JAMEY: Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 168 of Greater Than Code. I'm one of your panelists, Jamey Hampton. I'm here with my friend, Jacob Stoebel.

JACOB: Hello, and I'm here with Chante Thurmond.

CHANTE: Hello everyone. I have the great pleasure of introducing Dr. Kortney Ziegler, who is an award winning filmmaker, entrepreneur, social engineer, inventor, Northwestern PhD graduate, Compton born, lives out in Oakland now educator, and most recently the founder and creator of the Appolition app. So, that's what we're going to get into today. Welcome, Kortney.

KORTNEY: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk with you all today.

CHANTE: It's our pleasure. So should we get into the first question we ask everyone?

JAMEY: Let's do it.

CHANTE: Kortney, what's your superpower and how did you acquire it?

KORTNEY: That's a great question. I think my superpower, actually and honestly, is not to be kind of facetious, aren't kind of saying much about myself, but I think I'm a visionary. I have a really great scale in seeing things that aren't necessarily there or being able to see things that could possibly exist when I put all the pieces together. So, I'm really from that scale because it's helped me not only professionally but personally in my life. So, that's my superpower.

CHANTE: That's a great superpower to have. And it sounds like, I mean, I could kind of get that from just reading your bio because if you have done filmmaking, you won awards in your writing and things of that nature, and now created the Appolition app. I read a little bit of the backstory, but I would love to learn more about that, how that all came to be, if you wouldn't mind.

KORTNEY: Yeah, for sure. What is it? 2020? Wow, it's actually 2020. Oh, that's crazy. [Laughs]

CHANTE: [Laughs] I know.

JAMEY: We made it.

CHANTE: Yes, we did.

KORTNEY: We made it to the other side. New decade. Super excited. So in late 2017 actually, I was inspired by the work of grassroots activists who were part of a number of different organizations focused on bail and conversations about bail reform and the predatory bail system. And a group of folks called National Bail Out were doing crowd funding to bail out black mothers from jail for mothers. They did it early in that year and I learned about it in November that year. I was really impressed and inspired by the work that they were doing, not only because they were bringing kind of larger attention to the issue of bail and how it disproportionately affects black Americans, but also they were leveraging kind of like traditional crowd funding by using kind of read and sign up on a website and give some money. Or they were also doing like grassroots door to door and knocking on people's doors and letting them know and they raised about a million dollars, I think. And I was like blown away mainly because again, I'm inspired by the work that I think social activists do. I'm a black American and I think that most of us are intimately affected by mass incarceration. So we either know someone who's in jail or in prison has been to jail or prison. Or ourselves have been to jail or prison. And so, my mother is actually incarcerated. So that was really what tied me to them, I was like, "[Inaudible]. How cool." And working in a technology field at the time I was working with my co-founder and we were building a number of things that we kind of want to test out in terms of socially driven tools. And so being [inaudible], I was like, "How can I support the work that National Bail Out is doing, leveraging technology?" So I tweet a lot and I sent out a tweet that was like, what if there was an app that existed that kind of leverage the spare change roundup model, but then it was used to bail people out of jail." A lot of people were like, "Hell yeah, I'd sign up for that." And then four months after that, in November 2017, launched an [MBP] of Appolition and it was super successful and was hoping to have about 200 users. By December of that year, we had about 2000 and about 8,000 people who wanted to sign up to be on the app. And we didn't have that capacity because we just built out something to test it. And so that was the story of Appolition, how it came to be. And she's about a little over two years now and still a platform that runs, still a platform that reaches thousands of people and collects thousands of dollars that we send to a number of bail funds now. And they've continued to do the awesome work of gate keeping people out of jail and just manage the technology on my side. So, that was the story.

CHANTE: Damn, that's amazing. I love it. I love to hear when people like, there's a real connection to something and that you can take an action. I mean, I also have people in my family who are incarcerated or who have been formerly incarcerated. And just to get the legal fees and to fight some of these battles that people are facing that they've been, many times, I wouldn't say they're innocent, but many times they didn't have to go to prison for as long as they did. I just think it's really great to see a person of color to do this. So, thank you. And I want to say thank you because I think this is an awesome idea and I think that's probably why I even connected with you on LinkedIn after I read something about the Appolition app. So, I was like, "Yay! I get to meet Dr. Kortney and give a shout out." So, thank you.

KORTNEY: Yeah, that's awesome. You're welcome. It's been very interesting. I learned a lot in the space. Again, just coming from someone who identifies as a technologist and not necessarily like a bail reform activist or anything, but being able to support the work that others are doing and just being able to, through Appollition, create a larger conversation in tech about what bail is and like educated a lot of folks and like being behind that has been such a privilege to see it kind of flourish in the way that it has. So, I'm really grateful that like people -- because at its core Appolition is a crowdfunding platform. It's financial technology. And so, people have to trust me and the mission to even be like, "You know, I'm going to sign up and link my bank account to this. I don't know anything about anything but I trust this guy," and stuff. That was really an important part of the success of Appolition too, so I'm really grateful that people actually believed in me and trusted me to lead a project of this kind. So, that's great.

JAMEY: It's truly an amazing story.

