Probletunities and Partnerships for Humans in Tech with Mica Le John

[00:00:04] Felicia: Hi, and welcome to the She Geeks Out podcast presented by Inclusion Geeks. We geek out about workplace inclusion and talk with brilliant humans doing great work to make the world a better and brighter place. I'm Felicia.

[00:00:19] Rachel: And I'm Rachel and today's guest is the lovely Mica Le John. She is the Chief of Staff of Black Girls Code Advisor and Entrepreneur. Mica is obsessed with how the world creates and interacts in digital spaces and is passionate about nurturing meaningful partnerships, connecting good people to each other and making the world a happier place, which is one of the reasons why we adore her and loved this conversation.

[00:00:44] Felicia: Yeah, so fun. Cannot wait for you all to hear it. But before we hear from Mica, you know, we cannot let it go by without saying let's get into it.

[00:00:54] Rachel: Now, I know,

[00:00:56] Felicia: into?

[00:00:57] Rachel: well, so this is actually being published on November 13th. We are so excited that Kamala Harris was elected president. I'm just going to put that

[00:01:07] Felicia: not laughing because I don't agree. I'm laughing because I just feel like we're flirting dangerously.

[00:01:14] Rachel: I know, I know. Well, so we're actually recording this on Election Eve on November 4th. So we, we feel a little disgusting right now.

[00:01:25] Felicia: I do want to say we had our team meeting earlier today, and I won't share everything that we talked about, but we definitely were, you know, sharing how we were feeling and what our election plans are for not just the day, but the week. And I think the reality is that it is just a very distracting time right now.

[00:01:43] Felicia: And. There is a lot going on. So, yeah.

[00:01:48] Rachel: Yeah. And you know, what's so interesting is like that we're like, well, we got to get this recorded because we got other things to do. And I know a lot of other podcasts are amazing in that they are able to just sort of like record and then publish immediately. Good for all of them. Uh, we need a little bit more time on our end to get everything together.

[00:02:05] Rachel: And the reality is, is November 13th, who knows what that will look like. All we can say is that, yeah, we're, what we're doing is we're taking off the next two days. It's company policy. So taking off election day and then the next day, because a lot of us will probably be in our feels regardless of what happens.

[00:02:23] Felicia: I will say, it's not even just about being in the fields, it's also just about the realities, right? Because no matter what happens, we're probably going to be up late, distracted, if we're excited about the happenings, We're going to be celebrating, or maybe we will have celebrated.

[00:02:39] Felicia: It might be an all nighter. Who knows if we're not happy with how things go, we'll be processing and dealing with that. And maybe it'll also be an all nighter. So those are not conditions that are conducive for good quality work. It's just the reality, like no matter what happens, the work that we would get done on the 6th of November is not worth it.

[00:02:59] Felicia: In all honesty, so I don't want to, like, pat ourselves on the back, but I just want to say, we talk a lot about the workplace and the future of work and work has changed a lot. And I think that's 1 of the biggest changes that we have seen ourselves over the last 2 elections that we've been doing this as part of this organization where, you know, we I think I've always tried to be really supportive and inclusive, giving people time off to vote and all that great stuff, but I think the big shift for me is just really being realistic and honest about what is going to actually get done from a work perspective, and do we need to force ourselves to be on if we are just not going to be bringing our full selves to it, whatever way that might mean, so.

[00:03:41] Rachel: Yeah. I, I really appreciate that. I think that is spot on. How productive are we really going to be? And I mean, we were talking about today is

[00:03:48] Felicia: I know. I mean, I'm mentally checked out. Are you?

[00:03:50] Rachel: yeah, I mean, we're, we're doing this, which is great.

[00:03:53] Felicia: is great. And this is joyful for us. We enjoy doing this a lot.

[00:03:57] Rachel: absolutely. Yeah, we are getting some work done, but, you know, I was joking with Felicia that we're getting some work done and then interspersed with, you know doom scrolling on YouTube, listening to Pod Save America or whatever, and that is just where our heads are at right now, and I truly do hope that when, by the time this actually comes out, that we'll all be in a bit of a calmer state, but who knows, we will have another podcast episode that certainly comes out after this, and we will, uh, report our feels at that point.

[00:04:25] Felicia: yeah, so I guess if you're really interested to hear how we are, we'll tell you in our next episode.

[00:04:30] Rachel: you could just forward through this, you could forward through this nonsense and then let's do the next one, but yeah, uh, hope that you are, regardless of the day, giving your teammates and your employees the grace that they need to get through this election season and frankly, the holiday season as well, which we can talk more about next time too. So, yeah,

[00:04:54] Felicia: Yeah. So with all that, we're going to get things going on our interview front, but before we officially go ahead and welcome Mica, we want to share an exciting resource with you. Did you know that we offer a fantastic newsletter

[00:05:05] Rachel: I didn't know that.

[00:05:07] Felicia: You didn't let me be the first to tell you it's got news.

[00:05:10] Felicia: It's got insights. It's got links to articles. It's got resources. It's got stuff that we put out. It is the best source for learning how to support a truly fair and inclusive work environment. So don't miss out. Sign up today at inclusiongeeks. com forward slash newsletter and stay informed and inspired.

[00:05:28] Felicia: So welcome to the show, Mica.

[00:05:30] Rachel: Yay! Yay!

[00:05:33] Rachel: Welcome, Mica. We are so excited to have you here.

[00:05:41] Mica: I'm so excited to be here. It has been a long time since we caught up, but we are old school internet friends. So very proud of us to be back.

[00:05:50] Rachel: I know,

[00:05:51] Felicia: we, should we actually even start with that actually? Cause I don't think I know this part of how you two know each

[00:05:56] Felicia: other. 

[00:05:56] Rachel: Go ahead, Mica. Go ahead.

[00:05:58] Mica: So the year is 2020. I,

[00:06:02] Felicia: All right. I'm loving this so far.

[00:06:04] Mica: we have moved at least once. I've moved at least thrice since, or I'm moving tomorrow. So that's probably the third time

[00:06:13] Felicia: Wait, what?

[00:06:14] Mica: first met. Yeah. I'm moving from New York to LA Just giving it another, I think, Rachel, was I in LA when we first, no, I was in Miami, I think, when we first met.

[00:06:23] Mica: Yeah, yeah, um, I don't remember how we met, I assume one of us DM'd the other on LinkedIn, like it must have just been something, we were like, you're cool, you're cool, let's be friends, and then became internet friends, and we've never met in human form, maybe one day we will? Maybe we keep it mysterious.

