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From Homelessness to Kickstarter CEO: How Everette Taylor Built His Path

Taylor’s path through poverty, Silicon Valley and the New York art scene led him to a turnaround at Kickstarter built on curation and community.

Growing up in inner-city Richmond, Va., Everette Taylor was surrounded by gang violence, prostitution and drug dealing, and little exposure to traditional markers of success. Wealth, to him, was an abstract idea, something he understood primarily as a way out. But he struggled to see himself reflected in the archetypes of success of his generation.

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“I was a young Black kid from the inner city, and I didn’t feel like I had anything in common with a Steve Jobs or a Mark Zuckerberg,” Taylor told Observer in an interview in April.

But the urgency to change his circumstances took root early. He began working at 14, after his mother, a custodian, found drugs in his bedroom and forced him to get a job. During high school, he experienced homelessness, an experience that would deeply shape his worldview and entrepreneurial drive.

“It really showed me what it was like to have nothing, but it also added so much empathy........

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