Freada Kapor Klein, Ph.D. is a founding partner at Kapor Capital, a social-impact venture firm that has invested in 200+ startups founded by underrepresented entrepreneurs while outperforming 75% of peer VC firms by financial returns. Long before #MeToo, she co-founded the first U.S. organization dedicated to combating workplace sexual harassment (1976), earned a Ph.D. studying harassment in federal employment, and built diversity programs at Lotus Development Corporation. She co-founded SMASH (Summer Math and Science Honors Academy), the Level Playing Field Institute, Project Include, and the DAIR Institute, and co-authored 'Closing the Equity Gap' (HarperCollins, 2023). Former NAACP National Board member and Obama Foundation Tech Policy Council member, she has spent five decades dismantling the belief that fairness and financial return are mutually exclusive.
Michael Kao is a veteran macro investor, former hedge fund manager, and founder of Akanthos Capital Management, now running his family office. A UC Berkeley EE/CS and Wharton MBA graduate who traded commodities at Goldman Sachs and co-founded Canyon Capital Arbitrage Fund, he built his career on a proprietary framework called 'Alpha With Asymmetry.' Known online as @UrbanKaoboy, he publishes the Kaoboy Musings newsletter on Substack - covering finance, macroeconomics, geopolitics, and thrash metal - and co-hosts the KAOS THEORY podcast with Grant Williams.