[00:06:40] Mica: Like, I don't know how tall you are. Maybe I'll never know.

[00:06:43] Rachel: I even have

[00:06:43] Felicia: Wait, wait, wait.

[00:06:44] Rachel: know.

[00:06:45] Felicia: Can I just ask, like, do you, how tall do you think Rachel is just based off of her internet persona and the zoom box that you see her in right now? I'm so curious.

[00:06:55] Mica: in my head, Rachel is like 5'11 but you also could be like 4'9

[00:07:02] Rachel: No, I

[00:07:03] Mica: give big energy.

[00:07:05] Rachel: love that you have me at such a height of, like, abnormally tall. I'm very average. I just, I actually just learned, learned that I shrunk. I've been saying that I'm 5'7 and then I recently found out that I'm, like Five, six and a half. So I don't know where that half an inch went. It's very upsetting.

[00:07:23] Mica: maybe you got a haircut and it's like when I had an afro, I was always, I always measured taller cause I couldn't get down to my head.

[00:07:30] Rachel: Well, you

[00:07:31] Mica: no, I always thought you were, I always thought you were taller. I thought you were like basketball level, like, you know, yeah.

[00:07:37] Rachel: I love that for me. But the same for you.

[00:07:40] Felicia: is the tallest person on our team. So she definitely holds it down for the tall, the

[00:07:44] Mica: Oh my gosh.

[00:07:45] Rachel: I do feel a little bit like Shrek on our team because literally everyone averages like a five foot tall, uh, except for Rachel Sadler. She's taller, but, um, and then Mica, I don't know for you, I would say you also give big energy.

[00:07:57] Mica: I'm 6'4

[00:07:58] Rachel: I love that

[00:08:00] Mica: I'm not 6'4. I'm 5'6

[00:08:01] Felicia: really?

[00:08:02] Mica: like this. We are eye to eye. Yeah.

[00:08:05] Rachel: yeah, I can't wait to meet you in person. And if you're coming out to LA, we'll be neighbors. So,

[00:08:10] Mica: I would love that. I would love that.

[00:08:11] Rachel: I'm glad that we've checked that box off.

[00:08:13] Mica: The history.

[00:08:14] Rachel: The history. And like, and yeah, I mean, 2020, what even was 2020? And so much has happened for you.

[00:08:21] Rachel: We do love to geek out about our guests. Getting into like, how did you become the chief of staff of Black Girls Code ? Wanna hear the journey, because you have quite a journey. Now I'm putting myself on mute.

[00:08:34] Mica: absolutely have. Please don't put yourself on mute. Um, my career has been a super winding path. And it's probably easier to just tell it chronologically because then you'll see some threads come through. So, I'm from Toronto, Canada, originally, and started, well my first career was child actor. So, I went to performing arts elementary and high school, my dad's a jazz musician, my whole mom's side are artists and activists and academics, so I just grew up in very creative spaces.

[00:09:05] Mica: So, Always just like, I'm an only child kind of, I have half siblings who are much older, so I kind of just like grew up being like the weirdo, the geek of the family and ended up getting my first job when blogs were cool, it was like 2008 ish, I was just finishing right after high school. I got an internship that turned into a pretty much full time job, the fall after the summer, um, working at an all woman run marketing and PR firm in Toronto, called Pink Mafia. What was our, our, the tagline was Knee Socks Beat Cleavage. So I worked there for about four years, doing everything from, you know, online and offline, branded community building, experiential, before that was a thing people called it.

[00:09:44] Mica: I remember when Instagram launched because everyone was like, what is this thing? How are we going to use it? Editorial, I ran a street team. It was really fun. And for a number of years after that, I had my own consultancy doing essentially the same thing, but focused on millennials, like kind of before we called ourselves that, but focused on millennials.

[00:10:03] Mica: And then I got really burnt out and I really loved the work and the creative problem solving, but just like the actual function of working in marketing was not for me anymore. And so in 2014, 2015, I ended up transitioning out of that world back into the arts as an educator. And so, moved from Toronto to New York in 2016, went headfirst into that world, went to the New School, which I really loved.

[00:10:28] Mica: And, long story short, uh, ended up Director of Education for an arts organization here in New York. So, spent a couple of years building programming predominantly for Black and Brown, queer youth, young women. Across the city, across all five boroughs, spent a lot of time in East Flatbush, which was wonderful.

[00:10:44] Mica: And remember like 2017 18 is like before TikTok was in the world, but I was seeing how young people were using technology, using the arts to create and express. My husband became my co founder and we started ideating in this space about what would it look like to build technology that allows and enables young people to create their fullest selves in the world.

[00:11:07] Mica: And so yeah, Fast forward a little bit. Um, maybe not too much. The short version is, we built and shipped a couple different products that were before their time. Uh, the first app was social video storytelling, pre TikTok. I mean, like, vertical and horizontal scroll, multi term search. At the time, you couldn't record clips in any app.

[00:11:26] Mica: Michael built it all single handedly and built clips into it like, too early, but we, you know, it happened. We

[00:11:32] Rachel: of your time. You were

[00:11:33] Mica: very ahead. Yeah. And then from there we moved into social messaging focused on women centric BIPOC centric communities. That was like right in the lead up to COVID and then the last couple of years.

[00:11:46] Mica: I've been focused on an avatar creation platform called Adoro. So thinking about the self as the medium and how to create an experiment there. So in total, I've spent about seven years focused on identity, self expression for young people. And then really excited that in parallel, I've had the chance to work with a ton of startups like For Them, which is a queer centric product and media platform.

[00:12:06] Mica: I'm focused on LGBTQIA+ community, lots of startups in the future of workspace, Gen Z identity, and then. Now, Chief of Staff at Black Girls Code. 

[00:12:17] Felicia: First of all, I just want to say what a journey. Very exciting. I feel like you definitely did a very high level gloss over a lot of really, really interesting stuff.

[00:12:23] Felicia: So. We might have to go back and dig into some of that more, but I want to talk about your current role, which is, as you mentioned, Chief of Staff at Black Girls Code. So can you talk a little bit about what does a Chief of Staff do? And maybe some of the special projects are working on right now.

[00:12:37] Mica: Absolutely. So my not good answer is a chief of staff does different things at every organization. So for anyone

[00:12:45] Felicia: it. Cause it's so true. That's why I always ask them, like, what is your definition?

