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Matt Damon on what 14 year olds shouldn't be doing

#mattdamon #benaffleck #water #worldeconomicforum Matt Damon is best known as the Hollywood icon from movies like Good Will Hunting and The Martian, but he has another passion offscreen: ensuring access to clean, safe water around the world. When he met social entrepreneur Gary White in 2008, they realized they could combine their efforts to reach more people and created @water.org which Gary leads as CEO. In this episode, Adam sits down with Matt and Gary at the @wef in Davos to talk about their innovative approach to problem-solving, handling rejection in high-stakes work environments, and Matt’s knack for forging strong partnerships. Adam also invites the two to office hours to tackle one of their ongoing challenges. Join us in person at a TED conference: https://tedtalks.social/events Become a TED Member to support our mission: https://ted.com/membership Subscribe to a TED newsletter: https://ted.com/newsletters Follow our podcasts! Podcasts: https://www.ted.com/podcasts Fixable: https://www.ted.com/podcasts/fixable How to Be a Better Human: https://www.ted.com/podcasts/how-to-be-a-better-human ReThinking with Adam Grant: https://www.ted.com/podcasts/rethinking-with-adam-grant TED Talks Daily: https://www.ted.com/podcasts/ted-talks-daily TED Business: https://www.ted.com/podcasts/ted_business TED Health: https://www.ted.com/podcasts/ted-health TED Tech: https://www.ted.com/podcasts/ted-tech The TED Audio Collective is a collection of podcasts for the curious. The TED Audio Collective videos may be used for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives (or the CC BY – NC – ND 4.0 International) and in accordance with our TED Talks Usage Policy (https://www.ted.com/about/our-organiz...). For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), please submit a Media Request at https://media-requests.ted.com.

Matt DamonguestAdam Granthost
Mar 5, 20262mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Matt Damon connects clean water access to children’s unrealized dreams

  1. Matt Damon argues that water scarcity is difficult for people in developed countries to grasp because clean water feels omnipresent and taken for granted.
  2. Adam Grant contrasts hunger and thirst, noting hunger is easier to imagine because many people have experienced it and food shortages are more visible.
  3. Damon highlights the scale and stakes of the crisis—roughly 2.1 billion people without clean water and about a million preventable deaths annually from water-related illness.
  4. He shares an “aha” moment from rural Zambia: a 14-year-old girl’s dream of becoming a nurse depends on nearby water access that allows her to attend school.
  5. The conversation reframes the issue from charity to opportunity, emphasizing the vast but hidden economic and human cost of stifled potential.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Water access is hard to empathize with because it’s invisible to the privileged.

In developed contexts, clean water is within steps in sinks and even toilets, so donors may not intuitively feel the urgency the way they do with hunger.

The core messaging challenge is relatability, not just awareness.

Damon frames the “first hurdle” as helping people understand scale (billions affected) and the everyday consequences of unsafe water.

Unsafe water creates massive, avoidable mortality from mundane illnesses.

He notes that diarrhea—often minor with clean water and medical care—can become a death sentence where water is unsafe, contributing to roughly a million preventable deaths each year.

Clean water is an education intervention as much as a health intervention.

A nearby borewell can determine whether children—especially girls—spend their days in school or collecting water for family survival.

Water scarcity suppresses ambition and national development by stealing time.

When basic needs consume daily hours, kids can’t dream and train for roles like nursing, which would strengthen the workforce and “economic engine” of their country.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

It reminded me so much of me and Ben at that age. Like, "We're not staying here. We're going to New York. We're gonna be actors," you know. It's like what every 14-year-old should be doing, right? Dreaming about this, this life.

— Matt Damon

The water in our toilets is cleaner than two billion people have access to around the world-

— Matt Damon

So you're describing, I think, the biggest problem we have, which is just making this issue relatable.

— Matt Damon

It's just the death and the, the pointlessness of that, but it's, it's the stifled potential of human possibility, you know? And, and that's just, it's incalculable.

— Matt Damon

I think people understand hunger more viscerally than they do thirst.

— Adam Grant

Why water scarcity is “unrelatable” in developed countriesHunger vs. thirst as empathy triggersScale of the global clean-water problemPreventable deaths from waterborne disease (e.g., diarrhea)Time burden of water collection and school attendanceA borewell’s role in enabling education and mobilityStifled human potential and economic impact

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