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A podcast to disrupt common narratives and constructs to empower diverse communities. We provide inspirational content from entrepreneurs and leaders who are disrupting the status quo.
because that independence frees them up
from any potential agenda.
I think I could make some money this way.
I think I'll get a good job this way.
And that's actually in its earliest
stages.
The functioning of what eventually becomes
the most successful early stage
public companies have independent members
of their board of directors.
If you believe
we can change the narrative.
If you believe,
we can change our communities.
If you believe we can change the outcomes
and we can change the world.
I'm Rob Richardson.
Welcome to disruption. Now.
Welcome to Disruption Now.
I'm your host and moderator,
Rob Richardson.
with me on the show today
are the founders of the Dream Exchange,
the first African-American owned,
exchange in America, Joseph Cecala,
as well as Dwain Kyles.
They both have very unique backgrounds.
very they're close to really kind of,
my backgrounds in some ways.
They both dabble
in, civil rights before this,
and now they're involved in economics
and really see the two together.
So they're really disrupting,
what it means to be involved
in, economics
and the opportunities for everyone. Joe.
Duane, it's a pleasure
to have you on disruptor now.
Thank you for coming.
Thanks, Rob. Thanks for having me.
Yeah.
So I want to get a little bit
on your backgrounds because you both
have lived many different lives like that,
so we have that in common.
I've lived a lot of different lives, too.
so I want to start with you, Joe.
You are a civil rights attorney
as well as securities litigation attorney.
Tell me, like, if you can.
And a in a in a 1 or 2 sentences,
think about what
how has that influenced what you're doing
now in terms of starting an exchange?
What does being a civil rights attorney
have anything to do
with being in economics?
That's that's
pretty much where the question is going.
no worries.
yeah. My two lives converged.
So, you know, I did a lot of private
equity venture capital deals
and did some public deals,
and it really wasn't a side practice.
I was a full time civil rights attorney,
and really the influence was I.
I had a unique insight.
And it was I realized that no, no matter
how many civil rights cases I brought,
I could bring 100 and I could bring 200.
And it just felt like every time I emptied
the pot, it filled up and empty
the pot and filled up.
And then there was
this other side of my life, which was,
you know,
being a finance professional and CPA
and deal guy and, you know,
the solution, on the one hand, to civil
rights
has significantly more
to do with a lack of prosperity.
So it was sort of like,
I mean, maybe by design or accident,
I don't really care how I arrived.
I just realized that
if we could have a more global solution,
the and then I grew up
in the black community
and I realized, you know,
Doctor King is my hero.
And, you know,
the things that he kept saying
and that I revisited over and over
and over was, you know, the final chapter
of the civil Rights movement,
which is economic prosperity.
It has.
We haven't yet to write that chapter.
Right. Yeah.
Well, you know, if if you were alive
in World War Two, maybe you'd go to war.
And if you were alive
when the things that were of the day,
you would volunteer for that war.
And this to me was the war
that I would get involved in.
I was I was willing to die on this hill,
which is we're not really all free
until we all have the equal opportunity
for prosperity in our own lives.
Yeah.
So that was the convergence of my careers.
And, I mean, I have to admit, my partner
and my dearest friend Duane Kyles,
was a tremendous influence on my life.
I watched him be super courageous,
like to a to a level.
I'd never really met before.
and, you know, we've had
we have our Joe and Duane,
therapy sessions.
All right.
That's good.
That's so that's that's
kind of how it all came about was,
you know, we've been together
for more than 20 years now.
So that's a long time.
So Duane,
thinking about that, switching to you,
he mentioned Doctor Martin
Luther King again.
I know your father was next to him
during the civil rights movement,
specifically
during the Memphis sanitation strike,
where we know,
you know, Doctor King lost his life.
and so I if you had to think about
the most important thing,
what was the most important thing?
Your father passed down from
Doctor Martin Luther King?
I think it was an appreciation
for the extent to which we were obligated.