[00:12:49] Mica: What does that actually mean? Because it looks really different. Um, for me at Black Girls Code, it's quite literally a little bit of everything.

[00:12:57] Mica: So a lot of my role is focusing on how to support our green team, our executive leadership team to get things to green. So I work with really closely with our marketing team, probably unsurprisingly, uh, to support some of the work that they do. I actually joined Black Girls Code. Originally, my first project coming in was supporting on our 2024 summer camps.

[00:13:17] Mica: And so we're just coming off of that September now. So last month, uh, we ran eight summer camps across the country. Half of them were two week long summer camps focused on gaming and climate, half of them were three day long boot camps focused on computer vision and artificial intelligence So we got to really work with some amazing partners Rekha, which is a learning lab at MIT. Take action global, endless OS like just wonderful folks to build this out.

[00:13:44] Mica: And then my work also looks like, you know, getting to go to cool events with our CEO and meet fascinating humans and learn about their work and find ways to tap in with the team, a little bit of ops, a lot a bit of systems, um, because I'm secretly a systems, life systems nerd, and there's probably other things in there, but I'll stop talking there.

[00:14:05] Rachel: And when did you start at Black Girls Code?

[00:14:09] Mica: February, 2024. I

[00:14:11] Rachel: February 2024. And um, yeah, 2024 is a wild ride.

[00:14:16] Mica: Mm hmm.

[00:14:17] Rachel: As you know, we started out and for many of our listeners, we started out as a women in tech group, um, in the Boston area. And it has been such a journey for so many organizations. Um, we saw Girls Who Code end their time as well as Women in Tech, um, and there have been other organizations as well. We certainly shut down our community side because of all the same reasons. There was just a shutdown in funding. And then there was also, I think, just exhaustion from the community, just showing up, you know, especially when it's like the work hustle is very different these days, right? I'm really curious to know your perspective as you're in this space. How do you see it sort of evolving? What does the future look like given this pushback that we're seeing toward equity and fairness in the tech industry?

[00:15:11] Mica: In the tech industry, in the world. Um, I mean, to be more specific, I think to answer your question, when we think, when you think about the tech industry more broadly, and about the lack the diversity and lack of diversity. Like if you look at the numbers, less than 2 percent of STEM engineering and tech roles are held by black women.

[00:15:34] Mica: I think we're maybe at 25 percent are held by women now, but women are half of all graduates of undergrad programs. Like the num, the math is not mathing. That funnel is just like, The end of it is so, so, so narrow. And I think there's this huge opportunity right now for organizations to think about D E and I D E I B whatever acronym they're using for it.

[00:15:55] Mica: It's like, if you're going to do it double down, because it's an investment, it's a business imperative. The best companies have the most diverse teams. We were really fortunate, Michael, my co founder and I with our last company, we raised venture capital. We had about 20 or so folks on our team between 17 years old and in their mid 50s.

[00:16:12] Mica: We were entirely remote and distributed team around the world. So operating in five time zones, highly diverse across racial and ethnic identity, LGBTQIA+ identity, femme identity, like we just did the most. And, you know, happily we created what With such a generative environment because we really centered not just the diversity piece, but creating space for folks to talk about it.

[00:16:37] Mica: And I think in a lot of organizations, what can end up happening is that companies are made up of individuals, and folks can only get things so far if they have buy in from their colleagues. And so I think one of the things to your point that we're seeing right now is a lot of organizations, not for profit organizations, beholden to where they get their funding.

[00:16:59] Mica: Beholden to either grants or corporate. And corporates can be fickle. Grants are very difficult. There's a huge competitive nature to them, right? There's, we're put into the scarcity effect. And I think if we can have an opportunity, if the three of us right now can just do, snap our fingers and change it all, I think one of the biggest opportunities is rethinking what does it look like to do this work.

[00:17:22] Mica: And making sure for folks that who want to do this work, they're just doubling down. It's not a quiet side of desk opportunity. It's a big, let's build a new table to use that metaphor. Let's like build a whole table and focus on this.

[00:17:34] Felicia: Yeah, I love that idea or the metaphor of the table. I think that what we've been noticing and keeping tabs on is that the number of people to lean into this metaphor a little bit more number of people who come to the table, a lot of people have shown themselves out of the room, right?

[00:17:52] Felicia: You know, post- 2020, there was a huge swell where I do think a lot of companies and individuals were like, Oh, we have to show up in some way because that's just the way the world has shifted very dramatically. And now I think we're definitely seeing a shift where people are like, Oh, actually I can show my true colors essentially.

[00:18:09] Felicia: Like, I don't really want to be here. I don't care about the table, flip the table, you know, whatever. Whatever we want to go with

[00:18:15] Mica: the table to a

[00:18:16] Felicia: burn the table down, whatever, you know, like the Home Depots and the Lowe's and the John Deere's of the world, which again, like not surprising per se, but it is a little disappointing.

[00:18:25] Felicia: So I'm just curious, like if you're seeing that in your space with Black Girls Code or in other things that you're involved in and any thoughts you have on okay, the people who are at the table are committed, but what about the people who've let themselves out, so to speak.

[00:18:40] Mica: I have a couple of thoughts on that. The number of black women and gender, gender expensive folks in tech is decreased to your point, like very significantly. And that's not just layoffs. That's folks withdrawing from the industry. And a lot of how we think about this work at Black Girls Code is about how do we support folks and build scaffolding, not just in our 7 to 17 year old programming, but for the 18 to 25 programming, because that early career, and emerging professional stage is really key.

[00:19:07] Mica: We're not only do you have the hands, the keyboard skills that to get the job, but the mindset skills to succeed and thrive in the job and a lot of that work that we've been doing is thinking around how do we build programs that enable folks to build community, to build financial literacy and financial leadership skills, to build those mental health skills. If they end up making the decision, you know, I'm going into tech, maybe you enter as an engineer, but you become a product manager, and then a product marketing manager, and then a VP of marketing, you know, like the career path. I'm someone who comes from a very winding road.

[00:19:40] Mica: This career path doesn't have to be linear. And I think as we also start to see more folks entering the industry, Gen Z, as we all like to call them, because we see them entering the industry, this is very much how they operate. They are going into careers, expecting that it's going to be a little bit different.

