[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER 1: Good morning. Today I am delighted
to introduce our moderator, Jack Hidary. Jack was trained in
neuroscience and AI and then started
several companies, including dice.com, which
he took public, and remains public, and is a leading
tech job board to this day. Jack has been
involved personally with microfinance
for many years, both in the US and
abroad, and has been named a global
leader of tomorrow by the World Economic
Forum at Davos. Here at Google,
Jack is at Google X, where he is the quantum
magician and helps lead machine learning. Please join me in
welcoming Jack Hidary. [APPLAUSE] JACK HIDARY: Thanks, David. Welcome today. We have a very, very special
guest here at Google. We're happy and honored
to host this guest. In 1976, a young
professor of economics at Chittagong
University in Bangladesh went to a local village, Jobra. And what he realized
interacting in that village, as he talked to the woman in
the village, the various people in village, is that if
he gave out small loans, he can create a series of
sustainable businesses. And betting on women
would be the way to go. Protip-- don't lend to a man. Lend to a woman. Number one, the stability, the
connection to the community, and also all the
people around her that she brings aboard in
that sustainable business-- customers, vendors, employees--
as she grows that business. 30 years later, the
work of Grameen Bank, started in that Jobra village,
was recognized by the Nobel Committee with a Nobel Prize
in peace for Professor Muhammad Yunus. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Thank you. [APPLAUSE] MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Thank you, Jack. Thank you. JACK HIDARY: Thank you. And so we're delighted to
have the professor here today. Just in terms of
our agenda, we'll be chatting together, professor
and I, for about 30 minutes. And then please start
thinking of your questions. For those who ask questions,
we have a book for you. And so that's a bit of an
incentive to get up there. So professor, let's start. Professor, before we
start talking about much of what you do
internationally, let's actually start right here in the US. Many people know about Grameen. Many people know
the wonderful work that you've done
all over the world. Many people do not know
about Grameen America. We have with us here
in the audience the CEO and head of Grameen
America, Andrea Jung. Andrea, thank you
very much for coming. And people don't know that
while the model has been working very, very well
overseas, it's actually working very well here. In fact, Grameen America,
in my understanding, has already loaned out
over $700 million of loans and to thousands and
thousands of borrowers right here in the United States
with a 99% repayment rate. I think you're on the way to
do about $1 billion of loans next year. So I think it's very exciting
that the model has extended and scaled, not just in
countries like Bangladesh, Uganda, and others, but
also right here in the US. So maybe just first some
comments about your thoughts on microfinance here in the US. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Thank you,
Jack, for inviting me here. Actually, I'm just coming
from San Jose branch of Grameen America right here. So it's not New York
or someplace else, right next to home. California has four
branches of Grameen America, two in Los Angeles, two here in
San Jose and as well Oakland. In total, we have 20 branches
all over the United States-- seven branches in New York, in
total 11 cities, 20 branches. So within these four
branches in California, there are 17,000 borrowers. It started four years back here. It started eight years
back in New York. So within that, we have
given out within 40 years nearly $100 million
dollars here. Mostly women,
undocumented women. We don't require any
documents and so on. So no collateral-- just
like we do in Bangladesh. They have taken-- JACK HIDARY: So the
pattern continues. Better to bet on women than men. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Absolutely. Oh, it is 100% women. Bangladesh 97% women. Here, 100% women. So totally within
the United States, we did 20 branches,
as you mentioned. We'll be coming to about $1
billion loaned next year. That would be our
10th year of operation since we began in one branch in
the Jackson Heights, New York. And we just recently
opened a new branch-- or about to be opened
a new branch in Miami. So this is how it's expanding. And these women,
totally about 100,000, nearly 100,000
borrowers right now. And we are planning
how to next 10 years. Next 10 years, if you continue,
with just mere doubling of the number of
branches from 20 to 40, it will mean half a million
borrowers from 100,000 to half a million borrowers. And lending out to, in 10
years, about $10 billion with the same repayment
record of near 100% without any documentations
or anything else. So that also shows
what we started back home in Jobra village
in a small way. Not only has it expanded
globally, it reached out to countries like United States,
a difficult life of the people even the inner cities,
every city that you have. Everybody says we have
lots of poor people and invite us to do that. Our problem is we
don't have a banking license in this country. So we cannot take deposit-- JACK HIDARY: That would allow
you to scale even further. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Absolutely. We can go unlimited way. So until then, we have to
have money from somebody else to lend out money
to reach $10 billion in in the next 10 years. We need $250 million. So with $250 million-- JACK HIDARY: The license will
allow you to have that capital, take deposits. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Take deposits. Globally today, we have over
300 million borrowers, mostly women, all over the world. So almost every single country
has microcredit program. Europe and Asia and everybody. JACK HIDARY: Yeah,
let's come back to Bangladesh, where
it all started. People know Bangladesh is
a very populous country, 165 million people. One thing you point out in your
book, a very interesting stat, that all those
165 million people are living in a landmass
smaller than the size of Iowa. Now we looked it up,
checked it out on Google, that Iowa has a population
of 3.1 million people. So 165 million people
living in the space of Iowa, not to mention which
the danger of climate change, which Bangladesh is really
at the front line of. We're going to get to that
zero in terms of the climate change one in a bit. But talk to me about
what you took away from your early experiences
over the first 20 plus years in Bangladesh,
and then how you evolve from thinking
about just microfinance, which is really the early part of your
career, to now social business. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: As we
did the microfinance in a small way in
Bangladesh, as it's growing, I was noticing
many other problems of the people, poor people. First of all, poverty
also means poor in health because it goes together. When you're poor, you don't
have enough nutrition and so on. And it creates lots of
problems for children, mothers, and everybody else, poor people. So I was drawn into that, how
to address the health care issues of them. The first one was the
problem of night blindness. Children cannot see at night. Most of the families, at
least, one or two children do not see at night. So I got involved with that. I started trying to
understand why it happens. This is such a disease. So everybody told me that
it's vitamin A deficiency. So what we did, we
start a business of selling vegetable seeds
after a long process of what we should do. Encourage them to grow
vegetable, eat vegetable. Close to their own home,
they can grow that. As Grameen Bank grew, as seed
businesses grew, at one point, we became the largest seed
seller in the country. And the night
blindness disappeared from the whole country. So we saw that even in