If you're blessed with resources,
with intellect,
with the ability to communicate
whatever your gifts may happen to be,
if you're not prepared
to give your life in service,
the people who have been responsible
for raising us for sustaining us,
then you're taking up valuable space
on the planet.
Doctor Kane believe
that my father believed that he was.
You know, I was a very young man,
and he was involved with the struggle.
But that lesson came to us
both through our work in the church,
which was and, you know,
and the civil rights movement
became an outgrowth of the work
we were doing, trying to help the people
that were the members of our church and,
and the broader community.
Just it just really kind of flowed
naturally.
And I ended up in law school
because at a very early age,
you know, when you're
the son of a preacher, you learn either
to talk a lot or come to the,
you know, to argue to,
and it was or to communicate in a way
that was persuasive.
Yes. And I think I got that gift
from both of my parents,
but particularly from my father,
because I was sitting there,
you know, in the audience every Sunday
when he was preaching
and as his sermons took on a more,
strident tone
relative to the kinds of,
well, let let me say this,
but he grew up in Chicago,
born in Mississippi, grew up in Chicago.
And so he was used to certain things
and moving in certain ways.
And when we reverse commuted to Memphis,
you know,
his mother thought he was losing his mind.
Why would you go back to everything?
And we just left. Right.
he came back with kind of an attitude
and a chip on his shoulder,
and I think Doctor King gave him an
opportunity to see that he was not alone,
and to be part of a community
that was committed
to making sure that his members
and his church
could be as successful, as prosperous
as anyone else in that city.
And he believed that.
And he instilled that in me and I.
And I remember hearing a quote that
you quote very often, from your father,
I believe that you could kill the dreamer,
but you can't kill the dream.
And and so that was passed down to you.
And that still stays within both of you.
So, as we think about this,
the transition from,
how we fought for civil rights
during the 50s, in the 60s,
what do you see
as the next transition now?
Like,
what does the fight for equal opportunity
civil rights look like now in 2024?
You know, what do you feel like?
This is the moment
that we have to focus on
what is the most important thing
we have to do
as a society to have a more equal
and a prosperous society.
Either one of you could take that.
Dwayne, you want to go first?
Yeah.
I really believe, Rob, that.
This is an extraordinary opportunity
that is has been presented to us.
You know, much of the work that Jonah
have done throughout
our professional lives has centered
on trying to help people who needed
the help, needed help the most.
And when you keep running into,
circumstances that belie
what the broader
community enjoys in terms of access
to capital, access to resources,
and you you see people who are struggling,
who have great ideas, you know,
great work ethic, doing everything
right by the book, but
they can't get access to those resources.
Yeah, being able to access the public
capital markets is a true game changer.
Help.
But most importantly,
having people understand, what that means
and understand
the importance of putting the work in.
I mean, so many of our community,
people in our community
have put the work in only to hit that
brick wall.
This is going to be an unprecedented
opening of opportunity for people
who are prepared to do the work.
If you're prepared to do the work, then,
unlike in days
gone by, the public capital markets
really are there.
That is working people's money.
That's what we need to understand.
That's working people's money
that has not been able to circulate
its way back into the community.
So what this tremendous leap forward means
is that we are committed
to educating people,
encouraging people, supporting people
to make sure that if they're prepared
to put the work in, that it's
not going to just fall in your lap
now, gonna put the work in.
But if you're prepared to put the work in,
then we are
very committed
to building a community of interest
that will support each other,
and we will make sure that that hard work
will pay off for your for generations
to come in
your family and the families of the people
that work with you.
I mean,
capitalism is not a terrible thing.
If people are doing it
with an understanding
that we are our brother's keeper,
we do have cash.
Yeah, you have to have a Sallie Mae.
This was the way decided after you.
It's something always stuck in my head
is that capitalism is great.
By this.
The isms racism, sexism, classism.
Go. It's it's the best.
It's the best. Right?
right there, it really is.
