Warm Welcome And Pottery Talk

Kelvin Crosby 0:29

Welcome to Investing in Accessibility. A Samaritan Partners Podcast. We're not waiting for change. We're investing in it. Join us as we speak with entrepreneurs and thought leaders that are focused on creating more accessible world.

Kelvin Crosby 0:29

Hey, hey, hey, So good to see you even though I can't see youy. It's another beautiful day in the neighborhood and I am so excited that you are here at Investing in Accessiblity. I'm your host, Kelvin Crosby, and I have my co-host, Chris Maher. How you doing, man?

Chris Maher 0:42

Good Calvin. Good to see you. Good to be with you, my friend. How you doing this week?

Kelvin Crosby 0:47

I'm doing great. Staying busy. Playing with a lot of mud. Changing lives. Making an impact. What about you? You changing lives, making an impact over there?

Chris Maher 0:57

I'm trying. I'm trying. I'm not as artistic as you are. Although I'm looking forward to getting on the pottery wheel with you at some point in the future. We might do that this summer, right?

Kelvin Crosby 1:05

Yeah. I think it'd be awesome to get on the pottery wheel and play with some mud throw it around. See what we make.

Meet Alan Schwartz From Forbes

Chris Maher 1:11

I would love to. I would love to. But so let's get into it because I'm super excited about our guest today. Well, today we've got a real treat. Our guest is Alan Schwarz, who is a journalist and managing editor at Forbes. But a little bit about Alan's background before we bring him on and say hello. So Alan is a Pulitzer Prize nominated and finalist journalist, now managing editor at Forbes. He's spent many, many years at the at the New York Times, known, very well known for cracking open the story around the NFL, hiding the research around the concussions. He's got a very long career. And I want to get into a little bit. You refer to yourself as the data journalist. And so I want to get into that a bit. But anyway, we're really happy to welcome Alan today to talk about the accessibility 100, which started last year, which is now the accessibility 200 this year. So Alan, welcome to the show.

Alan Schwarz 2:04

Well, thanks. It's very good to be here, Chris. And Kelvin. I feel like I'm in the right place because many people have called my work mud. And so if you guys are throwing mud around, we are we are great.

Chris Maher 2:15

Well Kelvin is good at throwing mud around both literally and figuratively. So Alan, before we jump into The Accessibility 200 for 2026, can you just give people a quick little background about your journey as a journalist?

Alan Schwarz 2:35

Well, sure. I'm I am a proud card-carrying math geek. I had I have a mathematics degree, and that's always been my passion. I landed in journalism somewhat, maybe not randomly, but from a different direction. And I was in the sports world for a long time. And yes, that's where I ended up when the NFL story, when I was able to find out about the NFL cover-up of concussions, you know, before anyone else. I worked at the New York Times for about 10 years. I left in 2016 to become a math teacher, a high school math teacher, which is what I always always wanted to be, but was hired by Forbes in 2022 to essentially oversee a lot of our lists, our lists of companies, best customer service companies, best employers, things like that. And when you you know talk about data journalism, yeah, I mean, I was very early in the movement toward using more data, using more sophisticated statistical analysis and whatnot in journalism. It started in sports, you know, a lot of things start. And then, you know, I started doing it well beyond sports. And that's what I was asked to do here was to bring a lot more data and sophisticated, you know, survey science and whatnot to the making of lists.

Chris Maher 4:07

So thank you for that background. And like it is fascinating that it came from your love of math and really sports related initially, but love that you bring that rigor to your journalism. We we we need more of that. And so, but what tell us the origin story? So last year, 2025, was the first edition of The Accessibility 100. What was that origin story? Was that your idea? Was it Forbes' idea? If it was yours, how did you get Forbes to buy into it? But give give us that origin story.

