Latest / The David Rubenstein Show / Dr. Rajiv Shah

Transcript

Dr. Rajiv Shah · The David Rubenstein Show

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Doctor Roshaw is dedicating his life to solving the problems
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: of health and hunger. After getting a medical school degree,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: he began his career at the Gates Foundation. From there
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: he joined the Obama administration as the head of the
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: USAID and now he's the head of the Rockefeller Foundation.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I had a chance Reacing to sit down with Rashaw
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: to talk about his passion for solving these global problems.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: So tell us what is the Rockefeller Foundation. I know
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the Rockefeller name, but what is the foundation? What does
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: it really do? Well?
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: The Foundation was created more than one hundred years ago
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: by John D. Rockefeller, and the idea was very simple,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: was to use science and innovation to lift up as
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: many people around the world as possible. And over that
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: period of time, this foundation has helped create the field
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: of modern medicine, invest in international public health, launch a
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: green revolution through agricultural sciences that helped almost a billion
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: people move off the brink of hunger and starvation. And
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: today are big focus is around climate and energy.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: So if I said to you, I have a great
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: idea for the Rockefeller Foundation, what's your polite way of
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: saying no.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Well, it depends on the idea I guess, but in
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: general we love hearing about new ideas. We do tend
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: to be a little more directed and focused than perhaps
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: other institutions. You know, almost fifty percent of our giving
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: is focused right now on ending energy poverty around the world,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: which we can talk about, and so we tend to
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: sort of set our strategies and then go find partners
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: that can add value to implementing those strategies, as opposed
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: to just taking in recommendations broadly.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Now, recently you wrote an article about the importance of
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: climate change and what you're trying to do about it.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: What is your idea of how we can tackle the
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: climate change problem.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Well, we actually are very concerned that the larger global
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: effort to fight climate change is missing a major, major
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: focus on developing and emerging economies. The reality is, if
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: all of the wealthy.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Countries the United States, Europe, China.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Live up to the policies they've already committed to, then
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: seventy five percent of all future emissions will come from
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: eighty one countries that today are classified as housing more
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: than three billion people that live in energy poverty, and
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: right now we're on path to provide those people with
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: electricity and energy through coal, heavy fuel, oil, natural gas,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: and other sources of power that will continue to drive emissions.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: We're trying to change that pathway for those billions of
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: people to focus much more on renewables.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I've often thought that one of the problems with climate
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: change getting people to do it is that the benefits
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: are not going to be felt in your lifetime. Most
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: likely your great great great grandchildren will see the benefits
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: of what we do now, and it's hard to get
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: people to change their conduct for their great great great grandchildren.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: How are you going to solve that problem? How are
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: you going to get people really care about reducing the
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: use of carbon.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Well, David, I'll tell you.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: We're seeing the impacts in communities we work in around
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: the world right now. And the reality is we've already
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: seen downward pressure on agricultural output in Africa and parts
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: of India and Latin America that are increasing the number
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: of people who are hungry and the number of communities
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: that are threatened. We're already seeing tremendous changes to coastal communities,
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: whether it's in Bangladesh or in South America, that are
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: reducing people's livelihoods and access to fisheries and sources of protein.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: And we're already seeing women working in salt flats whom
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: I was with them just last winter, in working extreme
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: heat in India, and some even perishing through trying to
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: make a dollar a day or two dollars a day
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: doing backbreaking work in one hundred and ten one hundred
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: and twelve degree weather. So this is a crisis that's
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: affecting people, especially vulnerable people and poorer communities right now,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: which is why the Foundation is so focused on fighting
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: climate and.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: You're putting a large number of your resources and personnel
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: into this effort.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, in fact, we're all in on addressing climate change.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: And we as an institution founded originally on the resources
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: that came from standard oil, we've divested of fossil fuels
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: in our endowment. We're making a commitment to run our
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: operations in a net zero manner by twenty forty, and
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: we're very committed to making sure our partnerships help change
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: the trajectory of climate change, especially in developing countries.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Now. Recently, you've also written a book called Big Bets.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: We'll go through the book and some of the big
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: bets you've made, but what gave you the idea of
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: writing a book, so you're so young in your career
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: about your career already.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Well, I mostly wanted to just make the point that
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: when you work in social impact, or when you work
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: on issues like global development, which I've had a chance
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: to work on at the Gates Foundation under President Obama
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: at US eight and now here at the Rockefeller Foundation,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: you don't have to settle for incrementally doing good. So
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: much of human charity is about sort of doing a little,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: doing what you can, and feeling good about it. And
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: I wanted to introduce the idea that you can actually
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: try to solve some of the world's biggest, most challenging problems.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: And in fact, if you look at our philanthropic history,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: not mine personally, but that of the Rockefeller Foundation as
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: an institution, or what the Gates Foundation has done as
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: an institution, I think their biggest wins have been thinking
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: of solving problems globally and moving hundreds of millions or
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: tens of millions of people out of really dire living
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: conditions into a much more bright future.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: About making a little, small incremental bets are easier to
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: get done. Why isn't that easier to do than the
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: big bets, which could fail well.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Ironically, big bets require making lots of small, incremental bets
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: along the way.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: We're trying to bring power.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: And electricity through renewables to a billion people who live
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: literally in the dark, with less electricity per person than
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: it takes to power one light bulb than one small
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: appliance in their home through.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: The course of a year. We don't solve that through
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: one large effort.
