Yeah, so intrapreneurship is, you know, I came to Microsoft having already done my own business. So unlike a lot of people, I was not straight out of college and straight into Microsoft. It's like, I was already a man of the world. And then I've been there 24 years, I've never lost my entrepreneurial spirit, which is perhaps to my detriment sometimes, because if you really want to climb in a corporation, you don't want to be Lewis and
Clark. You know, you don't want to be out on the frontier all the time, because there's a fine line between being a leader and being a troublemaker. And intrapreneurship is about being able to walk that fine line where you're out there on the edge, but people have confidence in you and they want to back you and support you.
This is The MindShift Podcast where we share real stories, real strategies, that will help you find real success. This is the place to hear from people just like you who have taken their ideas, goals and dreams from a point of inspiration to realization or when life knocked them down, from a point of breakdown to breakthrough. I'm your host, Darrell Evans. Let's get started with today's episode.
As the technical adviser to the CTO at Microsoft, he has a strange job. Instead of working full time on technical initiatives, he works mostly on people problems. Diversity, equity, and inclusion was always someone else's problem, until he decided to make it his. As a black leader, he is on a mission, not just to find technical talent of color, but to grow them. It's taken empathy, accountability, agency and every listening skill he has
to pursue this purpose. But what it's led him to do is co-found Microsoft's leap apprenticeship program designed to help blacks, women, and other underrepresented communities get technical jobs. They've now graduated 26 cohorts around the world, and 98% of graduates get jobs in high tech. He's helped Microsoft grow talent in primarily black areas like Kenya, Nigeria, and the US Virgin Islands. He's personally donated $200,000 to kickstart
technology initiatives. And he's even got his own community based hackathon. You're in for an incredible conversation with William A. Adams. He is an award winning diversity and inclusion innovator, an engineering trailblazer, and philanthropist. William A. Adams, welcome to The MindShift Podcast. How are you doing, sir?
I'm doing great. Thank you for having me here.
Awesome. I'm excited about today's conversation for a number of reasons that we chatted about offline before we started recording. But before we jump in, where are you joining us from today?
I'm currently sitting in Renton in Washington State. Renton is just across the lake from Seattle.
Oh, okay, nice, nice, haven't been to Seattle in a number of years. But liked it the couple of times I was up that way. So listen, let's introduce you to the audience. So you have a tech background that I am just intrigued to dig into. But introduce yourself to the audience. Give us a little backstory, and then let's dive into some Q&A.
Yeah, so my story starts when I'm a wee little lad. So I got my first computer, when I was like 12 years old, you know, and it's such ancient history that my brother and I have, are in the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley, our whole story, because we are early pioneers in the Valley who were black at a time when Steve Jobs was doing this thing called next computers. And it was just the
heyday of personal computing. So I went to UC Berkeley, started a company with my brother, did software for a number of years. And in 1998 joined Microsoft. And I've been there ever since just doing, certainly software, I'm an engineer. So I write code, build teams that write code, ship product, invent stuff. If we had enough time, I'd go through a litany of inventions that have occurred along the way. There's lots of interesting stories.
Indulge us with a few.
Well, okay.
Oh, come on. This is your show, man. So tell us about 'em.
I'll give you a couple of tidbits because they're unbelievable, they're like are you serious? You didn't do that. So. So today, you have surely you've used WhatsApp, some sort of instant messaging thing, blah, blah, blah, right? And this is 2022. I have a patent on this
Yeah. technology called Livewire, which is from 1994 I think it was. And it was essentially a precursor to all of those instant messaging sorts of applications. And there was an application we designed to work in an office, inside a real estate office, whereby someone at the front desk could message back to someone in the back office saying, hey, so and so's on the line, you want to talk to him now? And it was this instant messaging thing. And it's shared media, and you can record voice
and all that sort of stuff. So we have the distinction, or I have the distinction. I'm the only one on that patent, saying, I wouldn't say I invented instant messaging, but it was certainly one of the key works, that later patents referenced, you know about how to do instant messages. Nice.
