---
title: "Carlos Barksdale - Google | LinkedIn"
url: https://stacklist.com/card/c7a5d2c0-67f4-4322-8825-d8f1a0329d74
source_url: "https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlosbarksdale"
stack: https://stacklist.com/stack/e0463f3f-bab9-45b3-b8fc-afe7976b7fcc
summary: "Carlos Barksdale is an entrepreneurial technology operator based in New York with a product and go-to-market background, connected to BAG Collective, Google, and Columbia University. His LinkedIn articles cover topics including luxury sneakers and auction house dynamics, beauty business lessons, B2B startups, FemTech venture capital, and the future of CPG."
tags: "linkedin-profile, entrepreneurship, technology, cpg, venture-capital, streetwear, beauty-business"
key_entities: "Carlos Barksdale (person), BAG Collective (organization), Google (organization), Columbia University (organization), LinkedIn (organization), New York, New York, United States (location), Glory By Us (organization), National Society of Black Engineers (organization), FemTech (concept), venture-capital (concept)"
classification: "reference"
content_hash: "sha256:22a29ea4548b177af01795ad074ed8aaa4a94ee3f7fb094c5a0983fdf22ec77f"
acp_version: "0.2"
token_counts_approximate: 12575
visibility: public
agent_accessible: true
status: "final"
---

# Carlos Barksdale - Google | LinkedIn

Sign in to view Carlos’ full profile Carlos can introduce you to 10+ people at BAG Collective Email or phone Password Show Forgot password? Sign in Sign in with Email or New to LinkedIn? Join now By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement , Privacy Policy , and Cookie Policy . Carlos Barksdale Sign in to view Carlos’ full profile Carlos can introduce you to 10+ people at BAG Collective Email or phone Password Show Forgot password? Sign in Sign in with Email or New to LinkedIn? Join now By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement , Privacy Policy , and Cookie Policy . New York, New York, United States Contact Info Sign in to view Carlos’ full profile Carlos can introduce you to 10+ people at BAG Collective Email or phone Password Show Forgot password? Sign in Sign in with Email or New to LinkedIn? Join now By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement , Privacy Policy , and Cookie Policy . 4K followers 500+ connections See your mutual connections View mutual connections with Carlos Carlos can introduce you to 10+ people at BAG Collective Email or phone Password Show Forgot password? Sign in Sign in with Email or New to LinkedIn? Join now By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement , Privacy Policy , and Cookie Policy . Join to view profile Message Sign in to view Carlos’ full profile Carlos can introduce you to 10+ people at BAG Collective Email or phone Password Show Forgot password? Sign in Sign in with Email or New to LinkedIn? Join now By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement , Privacy Policy , and Cookie Policy . Google Columbia University Report this profile About Entrepreneurial technology operator with experienced product background and go-to-market… see more Welcome back Email or phone Password Show Forgot password? Sign in or By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement , Privacy Policy , and Cookie Policy . New to LinkedIn? Join now Articles by Carlos Luxury Sneakers, Streetwear, & Modern Collectibles — A Report on Auction House Dynamics in an Evolving Space May 22, 2024 Luxury Sneakers, Streetwear, & Modern Collectibles — A Report on Auction House Dynamics in an Evolving Space Two years ago I took a heightened interest in the intersection of Fashion, Art, Sports and Culture, diving into the… 29 7 Comments Five Lessons from Student Leadership I Apply in Entrepreneurship and Business Mar 7, 2024 Five Lessons from Student Leadership I Apply in Entrepreneurship and Business Recently Columbia University Engineering hosted the 46th Reunion for the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), an… 85 5 Comments 3 Takeaways After 1 Year Running a Beauty Business Feb 23, 2024 3 Takeaways After 1 Year Running a Beauty Business Yesterday marked one year since launching my beauty & grooming business Glory By Us, seeing to revolutionize hair care… 98 11 Comments The Future of CPG Prioritizes Health Feb 21, 2024 The Future of CPG Prioritizes Health The biggest theme ahead for CPG is that it gets healthier (or at least perceptually it does). Consumer ethos have… 15 3 Comments 3 Lessons I Learned Working at B2B Startups Feb 13, 2024 3 Lessons I Learned Working at B2B Startups You Have to be Great at One Thing First Startups have to focus on building one thing and becoming great at it. As a new… 15 7 Comments Why FemTech Needs Venture Capital Right Now Feb 7, 2024 Why FemTech Needs Venture Capital Right Now With people electing to get married and have children at older ages compared to previous generations, fertility rates… 21 2 Comments The Globalization of Living is Upon Us Feb 1, 2024 The Globalization of Living is Upon Us Recently my friend posted on her Instagram story that she’s looking for someone to rent her apartment for 3 months… 47 5 Comments Weighted Thoughts 1: State of Venture Capital Going into 2024 Jan 24, 2024 Weighted Thoughts 1: State of Venture Capital Going into 2024 Venture capital deployment was down over 50% last year and venture activity even more. At a fundraising talk I attended… 13 It's Not Hard to Hire Black People Feb 19, 2020 It's Not Hard to Hire Black People Over the past year I attended numerous recruiting events, worked on an artificial intelligence recruiting engine, built… 174 20 Comments I have an Idea. What do I do now? - First steps to Entrepreneurship Jul 25, 2016 I have an Idea. What do I do now? - First steps to Entrepreneurship A lot of friends and colleagues come to me all the time with great ideas wondering what their next step should be on… 89 10 Comments Show more See all articles Activity 4K followers Posts Comments Reactions No more previous content Carlos Barksdale reposted this Report this post Carlos Barksdale reposted this Brandon B. Brandon B. 1w Carlos Barksdale reposted this Seven months of cold emails to eBay Motors, no replies. I pitched the buyer in person on the SEMA floor instead. Ninety seconds, face to face. They said yes. What