Because what it does
is it incentivizes people
to really do the best
and be the best that they can be.
It really does,
because they're tangible benefits,
not on weapons,
tangible benefits from doing so.
Yeah.
And those tangible benefits
people can see and be encouraged
that they too can live a good life. Yeah.
But unfortunately there have been so many
barriers placed in our way.
I mean, so many barriers
that it has taken,
you know, this very unique opportunity
for two guys, you know,
both from the West side of Chicago, living
similar but different lives.
who, because of extraordinary
circumstances, came together
believing that they could make
a difference, both from humble beginnings.
I mean,
we believe.
We believe it.
Yes, but most of my life,
that belief has been
something of a barrier
because people think I'm a dreamer.
I'm a, you know,
I'm a, you know, kind of pine this guy.
Okay, well, okay, I'll take that.
I'll take that.
Right.
Well, I hooked up with another guy
who also
is the pie in the sky dreamer,
who happens to have all the skills
and was generous, has been so generous
about sharing what he knows.
Because I'm telling you,
I work with a lot of people.
I've never had anybody
that was as generous with regard
to sharing information,
making sure that people
really have access, that people have.
I mean. We need more people like Joe.
And it's not going to happen without
that is not going to happen.
No. I mean, people that have the power
have to have to actually connect
people to opportunities. So,
Dwayne,
since we're talking it
as I get to Joe, a quote of Doctor King is
that people don't quote often, but I think
is one of his most powerful quotes.
When he's talking about power.
He says power without love is
reckless and abusive.
But, love
without power is just a mental and anemic.
You need both to change the world, right?
You need that.
You need. Correct.
You got to have somebody you need power
that's connected to actually trying
to change things and help people.
So Joe, under you with this like as you,
the average business owner that's out
here, like, you know, black and brown,
even just just
starting out, business owners,
if they're not black and brown, everybody
from a lot of different positions,
if you're not from a certain
if you're not literally from, like,
usually Stanford or a few other places,
you don't get the same access
to capital as hardly anybody else.
Like, if you're I'm in the Midwest, it's
a very different you can be black, white,
anything.
It's that you have a much harder chance
of getting that capital
unless you're connected
to a small circle of people.
Really.
So I would say, where is the where do you
start in terms of if you're a business?
I think about positioning your business
to even be ready for a public raise.
Yeah.
I mean, to the audience on that,
you're you're 100% right.
the fact is, and that even
in the positioning discussion.
Okay. Because
and let me just to
reinforce what you said, it's ironic
that we, you know, a black man
and a white man have been best friends
for more than 20 years working on
these problems have come together
with a solution
to small and medium
sized companies in the entire country.
Okay, that's a colorblind problem,
because what you described
in terms of access to capital,
it really is a meaningful
and very real barrier, right?
So when you want to position yourself,
most people
position themselves thinking, great,
we're going to do a capital raise
and the cavalry's going to come.
Yeah.
Is that coming? Sorry.
Yes. Coming.
We're going to be so great.
We're going to get on Shark Tank
or we're going to be so great.
And, you know, Magic Johnson's VC
fund is coming.
They're not coming.
They're not the cavalry aren't coming.
So the key
and this is what we're all about.
First step is look carefully at your idea.
Ideas that improve
the lives of other people
that help us survive better and better.
They're worth more money.
Okay, so first off, you have to take
a step back from the
the the intricacies of your company.
You got to look at it
like you're filing a public company
offering what your brand,
what problems do you solve.
Because public companies,
they're not interested in
how can you solve the five minute problem?
Right.
People make an investment because they
want the five year, ten year solution.
They make an investment early in a company
because they believe
that the value of the company will expand.
They're not interested in a dividend.
If they wanted a dividend,
they go buy Chevron.
they'd go buy, you know,
one of the large dividend
producing public companies right now,
their interest in the value is how much
will this company appreciate in value.
