... we insist that our early stage debt and equity investments be backed with philanthropy, not with investment dollars. We hold as sacred the ability to take risks based on whether we believe we can help build sustainable companies that benefit the poor, rather than focusing first on investors. Once the companies make it through the breach, if you will, and prove the business model, we can help them look for the next level of capital.
Jacqueline Novogratz, talking about making markets for and with the poor. Also an eulogy to, what seems to be the book of the year, Elizabeth Boo's Behind the beautiful forevers. The quote reminds me of Prof Dara O'Rourke talking at Berkeley about why he started GoodGuide as a B-Corp, Umair Haque exhorting corporations to maximize human potential and Jack Welch, himself, saying that 'maximizing shareholder value' is the dumbest idea in the world.
