Camelback Ventures' CEO Transition Announcement: “It Is Time For Me To Give The Gift Of Camelback Back."
camelback ventures’ ceo transition announcement:
“it Is time for me to give the gift of camelback back.”*
“… And she taught me that my children are not truly mine. They don’t belong to me; they’ve simply been entrusted to me. They are a gift life gave to me, but one that I must one day give back to life … Lately there are times that I find myself just staring at my children, that kind of look that says, “I see you, really see you, and I love you with an all-consuming love, the kind of love that envelops you and sustains me.” … Life gave them to me. I’m preparing myself, as best I can, to give them back to life.” - The Passion of Parenting, NYT, Charles Blow, Nov 7, 2013.
My daughter was born in 2013. She is our second child. Weeks after she was born, I was on a plane to Las Vegas with a two-pager in hand about this idea I had called Camelback Ventures. It was my first time in the city. It was the first of many trips to a place that I had never visited. I spent the entire trip in a hotel attending a conference trying to be “in the room where it happens.” It was the first of hundreds of hotels and the first of hundreds of times where I was trying to make things happen.
Founding a company is like parenting - there are many books on the subject; it looks easier from the outside than actually having to live into your responsibilities everyday; it is totally consuming. And even on the hardest days you love this other thing more than you love yourself.
What I’ve come to believe is that just as children don’t belong to parents, that companies do not belong to founders. We’re entrusted with a gift that life has given us. And that one day we must give it back.
It is time for me to give the gift of Camelback back so that someone else can lead. Like many things, transitions done well take time. Our plan, though, is to pass the baton at the start of 2024. The plan is for me to remain on the board and be a resource when and where needed.
I know it is time because I find myself looking around, staring at our Team, Fellows, and Collaborators thinking, “I see you. And I love who you are and what you are striving to achieve.”
I see our various Camelback teams bringing their own style, passion and networks to our mission of investing in the ventures and leadership of entrepreneurs of color, as well as folks who identify as women and non-binary. I’m confident that they will bring forth our vision of liveable communities and generational wealth.
I see new posts daily about our 130+ Fellows speaking to global audiences; opening offices from Miami to Seattle; being invested in by the 1954 Project, Echoing Green, New Profit, New Schools Venture Fund, Techstars; among others, and raising over $120M to build the communities we all deserve to enjoy.
I see Collaborators speaking up about a philanthropic system that needs to change not just for minoritized leaders and communities that rely on them, but because their institutions are squandering the responsibility to serve the public for what seems to be fear of the things we learn as children - that sharing is powerful (not powerless); that building trust, requires listening (and less talking), that relationships are good business (not superfluous), and that an occasional “I’m sorry”, and some encouragement creates the psychological safety for the risk-taking required to create something that has never existed (not hoarding metrics over leaders).
Seeing all of this wraps me in a cloud of comfort. It is air. It is not scarcity, it is not abundance, but it is enough.
I am satisfied. Not because I was perfect. Or because I need to take credit. Rather because I preserved the gift. Because I had a first row seat to the glory that is so many people living their dream and raising their voice. What that looks like and sounds like is so, so sweet. It is now a gift for someone else.
Onward,
Aaron
