Kanye West: musician-turned-Silicon Valley entrepreneur?
Kanye West says he wants his latest project, a creative tech agency called DONDA, to be a “trillion dollar company.”
That’s a tall order for the man — one of the biggest music stars in the world — who can’t get venture capital money to fund his company.
“The problem is that Kanye’s reputation has preceded him on a lot of his projects,” says Racialicious founder Latoya Peterson. “And it’s not really clear whether he has a vision for DONDA.”
That lack of a vision is hurting his chances of getting the cash he needs from investors, Peterson says. His personality as a brash musician, coupled with his lack of a track record in Silicon Valley, doesn’t help his case either, she says.
For Kanye, though, it’s all about image, and he could easily open the agency on his own dime, says Peterson. But what matters to him is getting the big money from the big influencers in Silicon Valley to attain the image he wants.
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