No “would be” capitalist left behind + Bill Gates in the afterlife
September 1, 2008
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In the US, we have a somewhat controversial educational program called No Child Left Behind. Though the day to day execution of the program may not be perfect (or even very good), the broad idea behind the program is great…that everyone has value and something to contribute to society and therefore everyone is entitled to a decent education.
Sadly, around the global business world, we are leaving a lot of “would be capitalist” contributors behind. Indeed, despite all of our progress over the past few years, much of the world is still struggling to make it to Capitalism 1.0. Bill Gates recently discussed this over in a Time magazine article called “How to Fix Capitalism.” In this article, Bill discusses “creative capitalism”, essentially building on ideas about how to reach the world’s poorest developed by C.K. Prahalad within his landmark book entitled The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.
So now that Bill Gates is transitioning to a focus on global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation…will we hear less about him? Or more? Bill mentioned that when he started Microsoft, he wanted to drive the movement to put a computer on every desk and in every home…now he wants to to help create a world where “no one has to live on a dollar a day or die from a disease we know how to prevent.”
Bill is thinking big again…should we take notice? Have a look at the article if you have a moment and let me know what you think.
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I think some of the most compelling dialogue took place in the follow-on roundtable that included John Mackey. Here’s some provocative stuff from Mr. Whole Foods: The higher potential of a business starts when “that business becomes conscious, or becomes aware, that it has a deeper purpose. We tend to think that the purpose of business is to maximize profits and shareholder value, and I submit that that’s mostly a myth. Most entrepreneurs do not start their businesses in order to maximize profits. Having read about Bill (Gates)… he had passion for software. He wanted to put computers everywhere, he wanted to transform the world. That was his passion. That’s not maximizing profits. It worked pretty well — he became the richest guy in the world. That’s a nice consequence of having a deeper purpose. But Microsoft is one of the world’s transforming organizations, and I might add, so is the Gates Foundation. Because it has a deeper purpose.”