Re:Thinking with Adam GrantMatt Damon's passion outside of movies, in partnership with Gary White | Rethinking with Adam Grant
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
30 min read · 5,637 words- 0:00 – 0:28
Iconic lines and the worst career advice: Matt Damon’s Good Will Hunting story
- AGAdam Grant
What's the worst career advice you've ever gotten?
- MDMatt Damon
Well, I don't know if it's the worst, but I do love telling the story about my father reading the script of Good Will Hunting and telling me that the line "How do you like them apples?" would never work. He told me to take it out of the, take it out of the script.
- AGAdam Grant
Your father-
- MDMatt Damon
My dad
- AGAdam Grant
... told you to cut the most iconic line of the movie?
- MDMatt Damon
And after the movie came out, he said, "Matthew, don't ever give me a script to read again." [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
That was a great rethinking moment for him.
- MDMatt Damon
[laughs] Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
[upbeat music]
- 0:28 – 1:40
Collaboration as a life strategy: choosing partners who compound impact
- AGAdam Grant
Okay, so I wanna, I wanna talk a little bit about the relationship between the two of you, and Matt, I think your creative chemistry with Ben is famous. We all, I think, fell in love with it, the two of you watching Good Will Hunting a long time ago. Um, you're continuing to work together today. What did that relationship teach you about how to build a collaboration with Gary?
- MDMatt Damon
That's a great question, actually, because I, I think, um, if I have a strength, and it's not unique to me, but I think it is a strength for me, is partner selection. And if I look at my life, actually all of the things that I'm proud of and that, uh, give me true joy, and I think, um, kind of brought value to my life, are in partnership with others. And, you know, starting obviously with Ben and, you know, going through, you know, my, my agent Patrick and, you know, ev- everybody who I work with professionally, kind of personally, th- those are all 30-plus-year relationships. Um, and my wife and, and then into my 30s, um, this was the significant partnership, um, you know, when, when I looked at how I could maximize my im- impact philanthropically, and it, this was the smartest choice I could have made.
- AGAdam Grant
What were you looking for in a partner?
- 1:40 – 2:59
Why Gary White and why water.org: interrogation, alignment, and a merger
- MDMatt Damon
Well, the preeminent expert in the field and, and when they wouldn't take my call, I wound up with Gary.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
Gary, what was it that intrigued you about Matt?
- SPSpeaker
Well, first his passion for this issue because he had actually worked to create a, a nonprofit called H2O Africa, so I knew already that he had a, a passion for it. And then when I, when I met Matt, uh, it was the, I guess his, his curiosity and his digging and, uh, you know, asking questions about the way that we were approaching this and trying to understand, uh, you know, what was different about us and, uh, did it, did it resonate with him. And I think that, that, uh, I, I love to be peppered with questions about what we do. I mean, I've been doing this since my undergraduate years. I feel like, you know, I mostly answered to them to Matt's satisfaction and, uh, and then that just led us to say, like, you know, we are strongly aligned. You know, we are, we both have this curiosity that's bent towards innovation, and so that's when we decided to just merge the organizations. Uh, I had Water Partners. He had H2O Africa. I'd reserved the URL quite some time ago, uh, for $7.95.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
And then, uh, so we just rebranded as water.org.
- AGAdam Grant
So it sounds like you survived and even enjoyed the interrogation-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
... by Matt.
- SPSpeaker
I love it.
- MDMatt Damon
He loves a good interrogation.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MDMatt Damon
Yeah.
- 2:59 – 3:36
Boldness with humility: the underrated skill that shapes culture
- AGAdam Grant
Do you have a, a take on Matt's most underrated skill from working with him that people can't see on screen?
- SPSpeaker
It, it's humility.
- MDMatt Damon
I'm great at humility.
- SPSpeaker
So [laughs]
- MDMatt Damon
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
That just kind of is combined with being, you know, the real deal, too. And, you know, when I had the chance to meet Matt and just kinda get to know him, it's just like that, that, there was no concern. What you see is what you get, and I think that, that's key to it. We talk about, uh, our, our ethos being boldness with humility, and so I think that's, there's always so much more to learn in order to, to, to conquer this. Matt exemplifies that, and that's the culture we're trying to, to build.