[00:19:55] Mica: They don't want to stay at a company for 40 years of their lives. They really want to experiment and play. And I think that creating space and opportunity, especially for black and brown girls and gender expansive youth, creating experience, the opportunity to play, to experiment, to learn alongside peers and their families is really key to actually bringing about that change.

[00:20:14] Rachel: That's so good. And I could like, dive deep into what does it even mean to do this work? Like, to do the tech work, right? It's all about this desire for play. I see it, I see it in the younger generations, and I, I see it in myself, it's not just the youths, this desire for not having work tied to your life and finding ways to find meaning in In your life beyond work, and recognizing that we live in this ridiculously capitalist society and we want stuff and we want to feel comfortable.

[00:20:50] Rachel: We want to feel safe. And so there's there's this monetary need for this. And this is why, like, it's such a bummer because one of the fastest ways to wealth if you don't have the generational wealth is honestly is probably in the tech industry in the US. So to see that there's just this opting out, which I, I've did it myself. I get it. Like, not interested is a terrible toxic environment. I love the work that you're doing. I'm just curious, is there any work on the other side? I'm sure that there's organizations and companies that have that power to encourage more people to show up and do this work so that we can do the things.

[00:21:28] Rachel: Do you see that there are those people? Who's building that table? Who has the power? Is there, do you see any movement, any changes there? That was very long winded.

[00:21:38] Mica: No, that was, that was great, and it sparked a couple thoughts, and hopefully I'll answer it correctly, so you can tell

[00:21:44] Rachel: And I'm sure you will. There are no wrong answers.

[00:21:46] Mica: great. Yes, there are folks, I mean, I think, I'm debating whether to keep this metaphor off the table or use a different metaphor, but anyway, yes. I think one of the biggest things that we're starting to see more broadly, And by we, I mean us, the humans, not just Black Girls Code is this idea around collective power, and I think traditionally, historically, that's just really been seen as like a political tool, which, you know, everything is politics, in some way or another. But I think one of the things that I'm really excited about, even just in my own day to day work at Black Girls Code is how many of our partners, especially our corporate partners, are willing to step up are willing to make the introductions, plural.

[00:22:28] Mica: Again, companies are made up of individuals. So you have that one person who's an advocate within an organization, whether they're part of an ERG, whether they're a senior leader, whether they're on the grant making committee, you get that one advocate. We all, everyone has friends from so many different walks of their life that we have this opportunity and we're starting to see it even at BGC or specifically at BGC where you find that one advocate, they make an introduction, you create a coalition. We think a lot about partnerships, our CEO Christina Mancini who started, I guess she's actually, I was gonna say she's new, but she's been there over a year now. A lot of Christina's work has been expanding our footprint across the country and a lot of that is through partnerships. So we're operating in about eight cities nationally. That's going to increase very significantly in the next 18 months and it's through relationship building. It's through opportunity.

[00:23:17] Mica: It's not that we need to reinvent the wheel every time and I think as we think about who we're partnering with, whether it's corporate or local organizations, we're getting that. Like people are excited. We want to build partnerships. That's my thought. 

[00:23:29] Rachel: It makes my heart happy to hear that these partnerships are there and it's, it's, it's heading in the right direction that you're looking to 2025 and beyond.

[00:23:38] Felicia: Yeah, let's talk more about the human piece because I agree with both of you. I think that's so important. And I'm just thinking about, I was thinking kind of like laughing to myself because very early in my career, I did this whole other job where one of the aspects was we had to reach out to organizations and like cold call them basically and come up with who's going to be the champion for this project that we'd be pitching.

[00:23:58] Felicia: And just thinking about how I used to approach that, it was so bonkers. And I'm like, that's. It was useless, but the idea of the champion is not useless. It's really important. And it's so critical, but to lean more into the human piece, you describe yourself as a humanist technologist. And so I'd love to just get a bit more from you.

[00:24:16] Felicia: Like, what does that mean to you? And how does that influence the work that you're doing, especially given the context of everything we've just been talking about.

[00:24:23] Mica: Transparently, it's a slightly cheeky title for myself, only because I think, uh, side tangent. I'm reading this really great book right now called Life is Hard by a philosopher at MIT, which I did not know MIT has a philosophy department. I don't know if it's a department, but they have this one professor. I'm loving this book.

[00:24:43] Mica: I'm only on chapter three, so hopefully it continues to be great. But the first chapter is all around, um, pain, the second is around loneliness, third is around grief. So just like different elements of our life and looking at it through like I think he uses moral philosophy as his core personal lens to approach this work.

[00:24:59] Mica: Anyway, to bring it all back to like humanism, um, I think this idea of, I don't prescribe to one singular philosophy. I'm not a Stoic. I don't, If you can't tell, pull a lot of different threads into how I understand the world. I'm all for technology.

[00:25:14] Mica: I'm all for experimentation. Joy is a core personal value. It's actually a core value at Black Girls Code as an organization. So I'm all about play. I love a new tool. I have 17 different AI apps that I use every day. Like, I'll do the same search on multiple apps just to see what's going on.

[00:25:29] Mica: And I find that really fun. I love the idea of replacing my whole body with titanium and like having not necessarily wires out of my head, but like connecting like that just sounds fun. But I'm still a human. I still think it's really important that we remember that interpersonal connection. We are literally all impacting each other in every single moment of our lives, whether we realize it or not, that me doing this podcast, I'm going to have a call right after with a colleague of mine, like me mentioning it to her, she's going to look it up. She's probably going to tell her partner or a friend about it.

[00:26:02] Mica: Like we can all have these wild ripple effects in the lives of others, and we can use technology to either amplify that in a good way or amplify that in a very bad way. It is a spectrum though and I think to me is that idea of humanist technologist is like how do we maximize technology? It is a tool. What we use as the internet, where we use as computers It's all a tool and it's about how do we actually apply that as humans in the lives we have with each other because if the internet broke tomorrow if every all electricity was gone tomorrow, We only have each other.

[00:26:33] Rachel: I think about that a lot, actually. And I love your idea of the titanium. I don't know if you've ever seen altered carbon, but it's basically you're right. Like your consciousness is just on a disc. And I think about that a lot because I'm I'm doing this like little meditation stuff right now.

[00:26:48] Rachel: And they're just talking about a lot about consciousness and how everything is in our minds. What is even external? It's big question marks yeah, if we didn't have technology, how, how would that impact what, what we're experiencing? So I'm so down for all of that. And you're right at the core of everything that we do, it's, it's about us as humans.

