Gates' ‘Grand Challenges' result in few payoffs
Bill Gates used the word “naive” — four times — to describe himself and his charitable foundation. It was a surprising admission coming from the world’s richest man. But the Microsoft co-founder seemed humbled that, despite an investment of $1 billion, none of the projects funded under the Gates Foundation’s “Grand Challenges” banner has yet made a significant contribution to saving lives and improving health in the developing world. “I was pretty naive about how long that process would take,” Gates told a gathering of nearly 1,000 people in Seattle. Read more.
Phi Beta Iota: Using kids to distribute money without doing your homework, to include holistic analytics and design, true cost economics, and — heavens — open source everything engineering — is not how you make impact investments.