The Origin Of Accessibility 100

Alan Schwarz 4:36

Well, not unlike what I just told you, it's a little different than one might think. And I like to think that it be its being different made it stronger. I am not a member of the disabled community, I have no particular connection to the disabled community. I'm just interested in this because it's interesting. Okay. My only connection to it, which is what you know led to it, was in 2008, I covered the Paralympics for the New York Times. I really was the first one to do that. And I met a wheelchair racer named Josh George, who I profiled. We hit it off and we became friends. This is since this is 2008. And we've stayed friends over the years, and I would learn from him about how Delta would destroy his wheelchair, and just you know, some of his some of his challenges. I mean, he's he's very happy, he's you know, tuteling around and and was a you know the fastest wheelchair racer in the world. But I would learn a little bit about uh what that was like, and I would bring him into my trigonometry lessons, and we would talk about you know how wheelchair ramps are are made, and you know, if you have this type of angle, what is you know, what's the hypotenuse and all that business? And so when I was thinking about, hey, gee, you know, best companies, best companies for accessibility. No, that's terrible. Good grief. And then best employers for disabled to oh god, no, that's terrible. And I was really struggling with, you know, gee, I wonder if I could do something for you know in that world. And then I realized it's not, you know, the typical list. It is a list of the biggest innovators and impact makers in that sector. Remember, we are Forbes, you know, and uh we we're we write about business, we write about innovation. And so I I always looked at it through that lens. It is not a list of interesting of disabled people doing interesting things, as interesting as those things can be. That's not what this is. Yeah, it's about business people changing the world uh of accessibility. There are some, but very few, just sort of advocates uh and and people, you know, nonprofits and things like that. As important as those things are, this is about business innovation, business ideas, and really casting this subject not uh as a social imperative, as important as that may be, not as a legal mandate, as important as that might be. Accessibility is good business. And I like to think that, you know, to whatever extent it's possible, we are adding that to the conversation. And it's the first time any major media outlet has ever covered accessibility this broadly and in this manner. And I'm, you know, was it my idea? Yeah, okay, great. But right now it's a team thing.

Chris Maher 8:05

Yeah, well, that thank you for the background of that. And it's fantastic, and thank you for coming up with that idea. And and we are gonna give props to you to your friend. The you met at the parallel John, is it?

Alan Schwarz 8:16

Joshua George

Chris Maher 8:17

Joshua,

Alan Schwarz 8:18

who by the way has a fantastic barbecue place in so in San Diego called Smoking Jay's Barbecue. Go there. Okay, getting back to our that's right.

How The List Gets Built

Chris Maher 8:26

We'll stick his barbecue joint website in the show notes. Um but but you know, indirectly you you do have that lived experience, right? And so I think for for many of us who work in this space, it is about lived experience, right? Which drives us to do the work that we do. And I love that you use the line, you know, accessibility is good business, right? And that's what we're all trying to, you know, talk about more and more and show and show the world. And so thank you for that backdrop. That is fantastic. Can we take a few minutes and just talk about the methodology? I'm sure a lot of our listeners would be very interested in in terms of how you came up with the list and what the methodology behind it is.

Alan Schwarz 9:04

Sure. I think that it's more approach, perhaps, than methodology, because, particularly given what I was talking about with respect to data and survey and math, there really is not any of that here. Okay. I mean, how can you measure impact and innovation in the world of accessibility in any particularly objective sense? I mean, you you can't. It's in the eye of the beholder. And, you know, given that I was an outsider when I came to this, which I do believe was an asset, being an outsider was an asset because I had absolutely no preconception of any of this. I didn't know any of the main people. I mean, literally, I knew nothing. I admit this. What I did is I surrounded myself with you know top experts in the field in lots of different areas, experts in sports, okay, experts in deaf and hard of hearing, blind, low vision, education, mobility, veterans' affairs. And I made sure to surround myself with the people who could teach me, who could guide me, and help turn my vision, well, of course, shape my vision.

Chris Maher 10:22

Yep.

Alan Schwarz 10:22

But take what my was my initial approach into and shape it, not unlike frankly, mud on a pottery wheel, really, into something like what we've seen in terms of you know picking out the hundred, of course, and we didn't rank it from one to hundred to a hundred, because that's absurd. I mean, how am I gonna say that yeah, you know, Apple's number three and Samaritan Partners is number six or number seventy-two. I mean, that doesn't make any sense. But how do we pick out the right the right ones? You just you do your best, you do your research. We've spoken to more than 700 people in order to shape this year's list. And I think it's it's pretty good. Perfect. It ain't right, but boy, was it done earnestly and honorably.

Chris Maher 11:18

Yeah. Well, Alan, it it's whether you knew it or not, you took an inclusive design approach to coming up with the list, right? You got the people from the community at the table with you to go through the process, you didn't go off on your own. And so, like that, it's a great example of of universal or inclusive design, which is we need more of that in this world. So, Kelvin, do you have any questions before we kind of dig into the list and talk about maybe some categories and and specific companies or organizations? Do you have any questions for Alan?

Kelvin Crosby 11:50

Well, I think I think what's interesting is as we're kind of getting into this, is the as you're pulling together this list, and and I I I've been really looking forward to seeing how did you get into the disability community, or I call it living beyond the challenge community, because that's what we're doing. We're living beyond our challenges. But but what's interesting is is it it's just and then having that perspective you had, but naturally having an inclusive perspective to make this list. I think that speaks volume because at the end of the day, so many people they have a great idea, or they and then they just go for it and then they bring it to the community after it's too late. And so I think this this is awesome.

Outsider Reporting And Credibility

Chris Maher 12:35

So yeah, there's a there's a phrase that Al that you've probably heard of nothing about us without us, and and you know, you just went straight straight to inclusion, right? And that and that's and that's the best way to approach it, right? If you want to get the best outcome.

