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• Article on Mr. Irvin
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Tavis: We continue our 'Road to Wealth' series tonight with a look at African Americans and technology. Vernon Irvin is the executive vice president of VeriSign Communications, one of the world's leading providers of infrastructure services for the Internet. He's been named one of the 50 most important African Americans in technology. Mr. Important, I'm sorry, Mr. Irving, nice...(Laugh)

Vernon Irvin: Tavis, nice to be here.

Tavis: Nice to have you here, man, how are you?

Irvin: Doing well.

Tavis: Tell me what VeriSign does. I know what VeriSign does, but for those who don't know but they see this little logo all the time.

Irvin: That's right.

Tavis: You can explain.

Irvin: Yeah. If you do anything on the Internet, just about, you're gonna use a VeriSign service. We protect the identity and security of people who wanna shop online. And if you type in anything with a .net or .com, VeriSign is responsible for routing those messages to the Internet destination that you want. And then so many other things like text messages and ringtones and making your phone work.

Three billion times a day, VeriSign connects your telephone to the person you're calling. Your originating and terminating call. So we're sort of the middle of everything that enables and protects (unintelligible) digital.

Tavis: I wonder how tragic it is, you think, that so many people, certainly young people, don't understand that there is so much to do in this technology world, a lot of which has to do with infrastructure, where there's a lot of money to be made, but we don't even think in terms of applying ourselves, or gearing ourselves toward doing something on the infrastructure side of this burgeoning industry.

Irvin: And that's right. And not only is it a tragedy, we're talking about a multi-trillion dollar marketplace that's not only in the United States, but global. And it affects every single one of us. There isn't a time that we don't visit the Internet. There isn't a time that you don't use your phone to call or text. Isn't a time you're not downloading music. And so it exists, it changes our lives. And yet people don't think about hey, wait a minute, that infrastructure is a great source of independence and wealth for not only myself, my entire family. And part of what I do is try to get the word out to say hey, look, this is an incredible opportunity.

Tavis: What's your sense of how Black folk specifically are doing on closing this digital divide? I wanna start with the Black part of it first, 'cause there's clearly a role for everybody to play in this project. It ain't just Black folk responsible for this. But how are we doing on this?

Irvin: Yeah, here's the bizarre part of this. So five years ago, I'm in South Africa, doing some things with the Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I went out to some of the townships and - five years ago - I asked a student body, how many people have heard of the, used the Internet. And no one raised their hand. And I said, this is 250 students, how many have heard of the Internet? And one student raised her hand.

Then a snapshot, and go here in the United States. Black folks, particularly young people, want cool phones. What they don't know is they're walking around with probably one of the most powerful computers in the world, which is the mobile device, right? So from the perspective that this quote, unquote, digital divide exists, the fact that people have these mobile devices, they have access to the Internet, they have search capability, they can talk to anybody they want, they have video capability, digital cameras.

So from the perspective that people have access in their hands now, readily, technology and the phone companies have delivered this prepaid model so that people can have access to the technology and not have to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars, for the first time in our society, people have access to the latest and greatest technology. Whether or not it's being used in a way that could benefit society is a different question.

Tavis: You're on the corporate side, obviously. But to my earlier point, there's a role for everybody to play in this process. What's your assessment, as an individual, of how government is doing in taking seriously this digital divide?

Irvin: Yeah, so I think the answer to that question is I would have to say government is almost invisible when it comes to the digital divide, particularly when I talk about now mobile communications. I think the government is doing a nice job of creating the ability to give people Internet access, and access to the world's information in schools, in universities, in public libraries. But I've seen other countries, and I do this around the world, really watch countries say hey, look, this is gonna be a strategic imperative. We will make sure our citizens have access to information. And they subsidize a lot of the infrastructure. I don't see enough of that here in the country.

Tavis: Tell me specifically how you got into this. And I'm always fascinating with people of color, specifically, in this field, or any field where the perception is that we do not exist.

