Serena's Second Serve

Every one of us has seen the photo or heard the story. Two little girls, beads in their hair, hitting tennis balls on public courts in Compton while their daddy Richard held the dream steady. The world called it unlikely. Compton called it Tuesday.

You know the middle of the story because you lived through it with her. Twenty three Grand Slam singles titles, the most by anybody in the Open era, man or woman. She won one of them while pregnant. She came back from a delivery that nearly took her life and made two more major finals. For two decades, in a sport that was not built for her and often did not hide it, she was the standard.

Here is what the highlight reels leave out, and it is the part I most want the young ones to hear. While she was still playing, Serena was studying a different game. She noticed a number that should embarrass everybody in finance: only a tiny slice of venture capital money, the money that funds new companies, ever reaches Black founders or women founders.

Most people read a stat like that and shake their heads. She read it and opened a firm.

When she stepped away from tennis, she did not drift into commentary or a comfortable retirement. She went full time into Serena Ventures, her own investment company. The thesis is simple and it is loud: talent is everywhere, checks are not. The firm backs founders the traditional money overlooks, with Black founders and women founders at the center of the portfolio.