Dear Family,

A few weeks ago, I purchased a copy of “The Black Family Who Built America: The McKissacks, Two Centuries of Daring Pioneers” by Cheryl McKissack Daniel and Nick Chiles.

A few members of our team are reading it too, and the conversations it’s sparked have already been powerful. The McKissack name might not be familiar to everyone, but it should be.

Their family story spans more than 200 years of Black excellence, resilience, and generational strategy. They are the oldest black-owned construction company in America.

It starts with Moses McKissack III, who founded McKissack & McKissack, the first Black-owned architecture firm in the U.S., during a time when Black entrepreneurship was nearly unthinkable. From building homes to designing hospitals, schools, and even airstrips during World War II, their fingerprints are literally on the foundations of this country.

And it didn’t stop there.

Today, Cheryl McKissack Daniel carries that legacy forward as CEO of McKissack & McKissack, leading multimillion-dollar construction projects in New York City and beyond. She’s the fifth generation of McKissacks to lead the firm—and a living example of what it means to not just build wealth, but pass it on.

That’s why, earlier this year, Christian and I quietly launched The 8th Collective—our family office built around one goal: making sure the work we’ve done doesn’t die with us.

We didn’t build this for flex. We built it so Madison, and the generations that come after her, will never have to start from zero again.

Too often, we build from scratch… and then leave our kids with a mess.

No trust. No clear direction. No infrastructure. We’re changing that.

The McKissack story is a blueprint.

Not because they were perfect, but because they were deliberate. And if we want our families to thrive long after we’re gone, we’ve got to take that same approach.

So if you’re a builder in any sense of the word—a parent, entrepreneur, educator, or elder—I encourage you to read this book. Because the question isn’t just what are we building?

It’s who are we building it for and will it last?

From LUX, With Love

Matt