That was 1994. Like that was 30 years ago.
Yes. That's huge,
I did other things like you take for granted now that you can simultaneously edit a document at the same time as somebody else, you know, like a Word document or something like that. Again, that same technology 1994, we had the ability to do word processing on the same document the same time across multiple people across the network. It's I just do stuff like that.
What's interesting about that, and I know that there's a lot more, and I certainly want to get into to your background, but I want you to share a couple of those. And again, I think sometimes, you know, I'm gonna say this, because I see it a lot of times like we love technology the way it is today. But there had to be an originator. There had to be a creator. And sometimes the creator of a platform doesn't get the actual due credit for the evolution.
Right.
Right?
Yep.
Of the platform and so thank you for sharing that. And thank you for being on the ground floor. But I can only imagine because I'm kind of geeky in my own way about the things that I do. I can sense that that's probably how you know you are with your work, and you get real serious about inventing things. So . . .
Yeah, there's some things that Microsoft that I don't take credit for the invention itself, but at least taking credit for the, having the insight to create a team to create the thing.
Yeah, the development, yeah.
And that's kind of hard to do as well.
Yeah. What's it like growing up in the 90s in tech being black?
It's dark in here, my brother.
Hey, I saw something in your profile that made me resonate, because, you know, I'm in the entrepreneurial space as a young black man. And I was the only one in the room for a lot of years.
Oh yeah.
And I saw something in your background where that was you, right? Talk to us about that.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would say the only one in the room, that has been true. I'm kind of thinking off into the distance. That's been true most of my life. Like I said, Why are we in the Computer History Museum, because there weren't that many blacks in tech, it was so rare, that I'm one of those guys. Right? And me and my brother, and it was very common, It's like of course you're the only black guy, who else would be here? That's true in our independent company. And that's
true at Microsoft. I literally didn't really work with any other black engineers at Microsoft from 1998 until . . .
Wow!
I don't know maybe about five years ago.
That's a long time.
So that's a long time to go, where I'm the only black dude in any particular room. Right? And it shows in the rankings of like, well, who's the leadership? Well, there's not enough of us around to have VP black dudes or women or anything else.
Yeah.
So yeah, that's been true my whole career.
We're gonna dive into that. That's actually what I want to talk about. I just want to kind of maybe set the landscape just to trail us back a little bit through history, because, you know, I see it from a different space, from an entrepreneurial space and some other areas of businesses that I've owned in the years. And I just think it's interesting. So 15 years or so, '98 till five years ago, that's actually 20 years. What is your hypothesis? Or what is your inside track on
why that was? Was it leadership not wanting to promote? Or was there a talent? Was there a shortage in the talent pool? Talk a little bit about the two dynamics. And . . .
Yeah.
I'm interested to hear.
Now, I'm gonna say a word that triggers people. But I don't mean it in the way that people think. Institutionalized biases are why these things happen. And I can say that without calling people racist or anything else, it's just institutions get a certain way. It reinforces that way. So you do things that seem reasonable, but you don't recognize the bias that's in them. So you keep recruiting from the top 15 schools in the country. Right? Well, let's look at the population of those top
15 schools. Well, they're, you know . . . 1%, 2%, black. So, instantly, your talent pool
Right. is cut off, because you're going to these places that are predominantly not black. Even when you go to Georgia Tech, you know, it's like, well, Georgia Tech in the heart of Atlanta, that's got to be all black, it's like, not in their CS department. There's a, you know, you would think that's the bastion of all black tech. Not even close. So, and of course, everyone else was there, too. So there's, there's that dynamic of what is the pipeline that you're
pulling from. And then the other dynamic is certainly at least in the US, there is a certain biases both against women and minorities. Where they say you, you don't belong here, right? You're not like me, you're not in our tribe. And this is why I say it's institutional. Because when you go to Africa, where everyone's black, and we've done this, we know, we have, Microsoft now has engineering and Kenyan, Nigeria, Nigeria, everyone's black. So what's the
trip there? Well, women. Their institutions have a bias against women in the work space. So you'll find plenty of blacks. Yes, everyone's black. But you won't find a lot of women. Interesting.
