Kanyi Maqubela

My name is Kanyi Maqubela. I was born in Soweto, a township outside of Johannesburg, South Africa, during apartheid. We came to the United States as refugees, and I grew up in New England, attending Phillips Academy. I did undergraduate and graduate (2x drop-out) studies at Stanford University, where my major was in Philosophy, and studied all sorts of things, most notably computer science, chemistry, physics, and mathematics. I have taught elementary and middle school math and science. Working on Barack Obama's 2008 election campaign is, to date, the most meaningful and difficult work I've ever done. I really enjoyed being on the teaching team for Design Your Life, a class for undergraduates out of the Stanford Design Program. For my first job, I served on the initial team at Doostang, an online career community which was acquired by Universum Global. I was also part of the team at One Block Off The Grid, an internet-based solar sales business which was spun out of the incubator Virgance. 1BOG was acquired by Pure Energies Group (now $NRG). Among the random work I've done, I've consulted with a South African private equity firm, a small-car company, the designers behind the mouse, a magazine for people who give a damn. I started as a venture capitalist at Collaborative Fund, an early-stage fund that is trying to make the world better, one investment at a time. I loved teaching undergraduate students at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts for a few semesters. I hope to do more of that. Most of my internet activity can be found on Twitter lately.

I am now building a firm called Kindred Ventures, where we are taking the earliest, biggest risk on founders who want to improve our society, and improve our world.

I try to write as diligently as I can. I believe in God, love my family, and currently spend most days in San Francisco with my wife and son.