such a simple thing, you don't need a doctor. You don't need a
big infrastructure. Simply getting
used to that idea. JACK HIDARY: And on
the needs, actually, you then were able to
create a few years later, another social business on
top of that business, which is an insurance
program for farmers, that when you buy the packet
of seeds, it builds in. You have insurance in that. And then actually you can
get repaid out depending on how the weather turns out. So you actually
build social business on top of social business. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Yes, it
kept continuing that way. Have the health insurance, more
comprehensive health insurance of any disease. We set up little clinics with
full doctors in the village because people cannot
go to the city. So we have the doctor. We have the paramedics. We have the clinics,
everything in the village, covered by the
insurance program. So insurance program
is a separate program done in a business way so
we cover all the costs. Within this money that we
generate from the insurance coverage, we have
all the facilities. We cover our cost of
every single health centers that we do. So we have cities of
those kind of things, health centers, which I still
do, and the insurance program. So we did the insurance. And now we have a joint
venture social business with the Intel
Corporation to bring a special kind of technology
for women for identifying risky pregnancies. It comes in the
form of a bangle. It's a beautifully designed
ornament but very powerful technology to
monitor your system and also give you messages week
after week in the pregnancy situation, telling
you at this week, this is a six-week-old
pregnancy. You may feel these
kind of symptoms. Don't worry about it. This is normal. But if you feel these kind
of symptoms, push the button. We'll get connected with you. JACK HIDARY: We know
from many studies that prenatal information really
helps for successful birth. Let's talk about another social
business that you started, Grameen Shakti, in
terms of solar power. And that gets us to
one of the zeros. We do have your book here
today, "A World of Three Zeros." One of those zeros is
about climate change. So you put that
in the top three. And all of us are very,
very concerned about it. Bangladesh, your home
country, is, again, on that front line with,
I think, 80 million of people in
Bangladesh literally in the potential flood
zone as waters rise. But talk about Grameen Shakti
about not just giving away solar panels but making
a business out of it. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Yeah,
every time I see a problem, I want address that. I create a business to do that. But the business of
the kind that where we don't want to make
money at all personally, company has to recover the
cost that in operation and all the costs involved in it. And the surplus will be
plugged back into the business. Investor can take back the
investment money over time, nothing else from that. That's the spirit in which we
created the social businesses. And we continue to do that. When we go in the villages,
we see as the sun goes down, everything gets dark because
there is no electricity all over Bangladesh. Only the kerosene lamp comes
up with the very feeble kind of light that you get. You feel sorry that as if you
are still in the cave age. You have all these
Googles and everything-- didn't change the life
of Bandladeshi people. So one idea came to my mind. Why don't we bring solar energy? Everybody said, no,
this is difficult. You can't do it in Bangladesh. It's very expensive technology. So I started looking at it, how
expensive it is, cn it be done. So finally, I decided
we'll do that. We created a company right away. We called it Grameen
Energy, or Grameen Shakti, in Bengali, to sell
solar home system. Initially, it was so
difficult to convince people. They said, no, no. This is too expensive. We are not used to it. Maybe it's just a magic. It will disappear after a while. It's not a guaranteed thing. So then we learn how to address
this issue with the people. We ask them how much money you
spend on kerosene every month. Then they calculate. Ah, we spend so much. And our deal is you give me
the kerosene money every month, whatever was spent. I give you the electricity. And you continue to pay the
same amount over the next three years. And then after the
three years, you don't have to pay a penny
to anybody anywhere. So you also don't
have to buy kerosene. You don't have to pay anybody. So then this is
attractive proposition. Then it started soaring. We started selling thousands and
thousands of solar home system. Today, we have 1.8 million
solar home in Bangladesh. In the middle of it, we became
the largest off-grid energy system in the whole world
because there isn't any more. JACK HIDARY: Also
you're empowering all those entrepreneurs who
are selling the Shakti system. And that brings us really to
the second two zeros, right? So we have first zero in
terms of climate change. And then in terms
of carbon emissions, we want to have net
zero in terms of that, and then in terms of
unemployment and poverty. So many of your
businesses are not just delivering interesting services
to people, such as solar power. We also can look
at Grameenphone, which is [INAUDIBLE]. But also empowers
thousands to millions of entrepreneurs who
take control of that and then deliver that. And Grameenphone is an example. So maybe talk about
these next two zeros-- zero unemployment
and zero poverty. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: On the zero
poverty, one of the things we did, the microcredit,
to help people to start income generation for them. And focusing on women because
they are the unused resource, and people never thought
that women can contribute in income of the family. We just focused on them. JACK HIDARY: What's
your statistics, by the way, in terms of how
many people in the community are affected when you
help start one business, one microfinance business? What's been your stats on that? MUHAMMAD YUNUS: We don't have
stat in that research terms. But you start buying things. Somebody sells more. So you start selling
things, somebody starts-- JACK HIDARY: I've seen a
stat of about 50 to one, that for every
one woman that you help with a
microfinance-oriented entrepreneurship, about
50 people are directly affected in terms of that. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: So we did that. And we said the poverty is not
created by the poor people. Poverty is created by
the system that we built. That's the reason how
they're poor because it is imposed from outside. It is not grown from inside. So we are trying
to fix that system. One of the things
which came to us quickly is the
financial system, how to amend the financial system,
design the financial system to work for the poor people. They were explaining to us,
the bankers and so on, no, it cannot be done because
poor are not creditworthy. So I kept asking them,
should you tell poor if they are creditworthy or
not, or whether poor people, or the people in [INAUDIBLE]
tell you whether you are people-worthy or not. So you have to be people-worthy. So that's your challenge. You have to come up with that. But they didn't
take it seriously. We took our job seriously to
make it a people-worthy system. And we created that system. And it works not only
in Bangladesh, globally. Today, Grameen Bank,
within Bangladesh, has over 9 million borrowers. 97% of them are women. And they own the bank. And the city and the board,
making decisions for the bank and so on. Largest bank in the country
in terms of clientele. And it's very
well-run in the sense that it is sustainable,
never lost money. Surpluses come. Profits come. Profit is distributed. JACK HIDARY: Having
borrowers on the board itself is an unusual move for a bank. Let's just put it that way. MUHAMMAD YUNUS:
Because they own this. This is their bank. And they run it