they said yes to was the opposite of what most branded car content was at the time. Pimp My Ride had set the template — bigger and louder, fish tanks in trunks, twelve subwoofers, paint that changed color in the sun. We wanted to go the other direction. Most automotive branded content is about street cars. We made it about race cars. The name does the work: Racecar Revival. The concept: fans submit their abandoned race car projects. The cars that have been sitting in garages for years because life got in the way — money ran out, kids came along, the marriage ended, whatever it was. We bring the car into the race shop. We give it the professional race-shop treatment most enthusiasts never get to experience. Then we hand it back, finished. We built a submission forum. Real people sent in real cars with real stories. The one I still think about: Libor was building his Baja race truck in his garage for nearly 18 years. He'd been racing it for years, but it was never professionally built. We pulled it into the shop, stripped it to the frame, and rebuilt it from the ground up. He raced it. That was the show. The deal came in at seven figures. Five episodes. 7M+ organic YouTube views. SEMA and national event activations. Official retail merchandise — Racecar Revival t-shirts and stickers — sold online. We architected the gaming integration into the deal at signature, so when Ubisoft released The Crew: Motorfest, every car from Season 1 was already a playable asset on day one. At the end of 2024, Racecar Revival was named a Webby Honoree for Branded Content (Unscripted), alongside work produced by TBWA for Apple, Google, BMW, HP, and Wieden+Kennedy for Ford. We were the only independent operator recognized in the category. What I learned building it: The agencies pitched eBay with decks. We pitched with a thesis — that the most authentic branded content in motorsport wouldn't be the loudest one. It would be the one who understood the culture and respected the audience enough to give them their own cars back. You don't beat agencies by building a louder deck. You beat them by building something they can't. The deal was the proof. The Baja truck was the receipt. public_profile__posts 73 14 Comments Copy LinkedIn Facebook X Carlos Barksdale reposted this Report this post Carlos Barksdale reposted this Brandon B. Brandon B. 3w Carlos Barksdale reposted this Most brands treat a hero asset like a press release. We treated the Altimaniac like a season finale. A few years ago, we built a 2,000HP four-seater drift car at Forsberg Racing. The brief from Valvoline was specific: a 150-year-old company needed to reach Millennials and Gen Z, and traditional motorsport sponsorship wasn't getting it done. So we didn't build a sponsorship. We built the IP, then built a release calendar around it. The car launched at GRIDLIFE Skip Day. That was day one. Then, for five business days straight, Monday through Friday, a different media partner dropped their own content on it. Donut Media. Hoonigan. Major creators and influencers. Our brand partners. Each one with their own angle, their own audience, their own treatment. Five days. Five different stories. Five different audiences. Valvoline reported 20 million social impressions in the first week alone, tracking the #Altimaniac hashtag. The compounding effect from there was almost mechanical: The Altimaniac became playable in The Crew, Forza Horizon, and Assetto Corsa, reaching a combined audience of 40+ million players worldwide. It went on a Valvoline VR1 bottle, sold worldwide. First vehicle on a Valvoline bottle in 150 years. National retail rollout across Walmart, Amazon, AutoZone, O'Reilly, Advance, and NAPA. Newsweek cover. La Liga stadium ads broadcast on ESPN+. A mural painted on a building in Dordrecht, Netherlands. KORE third-party verified 306% ROI in nine months, exclusively through Forsberg-owned social channels. What I learned building it: brand integration in motorsport doesn't work when you treat the car as inventory. It works when you treat it as IP, and IP needs a release strategy, not a press release. Inventory is a logo placement. IP shows up in a video game, on a retail shelf, on a magazine cover, in a kid's diecast collection, and across a five-day creator content rollout, all from the same source asset. Most teams sell sponsorship. The ones that build franchises sell IP and run a release calendar. That's the lesson I keep applying. At PLN with the Ford RTR x T-Pain CarJitsu Championship at Coachella, in the FAT International U.S. partnership work I'm doing now, and in the stealth venture I'm co-founding around skilled labor. The car was the proof. The team made it real. The playbook scales. public_profile__posts 69 19 Comments Copy LinkedIn Facebook X Carlos Barksdale reposted this Report this post Carlos Barksdale reposted this Kathryn Van Nuys Kathryn Van Nuys 1mo Carlos Barksdale reposted this Thrilled to share the first YC x Google DeepMind Startups Day featuring a fireside chat with Demis Hassabis & Garry Tan We're bringing top founders together for a unique opportunity to hear from DeepMind engineers and researchers on Gemini + Gemma, and see demos of how YC founders are already leveraging Google’s AI infrastructure. If you're a founder building at the forefront of AI, apply to join us! ➡️ https://lnkd.in/giA8u6ZZ Darren Mowry , Matt Ridenour , Louis Huynh , Naji B. , Paige Bailey , Karen Fiester public_profile__posts 221 4 Comments Copy LinkedIn Facebook X Carlos Barksdale Carlos Barksdale 2mo Report this post Carlos Barksdale shared this Extremely proud to be a founding board member of the Columbia Engineering Black Alumni Association, CEBAA and celebrate its launch! Highest praises to George Ellis for leading this effort and fighting for us the past two years in the face of "anti-DEI" legislative pressure, doubt, and more. A true Alpha Man! More thanks to Dean Shih-Fu Chang and his team for their continuous support. Onward and Upward. public_profile__posts 172 5 Comments Copy LinkedIn Facebook X Carlos Barksdale reposted this Report this post Carlos Barksdale reposted this Lauren Sills Lauren Sills 2mo Carlos Barksdale reposted this The first quarter of the year always moves fast — but this one has felt especially meaningful. I’m still coming down from NBA All-Star in LA, where we celebrated our largest attendance yet for the All-Star Pitch Competition — nearly 1,000 people — and awarded life-changing investments to local entrepreneurs. At the same time, I marked a personal milestone: Five years building and leading the NBA Foundation. When I joined as employee number two, I knew it would be meaningful work yet I didn’t know how transformative the journey would be. In true NBA spirit, here’s my Starting Five — the moments that have defined this chapter: 1. Architecting the NBA HBCU Fellowship What began as a vision for intentional access has grown into one of the league’s strongest talent pipelines. 