And that's commensurate
with how valuable is your idea
when you have that and you start
to organize administratively.
So the advice I would give is
make sure
that you're
not continuing in your own shoe box.
I've been in the shoe boxes.
This is what to have in this. Your box.
Yeah. And so. Right.
You know,
you kind of almost have to take time
to work on your business
deliberately rather than in your business.
Yeah.
So if you work on your business
and you pretend that day
that you're the CEO of the 200,
500 person company, you might say,
oh, what will my human resources
department look like?
What will my marketing department
look like?
How will my Treasury Department function?
What are the production
areas of the company
going to be organized
like how will I advertise my brand?
And if you step back
and it doesn't take a lot of time,
but it has to be deliberate time.
It has to be something
you put on your calendar every week.
Okay. Ignore it.
You can't just go.
I'll get to it next week.
I'll get to it next week.
I'll get to it when?
Oh boy. We have.
We made a lot of sales.
We're making a bunch of money.
And then the venture capitalist
or the underwriter
for your public deal wants to come in.
And the first thing they're going to say
is, oh, well, let's start
our legal due diligence.
And you have no employee
handbook
and you have no you've done nothing.
So the characteristics of a company
that actually make it
and they're a good number
of the characteristics
are actually published in the white paper
that we wrote.
It's in Oxford University's
Handbook on IPOs.
Which when you read that you'll see.
And I'll name the number one
most important, organizing feature.
Okay.
The number one most important organizing
feature for successful company is what.
Making sure that in your earliest stages,
you have some person or persons
who function in an advisory role
and they're not paid
and they don't own any of your company.
They're fully independent
because that independence
frees them up from any potential agenda.
I think I could make some money this way.
I think I'll get a good job this way.
And that's actually in its earliest
stages.
The functioning of what eventually becomes
the most successful early stage
public companies have independent members
of their board of directors.
Because there's
nothing in it for them
other than liability.
I would not have thought that
that that's incredible.
Like I didn't I thought you were going
to say something else.
No. That's amazing.
So if you have independence in a board,
someone who's willing
to attach themselves to you,
that is your actual cavalry.
They don't have to invest piles of money,
because as soon as somebody
invest the money they have,
they're going to start like a venture
capital firm, show me a good VC deal,
and I'll show you
somebody who's struggling with the VC
telling them how to run the company.
You don't need somebody to tell you
that your idea is good or bad.
First of all, ignore that.
That if my second piece of advice
to anybody in, in a small business
is when people come up to you
and tell you you're nuts,
you're crazy,
that's never going to happen.
Ignore all those people.
Get it? Get people who you get along with.
15 years ago,
when 17 years ago, when I started this.
I'm going to tell you who the greatest
champion I ever had in my life was.
Duane Kyles.
You never told me I was nuts, I was crazy.
This never going to happen.
You're. You're a loser.
Yeah. No,
he wasn't tearing me down. Not ever.
And I will tell you, over the last
17 years, I've been torn down.
I've been punched and kicked
and, you know, and now some of it is fired
shots across the bow because,
holy crap, we're actually pulling it off.
Yeah.
And so when you get those key
advisers, okay,
and you get someone whose sole interest
and it may even take.
Sorry for the way I'm going to
describe this, but it takes almost an ally
that has a spiritual connection
to your idea
that someone who believes in you,
because you can find an audience of people
that don't believe in
you and will criticize
you all day long, that's easy.
You get.
I'm sure there's
some people on the internet
that's going to criticize us
after this figurehead.
Yeah, but the point is,
if you actually look at some of the most,
I mean, Apple computers, $1
trillion company, it started in a garage.
Well, you know,
there was just some people there.
They were undeterred.
And no matter how many times somebody
shot them down or they always found a way
because they believed in themselves
and they stuck with it.
I mean, we could have called ourselves
to believe exchange.
You really have to believe it, to manifest
the idea into something physically.
Production services measurable,
you know, number of desks sold.
Okay.