So we work doubly hard to create all female cohorts to bring into tech, because that was the institutional bias what's keeping women out. Right? You go to India, it's about tribals and certain castes. You go to another country, and it's about blah, blah, blah, there's always something that a majority set is going to exclude a minority set.
Yeah, right.
It's tribal.
Yeah.
It's just the way it is. And you have to fight against it. That's all there is to it.
Yeah. I think about it, right? It's, you know, it's because we've always done it this way that we're going to continue doing it this way. And it doesn't just apply to recruiting cultural or non cultural, like you said, schooling, I remember being at a
football game. This is probably four or five years ago, and I sat next to some folks from USC, which was a school that I thought about going to, and it turns out, I was just eavesdropping, if you will, but I was close enough to not be eavesdropping, we were just part of the conversation. And the conversation was, if they didn't go to X, Y, or Z school, the application didn't even matter. And I was thinking that, that's just interesting, because you've done it that way for the entire
time. So anyway, you've got a number of great quotes that I just want to bring up some and just get you to elaborate a little bit on. You say, you deserve more than a seat at the table. Own the table, own the wealth.
Yeah.
What's behind that?
Yeah, it's just recognizing that it's hard chasing someone else's dream, chasing taillights, trying to catch up to where somebody's already been. And what I say is, well, we need to create a different table, you know, by the time you get a seat at that table, the meal is going to be over. So you need to create different tables. And here's some examples. But since the 60s and I grew up in late 60s, right, I was born in 64. So I grew up amongst the tail end of the whole Civil Rights push as a
child. And the leadership was, you know, Martin Luther King certainly, Malcolm X, all these luminaries, since then most of our black leadership, if you will, or at least our icons have been in music and entertainment, primarily. I don't know of very many, if any, black leaders who are in rocketry, robotics, technology in general, computers, telecommunications, virtual reality, all these things that are the creators of
wealth going forward. So I recognize that well, the top wealth in the world is all tech, you know, if you take a list of top 10 billionaires in the world, the top six of them are tech. Common names, they've been like that for a while, it's going to be like that for a while. So we need to create something that's rooted in tech. It's got to be our own thing. And we've proven that we can do our own thing. And I'm speaking broadly about you know, melanin enhanced people. Sure, we have
technology. We have entertainment, we have sports, there's a lot of things that we do to drive culture. We just don't own it. And we don't take advantage of it. You can point at Jay Z and Beyonce and say, well, there you go. It's like, and? Who else?
Right. I love it.
So they've got a table. It's perhaps isolated Not just keep trying to sit at someone else's to the entertainment space. But we need more tables. We need people to create tables in tech, right? And then gather other table. people around and say, Hey, I'm going to show you how to become an entrepreneur so that you can now create that multimillion dollar company that's going to get bought by somebody, or you're going to buy somebody or you're just going to thrive.
Don't keep chasing after somebody else's thing, because that's how they're gonna get rich. Right? That's how they're going to have self determination. If we want self determination, we need to leverage our own intelligence and create our own riches. And that's create our own table.
I love it. It's interesting. There's a funny, I don't know where I was when someone asked this question, or they posted in a forum somewhere. I don't know what it was. But they said you walk in the wrong door at a gala. You're supposed to go to the door on the right, you go into the door on the left. And before you know it, you realize you're in the absolute wrong room and it turns out that it's a room full of billionaires about to have
dinner, what do you do? And the funny thing was, was they said it was about to have dinner I said I'd take a seat, I'd take this seat. I take a seat. I ended up in the right room. So . . .
Yeah, cos otherwise they're gonna look at you and say, so when are you delivering the dinner?
