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John sits down with Michael Ellison, CEO and co-founder of CodePath.org, a nonprofit training first-generation and low-income college students for software engineering and AI careers, focused on skill, access, networks, and building ownership in the tech economy.
Ellison shares growing up in rural Maine with incarceration and homelessness, and how persistence and relationship capital helped him break in by cold-calling Goldman Sachs and later becoming a key partner to their event. He explains his path into tech startups, joining a Y Combinator company that later exited for over $3B, and how AI increases the value of engineers while elevating human judgment and creativity.
The Wealth Playbook Nobody Handed You
01
Building a wealth mindset
Bryant challenges the idea that hard work alone creates wealth, pushing listeners to shift from earning wages to owning assets, understanding financial systems, and thinking in terms of generational wealth.
02
Financial literacy as a survival skill
Bryant explores how money language, credit, homeownership, and how capitalism actually works as non-negotiable life skills that most people — especially in the Black community — were simply never taught.
03
Practical Paths Forward
Whether it's navigating AI's economic disruption, spotting overlooked business opportunities, or recovering from debt, the show focuses on actionable steps, not theory.
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