for their benefit. So we wanted to see this
is an institution which is designed for the purpose
of helping people come out of poverty. So that's one that
we try to make income generation, poverty, and so on. And one issue come that they
are all illiterate women, all these 9 million
families that we have. We wanted to make sure the
children from those families do not remain illiterate. So we wanted to make sure
the children go to school, have education. Grameen Bank took
the responsibility of ensuring children stay
in school, don't drop out, and give scholarship, give
loan for higher education. But one thing came out of it. After they come out of
graduation, after that there's no job in Bangladesh. With 165 million, you're not
creating those kind of jobs. And I couldn't give
any solution to that. Then I took a
different position. I challenged the young people. I said, why are you
looking for job? Who told you to have a job? I said, a job is a
completely wrong idea. I said, it is just pushing
you in the completely wrong direction. You should feel like you
are not a job seeker. You are a job creator. Feel like a job creator. Act like a job creator. Feel big rather than feel small. JACK HIDARY: And
then you started an organization called
[? Nobin, ?] which-- talk about that in
terms of that goes now outside of just
microfinance and banking into entrepreneurship. And again, your message to
millennials around the world, not as Bangladesh,
is instead of just thinking about
taking a job, think about starting a business. Obviously here in Silicon
Valley, a lot of young people do take that advice. But you really see that
as a global message. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Absolutely. So we tell them,
look, your mother took a loan 20 years
back, 35 years back-- $20, $30, $50. That's how her life
began with that. And she became an entrepreneur. If your illiterate
mother, who never crossed the boundaries of
your village, could turn into an entrepreneur
with a $40 loan, what's wrong with you with all
the education and everything that you have learned? You are looking for somebody
to help you to get a good job. This is not fair. You should be thinking
about doing better than what your mother has done-- JACK HIDARY: Job creation. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Job creation. You have regressed. JACK HIDARY: So how
does the system work? How does it know-- MUHAMMAD YUNUS:
So what we did, we created a social business
fund, a venture capital fund, and asked all the young people
to come up with business ideas. If they don't have business
ideas, we go and you say, go and consult your mother. She has lots of business ideas. So why don't you should
come up with one of them and explain to us
what you want to do. Then we invest in your business
as a partner, not as a lender. So we become a
partner with you-- it's our business
and your business-- and make it successful. And once it's successful,
return the money that we gave you because
we are a social business. We are not interested
in your profit. Profit just stays with you. And go on. We just put you in the orbit. You go on. Be entrepreneur like your
mother, and be proud-- JACK HIDARY: So tell
us about the process. When they apply as an
entrepreneur, what happens? How do you evaluate all this? MUHAMMAD YUNUS:
The basic principle of what we apply is
nobody is rejected. So anybody can apply, and
it will not be rejected. And nobody's abandoned,
meaning that even if you fail, still we'll not abandon you. We'll take you back to and start
helping you to do it again. But no, this action means you
come up with the basic idea, but it's not formulated
in a elaborate manner that you have not
thought through. So we'll help you
develop it in a-- go to the full extent and
make it a complete one. And then we invest in it. So we work together rather
than say, ah, your project is-- JACK HIDARY: So it's not
just the money obviously. And what we learned
here in Silicon Valley, obviously, is that looking
at Y Combinator and so many incubators, you can't
just give someone a check and invest in their company. You've got to really
nurture that company and help them along and
help shape that company. And that's what you're finding. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: That's right. So we do that. Only difference between the
venture capital and Silicon Valley, perhaps, would be
that you want to profit from the ventures itself. We took the profit part out. We are not interested-- JACK HIDARY: Social
business fund. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: It's
a social business. So you do that. That's [INAUDIBLE] people like,
OK, if I can take the money, I can do that. And all the profit
belongs to me. Why not? JACK HIDARY: And
now professor, you are scaling because, I think,
you gave a talk in India about seven years ago. And one of the people
in the audience came up to you after
the talk and said, hey, I'm interested in starting
a social business fund to do this exact same thing in India. And you said, well, maybe he is. Maybe he isn't. Who knows? A few months later,
you get a letter, saying that he's
ready with $1 million. And you gave the OK
for that to happen. And now seven years later,
they're still going. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: They're
still doing very well. JACK HIDARY: So
what happened there? Who was that individual? MUHAMMAD YUNUS:
[INAUDIBLE] from Bombay. [INAUDIBLE] just
speaking [INAUDIBLE].. Then he comes out
of the lecture hall. He said, I like your
idea about this. Can I do that? I said, of course you can do it. But I didn't take it seriously. People say that all the
time, that I want to do it. But I don't know what happened. But this guy became
very serious. And then he wrote me a letter. He said, I want to do that. I want to use $1
million of my own money. You said, $1 million at
the beginning is enough. I said, yes, I
still believe that. Now his answer is beautiful. JACK HIDARY: Because it recycles
the money and then it grows. We might have some people in
this audience, who will tell you after this talk, so yeah. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: And that'll
encourage another person in Bangalore, [INAUDIBLE]. JACK HIDARY: Who also did it. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: He also
did it because he saw that [INAUDIBLE] is doing it. He met him with a conference
like ours and so on. [INAUDIBLE] He said, we can do it. And [INAUDIBLE],,
who is a person we knew from before from
the microfinance, he started from microfinance. She said, my family
foundation can give you all the money you need. So together, [INAUDIBLE]
and [INAUDIBLE] created another social
business fund [INAUDIBLE].. JACK HIDARY: Right. Another example of social
business-- a lot of us here worry about the planet
back to climate change but also in terms of recycling. And so one of the
social businesses that Yunus social
business started is called Savco Millers,
which takes plastics that will be
otherwise in landfill and recycles them into a range
of consumer products out there. And that's, I think,
doing quite well. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Very well. JACK HIDARY: Maybe talk about-- MUHAMMAD YUNUS:
Yeah, it's in Uganda. That inspired us, seeing
that they're doing. So now we look at the
plastic as a major issue. And then we're holding a
big conference in plastic how to save us
ourselves from plastic because the plastic ocean
and all that's happening. So how to take
this waste plastic and gather and recycle
them in making it long-lasting products, like
furniture, like utensils, and people can use,
so that they do not end up clogging the rivers,
clogging the oceans, and so on and so forth. And then it's a difficulty
of plastic waste is it's now coming to
our food chain, to fish. Fish eating them and
kind of digest it, sitting in the stomach. And we're catching them. And it passes on to us. And even our water
