What are we training people for?

1 min read · May 16, 2025
New Power Labs

Diverse founders are often overmentored and underfunded.

While well-intentioned, the focus on training and capacity-building programs has not translated into material shifts in who receives capital or holds decision-making power.

This tendency reflects what writer Vu Le calls solutions privilege: the desire for fixes that are easy to implement and don’t challenge one’s position of privilege. Training is one such fix. It allows institutions to be seen as doing something—without shifting who holds the power.

It also reinforces a quiet assumption: that the problem lies with the people excluded from systems of power, rather than with the systems themselves.

If the system stays the same, what exactly are we training under-represented founders for?

Narinder

New Power Labs

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