Right, right. So interesting. You know, I make fun of that. But I say that with all sincerity because I want to hear you talk a little bit about this, this idea of confidence in the black community in and around tech, confidence in and around, even another word that you use in your bio, and in your background, as you say, acting
as an intrapreneur. And you know, and I think there's something about the way you've approached your career from inside of a well known, successful, huge company, but have charted this intrapreneurship sort of path, I want you to talk a little about both this idea of confidence as a minority number one, but number two, in a world that is gonna still lag for years, it's not like this is gonna be able to be accomplished overnight.
Yeah.
But talk about it from that standpoint of how do you stay confident through the years in this tech role, and then we can talk a bit about this intrapreneurship idea, because it's a word that's starting to become a little bit more relatable to those who'd like to start their own thing, but don't realize that you're actually even inside your own company that you're working for, you can be an entrepreneur in that company, called an intrapreneur.
Yeah, so firstly, the confidence thing. It's an interesting thing, because I look back at my career, and there's times when I would say, as a young man, I was very arrogant, very cocky, you know? And it's like, yeah, okay. But if I were white, you wouldn't be saying that, you would be saying very bold, and very forthright and, you know, stick to your guns, right. So depending on, again, how much melanin is in your skin, different words will be used for the same behavior.
Right.
I don't know why I was rooted in self determination where it's just like, I'm doing this. I'm intelligent. Now there's certainly from my parents, or at least from my mom, my father passed away when I was seven. And my mom was always classic mom of the 60s, you got to work twice as hard to get half as much baby, I'm sorry. That's just the way it is. Right. And any black person of a certain age has probably grew up with that mantra in their head. And I believed it. I worked my ass
off. And I drove my own intelligence. I taught myself how to program when I was 12. No assembly language. Commodore PET. Yeah, one of the earliest personal computers that no one's ever heard about.
Right.
I taught myself and I was like, I'm doing this. I'm doing this. And I was geek enough, I guess, it's just like, I would rather do this than run around doing nothing.
Right.
In later years that just turned into, I'm as smart as everybody else.
Come on, let's go.
And it was just proving out because I mentioned that patent that I received in '94. It's like, yeah, they give patents to people that are really smart. So I clearly was at a position in the world with my ideas is like, well, your ideas are as good as anybody else's. Here you go. I have people believe in us. And we did stuff with our business that was like, oh, that's groundbreaking. That's extraordinary. That is different. Here's money, which is a marker of like, yeah, you're on the right track.
Right.
Now, we didn't get the millions of VC dollars. That was one of those things like you're in the wrong room, and we know you're in the wrong room. But we certainly met with enough success, that we were confident that we were doing the right things. So that's the base of my confidence is from perhaps demonstrating my skills and having other people go, yeah, dang, you got it going on, bro.
You know. So that said, there's a base level of competence that I'm as intelligent as anybody else, and probably a lot more intelligent than a lot of people.
Right.
So that's kind of a baseline. And . . .
There you go with that arrogance again, see.
Yeah. That's exactly the thing, it's like . . .
No, but you have to believe that. Listen, I just said that for a reason. Because I think what we have to understand, as minorities, of all minorities, not just us, but we have to be a little bit more confident in ourselves because of perhaps the things that we heard through our upbringing.
Yep.
At the end of the day, we all are a pattern of beliefs of our upbringing or our histories.
Right.
And at some point, some of us have to decide to start questioning what we may have been taught, questioning what we believed. And I just say that I'm a big believer, as this is called The MindShift Podcast, right? Because we talk about the journey from inspiration to realization, which is you sitting down at a computer and deciding to poke around at 12 on programming was an inspiration
of some sort. Now I decided to poke around on walkie talkies and try to figure out what the electrical components looked to be. And I thought I wanted to be an electrical engineer until I found the world of business. But the point is, inspiration to realization is a journey that starts with a path of curiosity that leads to discovery that then leads to what we talk about on the other side of this equation, which is from breakdown to breakthrough, which is when life knocks us down or
things don't go our way. What do you do in that pivot moment? Right? How do you continue the journey?