system in many cities have very fine fibers of plastic
coming in to many cities now. So it's dangerous
signals already. So one of the things
that we are doing, as an example learning
from what we did in Uganda, take Mekong River in Vietnam. It's also filled up
with lots of plastic. So set up social businesses
alongside the bank. Create-- JACK HIDARY: Down the river. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Down the river. So collect it, and offer people
if you bring this, we pay you. So we don't have to
employ lots of people. Just you bring it. [INAUDIBLE] we buy it from
you, all the waste material. You can bring it
from your homes. You can bring it
from the rivers. So we keep on giving a
recycle and make furniture, housing materials so that
people can use it as a housing material, and so on. So this is something that
we are going to launch. And [INAUDIBLE] everybody
else, beware of plastic what you do, particularly
in the packaging materials, particularly in
the water bottles, in the straws, which
are the dangerous part of the plastic thing. So we see it's possible. If you keep your mind
in a creative way to address this issue, at the
same time asking the producers and the users, be careful. Don't use it. Use something else. Or asking the chemists to come
up with biodegradable plastics rather than the one
which is nondegradable. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Great. Let's come back to where it all
started, back to microfinance. I want to talk about banking
and microfinance now. What's interesting is that
here in Silicon Valley, there's been a number
of startups who said, many people cannot get loans
because they don't have traditional credit. We have a credit system in
the US, have a credit score. One of three big
credit agencies, and if you're not on there and
you don't have a great credit score, you can't get a loan. And so these startups said,
we have a brand new idea. Our idea is we're going to
use your social reputation. We're going to check
out social media. We're going to use
other things like that. And of course, that's not
a very new idea at all because you started
that 30 plus years ago. But they actually
have been successful. And their repayment
rates are very high because they are using
these alternative ways [INAUDIBLE]. But in terms of the large
banking infrastructure, the large banks
of the world, what has been their current
stance towards microfinance? You've proved it. Grameen America now has
proved it right here in the United States. This is not something
that just works overseas. It works right here at
scale, a billion dollars of loans going out next year. I know Deutsche Bank had a
microfinance-oriented support for some time. What has been the reaction? And what would you want
to see the large banks do? MUHAMMAD YUNUS: This
is a battle which was going on for many,
many years with me, challenging them why
you should do that. Now I keep saying that yes, it's
very difficult for these banks to come to the poor
people because it's designed for the rich. I said, the structure and the
architecture of the banking system is it's designed
on the more you have, the more you get. So it doesn't translate itself. If you have less, you
don't get anything. You have none, you get nothing. So we need a different
kind of architecture to create bank for the poor. So one is a bank for rich. Another is bank for the poor. That's architecture that
we used in Bangladesh, created different
legislation for ourselves to create the bank for the poor. The bank for the poor has
not been created elsewhere. We have been encouraging
India for many years to create that law. But that [? dog ?] got
[? clocked ?] in the parliament with the select
committee, this committee. It doesn't come out
of the legislation. So we are encouraging
Indian authorities to make big NGOs, who
became very successful, very good microfinance program. But NGO, they always
depend on outside money. So I have requested the central
bank, Reserve Bank of India, to give them a temporary
limited license that they can do what they are doing,
nothing more than that. But they will be allowed
to take deposits. So now there are 10 licenses
that have been issued. So now they are very happy
because they have disconnected with the international-- JACK HIDARY: And
deposits are coming in. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: And
deposits are coming in. So that's another thing. So we need to create a
different sorts of [INAUDIBLE].. I give the example of
the conventional banks are like a supertanker. They go into deep sea, carry
lots of weight and materials with them. I said, but the microcredit
is a dinghy boat. It doesn't need a deep sea. It goes from little
shallow water and so on. The architecture
of a supertanker, you cannot design a dinghy
boat with architecture of a supertanker. Then it'll drown itself. So I said, why don't you
design a new architecture? There's a new
legislative formula. If you have the
resource, everybody can create a micro
[INAUDIBLE] bank. All you need to do, this is
the objective of this bank. This is how it is done. Repeatedly it has
been proven women are paying-- men and
women both are paying back payment is not a problem. And it's a sustainable. All the branches
of Grameen America right here, which is the most
expensive country in the world, they cover the cost. They cover the operational-- JACK HIDARY: Sustainable. MUHAMMAD YUNUS:
Everything is sustainable. My question is then what's
the trouble with you? What can't the people get it? All you do is the flourishing
of the payday lenders. And the payday
lenders interest rate starts from 500%, 2000%, 2,500%. You tolerate it. But you don't do the thing
that people can get rid of this payday lenders. Pawn shops all over the country. So this is a kind of mismatch. We don't understand why
people do in one way and then forget
about the things. Is it completely proven things. It's not yet unproven kind
of somebody's utopian ideas and [INAUDIBLE]. JACK HIDARY: Yeah,
so professor, let me ask you one more question. And then I want to
turn to the audience. So think of your questions. There's a book in the back
if you ask a question. So there's a microphone there. So you want to line up, and
ask some questions there. But let me ask you about
when we were in New York together recently, we
talked about how today of 7 plus billion people on the
planet, only about 3 billion, only about 40%, have
access to the internet. Now then the first 3
billion took about 48 years to get online, right? Since the start of the
early stages of the internet till today about 48 years. It took about 3 billion
people to get on right now. The next 3 billion probably
will not take 48 years. We're talking about
just a handful of years to double in terms of going
from 3 billion to 6 billion. And, of course, there are
various projects here at Google and elsewhere to even get that
last billion online as well. So within short order,
certainly a doubling of the size of the net. Now how do you think about that? Most of the people
who are borrowing from Grameen Bank in
various countries, most of the people involved
say with solar power with Grameen Shakti or others do
not yet have access to the net. But they're about to get it. How does that, first, change
the nature of microfinance when you can communicate
with your borrower digitally and maybe even send and
receive digital money in terms of forms of e-wallets and other
kinds of transactions that way? So how does it
change microfinance? And then, also, how do you
think about it in terms of the greater impact
on that woman in terms of education for her
family, for her community? So maybe just in terms
of the doubling size of the internet in terms of both
the microfinance implication and scaling of
microfinance and then in terms of education
of the social impact. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: The way I
tried to explain it, I said, the technology, internet, the
