For His Next Act, Ken Chenault Turns His Focus on Silicon Valley<br />As start-ups are staying private longer, venture capital firms are finding<br />that someone has to actually run the companies they invest in, to think beyond the early stages of fast growth — and a quick sale or initial public offering — and to help them scale over a decade.<br />The numbers are embarrassing and depressing: African-Americans make up only 3 percent of the venture capital work force, according to a study conducted in 2016 by the National Venture Capital Association<br />and Deloitte University Leadership Center for Inclusion.<br />“What I think is happening right now in the digital space is a maturation cycle and some people, as we’ve seen, are going to handle<br />that well and some people are going to crash and burn,” he said, without naming names.<br />“If we don’t make accelerated progress in that area, it will have dire consequences for our society.”<br />It is even worse in the venture capital industry, where there are few women and even fewer African-Americans.<br />He will be chairman and managing director of General Catalyst Partners, one of the most successful venture<br />firms of the past two decades, with stakes in companies like Airbnb, Snap, Stripe and Warby Parker.<br />One problem Mr. Chenault wants to address — conspicuous to anyone paying attention,<br />but bafflingly inconspicuous to those in the Valley — is the lack of diversity, both in gender and race, in the tech industry.<br />has risen dramatically over the last decade, from 4.9 years in 2006 to 8.3 years in<br />2016,” according to a report from Pitchbook, a data company that tracks deals.
