In this special episode in honor of Black History Month, Chris is joined by Aaron Craig Mitchell. Aaron is the former director of HR at Netflix Animation Studios, where he helped engineer the company's pledge to allocate 2 percent of its cash holdings into financial institutions and organizations that directly support Black communities in the U.S.
Aaron describes himself as a tortoise (a nod to the Aesop fable that inspired the episode title) because he learned persistence and resilience from an early age—traits that have helped him slowly and steadily drive huge positive change in his career so far.
Aaron has lived a life of extraordinary impact, and he's only just getting started.
In this episode, Chris and Aaron discuss:
- How Aaron's struggles as a self-described, sickly, shy, clumsy, and nerdy kid unlocked a rich inner life of imagination and creativity
- The hard-ass music teacher who made JK Simmons' character in the movie Whiplash look like a nice guy, and who introduced Aaron to a lifelong love of jazz that now shapes every part of his work
- How Aaron worked to fan flames of healthy chaos during Netflix's cannonball into the pool of animation, going from zero to the largest studio in the world inside of a year
- How a Jefferson Dinner in the early days of the pandemic sparked the creation of an initiative at Netflix that has injected $2 billion in cash into Black banks and financial institutions and is now providing access to the loans that Black businesses need to survive, thrive, and grow
And much more!
