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.)

How to invest for a better world. Decrying the fact that most venture capitalists "worship in the church of greed," Klein and Kapor, founders of the impact investment firm Kapor Capital, offer myriad examples of businesses they have supported that are focused on doing good--specifically, on closing "gaps of access, opportunity, or outcome for low-income communities and/or communities of color." An impact investment firm, the authors explain, aims to get a substantial return on their investments by funding entrepreneurs "whose own life experiences compel them to create companies and build wealth that will solve the difficult problems that they personally had to overcome." Not surprisingly, those people come from underrepresented groups, including immigrants and children of immigrants, racial minorities, women, and individuals who identify as queer. At Kapor Capital, write the authors, "every person involved in making the fund's investment decisions is a person of color." They profile an impressive assortment of ventures responding to social, political, economic, and environmental problems, including Bitwise and Career Karma, companies helping people from underrepresented communities train for and secure jobs in the tech industry, notoriously dominated by White males from Stanford and Harvard; BlocPower, which uses a highly sophisticated software system to identify energy efficiency or inefficiency in low-income neighborhoods; Aclima, which aims "to close equity gaps in race, the environment, economics, education, and health by quantifying disparity as it relates to the quality of air people breathe; and Honor, which uses technology to make home health care more accessible and equitable. "What's wrong with the larger ecosystem of mainstream tech and venture capital," the authors assert, is that "its mission is to solve problems for the rich, and its players believe they're smarter than the experts." Although the authors address venture capitalists, they urge employees, consumers, and shareholders to join their efforts to make a positive impact. Inspiring examples of responsible capitalism. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.