300+ HBCU students placed across the NBA, WNBA, and teams — with 25% converting into full-time roles — creating real, lasting entry points into the industry. Special shoutout to my favorite colleague and brother, Fredrick Salyers — a true partner in this league wide initiative. 2. Capital in Action — Building Pathways to Economic Opportunity Leading and stewarding our $160M+ grant portfolio of 300+ nonprofits is no small feat, yet in partnership with extraordinary organizations, we’re expanding pathways, strengthening local ecosystems, and driving long-term opportunity nationwide that has reached 877K youth. 3. Creating the All-Star Pitch Competition By investing in emerging entrepreneurs in All-Star host cities, we’ve awarded $925K in direct funding — including $400K in Los Angeles this year alone — pairing capital with visibility, educational resources and access so founders can scale businesses that uplift communities. Through participating in our accelerator program and getting on the global All-Star stage, everyone leaves a winner! 4. Shaping Strategy at the Highest Levels of the Game From partnering with Commissioner Adam Silver and senior leaders to shaping board governance and advancing bold new impact strategies, I’ve been trusted with the autonomy to identify gaps, architect solutions, and position the NBA Foundation as a model for modern corporate philanthropy. 5. Driving Leaguewide Impact — 30 Teams, One Mission I’m often on a flight, traveling across our NBA markets, and witnessing our teams align around intentional community investment has been one of the greatest privileges of this role. I hear firsthand the unique challenges facing local communities and see how our teams rise to meet them with tailored, thoughtful solutions. This is what it looks like when strategy meets action — when a league moves as one. Five years have flown by, and there are too many people to tag — but please know I’m deeply grateful to every teammate, mentor, partner, and leader who believed in the vision. Thank you for helping turn an idea into an institution. I’m proud of what stands. And I’m even more focused on creating more. public_profile__posts 1,320 300 Comments Copy LinkedIn Facebook X Carlos Barksdale reposted this Report this post George Ellis George Ellis 3mo Carlos Barksdale reposted this I am looking forward to celebrating the 48th anniversary of the Columbia University chapter of NSBE, and the launch of the Columbia Engineering Black Alumni Association (CEBAA). Please join us on Friday, Feb. 20th, 4-7pm, on Columbia's campus! RSVP here: https://lnkd.in/eB8mNhW5 Kareem Stanley Kareem Stanley 3mo Carlos Barksdale reposted this Calling all CU NSBE Alumni — come out to campus for our 48th Anniversary Celebration on Feb. 20th! RSVP here: https://lnkd.in/eB8mNhW5 public_profile__posts 16 1 Comment Copy LinkedIn Facebook X Carlos Barksdale Carlos Barksdale 4mo Report this post Carlos Barksdale shared this Founders and budding Founders - South Park Commons Founder Fellowship application is open! A great VC partner that I work with here at Google . Dylan Itzikowitz Dylan Itzikowitz 4mo Carlos Barksdale shared this Applications are live for the South Park Commons Founder Fellowship You don’t need traction, or even an idea, to apply for $1m in funding to build the future with us. We’re here to help you find what matters and build at the frontier: software, hardware, biotech, energy, space, and beyond. SPC is the best place to see the future, join us to build it. public_profile__posts 20 Copy LinkedIn Facebook X Carlos Barksdale Carlos Barksdale 7mo Report this post Carlos Barksdale shared this Happy that I could work with Causely and the Google Springboard team to help empower Causely with Gemini and list them on the Google Cloud Marketplace! Also thank you to the team at 645 Ventures for always being an excellent partner. Yotam Yemini , Kashaf Mazhar #GoogleCloud #Gemini Causely Causely 7mo Carlos Barksdale shared this Reliability can’t be achieved through dashboards and alerts alone. As systems scale, engineers need tools that don’t just see anomalies — they need ones that understand why they happen. Causely does exactly that, and now — through a new collaboration with Google Gemini — those causal insights can be explained, contextualized, and acted on faster than ever. Together, we’re bridging deterministic causal inference with generative reasoning to bring engineering teams closer to autonomous reliability. Read how Causely and Gemini work together to turn telemetry into trust → https://lnkd.in/eat4VY2a #googlecloud #googlecloudpartners Google Cloud How Causely and Google Gemini Are Powering Autonomous Reliability How Causely and Google Gemini Are Powering Autonomous Reliability 24 Copy LinkedIn Facebook X Carlos Barksdale reposted this Report this post Carlos Barksdale reposted this Mike Herron Mike Herron 7mo Carlos Barksdale reposted this Hey LinkedIn, I'm open for work! And not just work, GREAT work, Innovative work, REVENUE GENERATING work, TEAM BUILDING work. My current company Kadena, informed us early this week that they would be ceasing operations immediately due to economic conditions in the space. While this is never an easy situation, I am honored to have been their CMO over the last two-plus years. So if anyone out there is looking for a marketing leader with tech/fintech experience, I'm around and would love to chat. Likewise, there is a large group of amazing human beings from Kadena who are all looking for their next adventure. Happy to make introductions to anyone. Cheers to the next adventure 🍻 116 18 Comments Copy LinkedIn Facebook X No more next content Slide to item 1 