[00:27:05] Rachel: And how are we showing up in the, the, uh, ethical dilemmas? We could be people like Elon Musk, or we could be people like Mark Cuban, and there's lots of different versions of that. Um, but they're all white men. Yeah. So anyway, okay,

[00:27:23] Mica: Rachel, also to the, so two thoughts. One, the reason I bring up Titanium, there's a series that made a huge impact on me as a kid. Um, I don't know if it's aged well, so I'm saying it, but like maybe it's not. Um, Scott Westerfield is his name, the series is called Uglies.

[00:27:37] Mica: It was a trilogy and it was about, um, I don't want to ruin it for everyone. It's dark and incredible, but basically like kids live in boarding school and they're just like regular kids until they're a certain age and then they like reach like 17 and they get plastic surgery and become like fancy cool people.

[00:27:53] Mica: It's wild. Anyway, they're all like, I'm pretty sure they're all titanium. So like it's slightly, I brainwashed myself when I was a teenager. 

[00:27:59] Felicia: Do, do you know that there's a movie coming out? It's like,

[00:28:02] Felicia: I think it's out now, actually. 

[00:28:03] Mica: I have mixed feelings. I rarely see a movie that was based off a book because they make me sad most of the time.

[00:28:11] Rachel: Fair

[00:28:11] Felicia: Mika, so I have a pin that I have, it's on my winter jacket, so it hasn't busted out quite just yet. Um, but it's, the book is better than the movie cause that's the age old, uh, conversation I have with my husband, if he, who disagrees,

[00:28:25] Mica: No,

[00:28:26] Felicia: with you.

[00:28:27] Mica: always true. My sister's a librarian. Well, now she runs accessibility at a library, but she is originally a librarian and I just grew up just, we are book purists in this family. So like we're, we like, we love movies, but like, you know, adaptations. Don't always do it.

[00:28:44] Rachel: you can't, I mean, even if you give someone like, you know, seven movies or, you know, 10 years of a series, you just, you can't get that. That essence, but I do appreciate both of your brains because they work differently than mine. I'm such a visual person that I'm the slowest reader in the world because I have to visually interpret every single word that I go through.

[00:29:05] Rachel: So it takes me forever to read. And I have conversations with Felicia and like my husband, and they're just the fastest readers. And I'm like, I literally don't know how you process that information so quickly. So I need a movie sometimes. But 

[00:29:17] Mica: Of course. Of course. I mean, you'd probably be an incredible filmmaker then if your brain is just working on such a visual level.

[00:29:23] Rachel: know what?

[00:29:24] Mica: your 2025

[00:29:25] Rachel: I'm here for it. I mean, who knows what 2025 will hold. Look, I'm, I'm ready. Let's go. Let's do this.

[00:29:32] Mica: Love it.

[00:29:33] Rachel: I love, I love change. Um, so speaking of change, actually, obviously, we talked about this. You do a lot of work as an entrepreneur. You advise a lot of people, um, just would love to hear your experience with that. And if you can sort of shine a light on some of the challenges that you've had, or I like to call them probletunities myself. Maybe an example of one that you've had and one that you've been able to overcome or support someone else in overcoming.

[00:29:58] Mica: I'm thinking a lot of thoughts. Maybe a little bit of context. Well, this is a sidebar. I've been spending a lot of time recently thinking about what is my ideal life? Like, what does my day look like? And not, like, I'm really intense about time blocking, but I just mean generally, like, what is my morning experience?

[00:30:14] Mica: How do I feel by the time I sit down at my computer? What is my midday experience? Like, have I, inhaled a full breath today. Um, so anyway, all that to say is I've been thinking about that a lot because it's also impacted, how do I want to bring myself to the world? What kind of work am I doing?

[00:30:30] Mica: Who am I supporting in that work? What am I, like, that Ikigai like, what you're good at, what you want to do. I forget what the third one is. There's a third. Good stories. Are told in three parts. Um, but all that to say is I think to answer your problem tunity 

[00:30:44] Rachel: probletunity

[00:30:45] Rachel: I can't take credit for it. By the way, the first time I ever heard it, I believe was on crazy ex girlfriend, I think. So I just want to give credit.

[00:30:52] Mica: Good credit. Good credit. I think the things that I think about where I've had these problems and opportunities and where I've seen them for other folks, whether as founders or as artists or as funders, because I have a lot of friends and folks that I collaborate with who are on the money, like allocation side, is I think a lot about where do I want to be supporting folks the most, where am I the most capable to support folks, and then happily those have happened to be most of the things I've had trouble with myself, or that I really enjoyed doing.

[00:31:22] Mica: So some of my favorite things to do are like help founders get funded, and help creatives and experiment, I use experimental broadly because like anything not mainstream is considered experimental, even if it's only like slightly an inch off the edge. Thinking about how do I support those folks and getting their projects brought to fruition.

[00:31:38] Mica: So it's all of my mission in life is to support others to create the world they want to live in. And so all that I do is centered around that. Not sure if I'm answering your question, even as I say this, but we'll see where it ends. So, with that, I've been really fortunate to, fortunate?

[00:31:53] Mica: I guess I've been fortunate to have to have had fundraised for my last startup, which went incredibly well insofar as like the folks who ended up on our cap table, incredible humans, 98 percent women, BIPOC and or LGBTQIA+, 2 percent advocates. And sponsors and folks like white men who, our name was in their mouth when they were in the rooms we were not invited to.

[00:32:17] Mica: So that was incredible. That said, it took almost 200 meetings to raise our first couple hundred K. And some real interesting conversations in there. Lots of lovely humans who I'm still in touch with and are great and I connect them with DealFlow. Some who are not necessarily my people, which is fine.

[00:32:34] Mica: And then we raised capital over the years. And I've been really fortunate because not only then did that push our company forward, enable us to hire this incredible, diverse team I mentioned, build a beautiful product, build a beautiful community, but it also means that now I can pay that forward and make introductions to other founders that I support and advise to them.

[00:32:51] Mica: I've been really fortunate because of working in the arts that I get to meet very experimental, interesting humans in the world. And so spending a lot of time thinking about how do I build those coalitions I mentioned earlier, even just in my own spare time. How do I introduce someone to a funder? How do I introduce an artist to a brand who might be able to collaborate on something?

[00:33:10] Mica: So I spent a lot of time thinking about that. I spend a lot of time learning from those conversations and what works and what doesn't, and just really excited to keep doing that.

