Photographed by Molly DeCoudreaux
Photographed by Molly DeCoudreaux
Daily Drive
“When I formed Samasource, I wanted two things: To create a challenging work environment that would drive me to learn constantly and to find meaning in my work. I think we’ve built a different kind of nonprofit that fulfills both aims. Everyone at Samasource works incredibly hard-to-win contracts from companies like Google, LinkedIn, and Microsoft and get[s] the work done in unlikely places by people who’ve been overlooked by traditional employers.”
The Big Idea
“My job forces me to travel from a city with the highest median income in the United States to places like rural Benin and Uganda, where the average person makes less than $1.25 a day, can’t afford basic human necessities, and can expect to die 30 years sooner than someone in a rich country. These people aren’t poor, because they are lazy or don’t have the right values. They are poor, because we have created institutions that keep them that way, and because we don’t value them as contributors to our economic system. They literally break their backs to mine the minerals used in our electronics and stitch the clothes we wear. How is this morally permissible? Our greatest natural resource is the human capacity of the people our current economic system has written off. What propels me forward is the vision of building massive social businesses that enfranchise these bottom billions, treat them fairly, and offer them the chance to achieve their human potential.”
Kickstarter for Medical Care
“Last year, I launched a second social venture, Samahope, the first crowdfunding website for medical treatments. The results are so tangible. One woman I met last year in Sierra Leone was raped at age 12 by her teacher and suffered with fistula (a condition that causes incontinence after obstructed labor) for four years, stuck at home. We raised the funds to give her a life-saving surgery, and she is back in school. We have over 100 similar stories with Samahope. Armed with evidence like this, it’s not hard to approach donors and supporters and explain what we do.”
Patience, Meet Virtue
“Nothing is an overnight success. Building Samasource and now Samahope has required more persistence than I knew I had. For the first few years, we got little attention from funders and clients. I was friends with a group of people who joined Facebook in the early days, and it was incredibly hard to see how quickly Facebook was growing and then return to my tiny desk at Stanford (where I incubated Samasource) and be motivated to keep plugging away at my vision. The boldest ideas — those that create radical cultural and business transformation — take a great deal of time to mature and take form.”
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