Slide to item 2 Slide to item 3 Slide to item 4 Slide to item 5 Slide to item 6 Slide to item 7 Slide to item 8 Slide to item 9 Carlos Barksdale commented on a post 1w Pulling up in person makes a difference - always. Carlos Barksdale commented on a post 1w No easy task to help an older established brand reach a young market. This is awesome! Carlos Barksdale commented on a post 2mo Alum! Please sign up for membership here: https://cebaa.org/membership No more previous content Carlos Barksdale liked this Report this post Carlos Barksdale liked this Allen Duan Allen Duan 4d Carlos Barksdale liked this Congratulations to Bonita Stewart and Jackson Georges Jr as you reach the final close of BAG Ventures Fund I. What an impressive milestone, especially in today’s fundraising environment. It was great to see the strength of the community you’ve built on display at yesterday’s AI Convergence NYC event. The panel discussions offered thoughtful perspectives on where real traction is emerging in AI, particularly around solutions that embed contextual decision-making into agentic workflows. Shout out to Christopher Benyarko (NBA), Manmeet Gujral (Capital G), Shelly Xu (SXD) and Verdun Perry (Blackstone Strategic Partners). A special highlight was reconnecting with Chitra Nawbatt , Lisa M. Shalett , and business school classmate Tiffani Chambers . Always great to see you all. #VentureCapital #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Startups #TechNYC #TechCommunity #AgenticAI #EnterpriseAI #Fundraising #VC #CollabagenticAI public_profile__reactions 131 8 Comments Copy LinkedIn Facebook X Carlos Barksdale liked this Report this post Carlos Barksdale liked this David White David White 3d Carlos Barksdale liked this 🚀 Building the Future in Boston: Google for Startups - Digital Health Care! So delighted and honored to get to present not once, but twice during Boston Tech Week. First I had the rare privilege to share the stage with Colin Raney and Rich Miner and hear about what they are building at Ray. Then NVIDIA 's own Raghav Mani and I got to co-present on the state of the art of technology for healthcare and how you can tie the pieces together to make a profound difference for people. None of this would have been possible without the hard work and dedication of people like Victoria Wirtala and Brittney Glass who tirelessly made sure all of our events ran like clockwork. Also a shout out to my co presenter Steve Litster who ran the Biotech track, Joseph Shonkwiler, MD, MBA who moderated a panel on "Where Smart Money is Moving in HealthTech", and amazing Googlers like Andrey Shakirov , Vadim Kacherov , and Bon S. who came out to support the event. And the only thing that can make it better is the ADK2 hackathon the next day run by my esteemed teammate Lenworth Henry . It is always a pleasure to see folks again like Stephanie Oestreich, PhD, MPA and Katia Powell-Laurent , as well as meet new founders like Leila Daneshmandi, PhD and Luigi De Angelis . We are incredibly excited about the local tech ecosystem and are already looking forward to hosting many more events in Boston! #GoogleForStartups #BostonTechWeek #TechFounders public_profile__reactions 102 6 Comments Copy LinkedIn Facebook X Carlos Barksdale liked this Report this post Carlos Barksdale liked this Stephan J. Stephan J. 1w Carlos Barksdale liked this Attending the Futures and Options Toast event was truly special. As a member of the Junior Board, I’m incredibly proud of the record-breaking $98,000 raised to help create access, opportunity, and career exposure for NYC students. As someone born and raised in this city, giving back through organizations committed to opening doors for the next generation is deeply personal to me. Inspired by what can happen when community bands together to build more futures with options! public_profile__reactions 99 7 Comments Copy LinkedIn Facebook X Carlos Barksdale liked this Report this post Carlos Barksdale liked this Michael Berhane Michael Berhane 1w Carlos Barksdale liked this The event and ticketing platform Posh has raised $37 million in Series B funding. The round was led by FirstMark Capital, with participation from Causeway Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Companyon Ventures, and Epic Ventures. New York University students Avante Price and Eli Taylor‑Lemire founded Posh in 2019 after experiencing the limitations of Eventbrite. Speaking to Fortune, Price said, “I was using Eventbrite and other products to manage events, and then realized that the technology components were missing a ton of the capabilities that I needed.” 🔗 https://buff.ly/FhxxFEc public_profile__reactions 1,077 34 Comments Copy LinkedIn Facebook X Carlos Barksdale liked this Report this post Carlos Barksdale liked this Dr. L. Sha F. Dr. L. Sha F. 1w Carlos Barksdale liked this Many years ago, as a high school student, I spent a summer at Phillips Academy Andover. Andover changed how I saw the world, and how I saw what was possible for myself. It was a pivotal moment for me. For the first time, I experienced a learning environment with immense educational freedom, high expectations, incredible resources, and opportunities that stretched far beyond the classroom. The campus, the amenities, the curriculum, and the culture of excellence and critical thinking were unlike anything I had ever experienced. It prepared students not just academically, but socially, globally, and professionally. At the same time, it opened my eyes to a hard truth: students across this country are often being prepared for two very different worlds depending on their zip code, access, and opportunity. Talent is universal, but opportunity is not. Recently, I had the privilege of returning to Andover with two of my nephews, who also attended. Watching them walk those same pathways and engage in that same environment was incredibly meaningful. They, too, returned to Memphis with an expanded view of what was possible, a deeper sense of confidence, and a broader understanding of opportunity and the importance of exposure. What made the experience even more meaningful was having my father there. As someone who attended school during segregation, this was his first time seeing the place where he and my mother had sent me as a high school freshman many years ago. Watching