Robert Johnson

Johnson sold his cable network, BET, to Viacom for $3 billion in 2000. Since then he has become the first African-American owner of an NBA franchise, the Charlotte Bobcats, and is building a national bank catering to blacks.

When it came to selling BET, it was purely a business decision. Some people at the time thought the company should stay in black hands, but keep in mind that BET has always had white investors, so it was never a 100% minority-owned business. I sold it because it was the right time, the market value of media properties was at an unbelievable high based on the Time Warner/AOL deal. [Time Warner is the parent of FSB's publisher.] Besides, there was the fact that there was no African-American company or individual who could pay $3 billion for BET. That really limits your chance to keep it minority-owned. Either you run it forever and pass it on to your kids with no guarantee that they want to run it or will run it as well as you, or you can put it into the hands of a large company like Viacom, which has a commitment to the minority community. So it was an easy decision for me to sell.

One of the biggest problems black businesspeople face is access to capital. It's hard for African Americans to borrow money from banks or raise money from venture capitalists. Part of the problem is that we're still not part of the good-old-boy club. We're kept out of the stream of deals. To rectify this, African Americans should join as many clubs, associations, and organizations as they can. More blacks need to get into the deal flow, and then we'll see more progress.