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  Speaker 2: We're going to solve that by collecting and aggregating thousands
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: of small actions from people around the world.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: But here's the difference.
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  Speaker 2: When you aspire to do something big and bold, you
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: can then talk to leaders who want to be a
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: part of solutions at that scale. I can sit down
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: with Larry Fink at Blackrock and design financing instruments that
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: can bring billions of dollars. I can talk to the
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: heads of those putting together the cop climate negotiations at
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: the UAE and structure new initiatives that can mobilize the
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: kinds of resources we need.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: Or I can partner with.
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  Speaker 2: Colleagues at Tata Power and say let's build ten thousand
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: rural minigrids and move twenty five million people out of power,
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: out of energy, poverty. Those types of solutions, in my view,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: happen when you dream big.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about your background. So your parents came from where.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: My parents are from India.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Where did they settle Well, they.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Started actually in Pasadena, California. My dad was an engineer
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: who was working on the Apollo programs for a company
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: called Bendix that was designing components on Apollo missions. But
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: they quickly moved to Detroit, Michigan, and my dad had
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: a thirty year career at Ford Motor Company.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: And your mother, my mom.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Is an early childhood education specialist and she started a
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Montessori school and ran that throughout my childhood.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: So she grew up in the Detroit area. And I
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: assume you were a superstar student? Is that right?
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: I was a pretty good student, and I grew up
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: in an Indian American community that was pretty focused on
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: being a good student.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: You went to University of Michigan, I did go blue.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: And what did you wanted to study there? Well?
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  Speaker 2: I started as in engineering because I grew up in
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: a family where you're either going to be a doctor
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: or an engineer, and I thought I do be an engineer.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Maybe be an auto designer was.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: My sort of early plan, but quickly switched to literature, science,
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: and arts and started studying economics and policy.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: All right, So when you graduated from Michigan I assume
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: you did recently. While there, you decided to go to
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: medical school at University of Pennsylvania.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: I did.
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  Speaker 1: But medical school wasn't enough. You also wanted to get
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: another degree as well.
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  Speaker 2: You know, in reality, I think I felt I supposed
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: to be a doctor because I just sort of grew
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: up with that, and I got very interested in politics
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: and policy, so I wanted to learn about health economics,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: and I joined an mdphd program at penn and Medical
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: and the Warden School.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Then did you set up shop to become a doctor?
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  Speaker 3: I didn't.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Did that disappoint your parents?
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: It? Well, it did at the time. It maybe not disappointment.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: It made them awfully nervous. But after I took my
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: last set of board exams, my then girlfriend and I
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: now wife, and I got in my car and drove
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: fourteen hours to Nashville, Tennessee, from Philadelphia in order to
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: volunteer on al Gore's presidential campaign when it was during trial.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: It was so when he did not become president. What
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: did you do? Well?