Before that gets
there, it's it's in the ether.
It's a concept
that your idea of a stock exchange isn't.
We're not going to be looking at concepts
right.
Where we have companies, they operate,
they have revenues.
Then we have all kinds of requirements.
But in order to get there,
and I think what Duane alluded to before
about sharing the information
with people about this,
this is to me the most valuable thing
we could be doing right now
is, is saying to people two things.
One is there is a pathway, there is
and you are responsible
for creating the pathway.
And we can partner with you in doing that
as we expand our exchange.
That's that's the first thing.
The second thing.
And you touched on it with capital ism
and the isms.
This is a this is something
I've been like shouting from the ramparts,
stock exchanges
are what are called auction markets.
Okay. Auction markets work.
It's like and and when something works,
you can't start trying to analyze
the workability of the thing that works.
What we have to do is look at, oh, boy,
there are ten MBA public companies
out of 6300 right now.
Why is that?
Is it because the auction markets.
So say that again.
Out of how many
how many public companies are there?
There are about 6300 listed symbols
on stock exchanges that are traded today.
Okay.
And there are how many that are minority.
1010. Okay.
It's a very low percentage.
That's less than one less less,
less than 1%.
It's point two okay okay.
So when you start examining that
you could draw the incorrect conclusion
that, oh auction markets don't work.
No. They just don't work for everybody.
Yeah.
And I now use this
kind of dangerous analogy.
Water fountains work.
But at one time in the country,
one group people had to go to one water
fountain.
And another group
people went to a different water fountain.
Was it the water fountains fault?
No, it's the the structure of how it was,
how it was given out or how
or the accessibility of it, that's what.
Yes, it was all
about the accessibility of it.
So what we're laying
down is a bridge between one side
of, of of the proverbial playing field
and the other side,
which is all of the recruits
that we can bring onto the playing field.
We bring we bring the players
across the bridge.
And now, once,
all communities, all people,
all small businesses, people who have
great ideas are able to get in the game.
Well, Katie, bar the door.
I mean, and I'm going to say
this is a it's a strange.
You asked earlier how I got here.
I found
the most ingenious black business owners.
Okay?
They were geniuses.
You want to know why they didn't actually
have the same resources as other people
they had to come up with?
Well, how do we put the duct tape here
and how are we going to make sure
the wheels spins?
And they didn't have all the normal tools
that were available, but somehow they kept
keeping on, keeping on.
And so once we provide access
to a $37 trillion pool
of public market capital
to a very broad audience of quality
companies with wonderful ideas,
I think there's a number of things
that will happen.
First of all.
You know, before you get into that,
before we get to that,
because I want you to go there
because I want to get to Duane.
No, no, no, it's good, it's good.
No, but but hold on to what that's
going to be, what success would look like.
Duane? Like,
how do you
find and identify businesses
to be a part of the exchange?
Like, how do you go about doing that?
Because I, I hear all the time from people
there, there's not enough
we don't have enough capacity.
There are people are out there.
So on and so forth.
The excuse how has the dream exchange
gone to identify,
potential businesses
that others could not find?
Well, let me answer that this way
we would be not that smart
if we thought we were going to build
this business on black owned
companies and minority owned companies
that are ready to go public.
Not a good idea.
We are interested in making
sure that any small business
that is prepared to go public,
but has been left behind by the changes
in the marketplace
which have existed for the last 20 years.
Since the advent of electronic trading.
Sure, there are lots and lots of companies
that have been dependent
upon private equity,
you know, crowd funding.
So funding over the counter,
you know, drama, I mean,
they have really, really struggled
to get access to capital for us.
That is the low hanging fruit.
There are ten companies right now
in New York and New Jersey
that are members that are approaching
$1 billion in revenue.
Nobody's looking for them.
Nobody's talking to them about listing.
We are you
know, we're going to go out of our way
to make sure that companies
that can be successful
and that can help to rebuild
communities from the inside out,
are going to get access to this capital.