CHANTE: And that's a good point. One quick question that came to my mind is like that signifies to me that you had the social credit within like the circles in which you were influencing. How did you get to that place? It wasn't like you woke up and you're like, "Let me just build an app and let me just become a technology." It seems like you took a roundabout way to get there. Not to say that those things in your former kind of like education didn't inform this work. It sounds like it did, but how do you think you built up that social credit to put you in a position to be a person of, not only like a proponent of this and activist, but also kind of a fiduciary stakeholder and leader as it comes to this?

KORTNEY: I've been building things in the technology space for about seven years now. I've finished my PhD in 2011 and I had a really difficult time finding substantial employment. And I had up until that point, had a really kind of awesome career as a filmmaker, artist, as a scholar. But also, I'm outing myself. I'm also a transgender person. And so, I encountered a lot of kind of discrimination in my professional career. And so, not being able to secure employment in the way that I thought that I was like training myself to after years of school, I had to deal with a different route. And so, living here in the Bay Area and be surrounded by technologists, I was like, "Well, I have to kind of create my own space." And so, I became an entrepreneur. I've always been an entrepreneur, but I really kind of really became entrepreneur in late 2012, early 2013. I had a business here in Oakland and I was really into fashion. So I opened up a brick and mortar shop with an ex-partner of mine. And that was successful. We had that for five years. And in that time is when Oakland was becoming, the spill over of San Francisco was starting to happen in Oakland where technologies or a lot of startups were like kind of launching companies. Silicon Valley had extended to San Francisco officially. And so it was kind of a moment where a lot of startups were happening. And I was like, "Well, how can I be involved in this?" I attended my first ever hackathon in 2013. It was a filmmakers' hackathon. I was a filmmaker. So I was like, "This is cool. I can go do this." From that day on, I was like, "Okay, I noticed some things in that space that I wanted to change." And so, after I left that hackathon, I launched Trans*H4CK, which was the first organization in the tech space that focused on building technology for trans people, created jobs for trans people, and really created a community for trans people in tech. And so, I brought my research skills with me, which was a really great tool that I had to find people who were at the time talking about diversity and things like that which was really kind of the early conversations of diversity in tech and things like that. And so I reached out to those folks and I was like, "Hey, you don't know me from anything. I'm not in the tech space, but I want to be and I want to launch this organization for transgender people because I attended this event and it left out such and such and such." And I got amazing support and amazing support from major prominent players in the tech space who sponsored my organization. And from then on, I've been able to kind of really create a name for myself in tech, as well as build up professional credibility as someone who not only says he's going to do something but actually does it and complete it and does it very well.

And so that's kind of been my journey in the past seven years working in the tech space and Appolition was this kind of like at the time, I was again working with my partner and we co-founded a startup called ZaMLabs and we raised money to build our products and it was going really well. And Appolition was just a side project that kind of really took on a luck of its own. But I've been able to, again build up as someone as seen as a trustworthy figure by my portfolio in the kind of history and trajectory in tech where I've kind of championed products and projects that really focus on those who are left out, those who are on the sidelines, people who I guess need support in ways that other people don't. And so, it has made sense that people supported Appolition.

And I would also say that just outside of technology, I've had a really kind of -- I like the word successful. I'm using that a lot. I had a really kind of successful career as a scholar, as an academic, and someone who is very known for being very public and critical about different discourses and have something to say. And so, I think being someone who's very vocal also helps the success of Appolition because I talk a lot and I'm in spaces in which I think my voice is important and where certain things that need to be said are being said. And so, it's just a combination of all of those things. But really glad that people supported my work and continue to support the things that I do.

CHANTE: Sounds like a true activist to me.

KORTNEY: [Laughs] As an entrepreneur, I have activist tendencies.

CHANTE: Oh, my gosh. I have lots of questions but I'm not going to be the only one to ask. So I would love Jamey and Jacob, I know I think somebody had a question earlier, so we'll come back to me.

JACOB: I was about to ask, for our listeners, what's the quick spiel about the app, that you had already done that. So just after I had asked, you went into that. So that was what mainly I wanted to hear about.

JAMEY: I have a question about, one of the things that you said about Appolition in one of the emails that we were exchanging before the show was American justice is not just but is punitive, and I agree with that. But I was hoping that you could talk a little bit about that for our listeners and your perspective on it.

KORTNEY: Yeah, I didn't write that, just for clarity. I saw it in an email this morning as well.

JAMEY: My mistake, sorry.

KORTNEY: No worries, no worries. I just want to be clear just in case the person who wrote it is like, "Hey!" [Laughs] But I'm going to answer both because I think I still have a lot to talk about Appolition in terms of how it functions and why does it do the things that it does. And I think one of the most exciting things to [inaudible] Appolition is that it's provided a lot of education for a number of folks primarily, I mean for myself, but also like I was really ignorant. Though I'm aware of bail and what it is, I was very ignorant that it functions differently across jurisdictions and different States and who can bail out who and how much it costs and who is granted what and different situations. And I think a lot of people, not only our users, but a lot of people in this country have no idea what bail is because a lot of folks would be like, "Why would you..." "So anybody could get out of jail?" Things like that. And it's like, "I don't even think jail should exist in the first place." But no, everybody can't get out of jail. A lot of people didn't realize that a judge has to grant someone bail. The situations differ and that sometimes some folks, and that the main reason why an app like Appolition is great in providing this education because we want to let people know that they have to educate themselves about the kind of the judicial system that we live in. And that bail is extremely very predatory and very unfair in the ways that like it's leveraged in ways against people who don't have the means and resources to actualize their right as being seen as innocent until proven guilty. And so, there's just so many conversations that I think Appolition has been contributing to in terms of educating folks that we're really grateful for beyond and because it's just a platform that collects spare change that already exists. Spare change platforms exist. You can get on Robinhood and collect, or any of those other app that collects spare change as an investor or save your money and go on vacation and stuff. But to use it to help someone that is charged with a crime, maintain their dignity and their jobs and being able to still kind of function as a citizen is super important. And I'm really grateful that something like a simple platform like Appolition can help contribute to again, that kind of larger education for our citizens. It's like super important.