[00:33:19] Felicia: I love the idea of what you were saying earlier around being really intentional about how you're spending your day or like what you're doing at certain moments because I'm really bad at that. So this is inspiration for me to be better. I'm the kind of person who's always like, I'm going to get up and work out in the morning.

[00:33:37] Felicia: And then I'm like on the couch for two hours, like watching the news. So

[00:33:41] Mica: Sometimes, well, I don't know about the news part, but sometimes you do just need to do that, though, too. I would like to encourage grace giving, because you may want to work out, but your body keeps the score, and your body might be saying, be 

[00:33:52] Felicia: I know, I agree with you, and I appreciate that so much, Mica, but the problem is that my body never wants to work out. My body's got some issues I need to deal with internally , but let's talk about not my body and my issues. Let's talk about your thoughts and your brain, and what are you seeing as like the future of the digital space right now?

[00:34:09] Felicia: We've talked a little bit about identity, community. What are your thoughts around where this space is going to go in the future?

[00:34:16] Mica: I have many thoughts. We are constantly at forks in the road, the logic tree of life, where decisions every day, a decision is made by people very far away from us, the users of the technology of the internet, that end up having long lasting repercussions on our society, on our communities, every overlapping community, because that's a lot of different things.

[00:34:38] Mica: I'm talking geographic, I'm talking identity, etc. I think we're at this really interesting point. So as a, as a millennial, I'm squarely. Squarely right in the middle of millennialism. I remember getting my first MSN Messenger account. I remember my friend Greta wrote down her email. She wrote down the website I needed to go to to download, like generally what titles to click. I went home, After school, I downloaded MSN and like my brain exploded. And then a few years later, MySpace came and my computer was in a public place. Like it was in our apartment, but it was like in the living room. So my mom was like, what are you doing? I play games and she'd come watch me.

[00:35:14] Mica: Like it was very much still an interactive experience. Even my grandmother who has never used a computer to this day would watch and be like, what's going on? But she was into it. I was the first one with a cell phone in school. So I was always early to the tech, but I was always, It has a purpose, it has a use.

[00:35:29] Mica: And as we've seen over the years, Rachel, we've talked about this at length, I've spent a lot of time working in and doing research around mental health for young people and the intersection of the internet and digital spaces, and how does it support, how does it help, and how does it hinder?

[00:35:43] Mica: And I think we've seen this huge change that happened, as we all know, where it went from like, okay, technology is, you don't get it to your teens, to suddenly like, kids are using Instagram, creating Finstas before they're supposed to be using Instagram. For those listening, a Finsta is a fake Instagram, so they were not having an account their parents could see, they created their own on their cell phone.

[00:36:00] Mica: Um, and. Gen Z, as it were, is this generation, we'll call it, that grew up with the internet embedded in their hand. They were the ones who were watching things on iPads and the news were freaked out that all these kids are watching things on iPads at eight years old and their parents could be talking to them, etc.

[00:36:17] Mica: And now we have a lot of social media and tech addiction. We have schools that are creating sort of like zipped bags with pencil cases that get locked at the start of the day and your cell phone goes into it. Which on one hand is great, because like, yeah, let's force ourselves to be present. On the other hand, it's horrible, because that means that we're not equipping young people with the tools to have restraint in that way.

[00:36:38] Mica: Or equipping parents with the ability to know, you don't need to message your kids. Like you can see them on the map. You know where they are. I also will say that I'm saying this in the more broad context. But of course, we know what the climate is like in the United States in terms of school safety for high schoolers.

[00:36:54] Mica: So there's also that consideration. That said, what we're calling gen alpha, which is like the children of millennials, and some, you know, other folks like kids who are under I think five is the cutoff now, maybe it's seven. Fascinating. I don't know if either of you know, gen alphas

[00:37:10] Felicia: Yeah, so I have two nephews who are squarely Gen Alpha. One just turned seven and one is five. It is, like, I love them to death, but I am scared of them 

[00:37:24] Mica: That's the 

[00:37:24] Felicia: some ways.

[00:37:26] Mica: There's a huge opportunity, again, spectrum, where on one hand we have things like skibidi, which I don't know if either of you know that word.

[00:37:36] Felicia: So I have to tell you both really quickly, side story. So, um, I do know that word. I don't know if you know that. Do you know that Rachel?

[00:37:42] Rachel: Of course not. Look at

[00:37:44] Felicia: It's okay. Um, maybe, but like, so I, I am a millennial. I'm an elder millennial, but I try to stay on top of things and, you know, be hip and whatever, but super side story. So I was at my 20th college reunion this past summer, and I bumped into an old friend who was like a journalist, fancy journalist in New York City and his wife and all this good stuff.

[00:38:03] Felicia: And they had their kid with them. And he's probably like maybe 11? So that age range and he was doing like a hangman thing on the board like the drawing and so we're trying to find the letters and I'm looking at it and I'm like I've never met this kid before I'm like dude is this skibidi toilet and he was like yes how did you know that. I got so many cred points of this random little kid because I knew that I just like this is what I say when I'm afraid I'm afraid of

[00:38:33] Mica: I, exactly. Okay, Rachel, we have to tell you what it is so you can also be afraid, but then I will say why we don't need to miss, well, why we might not need to be afraid. So the short version is skibidi. I'm probably butchering the description. So like anyone listening, please don't at me. You can't anyway because I don't use social really.

[00:38:48] Mica: Um, but skibidi Toilet is a YouTube series created by a 20 something, I think he's maybe a young Russian guy about these heads that live in toilets. And they are fighting the humans, and there's like, some stuff, weird stuff happens, and it's like terrifying. Like, if you quickly Google an image 

[00:39:07] Felicia: It's actually scary to look at. Yeah.

[00:39:09] Mica: Yeah, the part that actually concerns me more is that Michael Bay signed on to do a movie, a multi million dollar action film about this thing, and that's what scares me, is that the formula that media and production companies use tells them this is something they should make. That's what scares me. So, are you looking at a picture?

[00:39:36] Rachel: I am and I'm seeing it and what it, what it is reminding me of is this is just, it's an evolution of, this is reminding me of Garbage Pail Kids.