him take in the campus with such awe and pride was a powerful reminder of how far generations before us sacrificed so future generations could access opportunities they never had. Moments like this remind me why education matters so deeply. Every child deserves access to environments that cultivate their gifts, expand their thinking, and prepare them to lead and thrive in any space they enter. Memphis is filled with brilliance. Our young people deserve exposure, opportunity, and systems that help them flourish. #HighQualityEducationMatters #ThereIsExcellenceInMemphis #ExposureMatters #ByWayOfOrangeMound public_profile__reactions 48 1 Comment Copy LinkedIn Facebook X No more next content Slide to item 1 Slide to item 2 Slide to item 3 See all activities Experience & Education *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Google *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> ******* ******* ******** *********** ******* *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> *** ********** *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> ***** ******** * ********* *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> ***** ** ** *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> ******* *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> ******** ********** *]:mb-0">- *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> 2010 - 2014 *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> ******** ********** * ** ********** ****** ** *********** *** ******* ******* *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> **** ********** ********* *********** ********** ******* ****** **************** * ********** *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> 2010 - 2014 View Carlos’s full experience See their title, tenure and more. Sign in Welcome back Email or phone Password Show Forgot password? Sign in or By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement , Privacy Policy , and Cookie Policy . New to LinkedIn? Join now or By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement , Privacy Policy , and Cookie Policy . Licenses & Certifications *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Google Cloud Fundamentals: Core Infrastructure *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> Google Cloud *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> Issued Mar 2024 Credential ID 3393KKRZ8F55 See credential *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Introducing AI to Your Organization *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> LinkedIn *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> Issued Mar 2024 See credential Volunteer Experience *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Member *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> Mar 2012 - Present 14 years 4 months Courses *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Plexo Capital GPx *]:mb-0">- *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> Projects *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Eta Chapter, Alpha Phi Alpha 110th Anniversary *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> Jul 2018 - Jun 2019 *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> See project Honors & Awards *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> REACH Memphis Alumni Accountability Award Recipient *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> REACH Memphis *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> 2025 *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> DC Blockchain Summit 2016 Scholar *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative // Chamber of Digital Commerce *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> Mar 2016 Organizations *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Black Alumni Council of Columbia University *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> Young Alumni Committee *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> 2015 - Present *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. *]:mb-0">- *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> 2012 - Present *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Columbia Venture Community *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> Startup Demo Chairperson *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> 2015 - Jan 2017 Recommendations received Jamil Karriem “Carlos is one of the brightest and most passionate people I have had the privilege of working alongside with. As a pro-active and analytical thinker, Carlos was integral to the success of the Mid-Atlantic region at Student.com. In addition to his intellect, Carlos has a unique ability to communicate well with a diversity of personalities, making him a highly approachable and a sought after team member. Any company lucky enough to have him will greatly benefit.” Nnamdi Okike “Carlos worked for us at 645 Ventures as an analyst and showed himself to be hard-working, resourceful, and very knowledgeable regarding technology startups. He is very intelligent and has a passion for working with tech companies. He has a very bright future in technology and finance.” 2 people have recommended Carlos Join now to view View Carlos’ full profile See who you know in common Get introduced Contact Carlos directly Join to view full profile Other similar profiles Brian Hollowaty Brian Hollowaty Los Angeles Brands 8K followers Los Angeles Metropolitan Area View Profile James J. Talerico, Jr. LION (30,000 Followers) James J. Talerico, Jr. LION (30,000 Followers) Greater Prairie Business Consulting, Inc. 31K followers Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex View Profile Hani Goldstein Hani Goldstein Snappy 5K followers New York, NY View Profile Hamid Baher Hamid Baher Vigorant 7K followers Greater Seattle Area View Profile Yve-Car Momperousse Yve-Car Momperousse Kreyol Essence, LLC. 12K followers Miami-Fort Lauderdale Area View Profile Sravya Vishnubhatla Sravya Vishnubhatla McKinsey & Company 7K followers United States View Profile Debbie Sterling Debbie Sterling GoldieBlox, Inc. 20K followers San Francisco, CA View Profile Justin Mast Justin Mast The Electric Plant Co 4K followers San Francisco, CA View Profile Dustin Cash Dustin Cash 5K followers West Hollywood, CA View Profile Warren Osborn Warren Osborn Osborn Companies 9K followers Provo, UT View Profile Explore more posts daphne carmeli Momentum for Health • 14K followers EverX is rethinking how inventory flows. ai at the core, precision at scale, and visibility brands can actually use. it’s bold, it’s working, and i’m proud to be part of it. brand builders should be free to focus on creating great products and driving growth. everx’s ai agents handle the rest from forecasting demand to managing inventory and automating replenishment. no hiring, no headaches, just a supply chain that runs like clockwork. 