Yeah, you invent and you excel.
Right. And we add to the layer of tech, and we add to the layer of being black. And we add to it in the 90s. And we add to it the things we were taught by our parents, not because they didn't mean well, but because we just heard the script over and over again, money doesn't grow on trees. What do you think I am, an ATM? I love my parents had death, but I heard it too. And at some point, you got to realize that that's a terrible belief, it is true that I look outside and
don't see money on the tree. But it doesn't mean money's not abundant. So anyway, let's talk about intrapreneurship. I love that phrase. And then I want to talk about techquity.
Yeah. So intrapreneurship is, you know, I came to Microsoft, having already done my own business. So unlike a lot of people, I was not straight out of college and straight into Microsoft. It's like I was already a man of the world. And then I've been there 24 years, I've never lost my entrepreneurial spirit, which is perhaps to my detriment sometimes. Because if you really want to climb in a corporation, you don't want to be Lewis and
Clark. You know, you don't want to be out on the frontier all the time, because there's a fine line between being a leader and being a troublemaker. And intrapreneurship is about being able to walk that fine line where you're out there on the edge, but people have confidence in you, and they want to back you and support you. And you know, all that sort of stuff. So the intrapreneurship is like, can you imagine starting
something up? So there's certainly with some of the software I've done falls into that category. There's a thing called Language Integrated query, which is very esoteric. It's about how you do database development with our languages now. And back in the day, 2005. We started this project, because I had a boss who believed me and said, Go do something interesting. Take the best people out of your 64 devs and do something interesting that the Java people can't do. That
was the mandate, right? And he's essentially telling me, Hey, William, I'm willing to invest in you.
Right.
Because you've demonstrated that you're pretty darn good at this stuff. Go. And it turned out that I was able to put together a kick ass team and came up with stuff that was like, Oh, this is groundbreaking. It's still used today. You know, it was industry changing. And I tell people, yeah, my team created this, like you did that! Kind of like the
instant messenger thing. But it was because someone believed in me, they invested in me, I mean, giving me six of my best people to work on something for I think we had 18 months. That's huge. That does not happen very often, particularly these days, where within a big corporation, you're just handed headcount to do whatever. And it comes because of a track record.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
It's like people looked at me and said, Well, what you're doing is really risky. And I wouldn't do it. But I trust you.
Yeah. Let me ask you this. What's one of the biggest things you've done in your career that you're looking back and you say, Ooh, I really wish I hadn't done that.
So there's this guy, his name was Jay Allard. And he was the guy who started Xbox way back in the day. He came to my desk and he was about to go on sabbatical before he started Xbox and said, I'm gonna come back to you and ask you a question. And he came back said, Would you like to join Xbox and be the first, you know, engineering manager? And I said, No. I'm gonna stick over here with SQL Server, because I'm loyal to my people.
Oh, no!
That's the only decision within Microsoft, that and there's one other. So I could have been the first engineering manager of Xbox, right?
Wow.
Who knows where that would have gone. I don't regret it too much. So because other things have happened that are great. The only other regret I have is I did a recruiting tour in Dubai. We had imported a bunch of people from Pakistan, to Dubai, to do some interviews. And there's one woman who was, I would say, the best programmer we ran across over a three day period. And I really liked her.
She's just awesome. And I allowed my fellow interviewers to convince me that she would not survive at Microsoft because she was so demure and quiet. I remember to this day, this is like in 2004, that was a long time ago, and I'm just kicking myself because it's like, this is a woman in Pakistan has survived to become one of the best programmers around and we think she can't survive in Microsoft, I'm just kicking
myself. You know, that's the only regret I truly have is not sticking up for that woman and just going we're hiring this woman. So anyway, those are the two.
