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Richard Parsons on tackling inequities in venture capital and finance

Richard Parsons joins Washington Post Live on Thursday, March 23. (Video: The Washington Post)

Richard Parsons, former CEO of Time Warner and chair of Citigroup, helped launch Equity Alliance to invest in minority and female-led venture funds. Parsons joins Jonathan Capehart, associate editor at The Washington Post, to discuss the fund’s goal to “democratize” capital through investing and mentoring.

Click here for transcript

Highlights

“I’ve seen some of the things written by our favorite senator from Massachusetts and others who want blood. There’s always a pitchfork crowd that shows up, but I will tell you, I don’t think any of the problems that have been dealt with SVB or the other banks you mentioned are going to cost the taxpayer money because they’re more than enough assets there.” – Richard Parsons (Video: Washington Post Live)
“The bottom of the food chain always sort of gets hit the hardest. What the, particularly the SVB and Silvergate Bank and the other that went down, what that has done is it’s created a constraint, let’s put it that way, that banks feel to tighten their lending.” – Richard Parsons (Video: Washington Post Live)
“Whenever I was involved either in a search or looking for somebody and wanted to find somebody of color, people would actually say to me, ‘Well, I don’t know anybody, I don’t know where they are.’ And I would say, ‘You’re not going to find them at your club. You’re not going to find them living next door to you, you have to reach out.’” – Richard Parsons (Video: Washington Post Live)

Richard Parsons

Chair, The Equity Alliance

Former Chair & CEO, Time Warner


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