CHANTE: If you don't mind, Kortney, I would love to learn more specifics on first of all, how can we download it and tell us more specifically like how you went into creating this platform. Did you learn yourself to code? Did you source this out or outsource this to somebody? I would love to just sort of learn that, if you don't mind.

KORTNEY: My partner and I, we have an actual startup, ZaMLabs, we build software and we've been building software for the past seven years since I launched Trans*H4CK. We build Appolition in-house. I did not code it at all because I'm in charge of a lot of other things. And so, we have a lead engineer. Our manager is really, really awesome and has been with us for the past two years since we've been in operations. Our first version of the app, however, because we kind of just wanted to test out the idea, we did partner with an outside team who actually already had a spare change platform, White Label Solution. So we were able to kind of just test it out there and see if it was something that we would continue to develop in-house. Once we had, we were looking at only on their platform, we were only able to have about 2000 users. And so we had a wait list of 8,000. And so, once we hit that threshold, we were like, "Okay, this is something that we do have to now kind of bring in-house and dedicate actual resources and money to." And so we went back to the drawing board after we hit that kind of 2000 limit and redesigned the app in-house, made it so that we could have as many users as we wanted to. Made it so that we can work with multiple bail funds, made it so that users can, when they sign up, their change can go to multiple organizations. You can feel that as if like, "Wow, even though I may have only given 50 cents today, that 50 cents gets split up to multiple organizations who would not have had that money in the first place," because they're organizations actually are underfunded. They're 501(c)(3)s that we work with, so they're under funded in so many ways. So yeah, I did not have to learn to code to do it. I do know how to code but I don't code now because it's not something that excites me. I'm more of kind of like being in charge of kind of product development and guiding the direction and that kind of creative development at this point. But yeah, we continue to actually build it in-house and at this point, we sought out kind of additional support to keep it going. You all work in software. It's expensive to maintain. Even though we really love managing Appolition, it is something that, it is its own product that requires resources and time. It was also important for us to create, it's a web app, so no one has to download anything. It was really important for us to design it that way so that we can be accessible to the majority of people. Not necessarily someone who has an iPhone or someone that has an Android, but you just go to Appalachian.us. It can you on the web like GoFundMe and you set up your account that way. And everything is automated. User's login, once they link their account, they have a safe and secure dashboard where they see all of their transactions made with that linked account and how much their change Appolition collects from that and how much of their spare change is going to help the organization that they select to in need. So it's really, really accessible that way. And we continue to bring on new users every day, which is exciting for us. But again, it becomes us really sitting down as a team at ZaMLabs and figuring out how to continue to make it sustainable and worthwhile for everybody involved. And so, that's a constant task that we kind of focus on every day.

CHANTE: Yeah. It's not easy either. It probably looks all nice and easy. It's great. I'm looking at the site now, one of the questions I have is, because you mentioned that it helps in terms of educating people. So do you have to go through them yourself and find the pieces that you'll use for education and figure out how you're going to curate that or how you're going to connect people to those resources? What's that process like?

KORTNEY: No. One of the cool things is that we just provide the technology and so our partners are the ones that are the experts. But being able to partner with folks such as National Bail Out or Brooklyn Community Bail Fund or Colorado Freedom Fund is that they're the ones who do all the work about the education, but our users kind of absorb that education because by default of them being partners. And so there's kind of information exchange that happens just by being an Appolitionist, by just following our Twitter feed or being a user who gets our in-app notifications or our newsletter about the work that our awesome partners are doing. And so, that's really, really cool. So, we don't do all of that work. We just kind of provide the financial collection a supplementary way for bail funds to raise money.

CHANTE: That's a great work. I just love the fact that this is how people who need to make change, this is how we make change, but when you use the power of technology to do it, it can go really far. So I think this is just like one of those examples of all these sort of different ingredients that went into this kind of becoming a crisis and a passion at the same time and like being able, I want people to hear this and be like, if there's something that I'm pissed off about or want to fight against, I can do the same thing. You know what I mean? Of course, it probably sounds easy now that we're on the other side of it. But one thing I would love to maybe dig into a little bit here is like, as you've been building this and going through this, what's been the biggest surprise for you?