Well, I mean, obviously, you know, we always look back. I think the question is loaded, right? Because we can always be Monday morning quarterback and go back and say, Oh, I wish I would have. But you know, I think the Xbox was pretty, pretty interesting. That could have been a different story.
Who knows what it could have been?
Who knows? Right? You just never know.
You just never know. I mean, it could have led to something greater, it could have led to something not so great. But it is what it is.
12 years ago, I can think about a deal that I was presented. And I could have taken a small equity percentage in a deal. And I passed on the deal because I had other priorities and company exited whatever, right? It just happens.
You just never know. And I probably wouldn't have met my current wife and I would probably not have my current kids.
There you go. Yeah. The question I sometimes get is, if you tell your 20 year old self, something different, what would you tell him? And? And I sometimes I don't love the question. My dad actually asked me the first time and I thought about it. And then I said, Wait a minute, if I went back and told that 20 year old what I'm saying now
Wouldn't have listened.
Well, it's not even so much that I would have listened, it would have changed the course of what you just said I wouldn't have had the relationships, I wouldn't have had the kids, there would have been all kinds of things different. And I don't regret any of it. So I want to finish our conversation today. I want you to really expand on your
Yeah. mission right now. I love the word entechquity.. That's, hashtag techquity.
Tell everybody what hashtag techquity is about and what you're so passionate about and driven for today. I thought it was just super inspiring, but share with our audience what it is you're working on today.
Yeah, it goes back again to the top 10 billionaires. And I was just in New York last week. And I was talking to people about equity. And in New York, you know, you look around, and you just read off the names of the buildings, and maybe some of the streets and it's like Rockefeller, JP Morgan, Westinghouse. It's like, well, these were the industrialists that drove the earliest 1900s, right? Late 1800s, 1900s. These industrial Titans shaped the world. And their names are still there
today. Today, the same thing is happening, except the names are Gates, Musk, you know, Bezos name up some more tech guys. And I just recognize it's like, okay, for my tribe, if my tribe is loosely defined as melanin enhanced people, my tribe is typically subject to the influence of such people rather than being the influencers, right. And if you want to be the influencers, you need to kind of get into the game. And the game right now is around tech. Now, we don't have to be in the top
10 billionaires. But you have to be somewhere so that you can influence policy. So you can influence the companies that get created. Otherwise, you're just subject to it. So for example, there's some tech software that automates recidivism rate evaluations for people who are getting on parole or, you know, being incarcerated, all this sort of stuff. And it's this AI think, and I looked at that as like, that does not favor us.
Yeah, yeah.
That is not going to favor us because the data is going to be biased and these AI systems, hyper inflate the biases.
Oh, my geeze, tell me about.
So unless we're in there creating those systems to counter those biases, we're just going to be subjected to them. So it's important that we're in the places where this technology is being created. So when we talk about AI and robotics, when I can guarantee you one of the first useful uses of AI and robotics is going to be in policing. And you know which neighborhoods they're gonna put 'em in? Right? So, again, it's like, well, that's tech, you need to be in there, or you're just going to be
subjected to it. So techquity is all about saying, we need to be in there. How do we get there? Right? What's the education? How do you get the money? How do you formulate the business plan? So techquity is, is certainly on just a word basis, about leveraging technology to get an equity share, and therefore a voice in the world. Trying not to be left behind even further. But it's about recognizing the path to get there. I can't just stand up and say y'all need to
be in tech. Like, how? Because we previously talked about biases in the system and systemic suppression, all this sort of stuff. Well, how do you crack through that? And that's what techquity is about as a mission or as a business, if you will, is to say, let's identify the people who want to be in that game. And let's give them the resources necessary to make it.
Yeah,.
That's what techquity is all about, it's just about saying, That's the space. That's where all the influence is. We need to have a voice in that space. Entertainment's fine, sports is fine. But that's not where it's
For the sake of myself, just because I use tech at. in a number of different ways. And sometimes I think even our listener, if you're listening to this right now, I want to have you if you can, William, break down, if you can, areas of tech, you just sort of touched on a couple right? Robotics. AI. Give us some major categories of tech for the listening audience to think about because I've always found that where your curiosity is, you should pursue that
anyway. Because instead of trying to say, Oh, I'm gonna go be a coder, and go over to Code Academy and start reading for free, nothing wrong with Code Academy, I love Code Academy.