connectivity is like something like breathing. You have to make people breathe. And it's air that which is
free so that you can breathe it without saying how much bill
is coming from air to do that. So that's the kind
of ultimate, that you have to ensure that it is
something like air you can breathe and function together. Several things happening. And I mentioned one of them
in my book about [INAUDIBLE].. He has created the
computer, which he thought all these Googles
and Amazons and all the things that you have
information that you have on the internet,
Wikipedia and so on. Only 3% of this information
is used by 80% of the people. So his idea is, why
don't I take this 3% and put it as a preloaded
into the computer? So if you don't worry
about all this internet. JACK HIDARY: Right. So it's local on the
local hard drive. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: It's just
built into the computer itself. And he has been marketing it
as a social business and so on. We're working
together on that one. If you need to refresh
that, because once you preload it, very
soon, in a week or so, it becomes kind of outdated. So all you have
to do whenever you are visiting a connectivity
point to somewhere, you take it with you. So it is a small gadget. Plug it in. Wait for a couple of hours. It refreshes itself. You come back. It's as good as new. So this is one way to do that. JACK HIDARY: And that's
a social business. Endless he calls it. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: It's
called Endless, yes. Right here, he's based right-- JACK HIDARY: Yeah, right here. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Right here. So this is one, how to
address the problem of not reaching them. And now bring the basic
thing that you need, which everybody needs, 3% of
the totality that everybody is looking for. And you can choose which of
the part that you must have. So you can add that part. There is a standard one. You can have [INAUDIBLE]. So you need all the things here. And then another activity that
I see, the telecommunication. As telecommunication
expands, here comes the internet facility
with the telephone itself. So in Bangladesh,
telecommunication has advanced in such a way
with 165 million people, now we have 125 million
telephone subscribers. So every family,
poor, rich, beggars-- everybody has telephone. So with the telephone, you
have internet facilities. So this is another way. But it has to be ensured that
it goes for a good purpose that you use it. Question is when we
have these facilities, why don't we use it for
a purpose people need? And that's where come your
artificial intelligence and Google X, how to make
that artificial intelligence to bring health care for people. JACK HIDARY: On the phone. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: On the phone,
on the phone is possible. Or phone-like gadgets, which
I don't think this gadget will remain this shape
in the next 10 years. It will be a different
shape probably. But whatever gadget brings
all the information, all the communications,
everything in that gadget. Also health care
services that you get your body is
monitored all the time. And if you have any symptoms
of any deviation from a norm, it will be immediately
warning you what needs to be done so that
fix it so that you can protect yourself by prevention rather
than let it wait for 10 years and it becomes a
complicated disease. You are running around. There is no cure for it. JACK HIDARY: Particularly
because the mobile phone, as you're pointing out, is
going to be the primary, if not the only connection,
that the next 3 billion will have to the internet. You look at a startup
in London called Babylon, which is
delivering today AI-based health care
and triage to about 1 and 1/2 million citizens in the
UK officially by the National Health System there. And so you can see this
is becoming a reality. That becomes portable
to the kind of phones to deliver health care as in
your example, AI-based health care. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: So I'm
saying that if you focus on the objective that is
for something to solve people's problem, remove
the moneymaking part of it-- I'm sure you can have a
moneymaking part on business, but this business is not the
intention of making money-- suddenly your eyes
open up completely. You see things which you
never saw with the glasses of the dollar sign glasses. Here you don't have to worry
about the stock market, IPOs, and all the-- JACK HIDARY: Just
focus on the goal. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Just
focus on the goal. And make it happen. It's possible. That's what excites me. Technology is so
powerful, there's no reason why anybody
has any problem in this world if you only remove
the idea of making money out of it. So you can have two
kinds of businesses-- moneymaking business, fine. At the same time, parallely,
you can have social businesses, business to solve problems. And that's the kind
of thing that we are trying to encourage. I'm pointing out in the
book that it's possible. Every young person, every tech
person, everybody can do that. And all it needs creative
power, thinking power. And once you do that, lots of
things are already available. You can create a lot more, which
you have never done before. JACK HIDARY: Excellent. Do you love the
professor's energy? [APPLAUSE] Four decades in. Super strong. Let's have some questions. State your name, please,
for the professor and then your question. Make sure it's a short question. We want to get quite a few in. AUDIENCE: Thank you. Thank you for coming. My name's Tony. I work here at Google. I wonder if you could talk
more about the zero poverty because it seems to me
there's a lot of poverty which you're not addressing. There's lots of refugees. There's famine. There's oppression. How do you get to zero poverty
with all these problems? MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Just bring
the case of Bangladesh because that's where we were. When the Millennium Development
Goals were declared, goal number one was to reduce
poverty by half by 2015. So we thought this
is just [INAUDIBLE].. This is what we
are supposed to do. And this is what we are doing. So we kind of expedited
the whole process so that we can reach
out to more people, to see that they
can start unleashing their own energy, creative
power, and so on and so forth. Ultimately, when the 2015
came with the stocktaking what we have done,
we've done pretty good. Out of the eight goals, we
achieved six of those goals by 2015. Two came close but didn't
make it completely. One, which made a surprising
result is the number one-- reducing poverty by half-- we achieved by 2013,
middle of 2013, 2 and 1/2 years
before the target. So we felt very excited because
one of the poorest country in the world achieving-- reaching goal number
one ahead of time is an exciting
news for all of us. And now we see [INAUDIBLE],,
sustainable development goals, with 17 goals. Number one goal is to reduce
poverty to zero by 2030. And we calculate how we have
been reducing over past. And we see at the speed that
we are reducing poverty, if we continue at
this speed now, we already will be reaching
zero poverty before 2030. So this is kind of a statistical
measurement issues and so on. But you are right. There are many special groups--
refugees and displaced people, war-torn people,
all kinds of people, people with the difficult
to function, disabilities, and so on. How do you address that? So that's where you have to
be creative to bring that. Just because refugees, they
are not to maimed people. They are fully energetic people. JACK HIDARY: And they could
be social businesses-- MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Absolutely. The refugee camp is a
whole society by itself. There are doctors. There are engineers. They're just simply
pushed out of the country. Doesn't mean that they
are helpless people. They don't know what