KORTNEY: That's a good question. Maybe the biggest surprise has been how expensive it is to operate a fintech, honestly. [Laughs] My company and I, we build other things. We build video apps and we build kind of other like SaaS apps and this is the first one where it's been our team really kind of working through what it is to work with money and it's very different. So I think that was like, wow, really huge aha moment for us. But at the same time, it was really great because I've grown as an entrepreneur and as someone who's really kind of more knowledgeable about how different types of software and products operate, not only in the market but behind the scenes. And so that's been really cool for me as a person that's grown and just our team in general. But that was like really surprising because having an idea and then putting it into production and making it something that's actually working and useful for others is really, really exciting. But it's also like a little bit humbling to recognize how much work goes into it. So that was kind of the biggest aha moment. And maybe another one would be, I got very lucky with the timing of the tweet and everything. And the naming of the app with the conversations about prison abolition right now and kind of naming it Appolition and kind of taking advantage of mainstream conversations. But it was really surprising to see how it traveled in media conversations and that was really awesome just to watch it and have been picked up in so many outlets and discussed where we didn't have to do a lot of work investing in research. [Inaudible] know about it because it was talked about so much in different spaces. And that was really exciting. [Inaudible] surprise moments, so expenses and like notoriety, were like, whoa!

CHANTE: The name is brilliant. I'm like, "Oh!" The branding and all of that. Black Twitter is something else, but this is probably, this spills over into other Twitter threads, I'm guessing lots of them actually. Anybody who's working on social justice, like people who are abolitionists, prison reformists, things like that. I'm involved in those circles as well. And I just think the name was like, "Wow, this is dope." And I was shocked that nobody else had taken that name. Maybe somebody did, but maybe you really did get lucky and you kind of answered that question, so thank you for that.

KORTNEY: Someone may have used it or did the research for [inaudible] and this is my -- apologies if we're wrong, the person may be listening to this, there was some now defunct app development company, which made sense, but I think now it made more sense to use it in terms of something that combines like app with abolition. So apologies if there was like another one. But yeah, I think the name really was clever and helping it really catch fire in terms of talking about it online and the outlets, for sure.

CHANTE: Absolutely. And again, if those people are listening, shout out to you but thanks. [Laughs]

KORTNEY: Shout out to you for no longer using it.

CHANTE: That's right. Thank you for making space and not taking it. [Laughs]

JAMEY: It's interesting to me that we've been talking a lot about prison abolition and prison reform and the way that this app kind of works inside of that existing system because I can see how that would have the most impact, but it's also making a statement against the whole concept of the system. And I know earlier you mentioned something about being opposed in general to incarceration and I think that I would love to hear more about your thoughts on that and how you think Appolition kind of plays into that even though it's working with what we have now, if that makes sense.

KORTNEY: Appolition is not designed to be the end of prisons and jails obviously, but it's definitely designed to again, bring much more attention to discussions of how predatory bill is as well as how we can leverage simple technology, technology that already exists and apply them to problems that are much bigger than we thought we could ever tackle. Especially in a space like Silicon Valley where we have unlimited access to the most amazing tools that sometimes don't get used in the most appropriate ways to solve problems. And so, that's what Appolition does. But I, at my core, I'm abolitionist and I don't think that prisons and our jails are necessary. And I'm not the most articulate person and most knowledgeable person about the reasons why and the alternatives to those. I follow people online, like someone as a prison culture who has dedicated their life to prison abolition and really writing and theorizing and talking about, or Angela Davis talking about ways that society communicate problems that exist outside of locking people up. And so, I again, follow their work, which is really awesome because now as the creator of an app that gets tied to this larger discussion about abolition, I'm consistently educating myself about alternatives and how other people are thinking through alternatives and how they're kind of developing those things. And also how conversations about bail as a system are really pushing for legislation in different States that are actually ending bail. I know New York City, New York writes this ending cash bail and that's through the work of activists and people who have been doing the work for years and Appolition is just a small part of that conversation for sure.

JAMEY: And we can put links to some of the sources you just mentioned on the page for the podcast so that when people are listening they can go read more about it.

CHANTE: And if you have any recommended articles where people can maybe start to inform themselves if they're just like brand new to this conversation, because it's very layered and complicated as we know. This is one form for example of how we have to fight against racism as a system of oppression, and that's complicated too. So there's always kind of things that make the situation what we have today, bad. And then there's things that also like the levers and the pulleys that impact the system to make it really shitty. [laughs] And I shouldn't laugh, but I do laugh because it's like how I hide my pain. But what I'm saying is if you have any recommendations in terms of -- yeah, it makes me very angry. But it's overwhelming, like I had to inform myself when people in my family work, we're going to be going to prison. And that's how I got firsthand educated. I wouldn't recommend that, to anybody listening, but now that I'm on the other side of it, I want to know more about like how I can kind of take those things and educate people. So, I'm different than the average listener, I think. And so, all I'm saying is if we have any thing that we can give that's not too much or overwhelming, let's start there.
 
KORTNEY: Yeah, definitely. I would also suggest, people who are listening, you can follow @Appolition, Appolition's Twitter handle. [Inaudible] really kind of great stuff consistently about the mass incarceration, bail and things that are really digestible. And again, that's another kind of avenue that we are able to kind of curate this information about abolition in prisons and jails to educate folks who really kind of weren't knowledgeable about it and things that are happening. And we also have #AppolitionBookList that provides some resources as well for folks who want to kind of go a little bit more deeper in these theories and things that prison abolitionists are talking about.

