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.