[00:39:50] Mica: Oh my gosh. But 

[00:39:53] Rachel: Which they made a movie on. Yes, which they made a movie on and yeah, so I'm just

[00:40:00] Felicia: So what you're saying, Rachel, is that 20 years from now, we're going to be listening to a, how did this get made podcast or whatever format episode on the skibidi Toilet movie? I

[00:40:17] Rachel: it

[00:40:18] Mica: gosh. We won't even actually be listening to it. There'll be like a chip embedded in our brain and we'll just like, experience the information.

[00:40:25] Felicia: yeah.

[00:40:26] Mica: Yeah.

[00:40:27] Felicia: Embed it. Go ahead.

[00:40:28] Rachel: But please, Mica, I want, I would love for you to continue your thought on this, this

[00:40:32] Mica: The good end. So let me tell you the good end. So the bad end is like, movies are being made about things like this. They're going to be made. I think that's a bad idea, personally. On the other side, or I'll say in the middle, we have this really interesting world where, I was speaking to someone at maybe last year or the year before, and her son is about eight actually, and he plays a lot of video games and plays a lot of multiplayer like internet games.

[00:40:55] Mica: And what will happen is he will play games. He might come home after school with, have two friends there, but he'll play with four of their other friends who were in their respective houses. And his grandmother usually is there after school, like hanging out with them. So it becomes this like intergenerational distributed community of learning and experimentation and play.

[00:41:16] Mica: And that gets me excited in my former arts life here in New York, I actually got the chance to work on an intergenerational community art think tank at East Flatbush, where we converted an unused emergency waiting room into the space of discovery. And so I love stuff like that. So that gives me hope.

[00:41:30] Mica: And then on the far end of that, which also, you know, could veer into some negative way, I'm sure, and somehow is just like a complete rejection of a lot of social technologies, especially by young people, just like really like younger, younger kids, and just grounded in like, every day world. We've seen so many articles that are like tech workers not allowing their children to use technology. Like, kids using wooden blocks, things like that, where I think this rejection by parents exactly like the rejection by parents and then the ending up rejection by kids.

[00:42:00] Mica: I think there's a balance. The phones aren't going away technology's not going like this tech is not going away, but finding a balance and and a more thoughtful self awareness and intentionality seems to be something where, especially millennials, because we grew up without and with this technology, we're able to offer as parents, as aunties and uncles, as niblings, like we're being able to actually create this experience for our families and friends in a way that is gonna be very different, I think, than before and before us, for sure.

[00:42:32] Mica: They

[00:42:33] Rachel: And when you think about it, I mean, this is so new. It's so new. We're only talking about a few generations here of this unbelievably powerful technology. It is unlike anything the humans have ever experienced at all. So it's not surprising that people are going from one extreme to another.

[00:42:54] Rachel: And I love the idea of just finding this balance might take a few generations to get there, assuming we have generations to go. That's a whole other podcast episode.

[00:43:06] Felicia: I was reading something recently that was, I don't remember what the source was, but it was saying that basically there are a lot of Gen Z ers who are saying that they wish they had, did not have access to social media platforms like X or TikTok or whatever. And I've also seen a lot of discussion research around the unique role of millennials being this sort of middle connective generation between boomers, and a lot of Gen Z folks don't actually know how to use the tech that they've grown up with.

[00:43:36] Felicia: So like they know how to use an iPad, but they don't know how to go into the back end of the computer and dig into the bowels of it and play around, which is what we all grew up. They didn't have MySpace, right? Like they weren't, they putting HTML codes and, you know, finding colors and music to put on their page.

[00:43:50] Felicia: I do think that's a really interesting role, too, in terms of what you were saying, Mica, around what will Gen Z and subsequent generations, like, how will that play out as these shifts start to happen really quickly? Because they're not going to take necessarily 50, 100 years, but it'll happen in, as you were saying, Rachel, just a couple years, maybe.

[00:44:09] Rachel: wild times.

[00:44:10] Mica: I have a quick thought on that as well. And I I agree. To what you were just saying, Felicia, I think that the interesting opportunity and we spend quite a bit of time talking about this at Black Girls Code is around with the advent of AI. So we had to say it once, at least once on this podcast.

[00:44:28] Rachel: I can't believe we only did it really, like, very little bit. It's very impressive.

[00:44:33] Mica: Really proud of us. Um, so like, you know, AI, something that I'm thinking a lot about is, It's here. It's, it's teaching a lot. It has the ability to do a lot of things that some humans can do in some way. Whether it's, you know, debugging, whether it's writing code, what have you.

[00:44:49] Mica: And it's really important that right now, as we're building out, still building learning opportunities. And I mean, we like as educators and folks in society supporting young people, it's important that we have the opportunity to build learning opportunities that teach them the skills, how to build code, how to write code now, and the skills and how to prompt engineers down the line and the skills to just think logically and to think critically, and I think those critical thinking skills, as I said earlier, careers are long and they're winding, like, if you have those, and you have the ability to understand the code, that is what gives folks edge, and hopefully that is something that everyone takes into account, we're definitely taking it into account, but I think about it, it's like this intergenerational skill, that from, whether you're like, the eldest person, In your workplace or the youngest person in your workplace having those skills, cultivating those skills, supporting others in developing those skills, can be really key to all of our success as humans in this strange, strange world.

[00:45:49] Rachel: Oh, could not agree with you anymore. We talk a lot about the importance of critical thinking skills across the board. So I'm so glad that you're all working on that. Keep it going. 

[00:46:00] Mica: Thanks. Stay 

[00:46:01] Rachel: yes, yes, stay tuned. Future is going to be okay. Um, Okay, so we talked about the future of the world. What about the future for you?

[00:46:09] Rachel: Do you have any thoughts on what's next for you?

[00:46:12] Mica: Great question. I mean, I think the biggest thing, two big things. Well, let me not quantify. Let's just see how many I say. One is I'm thinking a lot about ideal life and I'm thinking a lot about life and time scales. Like what does ideal life look like in the next few months when I move to LA? A good portion of this move is just so we can have an outdoor space where there's not just like sirens outside all the time.

[00:46:32] Mica: So really excited for that. Um, so thinking a lot about like, what does ideal life look like there? It is how do I create more opportunity and more efficiency and support systems for folks within BGC and the community support so that we can make sure things are getting done and moving forward there.

[00:46:49] Mica: And I'm really excited and feeling really good about that. Um, a lot of my work, as I mentioned, and we talked about is like supporting startups, supporting founders, supporting creatives, supporting money movers to get things done And I'm thinking a lot about climate, actually. You know, I was a baby climate change advocate, like literally a baby. Like when I was a little kid, I was like heavy on it, heavy on recycling, composting before composting was like I live in an apartment building, compost did not exist.