CHANTE: Perfect. Thank you. One of the things that we want to talk about, if we can circle back to, you were mentioning when you went to the first hackathon and then you started Trans*H4CK in 2014. I would love to learn more about that and talk to you about that.

KORTNEY: Yeah, I went to [inaudible] hackathon. I don't want to, but it was great. It was a great experience, but I did feel it was not very inclusive in terms of I think just different skillsets and different identities. I went in as a filmmaker who had a clout at that time, I was like award-winning. I wasn't just like, I'm just a student filmmaker or anything. And like I went in and my skills as a filmmaker weren't utilized I think in a way that they should have, especially in the hackathon setting where the idea is like everybody has a scale to contribute to like the production of this product in this short amount of time. And it was a space at a filmmaker hackathon that privileged engineers who weren't really open to hearing the idea that think of the creatives. And so that blew my mind and I was like, "Hey, that's not cool," because it seems like there should be like having mutually, like you and me, like you can code and that's great, but you need the ideas from the filmmakers who were -- it was like using the archives and things like that and leverage documentary footage and historical footage and public domain footage. So that was interesting to me. And also I don't, again as a trans person who's out in a lot of my professional settings, it was in San Francisco and I didn't feel like it was very clear at all, and that troubled me. And so again, I walked away from that hackathon. I was like, I can do something like that for people like me, but also maybe it could be something about like, if we can make an app in two days using archives, maybe we can make an app in two days, whatever using data for trans people, make trans apps, whatever. And so I set forth and did that and it was extremely successful. And Trans*H4CK lasted for about, like about five year project in space and birth a number of organizations after it that were focused either on trans folks in tech or trans in other gender nonconforming people in tech or building platforms for trans people in tech. And so a number of really awesome things came out of Trans*H4CK. And Trans*H4CK sponsored events such as probably one of the most notable is Refuge Restroom. It's an app where you can find trans-friendly restrooms.

JAMEY: I use that app.

KORTNEY: Yeah, awesome. It was built on top of this other data. There used to be an app called or a website called -- I forget -- something pee, I need to pee or something. And it had all of this data that wasn't being used anymore. And so Refuge Restroom's founder took it and made Refuge Restrooms and then frustrated thing is that Yelp then took that information and put it in their platform. I don't think they did it like by asking or anything. They kind of just, you serve the data and now on Yelp you can find trans-friendly restrooms. But anyways, the point is [crosstalk] and Trans*H4CK really launched a conversation in the technology industry about trans people and really again, how we can create technology for people, useful tech for people who actually need it. And so yeah, that's what Trans*H4CK did. I didn't want to continue leading the organization. I met my co-founder, Tiffany Michael at a Trans*H4CK event. We had an old dev bootcamp in Chicago. Tiffany was on the founding team there. And she was like, "Do you want to start a company together?" And I was like, "Yes, let's do it." And once we started working together, we retired Trans*H4CK also because there was so many other organizations that existed now that could carry the torch. And so that's how Trans*H4CK started. It was the first ever hackathon ever focused on trans people, which became an organization.

CHANTE: Is it gone now? Did you retire or has the organization retired?

KORTNEY: Yes. The organization is like -- my partner and I say sometimes on hiatus, but yeah, I think we had a good run. It was great. And not only did I grow from that, but the tech space has been significantly impacted by the work that I've done and the work that people who were at the hackathons and events and seminars and courses and all that good stuff. It literally changed people's lives. We created such an amazing trans ecosystem in the space that it was fine for me to step away and for kind of like the rest of the team to step away and kind of do bigger and better things.

JAMEY: You talked a little bit about how other trans-based organizations popped up after this in ways that were relating to this, which is amazing, but I also kind of want to ask about your perspective. I'm also a trans person and I didn't enter the tech industry really until like 2016-ish. And so, you're kind of talking about -- and I've seen a lot of progress even from then to now in how things kind of are in general in the tech industry. And I'd be really curious on your perspective about not in specific trans-focused organizations, but like what kind of change have you seen at other tech events that aren't specifically trans-focused? You talked about going to this hackathon and feeling like you weren't utilized and it wasn't particularly queer. And I'm wondering, what kind of changes you've seen overall in how it's leaked out into other spaces in tech?

KORTNEY: I think in my time that I've been in this space, and I'm actually full disclosure, I'm really walking away from working in the technology industry this year [inaudible] into existence and tied to the question that you're asking, I think that a lot of things, conversations, not only in regards to trans and diversity and all these things that were happening, they were great and they created a lot of events for people to meet and share stories and form new relationships. And like people made money giving diversity and inclusion talks and I think talking about trans stuff and all that was great. I don't know, I think a lot of things didn't move beyond having nice conversations and events in terms of real shifting in demographics. But I'm also for myself an entrepreneur. I don't work at a company. I don't work in these spaces in which I think that people have issues where there's not enough black people, there's not enough queer people, there are not enough women or whatever, and I'm only someone who reads the data just like everybody else. So seeing a lot of kind of the conversations that evolved from 2013 to 2020 in terms of being more inclusive and things like that, I just think that a lot of them just didn't necessarily always translate. I think at startups, which sucks because startups, they're literally starting and they can shift the rules all the time. They can create new rules all the time. They can create new realities. That's the beauty of being a startup. And I don't think those startups are necessarily, again, in terms of the data being as inclusive as the discourse surrounding them was encouraging people to be.

