An interview with Kickstarter CEO Everette Taylor, appointed in September, on running the company as a Black man, future plans, overcoming bias, and more
Omose Ighodaro / Bloomberg : Tweets: @business and @everette Tweets: @business : Meet Kickstarter's new, 33-year-old CEO who wants to make crowdfunding more inclusive https://www.bloomberg.com/... @everette : I recently spoke with Bloomberg @Business about my plans to make @Kickstarter a more inclusive platform and help creators of color be more successful. Want to see more creators of color taking advantage of the resources of crowdfunding. ✍️ @heritage_love https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Everette Taylor takes over a company still recovering from its founder era: after reports of staff exodus and turmoil under Perry Chen and Chen's 2019 step-down to chairman, Aziz Hasan ran Kickstarter through the pandemic before handing the CEO seat to Taylor in September. The Bloomberg interview is Taylor's first extended statement of direction since the appointment.
His stated focus — making crowdfunding more inclusive and helping creators of color succeed — lands amid a broader shift in who can reach capital: Black founders reported easier investor access in 2020 as diversity-focused funds proliferated, and vehicles like OATV's Indie.vc were built explicitly to fund more diverse founders outside traditional VC.
First-order effects
- Taylor inherits a platform whose strategy now runs through inclusion rather than founder legacy — his success metric becomes whether creators of color raise more on Kickstarter, not just whether project volume recovers from the pandemic dip Hasan described.
- The appointment ends the founder-to-interim cycle (Chen to Hasan to Taylor) and puts an external operator with a public personal brand at the top of a company that had been run by insiders.
Second-order effects
- Kickstarter's inclusivity push positions crowdfunding as a competing capital channel to the small diversity-focused funds like Indie.vc — both court the same underfunded founders, but Kickstarter offers non-dilutive backing while equity vehicles take ownership stakes.
- Competing crowdfunding platforms face pressure to match the inclusion framing, since creator supply — not backer demand — is the scarce resource each platform recruits.
Third-order effects
- If Taylor's approach holds, Kickstarter completes its transition from founder-controlled culture company to operator-led platform, with leadership turnover (three CEOs since 2018) becoming the norm rather than the exception.
- The pattern of platforms and funds racing to serve creators of color suggests access to early capital is being restructured around distribution channels — whoever controls the audience relationship gains the power once held by gatekeeping investors.
The trend: Early-stage funding is shifting from gatekept venture capital toward platform-mediated channels, and Kickstarter's new CEO is positioning crowdfunding as the inclusive alternative in that reallocation.