And I promise you the biggest fear,
you know, that Joe and I have
is that once, particularly when
the venture exchange is up and running,
there's the, you know, I mean,
you thought you we're going to be drinking
from a firehose as he is want to say.
Because that's exactly
what's going to happen.
It's not for lack of there are millions of
businesses in this country.
There are 6300 list public companies
listed.
You want
anybody that can do math at all can figure
that they're going to be
a lot of companies that are available
to be, listed on stock or on stock
exchanges.
The key, though, for us
is that we have to make sure that in
we we're creating an ecosystem.
Right.
And that ecosystem will involve
kids going to Harrell Academy and learning
about producers and consumers.
For the last 25 years in Chicago,
that will include students who have
who are going for their MBAs,
who want to get connected
to entrepreneurs, are looking to exit,
don't have any kids,
can't figure out
how to get the best bang for their buck.
They want to make sure
that the company continues to exist,
so that the jobs that they've created in
that community can go on.
We are linking.
We will be linking those people,
you know, we'll be linking
mature
businesses that are looking for exits
that, are not connected
to the right people.
Yeah. Make sense?
We will we will provide a very holistic,
environment and what we really hope to do.
And I know this this is where it gets
to be pie in the sky.
We are really focused
on people's integrity.
And then bringing, bringing
if not spiritual,
some certainly ethical,
baseline to the mix.
Because if we continue down the path
that we are
and we all know that, you know,
from the days of slavery,
we've been taught not to trust each other
is not just to just kind of happen.
It has been ingrained in us.
And then you get people who are hustling
and, you know, fast and loose with stuff.
And when stuff goes south, you know,
the word is you can't trust
and you can't do business.
Well, we got to get rid of that.
Yeah.
You know, people have to be evaluated
and judged to the extent
that you can judge anyone on their merits,
on what they do, what are they
what what have they done?
If we
can begin to do that kind of analysis
and really making sure
that if you're going to act out
and you're going to come in
and you're going to just,
you know, elbow your way
to the front of the room and
don't care about how other people
are being impacted you.
This is not your team.
We're not going to get everybody.
Well, that's good.
Because I want. Everybody
because most people don't care about that.
That's I think that's a that's an
honorable way to, to actually do business.
But as, we're going to like probably
try to, wrap up in the next
3 to 5 minutes or so.
So I want to get some things out here.
really this question
kind of kind of sticks with me.
I think
a lot of people think like public markets.
Why is that important?
Why does it even
why does that part even matter?
Being a part of a public market,
people probably see that as something
that only a certain type of person
could get into.
Like even if they have a successful
business that is at that level, like,
what is the advantage of having access
to a public market?
Why make that transition versus
just staying where they are?
What is your answer to that?
I'll go first. I'll jump. Yeah. Just so.
You know.
And then again, the irony,
at one time in our country,
we had perhaps as many as 15, 16,000
public listings.
We have 6300 today.
So it's this just as a, American problem
that audience of companies
has shrink, shrunken.
And so the importance of it,
why is it important that we have public
capital markets?
Well, the capital
that's in that market, as Duane alluded to
earlier, is really,
the the rank and file American,
whether you know it
because you invested directly in a stock
or whether you put your money in a pension
fund every week, and that pension
fund dollars ends up in,
you know, Tesla, Apple and IBM.
So without large, public companies, we're
we're we kind of have a difficult time
investing that money and having it grow.
But the important thing that we've lost
and Duane
alluded to this in the last 24 years,
at one time, 70, 80, 90%
of all new public
offerings raised $50 million or less.
And then as soon as the
advent of electronic trading,
I take some responsibility for this.
I was the one of the four people
that helped get archipelago
the first venue off the ground in 95.
Well after five years of electronic
trading being born,
we cut the number of public companies
every year by 70, 80, 90%.
So you only see a large,
multibillion dollar company
with hundreds of millions of shares
that trade in nanoseconds.