That's not always a bad thing because again, it's important that -- I'm a philosopher at heart and so I believe conversations are important. I believe we have to be talking about these things. We have to be having conversations. We can't just be coding or working for companies and not really talking about social issues. It's really, really important. And so in that regard, I'm really grateful to actually have been involved in those conversations and someone who I consider to be very integral to those early D&I conversations that were happening in the early 2010 in tech, which kind of really intensified around 2014, 2015 and 2016. So yeah, that's super important. I do also hope as someone who has spent the last five years of my life building a company and focusing on just because of who I am by default, having a diversity of voices who work there and how awesome that is really wanting that to translate into other startups surrounding me. But I also live in the Bay Area where it's a very different place in terms of demographics. And so, yeah, it's like some things were good, some things are bad, some things need improvement.

JAMEY: That's just the way.

KORTNEY: Yeah, exactly. It's like that. Exactly.

JAMEY: I just wanted to say that from my perspective, although I definitely see a lot of systematic things that are troubling for the trans community obviously, that over the past few years, working as a trans person in tech, it's felt less lonely to me because I know so many -- particularly at first, I didn't know any trans masculine people when I first started in tech. I knew some trans feminine people and I was like, it feels lonely and it feels hard. And now I have a community and I know other people and I've even worked with other people directly at my day job that come from that similar background as me and it feels better. And so, I guess what I wanted to say was I wanted to thank you for whatever part Trans*H4CK played in that.

KORTNEY: Thank you. I appreciate that. Yey. I think you emphasized and made a very important point that you don't feel so alone. There's other people, and there's other people working, there's other people doing awesome things. And that's really, really cool.

JAMEY: It's really gratifying.

KORTNEY: Yeah, about all of these conversations I have provided for people. And I think even myself who, Trans*H4CK was my introduction into building in the technology industry. And so, it was great to insert myself in the conversations and meet people that way. And I was like, "Wow!" Because I felt alone and coming from an academic space and I was the only one. And now being able to not be a nobody and create something where people from -- all kinds of trans people showed up and [inaudible] awesome things together and it's like, "Wow, that's really cool." So, thank you for saying that. And I really hope that things like that continue in this space where people could continue to have conversations and build networks because there's so many freaking awesome people that are building in the tech that are trans.

JAMEY: It's really gratifying to see and meet other people that are like you. But even more than that, it's extremely gratifying to see other people who are like you, like being very successful.

KORTNEY: Exactly. And a lot of my supporters, especially with Appolition recently, are people who are successful in trans, successful being trans, that too [inaudible], whatever that means. And have resources to support in different ways and that creates such a different conversation, I think, about what it means to be a marginalized identity, especially a trans identity who in different spaces, the way trans mostly talked about isn't necessarily something that's like, "Oh, there's a certain subset of folks who work in a certain space who are funding one another's projects in ways that maybe others are aware about and really take advantage of the economic privilege that working in a space like tech affords." Those conversations don't really [inaudible] I find super interesting. So yeah, it's really exciting to continue to have so many out voices in technology and really bring a different kind of idea of what being trans is, is really cool.

CHANTE: Thank you both for that. One of the things you mentioned, Kortney -- well, two things actually that you are going to be leaving tech. If we're okay to talk about it, I'm curious as to what your plans are next.

KORTNEY: Yes. I think 2019, I was really on the fence. I mean, it's been a great -- I've created some awesome things and the Appolition will continue to operate and I'll continue to kind of have some really significant role in helping it operate. But I'm getting back to my creative side and I am a creator at heart. I'm an artist, and I forgot who I was. And I feel like the past decade of the 2000's, I was really focused on this professional, becoming a PhD and then I became a professor and then I became like a technologist and then it's like all these really awesome things that I didn't -- and I've created things. I've been creative. Appolition, for example. I've created Trans*H4CK. Those were my creations, but I want to get back to filmmaking. I just went through a really intense breakup in 2019. It's probably the most difficult breakup I've ever experienced in my entire life. And it forced me to really reconcile who I am as a person and things that I do that I don't necessarily like the things that I do about myself. And so really forced me to focus on self-improvement and taking myself more seriously. In that process, it inspired me to go back into our creative space. And so there's just been this kind of like, "Should I, should I?" And then that happened. I was like, "Yes, I should," because it's what I need right now in my life. And yeah, I don't think the technology industry was feeding my creative soul anymore and I want to make a movie, so I'm going to go back to that.

