Today, philanthropy is a very unsophisticated, old world process where people who make a shitload of money go and give it away and when they're making their money, they're focused on 10x, 100x returns on the dollar.

Imagine a world of nine billion people with clean water, nutritious food, affordable housing, personalized education, top-tier medical care, and nonpolluting, ubiquitous energy. Building this better world is humanity's grandest challenge.

If someone is always to blame, if every time something goes wrong someone has to be punished, people quickly stop taking risks. Without risks, there can't be breakthroughs.

What is grit? Grit is refusing to give up. It's persistence. It's making your own luck.

True disruption means threatening your existing product line and your past investments. Breakthrough products disrupt current lines of businesses.

The world's biggest problems are the world's biggest business opportunities.

You've got to choose your horse ahead of time. So, if you're interested in water technology, energy technology, you get to choose between the three or four companies that you have insight into. And you have to make a bet on them before they prove anything out.