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  Speaker 2: I found myself unemployed for a little while, and I
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: started dabbling in political consulting and doing some other.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Make your parents nervous that their year had no.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Job, very nervous, and frankly, they and everybody else wanted
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: and I even wanted to, you know, thought okay, gosh,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: now I should go back to medicine and just be
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: a doctor, do a residency. But then I got a
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: phone call from a friend who I met on the campaign,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: who said, you know, Bill and Melinda Gates were setting
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: up this foundation and they had big aspirations for what
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: they wanted to do, and they were looking for someone
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: who knew health economics and medicine and had some perspective
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: on global health issues. So I interviewed for a job,
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: and you got it, I did.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: So what was the challenge you had there? You wrote
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: about it in your book, But why don't you describe
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: what you tried to do there over the two or
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: three year period of time you were there.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so this project was really their big initial effort.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Bill and Melinda had read an article about a disease
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: called roadavirus that was killing four hundred thousand kids around
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: the world every year. And in that same article they
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: pointed out that a company, Merk was rolling out of
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: vaccine in the United States to address roadavirus where kids
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: actually didn't die of the disease. And so they had
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: the very simple question of why couldn't we get the
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: vaccines to every child on the planet, in particular those
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: that need them to survive.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: So your project was to get this vaccine to everybody
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: in the world, essentially every child who needed.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: It, well, every childhood vaccine that existed, to every child
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: who needed it. And so we studied the global birth
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: cohort of about one hundred and five million kids at
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: the time. We assessed the data and concluded that probably
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: about half of those kids were getting some form of
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: robust vaccination that could save their lives from infectious diseases,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: and half were not.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: So did you eventually meet with Bill Gates when working
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: on this problem.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I write about this in the book because
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: I learned from Bill the power of asking a simple question.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: It wasn't just one meeting, but he would pull us
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: all together quite regularly and say, you know, what does
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: it take to vaccinate every child on the planet. We
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: were trying to get to a cost analysis of that problem,
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: which required really deconstructing the challenges. And it was interesting
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: because what I learned in that setting was sometimes complexity
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: can make it hard to engage. And Bill just insisted
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: on finding a simple answer to a simple set of questions,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: and that helped us craft a strategy that made a
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: big difference.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: So you point out in the book that you couldn't
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: vaccine all the children in the world by yourselves. The
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Gates Foundation had good resources, but not unlimited power to
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: do everything, so you had to engage countries, and you
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: point out in the book that one time you went
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: to meet with the President Sharrock of France and you
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: didn't have shoes that were appropriate.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: What happened, Well, what we learned as we were doing
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: the work was that the vaccine industry wasn't even producing
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: enough vaccines for kids in low income countries effectively, and
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: so we needed to restructure the way the world financed vaccines.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: We put a proposal together for the World's Big for
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: a Big and First Social Impact bond to solve that problem,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: and we were effectively seeking France's support to make that
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: bond viable, and so Bill and I met with President
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Sharrock at the Elyse Palace, and I was coming from Seattle,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: and I just had old shoes and didn't have I
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: had actually left the new shoes I bought for the
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: meeting back in Seattle, and so I was wearing shoes
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: that had a little hole in the bottom of it,
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: and I was just self conscious about that. And so
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: we sat in the meeting and the meeting went great.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: President Shruck said We're not only going to make this happen,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: but I'm going to direct my finance Minister, Nicholas R.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Cozy to create this project with you guys, and.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: That ended up transforming global immunization and vaccinating nearly a
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: billion children over twenty years. But when I called Rick
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: to ask him about what Bill thought of the meeting,
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: which I thought was a home run, he was sort
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: of ribbing me a little bit and said, well, Bill
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: thought the meeting was fine from a content perspective, but
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: he was really concerned about your footwear.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: And at the.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Time I was just a young kid working at the
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Gates Foundation. I was terrified that that was actually true,
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: and I learned they were just making funny.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: You survived that, but you accomplished that global immunization program,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: you said you wanted to do something different, so you
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: decided to leave. What did you do next?
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Well, I was at Gates for a while, and after
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: President Obama got elected, I got a phone call to
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: join the Obama administration. And it had always been my
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: dream since I left medical school to work for Gore,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: that I'd get a chance to serve in an administration,
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: and so I moved to Washington, d C.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Do you want to initially to work for the Secretary
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: of Agriculture? Who is I guess there's still the Secretary
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: of Agriculture.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: It's Tom Milsak.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: He's had a couple of tours of duty in that position.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: So you later got asked to be the head of USAID.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: What is USAID?