But don't go force yourself to do something that's out of your natural I call it superstar DNA, because where your curiosity lies, there might be a likely interest there, but break down some areas of tech that maybe people aren't thinking about that are really on the rise, or I have been thinking of it as kind of this collision of technologies kind of brewing in the world right now.
Yeah, let me do two things, I'm going to further characterize techquity. So techquity is about owning the technology, not just consuming it.
Absolutely.
We all have cell phones, right?
Right.
We're all consumers of cell phones, that doesn't mean you have an equity stake in Apple. So cell phones take over the world, unless you own stock in Apple, or Samsung, or whoever, you're not getting any equity in that rise of technology. So it's about owning the patents, owning the licenses, owning stock in the companies. That's equity in technology, right, as opposed to just consuming technology. Now areas is very interesting, because, as we say, tech is
swallowing the world. So it used to be that technology meant go work for IBM, or one of those companies. But really, it just meant IBM. Then later it meant Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, blah, blah, blah. Those are tech companies and that's about software development, for the most part. But tech isn't everything, I now have to compete for candidates against
JP Morgan. Because doing financial modeling, and trading and all this other sort of stuff, that's all driven by tech, but pretty much you can look at anything you're naturally interested in. Let's imagine you're just into food, you're into gardening, maybe you're into farming, or
something like that. Technology is used to enhance crop yields, whether it's by doing analysis of the application of fertilizers, and coming up with a model to better apply the fertilizers, more targeted, instead of just spray everything. It's like, no, actually, only this part of the field needs more nitrogen. You know, we did that through analysis and modeling and stuff
like that. It might be about automating tractors, you know, John Deere tractors are all driven by GPS, and they just say, you know, plow this field in this order and plant these seeds, and it just kind of goes off and does it by itself. No humans involved. So I think you pick an area that you're naturally interested in, and there's probably a tech angle to it. And it doesn't even have to be as exotic as robotics and AI. There's some services industries, if it's procedural,
it can be automated. So things like if you want to write a will, or if you want to write an LLC contract, right? That's a fairly automated process now. It used to be you go to a lawyer, and they draw you up papers and charge you 1000s of dollars, all that sort of stuff. Not anymore, you just go online, fill in a few things on a form and up pops an LLC agreement. That's
technology. So just about anything you could possibly think of from the exotic like self driving cars, to farming, to collecting data from weather stations, to automating flipping hamburgers in the restaurant. Everything has a technological component to it, and you just kind of go into, do you like policy side of it? Do you like the coding side of it? Do you
like the selling side of it? But as long as you're down a path where the technology is the key thing, the key differentiator, the key secret sauce that that company is making its way on, that's what you want to hook into. So it can be pretty much anything and that's what I've told people is like, well figure out what you're really interested in, whether it be shoes, hip hop, music, robotics, or whatever. And find the tech angle.
Yeah, absolutely.
And go for that.
What do you say, you know, two different audiences here really quick as we start to wrap up, what do you tell the audience that is in the Gen X to Boomer range? I'm a Gen Xer, who, you know, maybe is tired of what they're doing. Maybe they are they're already a 20 year, 30 year person. Maybe they've already retired from something already. And they're listening to you right now. And they're like, Yeah, William, I hear you, but man, I'm too old to go back and get started in
this thing. Right? What do you say to that person? And where would you maybe interest them to consider the possibility?