- 3:36 – 5:45
The breakthrough model: “WaterCredit” and why microloans work for water
- AGAdam Grant
Matt, I know the, the chemistry read is a, a standard part of the, the Hollywood casting process. Uh, is there, is there anything you took away from that that applied to how you would interrogate a potential partner like Gary?
- MDMatt Damon
Well, I was floored by just his knowledge and, and approach. Uh, he was doing things differently, and, and he already was onto this idea about, uh, w- what we call water credit, which was essentially repurposing the ideas pioneered by Muhammad Yunus at the Gr- Grameen Bank and applying it to water. Um, you know, in those early days, that, that was a huge thought leap for the microfinance institutions because, um, it wasn't an, an, an income-generating loan. Like what, what Gary had realized, his insight w- a- and, and the brilliance of this idea was from spending, you know, much of his adult life in these communities and, and watching how everything worked and realizing that people were paying for water, right? And, and, and these are among the poorest people on the planet, and they're paying more than the middle class and more than people staying in the nice hotels, um, because they're not connected to the system. And they don't have any savings, but they have the daily expenditure, and sometimes they're paying up to 25% of their income just to secure water for that day. And in o- or, or paying in other ways, uh, uh, by, you know, with their time. And it's a massive issue for women and girls. It, it predominantly affects them because they're charged with the water collection, and that means that girls aren't in school. And so then you imagine what their outcome, what c- they can expect for their, their, their outcomes and how it stifles their potential to kind of live the, the life they deserve to live.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah.
- MDMatt Damon
And, and so but he realized this payment was happening. And so a, a loan, a micro loan could get paid off, and oftentimes women are leaving jobs to go stand in a water queue and, and wait. In this case, uh, it's, it's, it's what we call an income-enhancing loan, 'cause you're actually buying their time back. And so, so it was a theory, um, it was a hypothesis that Gary had, and it's just worked better than we ever could have hoped. These loans that are taken out by the most economically
- 5:45 – 6:46
Proving scale and efficiency: repayment rates, cost per person, and growth math
- MDMatt Damon
vulnerable people on the planet, 90% of them are women, by the way, uh, they pay back at 98%.
- AGAdam Grant
Wow.
- MDMatt Damon
And so w- we, you know, and, and, and the other kind of elegant thing about this strategy is that it, it, it actually drives the philanthropic cost per person reached down. In a standard kind of well-drilling, uh, system, it's $25 or more to get somebody clean water. With our programs, it's, it's, it's $5, right? It's been driven all the way down to $5 'cause the money goes out, it gets repaid, and then it, and then it recycles, and it goes out again. And so to put it in perspective, um, in 2012, we reached our first million people. Um, y- we reach a million people every six weeks now, and w- we've now hit 85 million people that we've reached.
- AGAdam Grant
Congratulations.
- MDMatt Damon
Now if, and if we had stayed just drilling wells, which we were, we were very good at, if we had kind of sat on our laur- laurels and accepted our kind of best in class status, it would've taken us 600 years to reach the number of people that we've reached today.
- 6:46 – 7:52
Why not just declare water a human right? Gary’s shift from engineering to finance
- AGAdam Grant
It's hard not to get fired up about it hearing you talk about it. It's not obvious to me, though, that that would be the, the immediate route to go. Um, I was in Slovenia recently, and they just passed a constitutional amendment giving everyone the right to clean water.
- MDMatt Damon
Oh.
- SPSpeaker
Hmm. Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
It just seems like it should be a fundamental human right.
- MDMatt Damon
Right. Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
Right? You could have gone to lobby Congress.
- MDMatt Damon
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
Uh, or the UN for that matter. How did you decide on microfinance, Gary?
- SPSpeaker
Well, uh, for, for me, you know, I, I have engineering degrees. I thought this was all gonna be just an engineering problem. Of course, uh, turns out it's much more about finance. There's already a lot of money sloshing around in this system. How do you redirect it in a way so that it works in favor of the poor? And for me, that was like, maybe the problem contains its own solution because the conventional wisdom was that anybody that didn't have water in the world was too poor to pay for it, and they were all equally poor. Y- you know in the face that's not true, and so how do you kind of figure out an offering for them so that those who are willing to kinda step up and take out a loan have the ability to do that? $7 billion in microloans have now churned through our network of financial partners around the world.
- AGAdam Grant
Wow.
