March 3, 2025
Yet Smith also signaled his support for Elon Musk’s unofficial DOGE’s stated goal of cutting costs in the federal government.
Robert Smith, one of the most prominent Black businessmen and philanthropists in America, recently reaffirmed his commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, in contrast to the backlash against DEI, primarily from the Republican Party in comments he made on Feb. 26 at the Economic Club of New York.
According to Fortune, Smith, who is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, an investment firm that manages $100 billion in assets in concert with a vision for a more equitable path to prosperity for more people, laid out his vision for how businesses should operate even though the political party in power seems to believe that DEI weakens American corporations.
“America should be a place of meritocracy, but not just meritocracy in race, but meritocracy in an opportunity set,” Smith said.
He continued, noting in his comments that white women held 63% of DEI leadership roles, which is corroborated by a comprehensive 2022 study regarding women in the workplace conducted by McKinsey & Company.
“You’re going to not include them?…No, you are. People are just maybe offended by the way that certain of the programs were administered,” Smith said.
According to Smith, companies, in most cases, will keep hiring the best candidates, which he noted would often also be diverse candidates, due in large part to how education has worked to broaden pathways in the United States.
“People have now been educated and have opportunities and so the best people are very diverse now relative to what it was maybe 40, 50 years ago, when people didn’t have access to education and educational opportunities to enable them to be successful in the workforce,” Smith said.
Smith also gave credit to the work of the Civil Rights movement of the 20th Century and in particular, credited Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who is a central figure in his forthcoming book, Lead Boldly: Seven Principles from Martin Luther King, Jr., timed to release in conjunction with the 62nd anniversary of King’s March on Washington.
Smith’s book is due to be published on Aug. 12.
In the book, speeches from Dr. King are prominently featured alongside personal anecdotes and reflections on themes and topics explored by King such as economic justice, the Beloved Community, and the concept of two Americas from Smith.
Smith also said at the fireside chat style conversation that Dr. King’s work enabled him to be part of the first generation of Black Americans who have all of their rights, and also cautioned that a more restrictive United States economy and business landscape threatens American prosperity in general, stating that “we cannot survive if only part of the American engine is prospering.”
Despite this, Smith also signaled his support for Elon Musk’s unofficial Department of Government Efficiency’s stated goal of cutting costs in the federal government, and voiced his confidence in Tom Krause, the CEO of Cloud Software Group, which is managed by Smith’s company, as the Treasury Department’s fiscal assistant secretary.
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