to do, how to begin. They are functioning. They are business people. They are teachers. Everybody has been pushed out. So you recreate the
whole thing, society. But the problem is host
country, most of the time, do not allow them. They don't give you
a license to operate. They don't give you permission
to get into the law business that you want to
be in the lawyer because you are a lawyer, a very
successful lawyer back home. You can't do that. So those are the things to be
resolved, political things. This has nothing to do
with poverty and so on. Refugee doesn't mean
he is a poor person. He is a very rich person. Today he's a refugee. So he's looking
for opportunities to get things done, started. So this is a special group. But there are many
groups of tribal areas in remote places, people who
are never mainstream, life stream and so on. That's where the
technology comes. Technology comes to bring
information, marketing facility. You don't have to go to
the city to sell things. You do it on the internet,
you can sell things. Design business
to make it happen. That's what we call it in
social businesses and so on. And also bring education. You don't have to go to
Harvard University to learn. Harvard University
or a university anywhere in the world,
top universities, they will be everywhere
in the world. Even if you are remote
a most brilliant student in the Harvard probably will
be someone in a remote village in a remote country in Africa. He's a brilliant student. He never left his country,
but he's performing because he's attached to it. That's the technology
is making it happen. Today, everything
is possible provided we address this issue
not for making money. Then it limits yourself. You don't want to
go to the places where your profit is not
as much as somewhere else. So you start comparing. In social business,
you don't compare. Here there is a problem. Here is a solution. We come with a solution. Only thing you want-- it has to be sustainable. And make sure your cost
is as low as possible so that people can afford it. And make sure that it's
effective, it is efficient, and you can continue
to improve on it. JACK HIDARY:
Professor, let's have some more questions because
we have quite a few people. Let's have a quick question. Rapid fire. AUDIENCE: I'll try. JACK HIDARY: OK, your name? AUDIENCE: My name is
David [? Karem. ?] I'm a product manager
in machine intelligence. A major concern for us is
that we're replacing many jobs with automation. Another is that algorithms
are inheriting our biases. We believe these
issues are correctable. But I'd just like to ask you
maybe your thoughts on how. AUDIENCE: How to
do the correct-- JACK HIDARY: Wait. So it's really two
questions here. So you squeezed
in two questions. I see that. I see what you did. AUDIENCE: And I even have more. JACK HIDARY: Yeah,
so first in terms of what you and I talked
about in New York in terms of machine learning
and AI is now going to create automation,
which may threaten quite a number of jobs. But also a second
question he's asking, he was asking in terms
of AI is created by us. And sometimes
without meaning to, we're putting our own
biases into the AI. So the AI is reflecting
human biases. Even though it's artificial,
it's reflecting our biases. So maybe these two
questions on, how do we address some of
the joblessness that may come from AI? And how do we address
some of the biases that may unintentionally seep in? MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Yep. I tried to explain it in
the book, just that issue, by saying that we are told that
40 million young people are coming to the job
market every year. And it is growing as the
population of the world grows. And is a threat. Existing unemployment
and the threat of the technology and
all this existing. Now 40 million young
people coming every year to the job market. I said, I interpret
this in a different way. I see 40 million
young entrepreneurs entering into the world. It's an exciting news. It's a question of looking
at what you're looking at. I said, these young
people are there to be entrepreneurs,
not a job seeker. Job is a tiny little
thing for [INAUDIBLE].. This doesn't fit into the
destiny of a human being. You sacrifice your
creative power when you take a job
in most of the cases. So I said, why
sacrifice yourself? Be yourself. Be an entrepreneur. That's natural thing
to human being. And I give the history of
human being on this planet. I said, we are
always go-getters. We are problem-solvers. That's what we are. Suddenly some theory
tells you that no, no, only destiny you have,
you have to find a job. So every young person is
running around to find a job. So this is one
direction that we have. And I said, yeah,
all the technology is they're taking away jobs. I said, who creates
this technology? There are two drivers
of technology. Now I am sitting here in Google
talking about technology. There are two drivers
of technology. One, money makers, who want to
make money by using technology. So everything is
because in your head, you have to design
something to make money. So greatest money
that you can make. You create the jackpot. That's the technology
you will create. This is your built-in. Another one is war makers. War makers want technology
for different purposes. There is no social
driver of technology. If there's a social
driver of technology, they will say, how
to create technology so that every young
person in this world will absolutely have all
the knowledge and education? Let's do that. And it's a costless
operation we want to do it because we
don't want to make money. Suddenly our minds
open up completely. We design those
things because we have no intention
of [INAUDIBLE] as I said about the stock market
and all the investors and so nothing. Don't worry about them. All we worry about--
have I done that? Are they doing that? Have I created technology
to take all the health care for everyone? Health care is a
problem everywhere. Look at what is health
care doing in this country. It's information politics. And the cost goes up
and up and everybody. It doesn't matter. It doesn't make
sense in this day and age people don't
have health care as a part of a regular thing. I said, it shouldn't
worry anybody. But it does. So we can bring
technology to make it happen-- education,
health care, opportunities, being entrepreneurs. We can create a
whole slew of things within technology
so that anybody who wants to get into
entrepreneurial activity will help them. We can do that. We connect everybody
to make that happen. So that's the driving
force missing. If we have that, then
suddenly those whole new world will emerge. JACK HIDARY: Professor,
let's take more questions because we have so many people
who want to ask questions. Your name, and go ahead. AUDIENCE: My name
is [INAUDIBLE].. So I was wondering about how
social businesses will compete with money-making businesses? And I think you have talked
about having different stock exchanges for social businesses. So can you talk more about it? How will the economic model
look for that as a social stock exchange or something? JACK HIDARY: Yeah, let's
give some short answers because we have so many people. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: OK, yeah. In a social stock exchange,
we have been talking about it. It has not been created yet. We need a minimum concentration
of social business so that people could
start buying and things. We have crowd funding
kind of things today in social business. People who want to invest
in social businesses, they can do as a crowd funding. Social business funds are being
created but not an institution to exchange shares
from each other. That we have not done. But this is an idea. Some call themselves social
exchange, social stock exchange. But this is more of a
charity kind of thing. They're not the one that we
are really talking about, real shares being
transferred to each other. JACK HIDARY: Great. Next question, please. Your name? AUDIENCE: Hi, I'm [? Sonali. ?]