57 10 Comments Michael Palank MaC Venture Capital • 23K followers After exploding on the scene in 2019, Pipe has been heads-down building the world's best embedded financial solutions for small businesses. Yesterday's announcement about their partnership with Uber is another amazing milestone from Luke Voiles and his team. Pipe is teaming up with Uber Eats to add their embedded technology to the company’s restaurant manager app, and eligible restaurants will see pre-approved capital offers from Pipe that are customized based on the businesses’ revenue and cash flow. Financing can flow in as little as 24 hours. As we often say at MaC Venture Capital talent is ubiquitous--especially within those SMB entrepreneurs around the world--but access to capital is not. Pipe is changing that with amazing speed. Well done! 31 2 Comments Omer Kalderon State of Mind Ventures (SOMV) • 8K followers Just wrapped up my second NYC TECH WEEK by a16z , and what an extraordinary experience it's been! Six incredible days with more than 1,000 events immersed in the heart of innovation alongside brilliant founders, visionary funders, and the entire tech ecosystem that makes New York pulse with possibility. This year felt especially meaningful. Since the war began, our team at State of Mind Ventures (SOMV) has made multiple trips to the US, connecting with groundbreaking Israeli founders who've built their ventures here. Witnessing their resilience, innovation, and determination to create despite adversity has been nothing short of inspiring. From late-night founder dinners in Brooklyn to packed demo days in Manhattan, from intimate investor conversations to explosive startup showcases – this week reminded me why NYC continues to cement itself as a global tech powerhouse. The energy, the diversity of ideas, and the sheer ambition in every room was electrifying. Key takeaways from this year: * The Israeli-American founder community is stronger and more innovative than ever (AI and much more than that) * Cross-border collaboration is creating many opportunities * NYC's tech ecosystem continues to mature and attract world-class talent * More and more US-based investors are looking to invest in Israeli startups, despite the challenges * Despite global challenges, innovation thrives when brilliant minds come together Grateful for every conversation, every connection, and every moment of inspiration. Already counting down to next year, as it’s the best place to connect, learn, and build the future together! #NYCTechWeek #Innovation #IsraeliTech #Startups #VentureCapital #Entrepreneurship #TechCommunity #SOMV Tomer Poran Michal Cohen Alon Chen Orna Carni Merav Rotem Naaman Koby Soto Assaf Frances Dafna Levran Noam Schwartz Gil Birnboim Noam Salinger Alex Shmulovich Eliad Benari Erez Eizenshtat Guy Franklin Hailey Steinberg Tsiki Naftaly Alon Maltzov Yael Shemer Eyal Bino Adi Nechemia Bar Naveh Yaakov Ringler Shahar Ben-David (Ifergan) Etamar Lukatsky Ty Walrod and many many more:) 101 10 Comments Urvashi Barooah Redpoint • 9K followers 🚀 Excited to share that Champ AI is coming out of stealth today with an $8.5M seed round led by Redpoint! The RPA market is massive, and LLMs have fundamentally changed what can be automated and who can do it. But most enterprises are still stuck with ops teams navigating 6 browser tabs, re-keying data from faxed PDFs, and sitting on hold with providers. Champ is built to fix that. The team is what sets Champ apart. Jagannath Putrevu, Ted C., and Peter Lin spent nearly a decade together scaling Instacart's operations to over a million daily orders—they've lived these problems firsthand. Everyone who knows them says the same thing: this is the team to win this market. They're already running millions of production workflows each month, with early customers like Arena Club seeing 30% faster processing. Check out Jagannath's post below for a closer look at the product, and if your team is drowning in manual workflows, please reach out! cc: Patrick Chase Satish D. 26 2 Comments Lee Bellon 3K followers Big moment for Spatial Capital and the other select funds in the inaugural cohort on Decile Group Access. LPs interested in backing spatial computing, computer vision, and applied AI now have direct access. As an Entrepreneur-in-Residence, I see the opportunities and drive of these startups up close, and it's amazing to know that funding their visions just became easier. 9 1 Comment Chris Lubten VentureVoice Media • 12K followers 11 Hardware Startup VCs If you are building a hardware startup, these venture firms are actively looking to fund founders in the space. 1517 Fund Liquid 2 Ventures Newlin Ventures Outlander VC Precursor Ventures Rainfall Ventures Redbud VC Right Side Capital Management Ubiquity Ventures Uncork Capital Untapped Capital 35 3 Comments Patrick O'Shaughnessy Positive Sum • 13K followers David George leads Andreessen Horowitz Growth, which has backed some of the most successful technology companies including Stripe, SpaceX, Waymo, Databricks, Figma, OpenAI, and Cursor. This conversation is a detailed look at how David built and runs the growth business. He shares how they win the most competitive deals, the principles behind its culture, and the framework he uses to evaluate companies. We discuss how a16z is investing across the AI stack -- from model providers to applications -- and why this platform shift creates a real window for startups to displace incumbents. Throughout the episode, David shares the models that guide his investing: why markets misprice consistent growth, what makes "pull" businesses so powerful, and why he likes to back a certain kind of founder he calls the "technical terminator." It’s fun to talk with students of the game, and David is certainly one of them. He's spent his career studying great companies, markets, and founders, and you can feel that depth in how clearly he connects patterns across cycles. Enjoy! 