There is a famous Iraqi idiom which states that if you think your opponents can eat you for dinner, then you'd better eat them for lunch. If your opponent is too big and powerful to eat you right-now, you'd better eat them for lunch before they eat you. Commitment problems from our opponents lead us to act, and that's another reason why rational man can go to war.
— Christopher BlattmanThe Chinese government has realised that to fuel capitalism, an atheistic, communistic, civil-religion will never propel growth. They weren't doing because they thought it was 'true' but because they were astute in knowing that you need this kind-of cultural base. Recently the Chinese government have done a major funding push for Buddhist centres and institutes around the world. They are trying to replace one philosophical narrative with another… They realise that their system, frankly, will not support the growth or creativity to create the new technologies and companies that are necessary.
We manage risk by lending into the value-chain where we are able to leverage the non-financial-assets of the corporation that's buying from these communities and agricultural businesses. By having off-take agreements, we have guaranteed demand for the underlying product and, therefore, bankable cash-flows.
You move faster with replication. There was a time I could finalize an acquisition of a $3 billion company within days, from hearing about it on a Thursday to announcing it publicly on a Sunday. Such speed is a testament to the value of a replicable process.
We have come to consider children as either being exploited or subject to charity; we hardly ever consider them as the equal human beings they are, born with certain inalienable rights.
It's a combination of passion, vision, creativity and a sense of adventure.
They forced me to undress. Then they started squeezing my fingers with pliers. They put staples in my fingers, chest and ears. I was only allowed to take them out if I spoke. The nails in the ears were the most painful.
Most of the time, startup ideas don't work. Most of the time, the world stays as it is. The status quo has an advantage; it has a built-in upper hand. For a startup to win, it has to be not merely better than what's there; it has to propose something radically different, something that never could have existed before.
All conflicts are different with their particular history and reasons. I think that inequality within societies and between regions has become a key cause for conflict, exacerbated by rapid information dissemination, as people are (now) more aware of inequalities...
I found myself deeply entrenched in the political world because, as I've come to realize, decisions about our bodies aren't made in clinics or doctor's offices. They're made in Westminster.
Leaders cannot delegate social mission to 'somewhere else' in the business. There's pressure coming from the digital world, from shareholders, investors, workforce and government. Leaders can no longer afford for social mission to be done on the side; it has to be built into the core model.
Social platforms are bizarrely distortive of how the social world works. What these platforms do is take local phenomena and turn them into global phenomena. That shift takes audiences that were once local and turns them global. It also puts the anointment dynamic on steroids, because now your potential reach is basically unlimited.
We used to think life could only exist in a very constrained rage of parameters; between the boiling and freezing point of water, at neutral pH, without too much pressure, with access to sunlight. What we know now is that life is more robust, and more opportunistic than we could have ever thought.