And I'm from India. And my question is regarding
the agriculture sector. I know that in India,
agriculture sector is the biggest employer. And I know that's true
of Bangladesh as well. And the problem is
that in India, I see a lot of nonprofits which
are trying to help families who are dealing with climate
change or bad government policies. And usually what
happens is that they are able to deal with them. But whenever there's
climate change or something, it's causing the farmers to
actually abandon whatever their primary occupation is. And it's leading
to open migration because they go and seek jobs
that's construction workers. And I know that's
true of Bangladesh as well, where a lot of people
are working in these cloth factories, which are-- MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Garment. AUDIENCE: Yeah, the
garment factories. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: And he threatens
that [? you ?] will be over. AUDIENCE: Right. So my question-- JACK HIDARY: Not me but
something out there. Yeah, so bring us
to your question. AUDIENCE: Yeah, so
my question is that even if you build up
a social enterprise and you're kind of
funding enterprises which are very
susceptible to, say, climate change or
government policies, how do you deal with that? MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Quickly
to respond to that, you have been talking about NGOs
and nonprofit, not-for-profit entrepreneurial organizations. Yes, they have their
own way of doing that. Because we tried to bring
it to a business formula. So that you are responsible. You make sure your cost
is covered by operations so that you sustain yourself. Continue in business. And no feel uncertainties
of NGO world because funding has to be
done from outside every year to keep you running. So agriculture is a fantastic
area of a social business. And we see everyday examples. There are many
examples in the book also that what can be done. And one example is, quickly,
one company, big company, was involved in potato. Got interested in
social business. We did that. Then what he did, he created a
new social business in Europe. 30% of the vegetables grown
in Europe are thrown away. What is their problem? What did they do wrong? They are not shaped in a way the
consumers have been interested. A cucumber fat on
one side, thin-- JACK HIDARY: The
bananas, the wrong angle. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: The wrong angle. In the industry, it is
known as ugly vegetable. And the ugly vegetable
happens to be 30% of the total
vegetable production. So what this company has done,
created a new social business company. Absolutely nothing to do with
making money for themselves. To solve the problem of
throw away good food. So they buy up all the
throwaway vegetables and chop them up and make nice
little packages, calling them ready-to-cook vegetables. JACK HIDARY: So you
didn't know when you're eating it that it
was an ugly fruit before. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Whether
it ugly or not ugly, the shape doesn't matter
when you cut them up. So people like it. It's very cheap because it came
from a very different source. So this is one area, how to
protect from the wastage. And marketing is always a
big problem in agriculture everywhere all over the world. Coffee growers
don't get the money that the coffee drinkers
are paying for it. Comparison is
unbelievable comparison. It's a penny versus several
dollars kind of thing. Cotton growers don't get
the money what the cotton consumers are paying. Similarly cocoa
growers don't get the money what chocolate
eaters are paying them. So we create a social
business in the middle. We take the coffee
from the growers and sell it in the
ultimate market. Whatever processing is needed,
we do that and bring the money back to the growers. Because we are social
business, we are not interested in making money. We are only solving
your problems. That's it. Once you have that idea, this
is a very, very simple idea. You can make a more
interesting thing to make that happen
back and forth. So the problem of market--
and this is a huge problem. Wastage is a big problem. How to make [INAUDIBLE]
save this wastage. Many [INAUDIBLE] gave
one after the production. Before the production
and after the eating, there is a lot of [INAUDIBLE]
Lots of waste in the industry, in the agriculture
industries, lots of waste. And you can create social
business to bring it back into the good food chain. So it's a question of
where our mind goes. If there is a problem, if our
mind goes in a simple way, removing all the hazy ideas
of profit-making into that, then suddenly you'll see
in a very transparent way. And your creativity
comes into action. You create a business, which not
only works in this tiny corner or where you're working. Suddenly it becomes a
global because the problem is everywhere. Whether you're working in
India, whether you're in USA, in Africa, it doesn't matter. And amazing things happen. Similarly, from the agriculture,
you move into the forestry. Today, deforestation is
the standard in everywhere. You can turn it
completely around because forestry is a very good
income-generating activity. So if you see that possibility,
instead of leaving forestry as a ministry of forestry
in the government, nothing will happen. Nothing will get done. It will get on deforestation. If people say, no, we
want to keep the forest. We want to make sure
the forest grows. We want to make sure
deforestation is reversed. And deforestation in a social
business way, it's impossible. It's a question of
changing the mind. That's all. JACK HIDARY: Thank
you, professor. Next question, please. AUDIENCE: My name is Dan. Are there barriers to
creating social businesses either in Bangladesh
or maybe in the US, who are more familiar that are
preventing people, either legal or do we need encouragements? And because obviously we
have lots of nonprofits, which is a different model. But probably a lot of people
who are doing nonprofits, would they be better doing
social business in some cases? MUHAMMAD YUNUS: We don't
face any hostility. The oh, you're social business. You're taking away my business. Nothing like that because
in most of the cases, there is none
operating in there. For example, if you want
to bring clean water to the villages as a social
business so that they can drink clean water. We do that because
nobody else is there. Even the profit-makers
is not there. AUDIENCE: Are other
legal barriers, like in-- MUHAMMAD YUNUS: No, no, no. We said, all the laws
that are existing, we follow the same law. We don't want to
violate any law. We proceed with all the
regularity authority, restrictions, and so on. We don't want to
disrupt anybody's work. We want to play in the same
marketing place, no problem. If somebody's already
doing it, we applause them. You are doing it. But we want to do it, make it
cheaper for the people that you cannot reach. That's fine with us. So we don't see anybody as
taking away our business because we don't want to protect
our business because we are not here to make money. When you to make
money, then you see as a kind of somebody who's
competing with you, taking away something. We say, you want to work? We want to work to
solve the problem. You want to make money? Go ahead. Make money as long as you can. But we are coming to
make it cheaper, better for people who are
not rich by you. That's all. JACK HIDARY: Professor,
here in the US, we've seen the rise of the B
corp movement, which is exactly the end to this point. Because when you start a C
corp or a traditional LLC, there's certain responsibilities
you have to your investors. And there is this expectation
of dividends going out of the company on
a typical basis. The B corp allows for more of
a social business structure. Started in Vermont
initially, but now has spread to a good number
of states across the US because companies are
incorporated at the state level, not at the federal level. And we're seeing a
lot of good traction with the B corp
model, which is one of the primary social
business models out there. So I think we're seeing
some good initial traction. And it does help to smooth
out some legal difficulties that if you try the C
corp social business, you might have some issues. So some good signs, I would say. AUDIENCE: Thank you. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Thank you. JACK HIDARY: Next
question, please. We are just moving