209 3 Comments Jeff Torrance Harpoon Ventures • 1K followers We asked founders who's building the future. They delivered. Introducing the Black Flag 100.2 No VC bias. No algorithms. Just founders — the people who know better than anyone — answering one question: "Which early-stage companies are you most excited about right now?" https://lnkd.in/gVfw5uVC 28 3 Comments Jeff James Martin Collective Genius • 16K followers "I've long believed that people should live where they want to live and build their life around that." Brad Feld, Partner at Foundry and Co-founder of Techstars, talks about being a founder outside the tech centers on Tech Scenes Unplugged. #venturebacked #vcbacked #venturecapital #leadership #ceo #founder #operatingsystem #peakOS #foundermode #techstars 11 2 Comments Daniel Dart Rock Yard Ventures • 10K followers 🚨NEW EPISODE: Recorded live at FUTURE TITANS 2026 - Jeff Perry of Carta sat down with the iconic Seth Levine, co-founder of Foundry. Seth has been in venture for 25 years, built Foundry from scratch as an emerging manager himself, and has backed about 50 emerging manager funds through his fund of funds. He has genuinely seen every side of this table. They went deep on building Foundry, why VCs are in the influence business, not the decision business, and why the concentration problem in venture is not only bad for LPs, but also for the innovation ecosystem overall. And why Seth's new book, Capital Evolution, is so important for the future of America. 🎧 Links to listen... Apple: https://lnkd.in/ehQUQ2EM Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eU4FExpg 19 1 Comment Amira Said ConnecX Guard • 801 followers $1.5M in April...HOT DANG. Let’s get these resources to the right rooms. Being a founder is hard. Being an underrepresented founder in the complex world of healthcare tech is a different level of "the invisible stretch." Camelback Ventures just dropped a massive list of funding and fellowship opportunities for April Techstars Anywhere, which just opened their application My fellow founders let’s make sure we don't leave this money on the table. #Founders #StartupFunding #WomensHistoryMonth #HealthTech Heather Walls Katherine White 2 Julia Lam Kayak Ventures • 4K followers Introducing one of our newest port cos, Veritus Agent, by the one and only Joshua March who previously founded Conversocial and SciFi Foods and whom I've known for 15+ years since my Facebook days. As Voice AI improves, there are a number of industries ripe for disruption including collections. Always excited for more innovation in these legacy fields. https://lnkd.in/gjJTVKM3 #startupinnovation #ai #fintech 11 Federico Antoni Hi Ventures • 29K followers I feel very lucky to be deploying capital right now. AI isn’t just making startups faster or cheaper. It’s expanding what founders can build. Small teams can now reimagine entire industries and create products that simply weren’t possible a few years ago. From our seat at Hi Ventures, Latin America looks like one of the most fascinating places to invest in this new era. Getting to partner with founders building in this moment is the best part of the job. 40 5 Comments Lakshmi Shankar Together • 3K followers Thrilled to announce that Together Fund is investing in Sentra, alongside a16z speedrun! You track results in Jira. Decisions in Notion. Conversations in Slack. But the reasoning, the debates, trade-offs, and context behind why you chose A over B, disappears into what we call "Dark Matter." A decision made in March looks insane by July because no one remembers the constraints that made it smart. I lived this firsthand at Twitter scaling from 800 to 8,000 employees, and at Google while launching AI Overviews to billions at planet scale. The problem isn't process. Process is compensation for something deeper: organizational amnesia. An organization’s "Systems of Record" doesn’t solve this, they encode it. They store what happened, never why. That's why we are investing in Sentra. Sentra is the always-on collective memory that eliminates organizational amnesia by maintaining accurate context for all members and agents, functioning as an operational nervous system. It connects to every channel where work happens, meetings, Slack, email, code commits, docs, calendars, and treats them not as artifacts to search, but as living signals to synthesize. The fleeting and the permanent, unified into a memory that understands. The founding team is built for this: - Jae Gwan Park (CEO): Product-first founder, memory systems research at UofT and MIT - Ashwin Gopinath (CSO): Former MIT professor, created "Reflexion" (NeurIPS 2023), agents that learn from mistakes, 2x founder - Andrey Starenky (CTO): Early Vapi engineer, ex-IBM, built to process enterprise-scale data firehose Together is an operator-led fund. We invest in problems we've lived. This is one of them. Many congrats Jae, Ashwin and Andrey, we are so excited to partner with you! Read the full thesis: https://lnkd.in/gixj9cE4 Book a demo: https://www.sentra.app/ #OrganizationalMemory #AI #Sentra #TogetherFund #a16z #ContextGraphs 71 3 Comments Matt Ocko DCVC • 13K followers Yesterday, two DCVC-backed companies raised about a half billion dollars. In today's funding environment, that's not that exceptional... Together, the two companies just happen to enable gigawatt-scale AI compute, except in the unprecedentedly small space of only about 40 shipping containers, no exotic cooling required. You have to wonder what the US military might do with a gigawatt-equivalent of compute they could fit in a few C5 flights... or a 100MW-compute platform that fits in a single rocket launch... Even that, in DCVC's world, isn't that exceptional. We like to say we help make the impossible and essential, profitable and available. But what is exceptional, and this is a theme with us folks, is that they are each only two of many of our companies delivering robustly on outcomes considered impossible on VC dollars or in reasonable time, at the point when we backed each company from very early on: - a safe, cost-effective, meltdown-proof, truck-portable 1 megawatt nuclear reactor (Radiant, see https://lnkd.in/gF3JAHwS) for American energy dominance - American-made AI semiconductor chips that match or outperform everything else at 100x the energy efficiency, on off-the-shelf models (Mythic, see https://lnkd.in/gWFdvZFT) We were able to make the calls on these, and how they could work together, along with similar calls on all of their brother and sister impossible companies, because of a very deep bench of unified scientific, engineering, operational, and business building experience considered passé by a lot of other folks. It's how we make the exceptional routine. 