Yeah.
So what we did was we transitioned
away from the public markets
being a place to form capital
into a trading environment
for the most part.
Yeah.
And form and only forming capital
for multibillion dollar.
That's right.
Well, what's ironic about that?
What's the importance now, this is the
Treasury Department speaking, not me.
92% of the jobs that a company
creates happen after it goes public.
So if you've
got a small company with 100 people,
if it can reach the public markets,
it grows to a thousand employees.
It stabilizes their banking
relationships,
it stabilizes their vendor relationships.
It puts a large amount
of really ethical compliance
into the company, because naturally
they have to do securities reporting.
So once they reach that
public capital marketplace,
they actually have market arm's
length valuation and the instant ability
not I can who can I call what venture
capital might be interested?
Oh, we need more capital.
Let's do a public debt
offering on our company.
Oh, we need more capital.
Let's do a preferred offering.
Oh, we need more capital.
Let's do a stock split
with all the options available instantly.
By really just drafting.
The documents are now available to
that company, especially if they're small.
Right.
So what we'd like to see is a restoring
of the on ramp
into public capital markets.
This is a good thing
for the whole country.
Makes sense.
And we're targeting what we call
the underserved communities.
And there are the underserved communities
are you know, obviously,
we're targeting the black community first
and foremost to develop those companies.
But underserved includes
marketplace is where
Silicon Valley venture capitalists
don't go.
Like the Midwest, for one. Yes.
If we're the.
Rust, the Rust Belt,
we call it the Rust Belt.
We've we've identified from
there's a corridor from Milwaukee
all the way around to Gary, Indiana.
There's probably about 3500 companies
that we kind of
are aware
of who could make this marketplace.
And they're in communities
where if you put a headquarters
of a public company there
and you have job creation
within that company,
it's not just that you have now a career
path job in a small public company.
It's the ecosystem around public companies
that affects communities.
Yeah.
So your car dealer, your restaurants,
your, you know, your dry cleaners,
whatever it is,
if you look at a large headquarters
of a public company anywhere in America,
show me the community around it
and I'll show you a flourishing
and prospering community.
Absolutely.
And, but my my one, my one kind of
reservation is that you said the reason.
Part of the reason for this big transition
from IPO's
to being more publicly accessible
was, was electronic trading, correct?
Yes. Yes, yes.
So, you know,
a lot of what I do is in AI and algorithms
that's now increasing, not,
not decreasing.
And I don't see that trend,
especially with AI becoming generative,
which means you learn more.
So how do we disrupt that then in terms of
how do you
how do you have your how do you fulfill
your mission when you're up against
essentially algorithms
that are going to be able to
to move faster
than any collection of humans can?
Yeah, that's a that this might be on
another podcast, but I will.
Yeah. Yeah I'll give you the short.
Answer, the short answer.
And then we can have another podcast
about it.
The short the short answer is
we have written
AI federal law, which has moved
through the Congress in 2018.
It passed both chambers
unanimously, by the way.
Oh, it's called the Main Street
Growth Act.
And in that law, there's a brand
new type of stock exchange
that alters market structure
and in the alteration of market structure,
small cap company.
Well, they may not trade every day.
They may have an auction once a week.
The tick sizes of the trades,
we can customize them.
We can actually customize
the onboarding process and lower the,
the listing requirements
without lowering the listing standards.
So you have a company that has integrity,
but it's small.
It can make a marketplace
where the main market,
the high volatility, the 25% of all stock
every day trades in 1.64 seconds.
Okay.
Out of the 8 billion shares a day, 2
billion
shares transact in 1.64 seconds.
That doesn't work for a small company.
So the law creates a brand
new type of stock exchange
that has never existed before,
which we will be the pioneers in.
Oh, wow.
And we're allowed to accept listings,
smaller cap, smaller share prices,
same reporting standards or similar.
Not as expensive, but we put them in
a cloistered, protected marketplace where
exchange oversight of the potential abuses
of any high speed trading.