[00:47:13] Mica: My mom humored me and let me do it. I used to write letters to the government around, like, we ended up getting recycling maybe when I was, like, 11. Um, but, that was not a thing. And then I spent many years running the green team in my early college years, which was, like, the eco advocacy group on campus.

[00:47:29] Mica: We got compost on campus, was the first college in Toronto to get that. That was really a win for us. And then in the last few years, I've just been spending a lot of time reading, a lot of time connecting with folks, and I'm really just excited to see all the change that's happening in the space.

[00:47:41] Mica: There's a steep, happily, very steep acceleration in terms of funding, in terms of opportunity. And so just looking to find more ways to support climate founders, climate creators, even our summer camps, as I mentioned, were really around teaching and people about climate change and then supporting them creating narrative driven video games around climate.

[00:47:58] Mica: So that's where I'm at right now.

[00:48:01] Felicia: It's kind of random, but I promise it's a point. Did you grow up watching Captain Planet by chance?

[00:48:07] Mica: No, I don't know,

[00:48:08] Felicia: you know what this show is?

[00:48:10] Mica: No, tell me everything.

[00:48:11] Felicia: I can't promise if it's held up, although I think it probably has, but it was basically a cartoon show that was on in like, I don't know, the 90s, um, like late 80s, early 90s, maybe.

[00:48:23] Felicia: And the whole concept was there are these kids, multi racial, multi geographical, and they each have like a power. And then when their powers combined, they would create this or like unleash this superhero. called Captain Planet. You have to watch this, Mica, because that is how

[00:48:42] Felicia: I Oh my god. So that is how I and probably millions of other children in this general age range got into climate and recycling and saving the planet because I distinctly remember.

[00:48:55] Felicia: So like at the end of every episode, there'd be like a little like PSA basically to be like, Hey kids, like, did you know that you should recycle? Like go, you know, make sure you do this. And I distinctly remember watching it and going to my parents and being like, Do we recycle? And my parents were like, no, and we're not going to, because it was like not a thing then.

[00:49:12] Felicia: Right. And so I just was so curious. If you grew up watching this, I'm fascinated that you did not. You have to watch it at some point and like check it out and see what you

[00:49:21] Mica: I will I just pulled it up. I think it's on YouTube. So I'm

[00:49:24] Felicia: It's, it's such a, like, classic too because I can still sing the theme song for you. Like it's embedded in my memory and it's like, you know, earth, wind, water, fire, heart, like, it just, ugh, so good. But that's not the point of

[00:49:35] Mica: Incredible. No, I love that. I love that. So it's funny because we're talking about recycling and all these articles have been coming out, especially in the last like 12 months or so recycling's a hoax. And it's all like, one bad thing destroys the whole batch, which like is not great.

[00:49:48] Mica: But just to like plug for some people doing it right. There's an organization, I think they're in Denmark that has figured out recycling across the country. And so anyone listening who's interested should look into it. They're internationally recognized for also being just like an incredibly run company from a human perspective and they have mastered recycling.

[00:50:06] Mica: They're getting a ton of funding right now. If I can find it later, I'll send it to you all to put in the notes because it's we can change the things. We just need to collectively work together to do it.

[00:50:16] Rachel: We just need Denmark to help out because I feel like that's of course where the company is. That's great. 

[00:50:22] Felicia: We always like to wrap up by asking, what are you geeking out about? That's not something you've already mentioned. I mean, climate change, obviously a big one. Is there anything else that's exciting you right now?

[00:50:35] Mica: I'm really geeking out about two things. So one, I have kept plants alive for three years. And this is a big thing for me because I could never do it before. I have three, I'm looking at them right now. Three beautiful plants. And I'm really, I'm geeking out on like, how do you move plants across the country?

[00:50:52] Mica: In a way that is possible when you're not driving yourself. So very obscure, random thing to be geeking out on. But I'm learning a ton in terms of just like plant health and anyhow, very interesting to deep dive on. Lots of Reddit threads. So highly recommend. And the other thing I keep geeking out on is kind of an adjacent to some of the conversation we've had, which is, , Kim Stanley Robinson, who's a really amazing writer.

[00:51:15] Mica: He writes science, I guess you would call it like speculative fiction focused on climate. He wrote Ministry of the Future, which is having quite a renaissance moment right now. It came out a few years ago, and I'm reading one of his first books. It was a trilogy. It's called Three Californias, and it's about a version of California that's like post, uh, nuclear attack America.

[00:51:36] Mica: like Orange County. There's a, I'm in the California that's like, if things continue the way, and it's just a web of highways and everyone lives under a highway kind of vibe. And then I don't know what the third one is yet, but I'm like nerding out on his book. So I was reading, he's a book set in New York I already read. So I'm reading his whole body of work right now, which has been fantastic.

[00:51:55] Rachel: Oh, my God. Those are so great. Those are great things to geek out about. I literally cannot keep a plant, a plant alive, and I'm very excited to read these books. It might take me forever, but I will get through it. Final question before we wrap up. Is there anything else like to share, promote, projects, sources, all that?

[00:52:13] Mica: Find me on the internet. That's all I got. I mean, Black Girls Code, we're doing a ton of work. So of course, anyone listening who is interested in collaborating with the organization, like please reach out. As I've said, we love partners. We love collaborating and finding interesting ways to support young people.

[00:52:27] Mica: We're expanding significantly in the next few years. So, you know, if you're in a city you want us to come to tell us, and I love making new friends. That's how Rachel and I became friends. And that's now how Felicia and I are friends. So we'd love anyone reach out. Love new friends.

[00:52:43] Rachel: Love new friends. We love new friends too. Thank you so Mica. This was delightful.

[00:52:48] Mica: Same. Thank you so much for having me. 

[00:52:56] Felicia: All right. Well, we hope you enjoyed listening to our interview with Mica as much as we really, truly enjoyed the conversation with Mica. Thanks again, Mica, for spending some time with us.

[00:53:07] Rachel: Yes, thank you. And thank you all so much for listening. Please don't forget to rate, share, and subscribe. It truly makes a difference in the reach of this podcast and by extension this work. And don't forget to visit us on YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn to stay up to date on all things Inclusion Geeks.

[00:53:24] Rachel: Stay geeky, friends!

[00:53:26] Felicia: Bye.