- 7:52 – 9:11
Stories of entrepreneurial lift: Tanzania’s Amina and market signaling
- SPSpeaker
Right? That's $7 billion in philanthropy that didn't have to be raised, and it's also a signal to the market that because of the value it's created, it's a good, it's a good deal. I just, you know, one example of a, of a woman, uh, that, uh, I met recently in Tanzania, Amina. She had taken out a loan so that she could put, uh, a well in in her community and some water tanks, and so that was great for her household. But then she's like, "I could sell water," right? She's, uh, so she took out another loan, sank another well, another tank, and now she's selling water to 150 of her neighbors. And so it was, it was amazing what she said. She said, "I've, I've taken the water buckets down from women's heads because now they can have a tap and come and get the water." So it also unleashes the, the entrepreneurial spirit of people once they have access to water, which makes complete sense. I mean, all, all of our economies are built on water. Nothing ever happened before you solve that first need. Then you can be entrepreneurial. Then you can launch businesses. Then you can scale up. Then you can have an economy, and I think that's what underlies all this and why it is bankable and why, you know, we can invest in this and provide financial returns to investors now in addition to giving social impact.
- 9:11 – 9:49
Making water relatable in the developed world: the empathy and awareness gap
- AGAdam Grant
It's, uh, I mean, it's so compelling and at the same time not at all obvious, I think, to the average person, right?
- MDMatt Damon
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
I, I think people understand hunger more viscerally than they do thirst.
- MDMatt Damon
Because people have been hungry.
- AGAdam Grant
Exactly.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
And also, you just look around and you assume water's everywhere, whereas food sh- shortages are, are kind of easy to imagine, right?
- MDMatt Damon
So you're describing the exact, the, the biggest, I think the biggest problem we have, which is just making this issue relatable, um, because if you grew up in the developed world, you were never more than five steps away from a clean drink of water. I mean, it's in our kitchen sink. It's in our bathroom sink. The water in our toilets is cleaner than 2 billion people have access to around the world-
- 9:49 – 12:20
Matt’s epiphany in Zambia: water as the gatekeeper of human potential
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- MDMatt Damon
... which is incredible, but it's very hard to relate to. That's kind of the first hurdle we have to clear when we're talking to, to, to donors is just explaining the scale of the problem, that it's 2.1 billion people, that, that, you know, that a million people die every year completely pointlessly over things that, you know, from like diarrhea can be a death sentence. I mean, I could tell you the story of the very first water collection I went on because it was, because it was a big a-ha moment for me, and, um, I was in, I was in Zambia. This is 20 years ago, and, um, I went to, on a water collection with this girl. She came home from school. Um, I was waiting for her. We were in very r- a rural, very rural part of Zambia, and we go for this walk. And, um, we each have a, a, you know, a jerry can, and I'm talking to her through a translator. It's just the three of us, and I'm, you know, peppering her with questions. What's it like living here, all that stuff, and then finally I go, "Is this where, is this where you wanna live when you grow up?" And she looks at me, and she's like, "No." She's like, "I'm getting out of here." She goes, "I'm going to Lusaka. I'm gonna be a nurse," right? And 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 and, you know, and, and, and it hit me later as I was driving away that had someone not had the foresight to sink a borewell near this kid's house, she wouldn't be in school. She would be spending all of her time trying to find water for her family and not, you know, dreaming of this wonderful life where she's a frontline healthcare worker, and she's in the capital city, and she's a con- contributing to the economic engine of her country. And, you know, it's not just the death and the, the pointlessness of that, but it's, it's the stifled potential of human, human possibility, you know? And, and that's just, it's incalculable. It's just massive. Um, and, and so, and so that was kind of my, my epiphany then, and, and, and nobody was talking about it for the reasons we just kind of laid out. It's so unrelatable, and that's what, uh, kind of got me hooked.
- AGAdam Grant
So how are you thinking now about making this more vivid and more visceral? Um, you can, you know, you can show a water shortage in The Martian. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MDMatt Damon
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
You can, you can film The Odyssey around water.
- SPSpeaker
Right, right. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
But, uh, what have you learned about how to get people to, you know, to, to taste and feel how important this is?
- MDMatt Damon
That is an ongoing struggle for us. To be blunt. I mean, it's, it's what we puzzle over. We've tried, uh, yeah, comedy skits. We've tried... We, you know, it's, it's, it's an open question.
