Show me three Black men around here.
A joke that lands because it's true.
Every number on this page is sourced. View methodology →
0%
That’s the share of Santa Clara County that is Black.
Nationally, it’s 13.6%. Walk into a room here and the math is already against the count.
Then the math gets worse.
Sources: US Census ACS, Santa Clara County (2023); Census QuickFacts.
0 / 100
Black men per 100 Black women in the Bay Area.
In the prime-age population, Black men go missing. Roughly 12,500 of them, statistically, are simply not here.
Some moved away. Some are incarcerated. Some never made it.
That’s before anyone walks into a tech building.
Source: KQED / Bay Area Equity Atlas (2017–2020); KQED.
Then they get to work.
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The most “diverse” major SV company by Black workforce share — Netflix, at 10.7% — is an outlier. The next-highest, Apple, sits at 9%. Most of the Valley clusters between 4% and 6%.
Nvidia, the largest company by market capitalization in Silicon Valley, sits at 2.5%. The same as the surrounding county.
Statistically, you can build a four-trillion-dollar company without ever working alongside a Black colleague.
Sources: company-published diversity reports + DiversIQ (2021–2024). N/A companies excluded. Hover any bar for the source link.
<0%
of executives at the top 75 Silicon Valley tech firms are Black.
Fewer than one in a hundred decision-makers in the rooms where Silicon Valley is shaped.
Source: EEOC, Diversity in High Tech — Top 75 SV firms (2014 EEO-1 data; not refreshed since). EEOC report.
0%
of every venture capital dollar deployed in 2024 went to Black founders.
The number was 1.4% in 2021, when the country was paying attention. It has fallen by more than two-thirds since.
Of America’s roughly 700+ unicorns, fewer than 2% have a Black founder.
Sources: Crunchbase News (2024, 2025); 2024 funding data; unicorn data.
The funnel narrows at every layer.
This is what “show me three” actually means.
Sources: US Census; EEOC; Crunchbase. Each band sourced individually in earlier sections.
You asked for three.
Here are 100.
We are 100 Black Men of Silicon Valley. We sit on those boards. We write those checks. We mentor those scholars. We work at every company on the chart above.
For [N] years we have been the answer to "show me three." But 100 isn't enough — Silicon Valley needs ten thousand of us, and the math says it's going to need us whether anyone funds the work or not.