a network of public, all-boys schools serving young men of color in New York City and Newark, NJ, according to a press release. As this called for a celebration, those Black students, the Black Billionaire, Black tech entrepreneur, Black educator and young Black men from the Morehouse Class of 2019 all graced the NYSE...