젊은 흑인 혁신가를 위한 기업가 정신의 이해

### 젊은 흑인 기업가의 역량 강화: 혁신의 격차 해소
* 🌟 39세에 창업의 여정을 시작한 기업가 솜라가 자신의 성장과 교육으로 인해 형성된 **기업가 정신에 대한 초기 오해**를 반성합니다.
* 👩 솜라의 부모님은 기업가였지만, 솜라는 **전통적인 직업 경로에 집중**하고 비전통적인 직업에 대한 우려로 인해 그 꼬리표에 자신을 동일시하지 않았습니다.
* 🚀 스탠포드에서 그녀는 **기업가 정신에 대해 타고난 이해**를 가진 동료들 사이에서 이질감을 느꼈고, 자신은 **기업가 정신에 도달할 수 없을 것**이라고 생각했습니다.
* 👩 🏾‍🤝‍👩🏾 다른 흑인 여성들이 성공적으로 벤처를 창업하는 것을 보고 나서야 **그녀는 자신도 기업가가 될 수 있다는 잠재력**을 깨달았습니다.
* 📈 솜라는 전형적인 고성장 기술 고정관념을 넘어 다양한 경로와 역할 모델을 선보임으로써 **기업가 정신에 대한 이야기를 다양화**하는 것이 중요하다고 강조합니다.
* 💬 그녀는 젊은이들에게 공감할 수 있는 지침을 제공하고 **기업가 정신의 가능성**을 보여줄 수 있는 가까운 동료의 멘토링을 옹호합니다.
* 🤝 솜라는 사회적 자본의 역할을 인식하고 **젊은이들이 기존 네트워크를 활용하고 창업 기회를 추구할 수 있는 자신감**을 키울 수 있도록 지원하는 데 중점을 두고 있습니다.
* 💡 "젊은이들에게 일자리를 만드는 방법이 아니라 **일자리를 만드는 방법만 가르친다면 부의 격차는 지속될 것**이며, 차세대 혁신가들의 역량을 강화해야 한다는 점을 강조합니다."

솜라는 젊은 흑인 기업가들이 스스로를 일자리 창출자로 인식하고 장벽을 허물고 기업가 정신의 성공을 재정의하도록 영감을 줍니다.

my name is Somra, and I'm an entrepreneur. But I didn't become an entrepreneur until I was 39 years old. Before that, I was fascinated by innovation and entrepreneurship, but I didn't see myself as an entrepreneur. This is despite the fact that when I was in middle school, both of my parents had started small businesses: my mom as an independent filmmaker and my dad as a solo lawyer. But if you had asked me then if I knew any entrepreneurs, I would have said no. My parents didn't talk about themselves as entrepreneurs or to me about entrepreneurship, so I didn't see them as entrepreneurs. They talked to me about college and getting a good job. They were overjoyed when I got an internship in finance, but when I got my first full-time job at an early-stage startup that perhaps you have heard of, Google, they were worried. They said, Do real people actually work at that company? What do they do? I went through most of my education and career believing that

entrepreneurship was a pathway for some, but not for me. When I was at Stanford Business School, I saw all of these eager entrepreneurial types around me who seemed to know how to be an entrepreneur already. They spoke the lingo, they knew which classes to take, which people and professors to hang out with to make magic happen. That's what it seemed like to me: magic. There was this talk of unicorns and this mystique around what would lead to success, and the magical playbook seemed to have been shared with a very specific group, and that group did not look like me. These people had the confidence and the connections to make things happen, manifesting new companies from ideas on napkins. I did not understand how to do that type of manifestation, so I kept working to get good job after good job, and I told myself I was not entrepreneur material. I learned how to do jobs, but I didn't learn how to make jobs. It wasn't until I saw other black women around me launching new ventures and

calling themselves entrepreneurs that I really began to believe I could do it too. By that point, I was 39 years old. My journey is far from unique. Even now, when I talk to young black folks about who they see as entrepreneurs, I hear Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and when they do name black entrepreneurs, they very specific lanes in sports: Michael Jordan, Steph Curry, Serena Williams, in entertainment: Beyonce, Jay-Z, maybe Nipsey Hussle. I want to change the narrative around who becomes an entrepreneur in this country, so this is the work that I do. I work with young black folks to help demystify entrepreneurship so they can learn how to make jobs and not just do jobs. We should all care about this. Entrepreneurship has driven extraordinary wealth in this country. Of the hundred wealthiest people in the United States, 63 of them built their wealth in their own lifetimes through companies they founded themselves. Only one of those 63 is black. We should all care about this, and it turns out there is a way to

move the needle. We have an opportunity to demystify entrepreneurship for black young people, and if we get this right, the potential for all of us is enormous. So, what should we do first? We need to share the multiple pathways to entrepreneurship with young people so that they can see themselves reflected in them. There are so many different ways to be an entrepreneur, from side hustling to small business ownership, entrepreneurship, building a high-growth tech company, and many more. But one of those pathways, the high-growth tech one, gets way more attention than the others. There's a whole culture and a guy in a hoodie persona that goes along with that pathway. It's not really very inclusive. So, in our work, we share all of the pathways to entrepreneurship with young people, and we help them find what feels like the right fit for them. We share the origin stories of other entrepreneurs who have walked a path that our young entrepreneurs might want to explore. We help them understand that they can show up as an entrepreneur in a

way that feels authentic to them and that there's no one way to be an entrepreneur, and that leads to the next thing we need to do. We have to intentionally provide a much more diverse set of role models to young people. We can talk about Mark and Elon, but we also have to highlight Taupe, who founded Cly, or Shantee, who created Black Girl Sunscreen. There's Robert, who started Compass Real Estate, and Julia, who launched Planet Forward, a decarbonization platform. There is a deep legacy of entrepreneurship in communities of color, and there are countless black innovators across every industry that we can and should be raising up as role models. And we need to make those role models feel proximate so that young people can say, I can see myself in this person and their journey, and I don't have to wait 20 years to get started. One of the best ways to make role models proximate is through nearer mentorship. Our near peers are young entrepreneurs who are just a few