Alan Schwarz 12:51

Well, I wouldn't call it inclusion, okay. I would call it research, I would call it reporting, I would call it journalism. I mean, that's what you do as a journalist. And I I was you know a pretty hardcore journalist for a long time as you know, you're a professional novice, and all of a sudden you have to write about something that you don't necessarily you're not an expert in. Yeah, so you have to go call the experts and learn from them and figure out, you know, who are the good ones and who are the posers, you know. You do have to have some spidey sense, yeah. But I mean, that's what I would I would always do. That's what I think any good journalist does is admit what they don't know and go out and learn from the right people. And so, yes, of course, the adage, nothing about us without us, you know, is is applicable here, but I I was gonna do that anyway, right?

Chris Maher 13:55

Yeah, yeah, that's in your DNA as as the way you approach your journalism, which is fantastic. Yeah, so like you're the you were the you were the right guy for the job, my friend.

Alan Schwarz 14:04

Well, I mean, to me, it's just I mean, I don't think I'm the only one, but it to me it's pretty darn obvious, you know. And and so uh, you know, I would believe it or not, talking about inclusion, I I I uh you you the whole nothing about us without us, I totally understand where that comes from, what that means, how we got here, but I don't necessarily believe it. Okay, I am not heeding that maxim.

Kelvin Crosby 14:37

Right.

Alan Schwarz 14:38

Okay, I can write about stuff w without experts telling me what you know what to say. I've done that in the past because I darn well already know what I'm talking about. Thank you very much. But in this case, I really didn't know what I was talking about. Okay, people can write about subjects without including the people that they're writing about, and and I think sports is a good example, by the way. Okay, because I mean you you had to varying degrees, and I I wrote a book about this, frankly, but specifically in baseball, you've always had statistical analysis since since the Civil War, literally. Okay, people were arguing that on base percentage and whatnot before the 1900s, right? You saw this evolution of what has been, you know, branded as money ball, which I I hate that term in this particular case, good book, good movie, not a great term. But what you had was people who didn't play the game, didn't play baseball or ultimately other sports, figuring things out about the sports, even though they didn't play, even though they weren't professional baseball players or football officials, they saw things that the quote unquote insiders didn't see. And they wrote about it, despite the fact that you know they didn't need to include the experts, and it changed that. So I very much bristle when I'm lectured by people in the disability community, that you know what what could you know? You're just you know, you don't have a disability, you don't you you're you're not particularly connected to anyone's lived experience. I think I mean that makes me mad, frankly. I also had never gotten a concussion when I wrote about that, and that seemed to work out pretty well.

Chris Maher 16:47

Yeah.

Alan Schwarz 16:48

So, you know, I did face last year a great deal of skepticism and pushback from the disability community saying who's this clown parachuting in to our world. But, you know, I I hope that you know last year's list showed that we did it, you know, we, I, whatever, did it the right way, did it respectfully. We did do it with the the insight and uh thoughts of the experts, but we didn't do it out of inclusivity. We did it because it was simply smart.

Chris Maher 17:26

Yeah, it was the right way to do it. And this year, I think, I think I you might have told me, did you have like an advisory board of like 10 or 12 people? Is that right?

Biggest Insights And Investor Impact

Alan Schwarz 17:38

Oh, yes. I mean, I I I think did I mention that before? But but yeah, I mean, I had an advisory board last year, of course, when it was desperately important. This year, of course, I wanted again, we mixed it up a little bit. We had people from Walmart, we had the head of accessibility at various places like Walmart and Nike, Teach Access, Verizon, the World Institute on Disability, Marcie Roth, Gallaudet. And we we made sure to have the big Ernst and Young for for uh neurodiversity, uh Paralympian for sports. You know, you you want to have the experts tell you who who are the best, who are the most impactful. Frankly, we had a couple of times, which is the whole point, where people said, no, no, no, those comp you know, that company or that person talks a great game, but they they you know don't walk the talk.

Chris Maher 18:44

Yeah.

Alan Schwarz 18:45

And so we didn't have them on the list. Last year, believe it or not, I was shocked. I got only sort of half a complaint about somebody who was on the list direct, you know, where we heard about it. I I heard some grumbling that you know was on which was simply silly. Yeah. You know, but somebody who didn't understand the problem. Yeah.