CHANTE: Yey, I can't wait. I want to hear all about this and maybe we'll have to have you back for a different episode so we can talk about that once that's kind of taken off, but that sounds like a good 2020. Look ahead, self-Improvement, creativity, back to filmmaking, getting back to your roots. And I'm guessing, it's kind of a spiral or a circular thing because we kind of have to go through these phases. And I know for me as an entrepreneur, I get bored with things and I'm like, "All right, I got to go back to the basics, recharge my batteries, get some more creativity or some more creative energy and authority in my life and then go back to the drawing board." So, that sounds good. And you mentioned the other thing that I want to kind of bring some highlight to is you were talking about the tech ecosystem in a way, where you were there kind of helping to initiate some of these conversations. But one of the things that came to my mind is when you were like, "Okay, I'm kind of a little bit done with this because it's not moving in a way that like maybe as fast as it should," is a sense of fatigue. Because not only for me, I'm half black, I'm half Mexican, I'm not a technologist, but I am in the tech space in the ecosystem. But I'm tired as hell. I need a break. [inaudible] call a sub because I'm just like so tired from having to constantly explain not only myself but like people that I'm showing up for as an ally and I will go just as hard for them too. Every day, it's like a fight. Every day, especially where I'm showing up at a place where people are like a little bit hesitant or reluctant to take what I'm saying at face value. They want me to prove myself and validate all the reasons why we should be having conversations around inclusion and why people should be talking about their sexuality at work. I'm like, "What are you talking about? We talk about sexuality all day long. Everything is coded to be sexual. It's really important." And so, having these conversations is super draining. But I'm like, "What am I supposed to do?" I need a B team, I need a C team to call in as backup help. So I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts. You might be leaving the tech space, but would you be a sub for me if I need you? [laughs]

KORTNEY: Of course, because I understand all of that fatigue that you are talking about very well. And yeah, that's a great point that you bring out. Personally, that's something that I don't talk about. I'm tired. I grew very exhausted working in this space. I think more than any other space I've worked in professionally, there's a lot of showing up that you have to do. Not only in terms of like if you are building something that is about humanity space, not necessarily about coding and formula, there's about theories and stuff and about identity and things like that. And there's pushback for that for sure. Because people were like, "This is not what I signed up for. We're a company, we're about the bottom line. This is not school."

CHANTE: Yes, I know.

KORTNEY: There's that pushback all the time. So that's exhausting. But then there's like the labor, I think, for me being a founder and having to go out there and then fight against all those kind of assumptions and biases because people don't have that knowledge that you want to talk about with them. So it's like they want to fight against it, but then having to negotiate with people who are very ignorant in a lot of ways and is unaware of realities and how different people have to navigate spaces in different ways that may be to their detriment, and their mental health, all those things. I learned that so much working in tech because it's one of the most non-inclusive spaces I've ever had to operate in, no matter how inclusive it wants to be. I think there are certain sub-sectors that don't get as much recognition as they should. I think when people think of tech, they think of like, "You're a software engineer primarily," and if you're not a software engineer, you're a founder of a startup. You've got millions and millions of dollars leading software engineers and that's what you do. And so, there are other spaces. It's an industry. There's tons of other spaces that I think are less draining to work in, in the tech space. I haven't necessarily discovered all of them, but it has definitely worn me out and I think I need a break from all of it. [Inaudible] my personal opinion of my life. But yeah, I think you touched on a very important point of exhaustion. [Inaudible] again as someone who is what the diversity and inclusive conversations want to be about.

CHANTE: Right. Thank you for that. It's something that I am struggling with myself. I don't know. Sometimes you want to call it quits, but you're like, "Well, I've come really far," and I'm pushing something much bigger than myself and I can't really take a break. It makes me think, like I say jokingly like, "Can I call a sub?" But I'm like, "Maybe I should. Maybe I should put together a list of substitutes." I need an emotional data myself who can go take this gig for me. You know what I mean? You still have to somewhat stay in it. And it's just an interesting thing. I'm going to be curious to know what it looks like on the other side for you and what you're going to be doing with your time. And if you find other spaces that are not as abrasive but more inclusive that allows you to have that creativity and allows you to maybe bring some tech-enabled services or what have you. So, keep me posted and informed on that because I'm very curious.

KORTNEY: Yeah, definitely. And I'm excited to explore those things. I think that the direction in which I want to go to is really definitely film, heavily visually influenced, content creation, back to storytelling, kind of really getting back to the creative soul of myself, but also really taking all those skills and business things that I have learned by being a founder in the tech space along with me. So, it'll always be something that I bring to my projects and now that I know how to leverage it in so many ways, for sure. And I'll definitely keep you updated about that.

CHANTE: Is there any, like in terms of filmmaking and storytelling for example, are there any particular types of stories that you're trying to tell? Should we be raising some awareness here so we can help get you a project started?

KORTNEY: [Laughs] I've never done a screenplay and I think that again, the recent breakup that I went through, I felt it's so much so dramatic, but I feel like I can be inspired by that and tell a story of that. I think I really want it because from that experience, like I said, I started to really kind of focus on self-improvement in ways that I never have in my life. I never thought that I needed to and really address issues of my role in creating toxic situations and like not wanting to repeat that in my life. And really having to take the steps to heal things that I didn't even know that I needed healing from. And so, I really want to tell that story because it's something that has really changed my life. I've never written a screenplay, but I think now I just really want to kind of focus on that and really take advantage of my own personal experiences and things that are happening right now to draw from really intense, creative inspiration from my own use right now, which is a really, really good and really rare that I want to take advantage.

CHANTE: Yeah, that's pretty cool. And I feel like for me, what I've been seeing, there's been more awareness and it looks like more rallying and perhaps money available for folks, especially black and brown filmmakers, folks who are more marginalized if you're trans or have some other type of marginalized identity. There seems like there's more money available right now and it would be a good time to get back into that. So, I wish all the best of luck there.

