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- So I want to talk about the
OneTen Coalition a little bit.

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- Okay.

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- Can you tell me about the coalition,

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and what the work is?

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- Yes, so, I am co-chair
of something called OneTen,

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with Ken Frazier, but also started

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with co-founders, Charles Phillips,

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who have worked at Oracle, Ken Chenault

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at American Express,
and Kevin Sharer, Amgen.

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It is about placing one
million Black Americans

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into upwardly mobile middle class jobs,

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but who don't have a college degree.

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The short story of this
is, I spent a decade

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at IBM working on this
topic, and it was serendipity

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when I really fell into it.

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Looking for cyber people,
couldn't find 'em,

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worked with a local high
school and a community college,

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and was willing to bring
in folks that really sort

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of had an associate degree,

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when we'd hired only
PhDs and college grads.

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Lo and behold, they
turned out to be great,

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great, great employees, and I'm like,

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and by the way, all from
underrepresented communities.

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I thought, uh oh, I think, this is like

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a brand new talent pool for everybody.

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And like, did they actually
need a college degree

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to start in that job?

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And I found all of our, many of our jobs

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were over-credentialed.

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As it would turn out, it
would take me almost a decade,

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but 50% were over-credentialed.

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And now I have found this to
be true in almost every company

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in this world, and in this country.

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It just became an easy way for hiring.

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College degree required.

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And it's not.

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And so it's keeping so many
people out of good jobs.

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They have to have skill.

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But 65% of Americans, I
should quiz you on this,

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don't have a college degree.

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80% of Black Americans
don't have a college degree.

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I mean, those are huge numbers.

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Back to making sure that
people feel technology

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brings 'em a good future,
so, it was something

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I'd worked on for a very long time,

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calling it a skills-first approach.

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And then, it was in the
aftermath of the murder

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of George Floyd.

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My colleagues, particularly Ken and Ken,

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were saying, hey, look.

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Businesses should do what
it can do and hire people.

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That's what we do best, and
give economic opportunity.

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And I do believe economic opportunity

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is the best equalizer.

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So they had a great
vision, and I'm like, ah,

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they are the what, I am the how.

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This skills-first idea will allow us to,

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you know, get people the right skill,

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but everybody's gonna have

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to change their hiring requirements.

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And that's what OneTen does.

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Think of it, we're working
with the biggest companies

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in the country, and we're
working with all skill providers

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to bring folks into these jobs.

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And by the way, it's barriers
that exist for every,

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every underrepresented group, and everyone

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without a college degree.

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But we happened to just
start with that population.

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- And I think it's particularly relevant,

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you talk about hiring
for skills, as opposed

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to hiring for degrees.

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- It's true for everybody, by the way.

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- It's true for everybody, but especially

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in the technology world,
you used to have to go

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to school to learn these
skills, but you could start

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learning how to code
when you're six years old

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on the internet.

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- Yes.

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And this is a really good point.

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And so, that idea of, in our industry,

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three to five years, the
skill's obsolete, right?

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So you just, it taught me to hire

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for curiosity, more than a tech skill.

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I can teach you a tech skill,

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you can teach yourself a tech skill.

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It is about hiring for curiosity.

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- And if I have a computer
science degree, but I majored

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in Fortran, I'm not so, maybe
not so relevant anymore.

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- No, but if you kept
learning, and I mean,

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that's really, this is one of the points

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in the book I make over and over.

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Like, I feel if someone said,

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what's the number one thing I should do?

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I'm like, ask more
questions and give answers.

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I don't know, that's how I feel, right?

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- Yeah.

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- And if you, because you're,

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you feel you're insatiably curious?

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- Yeah, for sure.

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- That's why you're in
this profession, right?

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- Yeah.

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- Okay, you're always
gonna be relevant then.

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- Yeah.

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- Yeah.