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Well, the United States Agency for International Development is America's
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: prime development and humanitarian agency.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: Was founded by John F.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Kennedy, and it has a very clear and direct mission
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: and the ideas bringing dignity, security, hope, and opportunity to
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: the poorest parts of the world makes us all safer
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: and makes us all more prospers us.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: So you got that job when you were fifty years old.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: I got that job when I was thirty six years old.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Thirty six years old, you're running USAID. How many employees
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: does it have?
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: We had eleven thousand.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: And did you feel qualified to run something that big?
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, at the time, I did, until you know,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: the work started. So I was confident that I had
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: ideas and experiences that could help the agency be successful.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't until the Haiti earthquake happened effectively on
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: my first week on the job, that I realized I
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: needed a lot of help.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: So, the massive earthquake in Haiti occurred, USAID is going
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: to take the lead for the US and trying to
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: redevelop and fix the problems in Haiti. And so you
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: go to the OVO office and you hear something you're
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: not supposed to hear, which is the Vice President United States,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, now the president saying is this guy really
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: able to lead this effort or something like that? Is
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: that right?
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: So President Obama called me actually the day before, right
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: after the earthquake happened, and said, first time I took
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: a call from a president and said, Roger, I put
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: you in charge of a whole of government efforts, civilian
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: and military to respond to this tragic crisis, which ultimately
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: led to more than two hundred and fifty thousand people
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: perishing just two hours from our shores. And so the
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: next morning, in an Oval office briefing, I got there
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: just a few minutes early because I.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: Was terrified of being late. Your shoes were OK, and
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: my shoes were fine.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: I walk in and President Obama and Vice President Biden
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: were over by the window, Biden facing out and Obama
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: facing the sort of door when you come in.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: So he saw me come in, and.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Vice President Biden was in the middle of saying to
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: President Obama, are you sure about this guy, rod Shaw.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: He's only thirty six, He just got here to Washington.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: And the person who leads FEMA, Craig Fugate, has much
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: more experience leading these efforts. Maybe we should ask Craig
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: to help. And Obama saw me and walked over right
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: away and said, rog come in, sit down. And then
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: next thing I knew, everybody poured into the meeting room
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: and we very quickly got right into the work.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: What ultimately happened in Haiti? What did the United States
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: government do through us AID that helped ameliorate the problem,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: not solve it ameliorate it.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Well, in reality, we mounted really the fastest and largest
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: humanitarian response in history at that point, and we did
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: it because we were and we were able to do it,
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: not because USA did everything, but because we were able to,
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: as I write about in the book, kind of open
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: the turnstiles and invite in colleagues from the Federal Emergency
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Management Agency as well as the Department of Defense, and.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Use all of those assets and capabilities.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: So people must say to you all the time, you've
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: done a lot of things, you should run for office.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Do you ever think about running for something?
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: I do?
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Since I was a little kid, I've always been enamored
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: of the concept of public service, and frankly, my time
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: in government taught me that if we have the right
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: kinds of leaders in place, we can get a lot done.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: So you had decided it for a while, You've been
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: at the USAID for a while, maybe it's time to
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: leave and do something else, and then all of a
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: sudden another crisis comes along both law. So what was
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: your responsibility and how did you tackle that problem? Well?
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: USA carried the responsibility of working with the Centers for
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Disease Control to really mount a response in West Africa
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: and contain and ultimately limit the disease before it spread
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: around the world.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: So after ebola problem is more or less solved, I
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: wouldn't say you're eliminating Ebola complete, but it addressed a
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: problem you decided finally, and you then pursued what I've
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: called the highest calling of mankind, which is private equity.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: You start up, you set up your own firm to
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: invest in i'd say, electrification projects around the world. Is
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: that right?
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: That's correct.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: You had two very big backers, Dick Blum was one
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: of them, and David Bonderman the other.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, We started the process of building a small firm
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: partnered closely with a larger firm, TPG, and started identifying
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: projects and raising funds. And I got about a year
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: and a half two years into that, about a year
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: and a half into that, and the opportunity at the
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Rockefeller Foundation came up, and I ultimately felt that that
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: was more aligned with what I wanted.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: So you became the president of the Rockefeller Foundation. How
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: many years ago now is not six?