- SPSpeaker
We wrote a book. [laughs]
- MDMatt Damon
We wrote a book. [laughs]
- 12:20 – 15:30
Humanizing impact with identifiable stories: Haiti and Uganda transformations
- AGAdam Grant
You know, I'm thinking a little bit about there's a whole body of research on the Baby Jessica effect. Um, you, you remember back in the late '80s, right, when the, when the baby girl fell down the well-
- MDMatt Damon
Yeah, fell down the well
- AGAdam Grant
... and donations poured in, um, that really were not needed. Um, and that single identifiable victim, um, is so much more motivating than the, the statistical problem.
- MDMatt Damon
I know.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
Um, so w- that, I mean, that seems like one way to humanize this issue is to, to pick the, the particular girl in Zambia, um, and show both the need and also the impact. Um, is there, is there a particular story that you found especially powerful in that way?
- MDMatt Damon
I mean, I'm the... I, I remember it being in, in, in Haiti 15 years ago, and, and, uh, and we were christening a, a water system in this small village, and, and, um, I, I... There was this girl that I was... And I remember she was 13 years old, because my oldest daughter at the time was 13 years old. And, uh, and, you know, I said, you know, "Hey, how many, how many hours a day did you, uh, spend collecting water?" And she said, "Four." And I said, "Wow, four hours a day." But I go, "You, you got a lot of time on your hands now." I mean, I said, "What are you gonna... You have more time for homework." And she looked at me and kinda scoffed, and she goes, "T- I don't need more time for homework. I'm the smartest kid in my class." [laughs] And, uh, I go, "Okay, you know, all right. What, hotshot, what are you gonna do with all this extra time?" And she looked at me and goes, "I'm gonna play."
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm. Mm.
- MDMatt Damon
And it was like-
- SPSpeaker
Wow
- MDMatt Damon
... it just absolutely nailed me. I, I, um... You know, so that's what's at stake. That's what $5, uh, gives you is, uh, you know, imagine the change in that kid's life.
- SPSpeaker
One story that sticks with me was, uh, from Uganda. Uh, there was an, uh, elderly woman. She was a grandmother, and she went by the name of Mama Florence. And Mama Florence would get on her bike every day with these jerry cans, and go try to find water for, for her family and her, her grandchildren. And she had taken out a loan from one of our local partners, about $300. And again, she had a small pump, uh, that she had in, in a well that she could then draw from for their family needs. And then she started using it to water a garden, and so they're growing vegetables for their family. Then they would take the scraps from the vegetable garden and feed it to pigs, and so they were raising pigs and have that as an income source. And then she recognized that the clay soil in the area where her house was, she could make bricks out of it. So clay plus water equals bricks, and so she was selling bricks.
- AGAdam Grant
Wow.
- SPSpeaker
And then she decided that she would start building some small rooms on her property that she could then rent out to people to generate more income. And it's just, like, it, it just blew me away. Like, you know, this all was because she could have access to water and not have that, spend that time, you know, riding her bike every day. And it just, it, it just, and it shows you, getting back to water credit, why people take out these loans, because it creates incredible value for them in, in their lives. And it makes you realize that there's two billion people out there who could be entrepreneurs in this world if they had access to water.
- 15:30 – 18:30
Office hours: setting the bar without market signals—zero-based goals and new capital sources
- AGAdam Grant
Let's talk a little bit about the challenges you're facing right now. So we're trying a new segment on Re:Thinking-
- SPSpeaker
Hmm
- AGAdam Grant
... where we invite our guests to office hours, and I'm gonna try to help you think through a problem. Do you have one?
- MDMatt Damon
We do.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MDMatt Damon
We have a good one for you.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, I think, I think our problem, our challenge, uh, and it's a good one, right? It's that we, we've kind of come about this in a very disruptive way, and so we don't really have, uh, you know, competition to compare ourselves to in this space because our model is, is unique. Yes, we're reaching a million people every six weeks, but, uh, should we, should, could we be doing more? Like, how do we, how do we raise the bar? Where should the bar be? What, what... You know, uh, because it's a, it's a massive problem. And again, our goal is to solve the crisis or to be a catalyst for that solution. And so, you know, we-
- MDMatt Damon
And also, we don't have standard signals, right?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. We don't, we don't have, you don't have profitability to give you a signal what the, how you're doing with your capital. You don't have a stock price, you know? So how do you then kind of internally ensure that you are, you know, maximizing or optimizing your resources against a particular challenge?