103 6 Comments Dave Messina Pioneer Fund • 6K followers Biopharma teams generate oceans of data, yet still spend weeks assembling spreadsheets before they can even start asking “What’s next?” Argon AI flips that equation. Their AI-native workspace turns scattered clinical, market, and competitive data into decision-ready insights, so scientists and strategists can spend their time on better science, smarter strategy, and faster paths to patients. When you cut the data drudgery out of drug development, you don’t just make workflows nicer, you help lifesaving therapies reach the people who need them sooner. Congrats to the Argon team on the raise and the relentless execution behind it. Excited for what’s ahead. Pioneer Fund and I are proud to support Samy Danesh and Argon AI! 17 2 Comments Tanveer I. Kathawalla Pioneer1890 • 10K followers Honored to join General Jacqueline Van Ovost and Nick at #IDGA yesterday to close out the discussion on accelerating logistics innovation. We dug into how #dualusetech can cross the valley of death, why sustainment must be embedded from day one, and how alternative capital can strengthen America’s readiness. 18 2 Comments Krishan Patel Laplace Capital • 2K followers This podcast by Benjamin Narasin (hosted by Brian Bell - IgniteVC) is extremely spot on, biggest takeaways: 1. The funding bar moved: "Seed" in 2026 is what Series A used to be: Pre-seed is the new seed. Seed is the new Series A. Series A is the new Series B. 2. Revenue alone doesn't get you funded anymore: Hitting $1M ARR used to signal you were Series A ready. Today, many investors want to see +$3M or exceptional month-over-month growth before they'll engage. 3. VCs are optimizing for returns, not for your survival: This is important and most founders don't internalize it, a VC pass does not mean your business has no value. It means your company doesn't fit their return profile. There is an entire class of companies getting rejected by venture that still have real enterprise value. 4. The post-2022 reset created an entire generation of capital-starved startups: Hundreds of viable Seed–Series A companies raised during a loose capital environment, built plans around venture-scale assumptions, and then got caught when the market repriced growth, burn, and follow-on risk. 5. Most failures aren't product failures, they're structural ones: Overvaluation, failed bridges, unsustainable GTM spend"Grow at all costs" burn that produced zero durable ROI, and over engineered products that relay on bloated engineering teams/architecture. The biggest takeaway is "Distressed" does not mean "dead." Traditional VC and PE are structurally misaligned with this opportunity (it's not their fault). VC needs venture-scale outcomes and follow-on momentum. PE needs financial maturity and multiple aligned risk targets hit before they even sit down with you. That is why there are an increasing number of early stage startups that are scrambling to figure out what to do while being "stuck" with traditional off-ramps that cannot support their circumstances sustainably (Venture debt, bridge rounds, Acquihires, etc.). The only way capital can support this market is by building a fund that is specifically built to target early stage startups. Operator resources (hands on strike team that have 0-1, first principle based experiences (player-coaches) + capital resources (working capital that alleviates turnaround costs and can be used to get to default live FAST). Hence, Laplace Capital is very specific about what we target: Seed–Series A, B2B SaaS and/or tech-enabled services, cash-flow negative but with evidence of PMF. It's an area where most funds cannot participate and quite frankly do not want the "headache" to deal with. (which is not the case with us). https://lnkd.in/gFGnsReG 7 2 Comments Riley Loftus Harpoon • 5K followers New partnership alert!! Excited to announce that Black Flag is partnering with xAI to give founders free credits and direct access to Grok - xAI’s family of powerful, multi-modal, real-time models. Across essentially any end product you're applying to Black Flag with, Grok will deliver: - Deep reasoning across text, code, and context - Faster inference and improved function calling - CUI: Secretary of War Pete Hegseth just announced that Grok is being adopted for handling Controlled Unclassified Information If you're building in critical technology areas important to the West - space, energy, autonomy, cyber - the next generation of secure software will be built with Grok and you can now get a head start through Black Flag. Only 18 days left to apply to Black Flag’s January batch - apply at the link in the comments! 74 10 Comments Grace Gong Smart Venture Media • 61K followers Unlocking VC Deals ft. Alpine Ventures Founder & Managing Partner Edward W. Suh Is the traditional venture capital model overlooking promising startups? It seems the reliance on established networks and referrals might be leaving untapped potential on the table.#venturecapital #datainvesting #startupfunding 14 1 Comment Show more posts Show fewer posts Explore top content on LinkedIn Find curated posts and insights for relevant topics all in one place. View top content Others named Carlos Barksdale in United States Carlos Barksdale United States Carlos Barksdale Memphis, TN Carlos Barksdale Buffalo, NY Carlos Barksdale Greater Phoenix Area 4 others named Carlos Barksdale in United States are on LinkedIn See others named Carlos Barksdale Add new skills with these courses 3h 40m Using Snowflake with Tableau 4h 22m Complete Guide to Google BigQuery for Data and ML Engineers 1h 33m Actionable Insights and Business Data in Practice See all courses