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: Now?
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: The Rockefeller Foundation is very famous over one hundred years,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: it's not nearly as big as the Gates Foundation. So
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: how do you deal with the challenge that people think
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: you have unlimited amounts of money, but you really don't.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: You know, our resources really should be society's risk capital
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: to solve tough problems, and we think of it that way.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: So we're not trying to pay for solutions at scale.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: We're really trying to build partnerships that either allow companies
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: to build out renewable electrification to reach people who are
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: very poor and make that profitable and viable on a
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: commercial basis, or get governments to do things that are
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: transformational like we did during the COVID crisis here in
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: the United States.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: So do you worry about the problems of the dysfunction
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: of the US government sometimes? I mean, clearly we see
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the US government of Congress can't get us back together
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: and passing bills so forth. Is that something you address?
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: There's nothing you can do about that.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: We work on that every day, because whether we're working
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: to expand diagnostic testing during the COVID crisis here in
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: the United States or working to reinvest in global development
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: efforts abroad, US government leadership is almost always critical to success.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: And the truth is, if you work behind the scenes quietly,
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: as you know you can get Republicans and Democrats to
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: collaborate and partner, and you can find those partners who
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: want to do the right things. They're not always the
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: loudest voices, they're not usually screaming on cable news, but
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: they are in fact the ones who make things happen.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Let's go through some of the leaders for whom you've worked.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Al Gore, I don't know. If you work that closely
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: with him, you've got to know him a bit. What
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: kind of leader was he or is he? Well?
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: I worked less closely with Al Gore. I was a
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: very junior member of his campaign, and I've gotten to
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: know him more in recent years as we focused on
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: climb Change, and I just think he's extraordinarily smart, very
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: very disciplined, and extremely persistent in his beliefs.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: What about Barack Obama, how do you find him as
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: a leader?
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Well, President Obama, I learned a lot from just by
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: watching the way he worked, And in my view, he
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: had this unique ability to be extremely determined, passionate, and
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: also praeternaturally calm in any given moment. But you sort
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: of knew that underneath that calm was an absolute determination
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: to sort of win in the long run, whether winning
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: was on a major foreign policy issue or on some
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: domestic transformation of our economy.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: What about Joe Biden.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, at the time Vice President Biden was you know,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: he was just so personable, Like, especially during my some
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: tough moments. I gave a speech called the National Prayer
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Breakfast Speech and was actually quite nervous about it for
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: a number of reasons. And he was the kind of
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: leader who'd come and put his arm around you and say,
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: you know, you got this in much more colorful ways.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: What about Hillary Clinton? You've worked with her when she
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: was Secretary of State. What was that like?
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Well, I learned from Secretary Clinton just the power of toughness.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Like there are times, especially in government, where you take
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: hits and where people critique what you're doing if you're
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: trying to be a change agent and trying to make
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: change happen, And I learned early on from her that
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: there is a woman who's taken a lot of hits
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: and just keeps going. And if you care about what
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: you're doing, and you believe you're trying to help other
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: people and you see a path to making a difference,
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: you have to have a strong shell.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: So as you look back on your career, what are
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: you most pleased that you have achieved so far?
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: Well, the big bets that worked.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: The effort to vaccinate a billion children and save sixteen
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: million child lives over two decades through the establishment of
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: the Global Vaccine Alliance, The effort to prevent ebola from
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: spreading out of West Africa and into the rest of
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: the world when the CDC was estimating one point six
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: million cases and we ended a bola through bold action
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: with less than thirty thousand cases and less than eleven
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: thousand debts and not one case of transmission in the
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: United States. And the big bet we're taking on right
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: now to reach a billion people who live in energy
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: poverty with renewable electrification. We already have projects with line
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: of sight to serving seventy seven million of them.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: Those are the things I'm most proud of.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: So people must say to you all the time, you've
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: done a lot of things. You should run for office.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Do you ever think about running for something I do?
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Since I was a little kid, I've always been enamored
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: of the concept of public service, and frankly, my time
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: in government taught me that if we have the right
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: kinds of leaders in place, we can get a lot done.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: wherever you listen.