Closing the Equity Gap: Creating Wealth and Fostering Justice in Startup Investing

Startup capital should be used to improve the lives of ordinary people, according to this well-meaning if blinkered treatise. Klein (Giving Notice) and her husband Kapor detail how, as founders of the Kapor Capital investment firm, they aim to lessen racial and gendered wealth disparities through investing in startups that “expand economic opportunity” for marginalized communities. They describe businesses their firm has invested in, including BlocPower (which brings Wi-Fi to underserved neighborhoods) and Promise (which offers interest-free payment plans for utilities and parking tickets). Biographical background on the startups’ founders uplifts, such as the story of Irma Olguin Jr., a first-generation college graduate who cofounded a company that trains “underrepresented communities for tech jobs.” However, the focus on companies the authors helped seed can come across as self-congratulatory, and there’s not much consideration given to the difficulties of addressing systemic inequities through for-profit ventures. This tension is most conspicuous in the chapter about Uber (the authors were angel investors), in which Klein and Kapor portray themselves as crusaders against disgraced CEO Travis Kalanick while largely eliding controversies around drivers’ low pay and lack of benefits. This modestly convincing case for the benefits of “empathetic tech” nonetheless reveals its limitations. (Mar.)