KORTNEY: Thank you so much. Really excited.

CHANTE: Yeah, of course.

KORTNEY: I'm really grateful that you guys gave me the platform today to talk about Appolition and my work and my thoughts and about what I want to do in the future.

CHANTE: I was going to just say real quick, if you wouldn't mind. You want people to go to the website, they go to the website, they can sign up there, create an account, right? You mentioned that you might be kind of doing some stepping away. Who'll be running Appolition when you're not there full time?

KORTNEY: No, I'll continue to be leading Appolition. That's not going to change. But we have like full time team who operates, it's not just me. We have an engineer, we have a social media person, a marketing person and we have a whole team. Appolition, as long as it operates, I'll definitely be there. But I think primarily my full time dedication will now be more of a creative, in the creative field. But yeah, I hope people go to Appolition.us sign up. We have people who are donating their spare change every day. And right now, we are sending all of that money to Colorado Freedom Fund, which is an organization that operates obviously in Colorado and they pay bail for people starting at $500. We're trying to get at least $10,000 to them by next month. So, sign up.

CHANTE: Awesome. Will do. Thank you for that.

JAMEY: So this is about the time at the end of our show where we kind of move into doing reflections where we talk about something that struck us or made us think about something in a different way or maybe a call to action, or something that we think we're going to keep thinking about for listening and being part of this show. There was something that struck me kind of closer to the beginning, which was when Kortney was talking about how Appolition is a web app because it needs to be accessible for people who don't have smart phones. And I thought that that was really cool and thoughtful but it got me kind of thinking about this idea that I've thought about before of like having people in the room when you're making decisions about technology who think about some of these things that might not get brought up otherwise if everyone in the project has a lot of privilege. And I think that it's a really good example of that because it's hugely important. And I could just see that not being thought of in other contexts. Like one that I use as an example a lot when I think about this is, I read an article about automatic hand dryers that didn't work for people who have black skin because it didn't detect their hands correctly. And the conversation around that was so interesting because people were like, "Well, you know, it was an accident. This wasn't done on purpose." Maybe it's not racist or whatever, but if they had had even one black person involved in that planning, they would have known that this was happening and been able to fix it rather than bringing it to market broken in this way. And so, I think about that a lot and I think that it just got me thinking about that when you're talking about the web app. And in tech where a lot of people have economic privilege, I think that not considering those kind of accessibility issues is common. And so, I thought it was great that you addressed that. And I think the call to action is (a) try to think about things like that for all of us to work who tech companies, but probably even more importantly (b) to bring people into your projects with different perspectives so that those kind of matters will get thought about and get covered.

JACOB: I can go next. Both Kortney and Chante were, I guess, touching on the concept of burnout. Something I've been thinking a lot about recently is, I'm white and I'm also cis. And something I've been thinking about more is what are conversations that I can have that I have special access to in 100% white spaces and 100% cis spaces, and what are conversations that I can be having about diversity and inclusion that don't in that moment involve people of color and trans people. Chante mentioned a lot of barriers, and something's telling me that there's probably a lot of pre-requisite work that needs to be happening to sort of prepare Chante to come and be able to do her job. And something's telling me that there's probably more that needs to happen. There's probably more that I needed to do to talk to my fellow white people to sort of get them thinking about some of these topics so that they can be more receptive to them when an expert wants to come and talk to them about it. Hopefully, that wasn't too rambling.

CHANTE: No, that is great. I think honestly, that's beautiful because that's exactly what I want to happen. Sometimes, I think it's relevant for people of color, marginalized or whatever marginalization or marginalized identity you have, it's really great to have allies and accomplices who can carry the weight and be like, "Look, I got the rest of this because this is some bullshit and you need to take a breather. And in order for you to have that psychological and emotional safety in the job that you do, let me take this one for the team." I think that's exactly what we need more of. And to build these coalitions around us of people, like I was thinking the other day, how do I come up with a list of like 20 people in my little cohort that I create that I can count on if I need them in a certain situation? Wow, wouldn't that be good if everyone could kind of build their own blockchain of people that they trust to help pick up the load, whatever it is in their life. I mean, I'm glad that you talked about that. Fatigue is definitely on my mind. And I think one of the things that Kortney said that was really great was that Kortney lost himself but is willing to go back into that self-improvement and self-reflection kind of space, which is okay. It doesn't mean that you're going to leave forever. It might just mean that you're going to take a pivot. So, that's something that I'm tucking into the back of my mind. That's my reflection for the day.

KORTNEY: Yey! I was really moved by the idea of finding community in tech that we touched on. That was really good because I think I've forgotten to do that. I think being a founder, sometimes you can get caught up in how to figure out what to do so you can keep the lights on and you're not necessarily that concerned about creating community in a way that perhaps you were able to. I have privilege in other ways I needed to. So, that was really grounding for me, really inspiring and motivating for me. So, thanks for that.

CHANTE: Thank you all. This has been a great conversation.

JAMEY: Yeah, I think this is a really great show. Thank you so much for coming on and talking to us. We really appreciate it.

CHANTE: Yeah. Thank you so much.

KORTNEY: Thanks so much for having me.