Q: What is the best advice you've ever received?
A: Find your voice. This means expressing something about you and what you believe. It is the first step toward doing valuable action in the world.
At the heart of Kiva was the realization that a lot of the ways I had previously encountered poverty were through stories that were one-sided or incorrect. I have gained a lot of wisdom from unexpected individuals. I remember sitting in Stanford GSB Professor George Foster's class when he was lecturing about leverage. It dawned on me that I first learned that idea years earlier in Africa. A goat herder explained to me that he wanted more time to fatten up his goats before bringing them to market. The risk was that the goats might get sick while he waited, but they would be worth more if he allowed them time to grow bigger.