through these. This is good. Good, professor. AUDIENCE: Going back to giving
out loans to women only, I was curious if it's because
you try the same model with men first and you weren't
getting the money back. Or where was this decision
in the trial and error? And then also subquestion
is of these businesses that these female entrepreneurs
started either in Bangladesh or around the world,
was there a common trend in the businesses
that they started or the ones that
were successful? What types of businesses
were successful? MUHAMMAD YUNUS: On
the men-women issue, that we started this
in Grameen Bank when we just a little initiative
in one village in Jobra, which is just next to
the university campus. I have been criticizing
the bankers a lot. I was very nasty towards
the bankers in Bangladesh, criticizing them that are wrong. Their design is wrong. They created an
institution which doesn't make any
sense because banks are supposed to lend money. They do it in such a funny way. They lend money to people who
already have lots of money. They don't lend money to
people who don't have money. I said this should
be the other way. That's the logic. So they laugh, like he laughed. Everybody laughed and said-- [LAUGHING] JACK HIDARY: That's
the evil banking laugh. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Absolutely. What a silly thing to ask. That's what we do. And then I hit on another point. I said, you also don't
lend money to women. Because in Bangladesh,
at the time that I was raising
this question, 99% of the borrowers of all the
banks of Bangladesh are men. 1% or less are the woman. So I said, you are not
only against poor people. You are also against women
because your results show that. This is not me making it up. So they said, no, no,
women don't come to us. I said, no, your rules are so
bad because when a woman comes to the proposition with
if she's a rich person, she's a able person,
always manager will look at the business
proposition and then say, have you discussed
with your husband? And then he will
say, why don't you bring your husband along next
Monday so that we can discuss? I said, has it ever happened
in the history of banking in Bangladesh a man brought
his proposal to a manager and manager said, have you
discussed with your wife? Why didn't you bring
your wife with you so that we can discuss that? And I said, that's where
the discrimination begins. And that's why people
don't feel encouraged. Women don't feel-- when I
begin, I wanted to make sure I correct it because I've
been so vocal against it. So I shouldn't commit
the same mistake. So I wanted to make sure half
the borrowers in my program are women. And it was a tough job. Women say, no, no,
don't give it to me. Give it to my husband. So I don't know what to do. I keep on explaining
to my students because I'm working with the
students, who work together. They were very frustrated
working with the women. These are girl students
who were working with me to go to the women. They said, maybe we
should forget about them. They said, they
don't know anything. I said, no, that's not the way. When you hear that they are
saying they cannot do anything. They are afraid of money. They don't want to create
trouble for the family. Always remember this
is the history which is making them say
that because history made them so fearful of
everything that happens new. So they want to cling
to the old things. They don't want to
expose themselves on new danger of
exposing themselves. I said, we have to peel off
the fear layer by layer. It takes time. So we go back again and again. Build confidence in them. It took us six
years in doing that. Then we came to 50-50. Then we saw something
new coming up. Money going to the
family through women brought so much more
benefit to the family than the same amount of
money going to the family through men. And you can write a
whole book on that. The kind of differences that you
see is so visible, so obvious doing that every
family have them. Then we said, why are we
having this restriction of 50% for women? Why don't you open it up? Then we opened it up
and focused on women. It slowed down our work so
much because men are just jumping around to take money. Here, women are so
reluctant, so make sure that she understands everything. So we accepted that. But gradually, it jumped up to
60%, 70%, and went beyond 90%. Then we say, let's slow
down so that we can keep some men into the picture. So we stopped in 97%. That's how we
remained 97% forever so that we don't
eliminate everything. But when it came to the USA,
they didn't bother about men, just went straight to women. And that's done
fantastically well. JACK HIDARY: Good learnings. One last question, please. But don't worry, you
guys will get books. Don't worry. Go ahead. One last question. AUDIENCE: Hi. JACK HIDARY: Your name? AUDIENCE: I'm Melissa. Earlier you were
mentioning how it's really exciting that 14 million people
a year entering the workforce and how everyone should
be an entrepreneur and go into social business. But it seems to a very
small percentage of people are willing to become
an entrepreneur. And even a smaller
percentage are willing to go into
social business. What's going to have to change
to mobilize young people to get into social business? MUHAMMAD YUNUS: See, I
have always feel inspired. The previous question was what
is successful in businesses and new entrepreneurs
that are coming up. I feel encouraged what I already
explained to the young people in Bangladesh. If your illiterate mother,
who never had any experience of business of any type-- she doesn't even watch TV. She doesn't know how
business is done. If she can become
entrepreneur, not one, millions of them in
Bangladesh, now probably millions of them in the US. And 300 millions
of them worldwide. I don't believe people
are not entrepreneur. I believe they are entrepreneur. Simply, our system that we build
suppressed it, locked it up, said you have to have a job. So everybody is running
around with the CV, with the recommendations,
telephone calls so that I can get a
little job with you so that my life is done. I said, that's not what the
human beings are created for. It is wrongly designed. Our mind is twisted
around to make us believe that job is the
only thing that we have to do. Our education system
is twisted around. Our family conversation
are twisted around because that's what
the theory says. You are born to work
for somebody else. I said, we are not born
to work for somebody else. I'm a free person. I do things on my own way. Unleash my own energy
on creative power. So once we establish that,
everybody will be entrepreneur. So why did all these
women become entrepreneur? Because you put the
money on the table. That's the only trick we play. When you see money
on the table, I said, why am I sitting around? There's money. I can do something. So today, that
money doesn't exist. In the schools and
colleges, you traditionally see recruiters coming
from different companies. You see that all the time. And see which of the
recruiter you can discuss, see who can get a
job in that company. No financier comes
into the campus saying that if you want
to be entrepreneur, this is what your
facility would give. This is our social venture. This is this venture. This is that. We are better than anybody else. Even if you fail,
it's OK for you. All kinds of
attractive offer there. Nobody comes. So I don't know how do
we become entrepreneur. In empty hand, you
cannot be entrepreneur. You need some
money in your hand. And the financial institution
is responsible to provide that money. I said, in order to catch a
dollar, you need a dollar. Without the first dollar, you
don't catch the next dollar. But nobody gives
that first dollar in the hands of an
unemployed young person. That's the tricky thing. You may have a most
brilliant idea of business. You go to any
bank, any investor. They will just throw you out. Who are you? That's the trouble. JACK HIDARY: Professor, it
is an honor and pleasure to have one of the true
visionaries of our time here with us today. Please let me thank
Professor Muhammad Yunus. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Thank you. [APPLAUSE] JACK HIDARY: "World
of Three Zeros." We have some of the back
for the questioners. Thank you very much, professor. MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Thank you. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you, too.
