In the infancy of Silicon Valley — as the white, pocket-protector, khaki pants-wearing crowd was busy laying the bedrock of technology, Roy Clay stood out.
Clay wasn’t a product of an Ivy League school, didn’t come from generational wealth. He came from a tiny Missouri town called Kimoch. And perhaps most noticeable among the growing tech ranks – Clay was African-American.
“There weren’t that many people working in software period,” said Clay’s son, Chris Clay, “and there were even fewer people of color working in technology at all.”
From the ground floor of the tech industry’s beginnings, Clay used his smarts and drive to swim against the cultural current,