Irvin: (Laugh) Yeah, it's a pretty interesting story. Coming out of, I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, tough neighborhoods, blah, blah, blah. And I realized going to school for me wasn't about I'm gonna go have a good experience and then take it easy. This was about changing my life, and my parents afforded me the opportunity to go do that. And I went right into computer science. And because of that, I got exposed to old technology then. When I started, it was computer cards. Right, so, I'm showing my age here.

Tavis: Yeah, you're telling your age. (Laugh)

Irvin: Yeah, but...

Tavis: I thought you were gonna say Cobalt or something. You went back to computer cards. (Laugh)

Irvin: Yeah. I started with computer cards. And we moved into data processing. And I've always been on the fringe of, even today, 80, 90 percent of what people use their phones for today is making phone calls. And not all this ringtones and content stuff. But I've always been on the fringe of companies that have been very big on long distance and local calls, and mobile technology, voice communications, but I've always known data services, content services, were gonna be big.

And as a result of positioning myself there, the numbers are staggering. I think YouTube is now, which is a video broadcasting service, is doing now, as I understand it, over 100 million video views on the Internet are happening every day now. Fifty-five million unique users on MySpace happen every month. We're processing, as VeriSign, seven billion text messages now a quarter. So the numbers are just staggering, and this generation of kids, which I hope they do make the translation, I've got a GameBoy, I've got an X-Box, I've got a mobile phone.

You said it perfect, Tavis, which is look, how do I make sure I understand the technologies embedded in these devices? How do I understand what the technology and the ecosystem is required to drive this intelligent infrastructure? A company like VeriSign has a person like myself, an African American that's an officer in the corporation, and there's just a great responsibility and a privilege to be able to go out and talk to young folks.

Are young folks still looking for status symbols? And not to knock the athletes or the actors, we just don't see enough senior executives that are driving decisions and ultimately influencing our society. African American society.

Tavis: Let me put you on the spot. Whenever I get a chance to talk to an executive like you, what I typically get is what I'm getting now, respectfully, which is a wonderful conversation about the power and the possibility of technology, which is a legitimate conversation to have. The flip side of that, and you know where I'm going with this. The flip side of that is, what scares you about technology? What frightens you about all of this?

Irvin: Yeah, well, certainly I think it creates a new generation of have and have nots. Is what I really worry about. And I was in Little Rock, Arkansas, talking to one of the wireless carriers, and I was just showing him some reports. And we noticed that after - the use had spiked around income tax time, refund time. I said, what's going on there? And this company said, people started to get their income tax refund checks, and they're taking their money and putting it into mobile minutes (unintelligible).

So I'm watching the technology, I'm watching markets grow; I'm watching people consume it. But they aren't actually benefiting from the opportunity to see the growth in revenue and wealth creation, right? So they're consuming it, they're spending money in it, but they're not part of this rise of a new society. And I do worry about quite a few folks getting left behind. And it's a digital divide. I really do see - and the even worse news is the acceleration of technology. So that's probably my biggest concern.

Tavis: What's your sense of how we - and there's no panacea here - what's your sense of how we begin to change that trend, though? Reverse the trend?

Irvin: That's a great question, and I'm watching. Music is something that's core to our folks, and I'm watching really unique things happen with music and mobility. I'm watching unique things happen with video and communication services in the Internet. And as a result of that, we're bringing a core competency of what we know about hip hop, or whether it be soul or R&B, but we're linking those things together with the Internet, we're linking it together with mobile devices, and creating a very unique experience.

And as a result, I'm seeing a lot of individuals benefit from it. One of the guys that I do a lot of work with, who's a guy named Kevin Liles, who's executive vice president at Warner Music, Kevin and I collaborated to do some pretty unique things as relates to hip hop and mobility. And it quite frankly took the U.S. market by storm. We were doing 40 million with this ringtone business. Two quarters later, we were doing $150 million in revenue.

So it's good to see the fact that we can take a core competency like hip hop and have it connect with technology. So I do see that collaboration is really creating wonderful opportunities for folks in our society.

Tavis: Well, I'm glad to have you on, glad to have had this conversation to try and expose people to another side of this, again, burgeoning industry. Vernon, nice to meet you.

Irvin: My pleasure.

Tavis: Vernon Irvin, glad to have you here.