- AGAdam Grant
It's a great question.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
You came to the right office.
- MDMatt Damon
Yes. Good, good.
- SPSpeaker
All right.
- AGAdam Grant
So yeah, I think the biggest mistake that I see organizations make on this is they just anchor on the past.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
And they take last year's budget and goals, and then they make an adjustment by 10%, usually raising their goals, and then also trying to shrink their budget.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
And the problem with that is the world doesn't look the same this year as it did last year. You have different people, you have different problems. And so, um, I've become a, a pretty big fan of zero-based budgeting where you just start from scratch.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
And you say, "Okay, if we were taking over this organization for the first time, what would be our moonshots? Uh, what would be the resources that we need?" And you don't always stick to what you come up with there-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- AGAdam Grant
... but the freedom to blue sky that, I think-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- AGAdam Grant
... is a, is a great starting point. Have you done that already?
- SPSpeaker
We do to a certain extent. So we have taken a step back with our philanthropic capital and say, "What could we be doing more with that?" And that's actually led us to launch an asset manager. So, uh, this was 15 years ago. Uh, this grew out of a, a site visit that Matt and I were doing in India where our partners there were making loans for households, but, uh, our, our question to them was like, "What's holding you back from doing even more?" And they said, "We need more consistent access to affordable capital." And so-
- MDMatt Damon
Which blew our minds, by the way.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, yeah.
- MDMatt Damon
Because we were driving around India in a Jeep, [laughs] go visiting all these different places and, and, and informally polling them independent of one another, and they all came back with the same answer.
- AGAdam Grant
Wow.
- 18:30 – 21:20
Unlocking bottom-up ambition: innovation tournaments and incentives in a nonprofit
- AGAdam Grant
Fascinating. Okay, so the other element of your question then is where should we set our goals? Uh, how do we know what's possible? How high should we aim? I think there's a pretty long-standing body of evidence that shows that leaders are reluctant to let their teams participate in the goal-setting process.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- AGAdam Grant
Because you think your job is to stretch people, and they're probably gonna aim too low, and the reality is the opposite, that if people are committed and passionate, they will set their own goals higher than the people above them tend to. And so I wonder if it'd be interesting to take small teams and say, "What do you think is possible?" Uh, and then see where they set their targets and use that to inform where you are.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- AGAdam Grant
Is that something you've already experimented with?
- SPSpeaker
So not in a blue sky kind of way. All of our international offices are made up of local nationals of those countries, and we rely on them to kind of bubble up what they think they're gonna be able to do. But it's mostly in the context of what they're doing right now. I think the insight here from you might be that let's, you know, let's challenge them to think about different types of initiatives within their countries that aren't necessarily as part of that template, and then see how that can be multiplied up.
- AGAdam Grant
Bingo. I would run that as an innovation tournament. Uh-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- AGAdam Grant
... have you, have you done any of those before?
- SPSpeaker
No. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
All right, so I... The most boring innovation tournament I've ever seen was at Dow Chemical. Uh, they said, "We're looking for ideas to save energy and reduce waste." And I'm like, yeah, that's what motivates me in the morning.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs] But they said, uh, "We wanna put some parameters on, around this so you know what we're looking for. Uh, we'll take any idea that costs no more than 200,000 US dollars and has the potential to pay for itself within a year if it's successful." And they end up running that tournament for 10 years. Uh, they bet on 575 ideas-
- SPSpeaker
Whoa
- AGAdam Grant
... and it saves the company on average 110 million US dollars per year.
- SPSpeaker
Oh, wow. Okay.
- AGAdam Grant
I was, I was blown away by that because most of these creative ideas did not come from people who were doing innovation. It was somebody on a factory floor-
- SPSpeaker
Right. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
... who saw something broken and didn't know where to take the idea until they had this, oh, okay, now I have guidelines and guardrails around, you know, what's worth submitting. And it's also a great way to engage people who don't get to do creative work every day in the creative process. And so I wonder if you could roll out a little tournament where people get to submit ideas.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. No, that, that's certainly something that, that we could do. What's the payoff, you think, for people who, who, uh, have the best ideas?
