gave advice to other African American’s interested in game development and technology:

“First of all, get them to consider it [technical careers] in the first place. That’s key. Even considering the thing. They need to understand that they’re in a land by themselves. Don’t look for your buddies to be helpful, because they won’t be. You’ve gotta step away from the crowd and go do your own thing. You find a ground; cover it; it’s brand-new; you’re on your own — you’re an explorer. That’s about what it’s going to be like. Explore new vistas, new avenues, new ways — not relying on everyone else’s way to tell you which way to go, and how to go, and what you should be doing.”

Born: December 1, 1940 – Died: April 9, 2011

LA TIMES REPORTS:

The percentage of Black employees at major tech companies remains low: 2.9% at Salesforce, 3.8% at Facebook, 4.4% at Slack, 4.5% at Microsoft, and 6% at Twitter. Lyft and Uber’s work forces are 9% and 9.3% Black, respectively, but that skews heavily toward their lower-paid operations teams. Apple’s workforce is 9% Black, but that includes retail employees. Amazon, which employs nearly 800,000 people around the world, mostly in its low-wage warehouse and logistics jobs, has a workforce that’s 26.5% Black as a whole, but only 8.3% Black among managers.

The number of Black people in leadership or highly compensated technical roles is lower still. For instance, at Google, only 2.6% of leadership and 2.4% of technical workers are Black. At Facebook, Black people make up only 3.1% of those in leadership roles and 1.5% of those in technical roles.

Fewer than 1% of startup founders who receive venture funding are Black. And with few Black investors sitting on their boards, the percentage of Black top executives at major tech companies is even lower.

(Source: La Times – June 24, 2020 – Read More).