years farther along in their journeys, like Amed, who's a freelance filmmaker, or Jada, who has her own tech business, or Florence, who's an emerging product designer. She helped design these shoes I'm wearing. Each of these mentors can bring their own authentic identity as a young entrepreneur to demonstrate what's possible for other young people. Finally, when I think about the biggest drivers of entrepreneur inequity, in the end, it all comes down to relationships. Who has access to the relationships? Who will help them achieve their goals, and who doesn't? This is social capital, and it's just as critical to entrepreneurial success as financial capital. Every successful entrepreneur I've spoken to can point to an introduction or an opportunity that came to them through their relationships that changed the trajectory of their journey. Accessing and mobilizing your social capital is a skill that can be learned. It's not just something that some people know how to do and others don't. So, in our work, we help young people understand who is in their networks.

already we help them build the confidence to reach out to those who might be willing to support them. We help them build fluency with tools like LinkedIn. We help break down what can feel like a really complex and scary process around building your entrepreneurial network into more approachable pieces. And we take an asset-based lens, affirming that young people already know people who can help them achieve their goals. I've seen young people go from tentatively curious about entrepreneurship to seeing themselves as entrepreneurs in the span of 10 weeks. I've seen the spark that grows when young people see identity-affirming role models, often for the first time, who are innovators. And I've seen the feeling of power and agency that comes from recognizing the social capital that you already have that can help you achieve your goals. This is the real magic. This is the work that I do. But we should all care about this because it matters well beyond the young people we serve. If you care about equity, the median Black family holds only 15% of

the wealth of the median white family. If we're only teaching black young people how to do jobs and not make jobs, then we will continue to see that wealth gap persist. If you care about the economy, closing the earnings gap could add over $8 trillion to the US economy by 2050. That's a trillion. And if you care about the resilience of our workforce, especially given technologies like AI, it's imperative that we teach young people how to make new jobs. By one estimate, people in the lowest income brackets could be up to 14 times more likely to need to change jobs due to AI. If we're only teaching young people how to do jobs that exist today, then we're not actually preparing them for their future. I'm proof that you can start to see yourself as an entrepreneur later in life and still do something meaningful. I started my organization four years ago at 39, and while we're still early, I believe we have big things ahead. But I also believe that if I had

started at 19 or even 29. I would be at a different stage as an entrepreneur today. I'd probably be on my second or third startup. I'd have already learned some lessons that I'm learning right now. I'm also working to unlearn decades of not seeing myself as an entrepreneur. Imagine the magic that would be possible, not just for them, but for all of us, if our young people could start to see themselves as makers of jobs and not just doers of jobs earlier on. Thank you.

Yes, You Can Be an Entrepreneur Too | Saamra Mekuria-Grillo | TED

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솜라는 어릴 때부터 혁신과 기업가 정신에 매료되었지만 39세에 기업가가 되었습니다.

소규모 사업을 시작했던 그녀의 부모님은 기업가라고 생각하지 않았고, 솜라는 기업가 정신이 자신과 맞지 않는다고 생각하며 자랐습니다.

그러다 다른 흑인 여성들이 새로운 벤처를 시작하는 것을 보고 나서야 자신의 잠재력을 깨닫고 기업가 정신을 추구하기로 결심했습니다.

흑인 기업가 정신의 내러티브 변화

연사는 다른 사람들의 성공에 영감을 받아 39세에 기업가 정신을 향한 여정을 시작했습니다.

그들은 종종 스포츠와 엔터테인먼트 분야에서만 인정받는 흑인 기업가에 대한 이야기를 바꾸는 것을 목표로 합니다.

연사는 젊은 흑인들과 함께 기업가 정신을 이해하기 쉽게 설명하며, 다양한 경로를 강조하고 출신 이야기를 공유하여 그들이 자신에게 맞는 길을 찾을 수 있도록 돕습니다.

기업가 정신에서 다양한 역할 모델의 중요성

다양한 롤모델은 젊은이들에게 기업가가 되는 데는 단 하나의 방법이 없다는 것을 보여주는 중요한 요소입니다.

소외된 지역 사회와 주변 또래의 사람들을 강조하면 롤모델의 공감대와 접근성을 높일 수 있습니다.

사회적 자본과 관계를 구축하는 것은 기업가적 성공에 필수적이며, 이는 학습하고 동원할 수 있는 기술입니다.

이 단체는 특히 LinkedIn과 같은 도구를 통해 젊은이들이 네트워킹에 대한 자신감과 유창함을 키울 수 있도록 돕습니다.

기업가적 네트워크를 구축하는 복잡한 과정을 세분화하고 자산 기반 접근법을 사용함으로써 젊은이들이 이미 가치 있는 인맥을 가지고 있음을 확인시켜 줍니다.

이 작업은 서비스를 받는 개인에게 영향을 미칠 뿐만 아니라 기술 변화에 직면한 형평성, 경제 성장, 노동력 회복력이라는 더 큰 문제도 해결합니다.

초기 기업가 정신이 미치는 영향

젊은 나이에 기업가 정신을 시작하면 여러 번의 창업과 귀중한 교훈을 얻을 수 있습니다.

연사는 자신을 기업가로 보지 않는 사고방식을 버리기 위해 노력하고 있습니다.

젊은이들이 스스로를 단순한 취업자가 아닌 일자리 창출자로 인식하도록 장려하는 것은 혁신적인 영향을 미칠 수 있습니다.