Well, to be crude, you're not dead yet. So you're not too old for anything. So you know. I mean, what do you mean, you're too old. It's like, you can never be too old to learn something new. I will admit that I'm 57. And my brain cells don't move as fast as they used to and it is in fact harder for me to pick up on a new concept compared to when I was 27. But that doesn't mean I stop. I just try to settle into something that feels natural to me. Like I mentioned farming,
I'm not a farmer. But I like doing stuff in my garden, for example. I might start with something as simple as putting some sensors in the ground and tracking my moisture and automating my watering or something like that. And then some neighbors around me will go, Hey, I like what you did with that thing. Could you do it for me? Sure. For $500. So you know, it's just finding your natural, your natural flow with the things that you are confident.
Did you guys hear what he just did? Did you hear what he just did y'all? Y'all. Listen, that's that intrapreneur work. He knows, he's like, he did that so smoothly. I put these sensors in my garden. And a neighbor says, Hey, can you have? Yeah, I can for $500. Yeah cos. . . You know, something one step before they know. So you can either teach them or get paid to do it. Right. So anyway . . .
You know, at the end of the day, they . . .
You get paid to teach them right?
The don't actually want to learn how to do it, they just want someone to do it.
Oh, that's so good. I love that.
Yeah, find your natural thing, find an angle on it. And then just think about, well, how I'm going to make money off of this.
Yeah, I've made a list some time ago, someone Yeah, find your natural interest, and then just find an asked me. I don't know, I'm always in these thought provoking conversations, because it's like, we can talk ourselves into stagnation if we allow it to happen. And to your point, I, as far as I'm concerned, we're on this earth to grow and evolve. And that means, in my world, my parent company is angle on it.
Yeah, I remember. I mean, 12, 13, 14 years ago, a guy said, if called CANI365, which stands for constant and never ending improvement, 365 days a year. And that's just the way I live my life. I'm not saying everybody has to, but this is the way I think about it. So I'm like you like, what am I naturally curious about next? You know, I look at investments you're interested in cereal, you could start a YouTube channel, that way. I look at clients I
work with that way. If I'm not interested or curious, I don't want to put myself through the grind of trying to be interested, right. So I like to navigate to things I'm interested in. And I think that's what you're saying. reviewing boxes of cereal. And you would end up making a lot of money because you were passionate about the cereal. And there's other people who consume cereal and your passion of talking about it and their
interest in it. I mean, and it's interesting today, now we have this big ol creator economy, where you can just about get paid to do anything online. So anyway, let's take this home, where would you want people to connect with you to learn more about the work that you're doing? You've got a lot of programs and ventures going on. Where would you want people to go and connect, learn more about what you're doing, not just behind techquity, but just a lot more of the other things you're involved in?
Yeah, at this moment, I have one website. It primarily lists the various podcasts that I've been on. But it's also got links to like Twitter and LinkedIn and stuff like that. So William- A-Adams.com. If there's anything I'm doing, it's gonna end up there eventually.
Okay. And we'll link that up in the show notes and over at the website. So, William, I appreciate your journey and your longevity, and your willingness to do something that is not required but something that you feel compelled to do, which is to, right? It's a difference, right?
Yep.
It's a difference. You feel compelled to do it and in my walk and things that I'm doing, it's the same thing that I do. And that's what struck me when I read your background, your bio, and I've enjoyed having you on the show today. Before I let you go though, always have to ask my guests this final question. And that is if for some odd reason, today happened to be your last day on this planet. What would you wish that everyone would remember you by?
Remember me by. That's an interesting one. If there were last words that I want everybody to hear from my mouth. It would just be love each other. All the other things like I don't want it's like, Oh, he did that patent on this. He did this adventure. He did that, ehh, just love each other.
Yeah. Just love each other. I love that. William A. Adams. Thank you for being here on The MindShift Podcast. I hope we can stay connected.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Hey my friend, thanks again for listening to today's episode of The MindShift Podcast. Listen, let's not have the conversation in here. Connect with me on social @MrDarrellEvans on almost all the platforms, with the exception of Facebook. My Facebook fan page is @DarrellEvansFan. Until next week, remember you're just one shift away from the breakthrough you're looking for.