Chris Maher 19:13

Well, I think that I think, you know, the approach, I won't say methodology, the approach you outlined for our listeners, whether it was intended or not, I think it was a very good approach because it did take a an inclusive approach. And you brought, as you said, you brought the experts to the table, right? And and in compiling the list like this, I think that I think that gives your list and you even more credibility. I'm not gonna say credibility, but even more credibility because you have a lot of credibility just based on your prior body of work that you bring to the table. So thank you for taking us through that. So let's you can so let's dig into the list a little bit. And we don't have to get into too much detail, but what I'd love for you to just kind of off the top of your head talk about were there certain sectors and or organizations that like really caught you your attention or the advisory board's attention? And really, what were kind of this year versus last year or just this year, what were kind of the top insights or takeaways that that really came through for you? Does that make sense, Alan?

Alan Schwarz 20:14

Oh no, sure, sure. I think you know, last year was a learning experience. And what I found that I didn't necessarily expect was how many venture capitalists, accelerators, investors, how much there was a leaning towards you know, accessibility as a business imperative, than it was maybe what my preconception was. I gotta tell you, outsider, someone like me, I I thought it was gonna be mostly you know prosthetics and other products and things like that, because that's what outsiders maybe see most. And but it quickly became clear to me that this was this was a heck of a lot broader than anything like that. Uh I mean it didn't take long, but uh so I had the the last year it was uh positioning our coverage, you know, our articles and whatnot really was positioning this as smart business. I didn't go in with that uh approach, but that's what became you know what jumped out at me as the most accurate and interesting. And I really we tried to have a good mix, and you know, we had one investor, accelerator, venture capitalist kind of company last year, because you want to have a a mix of of folks, you don't want to just have you know a hundred of the same, you know, yeah thing. But this year it really broadened, and frankly, obviously, Chris, that's how you and I have met. Yeah, um, is because I really wanted to learn more about the investors, accelerators, VCs. You know, I don't know exactly how you guys like to refer to. yourself.

Chris Maher 22:00

You got you got it.

How To Get On Next List

Alan Schwarz 22:01

Yeah. But you know, I really wanted to talk to more because we don't. I'm very strict about this. There are no charitable foundations, benefactors, you know, funders on the list. This isn't about who you know donates money. It's who uses the money and makes an impact. Okay. And but the thing is being a VC or investor or accelerator is a little bit different because you're really help incubating and bringing, you're not just writing a check and riding off into the sunset. And so this year there are several, you know, uh Chris and Samaritan partners, yes, are on the list. And there are are several others. They're not the most known of course probably to your your audience, but they are making a huge impact in taking ideas and innovative approaches to addressing challenges, they're making them come to life or helping them come to life in a way that never would have happened had they not brought their business and technical and yes financial expertise to that table.

Chris Maher 23:24

Alan if people want to connect with you, learn more about your work, get on your radar for the 2027 list, what's the best way to do that?

Alan Schwarz 23:32

Oh Chris, you didn't tell me we were going to do that if you were going to invite people to flood my inbox. Dude, you think you get applications as a VC people knocking on your door. All right, here we go. So yes of course I mean we we get hundreds writing to me and and even after last year which you know it was the first year not everybody saw it blah blah blah but I think the word has gotten around to the point where we're going to have more eyeballs on us this year. Yeah if you want to write to us to talk uh to to be on the radar for next year you can write to us and I gotta figure it out. I gotta get it outlook okay there it is accessibility list at forbes.com so exactly how you would think it was spelled no dots no dashes no nothing just accessibility list at forbes dot com what will happen is that we will log you into the folks who would like to learn more about how to nominate themselves or anybody next year. We can't do it in the form of emails because it just gets to be a mess. And this year we developed a form an online form through which you can you know give your name and you know what you do and what makes you special etc etc so we will we will record your request to be part of that.

Chris Maher 25:06

Gotcha. And then people can just find you on LinkedIn and follow you to kind of follow all the great work that you're doing.

Alan Schwarz 25:13

If they wish.

Chris Maher 25:14

Yes okay. all right well Alan thank you very much we really appreciate you taking the time to walk us through just the the you know the the origin of this and and the approach slash methodology behind it and and and we appreciate you for the work that you're doing and for you know shining a nice big bright light on this part of the market. It's we we we appreciate that so thank you.

Alan Schwarz 25:37

Well my pleasure guys good luck with everything you're doing

Chris Maher 25:40

Thank you.

Kelvin Crosby 25:41

That wraps up Investing in Accessibility. As I always say go live beyond your challenges and we'll see you in two weeks. Thank you for listening to Investing in Accessibility a Samaritan Partners podcast where we invest in change for accessibility not wait for change. If you want to follow us you can find us on YouTube or LinkedIn at @Samaritan Partners. If you would like to invest in Samaritan Partners email Chris at chris@SamaritanPartners.com if you'd like to learn more about us go to www.samaritanpartners.com you can take the first step in investing in change by giving us five stars and sharing this podcast with everybody that you know so we can spread the word so that we can give access to all by Investing in Accessibility