- AGAdam Grant
Ooh, that's a good question. So I, I actually haven't seen a good innovation tournament in a nonprofit yet.
- SPSpeaker
Oh, okay. Oh.
- AGAdam Grant
In the, in the corporate world you usually get a stake in your idea, uh, or you're asked to lead it, which could be a blessing or a curse.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs] Whether you want the work.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
Uh, I think in, in your case it would be really interesting to then say, "Okay, if you win the tournament, you get to run the next one."
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. Ah, yeah. Or, and, and come and present it on a, a global stage somewhere at a meeting.
- AGAdam Grant
I wonder where you could do that.
- SPSpeaker
So... [laughs]
- 21:20 – 27:08
Resilience, rejection, and learning from failure—plus a lightning-round wrap and call to action
- AGAdam Grant
Okay, so talk to me about when you think about your international teams on the ground, um, I think they, they really probably feel the weight of falling short of their goals, um, in a way that, that can be very difficult. I'd love to hear you talk about how you think about building and maintaining the resilience of those teams. Uh, I, I imagine it's a little different from, "Oh, man, I didn't get Dead Poets Society."
- SPSpeaker
Right. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
That was heartbreaking, by the way.
- AGAdam Grant
Was it? [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Well, yeah, of course. Any, any, any, all, all those rejections hurt, but...
- AGAdam Grant
Do they still hurt?
- SPSpeaker
Well, I don't get rejected anymore.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
No, no, not, not... No, I think the rejection is just that a, a, somebody that I might wanna work with never calls me. I don't audition anymore. Somebody goes, uh, I, you know, "Would you like to do this?" So it's a different form of rejection. Um, I'm silently rejected. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
You're pre-jected.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Well, but it was, you know, it, as every actor knows, going into those rooms and, and, uh, and, you know, pouring your heart out and then being told, "Okay, thanks," is a, uh, you know, it's a slightly soul-destroying experience. But, but definitely builds resilience.
- AGAdam Grant
Is there, is there a particular skill that you learn from that that's applicable now to when you face a disappointment or failure in the water space?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, you just become inured to it. You just become really comfortable being rejected, and, and that's been a huge help to me in my life. You know, you don't take things so personally. You just, you know, it's, it's, it's so standard when you're starting out, and so constant that, that it's not, it, it, you know, y- you learn to let it just kinda roll off your shoulders and, and, uh, and kinda get on with it. It's also, you know, a great lesson in not, not being afraid of failure, um, which I know that's like every commencement speech, but, but, but it, but it is really true, and it is really a big part of, of Gary's, uh, and, you know... O- o- one of the things that attracted me to him, the first thing he wanted to talk about were all the ways in which he'd failed, you know? And, and because th- those failures are really, that's how you, you know, you gain the hard-earned wisdom to kind of do things, you know, better and more efficiently. And if we were afraid of, if we were stuck to an idea that it had to be one way or another a- and we didn't have the flexibility to kind of go where the work took us, we'd be in a really different place.
- AGAdam Grant
All right, I think it's time for a lightning round. Uh, you guys ready for some rapid-fire questions?
- SPSpeaker
Sure.
- AGAdam Grant
If you could assemble any team to solve the water crisis, you could draft anybody alive or dead, who are you putting on your team?
- SPSpeaker
Wow. Ah. Wow. Uh, I think I, I'd start with my core team right now, and I'd ask them, you know, who do they want that, that's gonna, gonna amplify the work that they're doing? Who do they think are the best people, uh, in the space? And I would pr- I would source it from the, from the bottom up, I think, uh, on, on one level. Uh, but, uh, at another level, I would, I would like to have, uh, some of the, the top bankers- in the country, uh, really dig into our model and help us understand, how do we take this from reaching, you know, 85 million people to reaching two billion people, and how do we bring the capital markets to bear from the top down on this? So I think that bottom-up talent meshed together with the top-down financial engineering would make for a lot of impact.
- AGAdam Grant
Top bankers, Jane, Brian-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
... Jamie, Anna, if you're listening-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MDMatt Damon
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
... Gary would like a meeting with you.
- SPSpeaker
We know Brian. Brian's already been a great champion-
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... and so we're just building off of that.
- AGAdam Grant
Good. Tell me something you've changed your mind about lately, either of you.
Episode duration: 27:10
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Transcript of episode R0RG7yJU6cQ
