On the one hand, I loved being a banker. I loved how numbers could tell a story and how you can invest in ideas and see them translate into products and services and create jobs. What I didn't like, particularly where I was working in Brazil during the debt crisis of the early '80s, was how the poor were excluded from the banking system. I made the decision to try and experiment with whether we could use the tools of banking to extend the benefits of the economy to the poor.

The time for change is now.

I've heard it said that the most dangerous animal on the planet is the adolescent male.

Our lives are so short. And our time on this planet is so precious. All we have is each other.

Africans didn't want saving, thank you very much, least of all not by me.

Freedom ultimately is dignity. And dignity, not income, is the opposite of poverty.

I was encouraged to break all the rules but to take the best of philanthropy, the best of investing, and the best of development finance, and experiment with new ways to create this venture capital model of using philanthropy to back patient capital investments, and then build solutions that were measured in terms of the kind of impact and change they were making on people's lives and in the world, not just on the financial return.