There won't be any high speed
trading at all
that they'll be an it's
an investing market.
It's a capital formation market.
So yeah, we have a complete solution
to that marketplace,
which is exactly that's goods.
You're creating a law around it.
Which is, which is which is brilliant.
Yeah. As we think about this now.
So I have a conference every year,
which I invite you to I'll be in Chicago,
actually in a few weeks, in July.
But, I'm going to Chicago,
I think, Startup Week or something.
but it's, policy is missing
from a lot of our conversations, right?
You can't.
And, we have a term at Midwest kind
that we call policy innovation.
Right?
We need to have policies
that promote innovation,
and we have to be intentional
about our policy.
And I love the fact that you're think
that you've already thought about the fact
of how data and AI algorithms
are playing into that sector.
They're playing into every sector.
And we're going to have to be
very intentional as a society about what
we want our future to look like.
And we and it's, something
that is underappreciated by those in power
and those who are just watching
because they think they don't understand.
the the big thing that's happening
right now is how
algorithms and data are being used
for a lot of great reasons.
But there also has to be
some thought about what does
the future look like, who owns the data,
who has access to the data,
and how is all this going to work,
and who is it going to work for?
so, I mean, these are things
that are really important.
And I'm so glad that you
that you both were ahead of the game
for for that,
at least
when it comes to publicly traded markets.
And you're to be commended.
Final question before we end.
And then I love it.
We'll talk a little bit after the stream.
If you were to go into the future 2040
what what what what would success
look like for the dream exchange?
Let me,
let me let me take a crack at that.
2040.
I am very optimistic
that we will have forged relationships
with legacy organizations
in our communities to teach them,
help them to be more entrepreneurial,
help them to amass significant,
endowments, and to really be in a position
to better educate
and support their memberships
because they have become distribution
channels for the kind of information
that will be pushing into the community
that is is designed
to encourage entrepreneurship and
and create some supportive environments
where entrepreneurs can really thrive.
Yeah.
So what is what does success look like?
Yeah. And it's in my lifetime.
So the 2040 expect to be here.
so for me, the the dream exchange
and whatever
it may end up getting called dream acts
becomes a household
brand in America
where everything we stand for
and everything we represent is
now known as something that the the.
You can be proud
to be associated with that.
Oh, you,
you know, someday you could make it.
And Dreamworks,
that's to me in 2040 right now
we're trying to tell
people dream exchange exists.
but in
15 years, I'm hoping that there are.
And even TV shows
like the Shark Tank anymore.
So people aren't holding their hat
while begging a billionaire
for a 500,000 to to to make their dream
come true.
It's like, oh, pretty much standard.
We have our we have a position in the
dream exchange called the Dream Catcher.
They go out there interviewing.
Human interaction is happening
amongst the companies.
They're getting their help,
they're getting the necessary
educational tools.
So they develop themselves
from the earliest possible stage
preparing for this.
And then we give all of our investment
dollars into the companies
that promote the greatest potential
for human beings to survive.
This is what we have to do with our money.
It's why we have.
It's why we have AI.
It's why we have electric cars.
It's why we have forced air heat.
Because we're not in a cave anymore.
Every time we had a great idea,
we kept putting our human
and our financial capital
behind those things.
And it has made life on earth
changed for eternity.
And so we want to represent that. Well,
that's a great vision.
Joe Joseph seller, Dwayne Kyle's
the Dream Exchange, the first black owned
drain exchange, the first black
owned exchange in the world.
I believe, at least in U.S
America, in America, history.
Excuse me.
I'm sure there's some in Latin America
in terms of, a minority owned,
but the first black owned in America
disrupting, disrupting what it means
to create wealth and opportunities.
Thank you for your work.
I definitely look forward
to working with you more.
Stay on.
after we end the stream
for a couple minutes, if you can ask him.
Thanks, Rob. Thank you so much.