Poem for the stressed out

ITHACA
When you start on your journey to Ithaca,
then pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
Do not fear the Lestrygonians (*)
and the Cyclopes and the angry Poseidon.
You will never meet such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine emotion
touches your body and your spirit.
You will never meet the Lestrygonians,
the Cyclopes and the fierce Poseidon,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not raise them up before you.

Then pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many,
that you will enter ports seen for the first time
with such pleasure, with such joy!
Stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and corals, amber and ebony,
and pleasurable perfumes of all kinds,
buy as many pleasurable perfumes as you can;
visit hosts of Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from those who have knowledge.

Always keep Ithaca fixed in your mind.
to arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for long years;
and even to anchor at the isle when you are old,
rich with all that you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would never have taken the road.
But she has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not defrauded you.
With the great wisdom you have gained, with so much experience,
you must surely have understood by then what Ithaca means.

— Constantine Cavafy (translated by Rae Dalven)

Great conversation

Probably the best thing about being in an academic setting is the opportunity to exchange ideas with extremely thoughtful and accomplished people like MC. MC is a professor at HBS, general partner at a Latin American VC firm that he founded, on the board of Accion a very successful microfinance organization and a member of the Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College. By some external measures of success, he’s got it all, a supportive and healthy family life, financial security (he had a lot of success in his career at KKR), social impact (Accion is one of the leading firms in providing financial services to the poor), academic advancement in his field of social entrepreneurship which he teaches about and researches at HBS. Today I had the opportunity to sit down with him and talk about his story, career advice and making money by helping the poor.

It was one of those memorable discussions where you are in the right place both physically and developmentally to really engage and benefit from a discussion with another person who has been through and experienced some of the things you want to experience.

MC started his career at Dartmouth in the 60s at a time of social change and revolution where governments were changed and the idea of government debated. After graduation he did not know what he wanted to do but knew firmly that he DID NOT want to paricipate in business which he believed at the time to be the source of social ills. He would tell his business friends that someday they would be up against the firing squad. Upon returning to Latin America and joining in the political opposition there he was given some words of advice by a friend who managed a part of what is today Unilever’s business in Latin America: “If you truly believe that business is the enemy, why not learn about the beast from within? And oh btw, I need a purchasing manager for my business here. From then on MC embarked on a successful career in business which took him to HBS for business school, BCG for consulting, and KKR doing leveraged buyouts. In the meantime he continued to tell himself that someday he was going to help cure the social ills of the world as he set out to do when he was younger. At some point, the same friend “Scott” from Unilever made him aware of an opportunity to be on the board of Accion International whose mission was to provide financial services to the poor. This became an opportunity which he began to learn fit in with both his beliefs of addressing social inequities and his skills and experience from the financial world. So at some point he had a choice to make – continue making a boatload of money doing very interesting things at KKR or taking a large paycut and being the person he has always said he wanted to be. Ultimately he decided on the latter because he realized if he did not, he would always be the person who “just talked about curing social ills” and would never actually do it. He realized that making such decisions will DEFINE who you are.

MC’s view is that there are no moral compasses or even social compasses by which you should judge whether a career choice is a good or a bad one, rather a given opportunity is simply the right one for you or not the right one for you. Simply the feeling you get when you walk into the door will tell you whether all the components are there that you hope to achieve. Analyze with your mind, choose with your heart. Don’t spend your career building a resume only to one day get hit by a car crossing the street (“what’s your tombstone gonna say? he never did what he wanted but he sure built a damn fine resume!”)

This was all extremely wonderful for me to hear about from someone who has been through it and made difficult choices but in the end was able to have his cake and eat it too. The key takeaway for me really was in how all of this came about without planning but with a crossing the stream by sensing the rocks approach. In that way, I also feel that in my past experiences I’ve learned more and more about what fits me and what will fascinate and challenge me for the future. For example, at JJDC this summer getting paid well, building a resume, doing interesting and important stuff with brilliant people was fabulous but the missing piece was the social impact of my work. In much the same way, seeing patients as I understand it so far in medical school is socially useful, personally gratifying but lacks a wider social impact and the intellectual challenges of creativity, initiative and risk that I love so much about entrepreneurship and venture capital.

In the course of talking about careers, I also learned a lot from MC about microfinance and social entrepreneurship that I would like to touch on briefly here. First, the now validated evidence that YOU CAN MAKE MONEY BY HELPING POOR PEOPLE is something that he has demonstrated through his career and success with Accion and this is one of my most fundamental beliefs or hopes about what I can do with my life and career. Second, MC pointed out that microfinance is NOT for everyone, you do not want to loan money to someone who does not have sufficient caloric intake to work. “The only thing worse than being desperately poor is desperately poor with DEBT”. Rather you want to provide microfinance to those who are already delivering the 6 bottles of oil every day and by allowing them through access to working capital to decrease their costs increase their supply and efficiency to lower the price of oil for everyone in that community, including the starving person.

Third, MC’s take on the current impasse in helping the poor is in health care DELIVERY. The treatments (such as vitamin A for blindness) are available often for pennies but the challenge is how to deliver these interventions to the poor? He has also learned that no organization for profit or not can succeed without four elements: SCALE, PERMANENCE, IMPACT and EFFICIENCY. For example, he is currently working on a joint project between HBS and Harvard School of Public Health called Antaries that aims to identify commercial interventions using the 80/20 rule where interventions can be rethought and redesigned from being “public goods” provided by government or NGOs to private goods that the private sector can validate and model and mass market to the poor. It involves rethinking of the poor as “end users” instead of the doctor-disease-patient centric approach in medicine or disease impact on society perspective of public health. For example, instead of treating iron-deficient anemics in low income communities with government mandated policies to distribute bad tasting pills through underresourced clinics or schools, how does one make a good tasting soda supplemented with iron and market it (say with Shakira advertising it) to the kids in these communities as great tasting and oh btw it will improve your health rather than the other way around. Ironically, the current soft drink makers that do similar things tout the “health benefits” of drinks rather than focus on making it a great product first.

Another example is paint that has anti-malarial insecticide in it which people would buy because 1) its a great color and has great protective properties 2) is affordable 3) will keep more mosquitoes away. This would help replace malaria nets which are hard to use and uncomfortable and potentially not useful for people to use. It would be distributed not by enthusiastic NGOs or inefficient governments but by the private sector who sees one organization being successful at it and that organization spawns an industry wide adoption of similar products and concepts. Like microfinance, success in a few leading organizations will catalyze an entire industry of profit seeking companies that because they are seeking profit delivery advertently or inadvertently a social good.

Another example is of drug stores that contract out the sales of condoms to peers and thereby allow young people to earn money by selling condoms that are cheaper than the competition. It is a superior product, sold in a more effective way that reaches more people.

Mexican “minute clinics” where you charge 2 dollars a visit for a no-wait consultation with a doctor and meds that are 30% cheaper than at the hospital which the poor prefer to no-cost 12hr waits at hospitals for “free healthcare”.

MC was quick to point out from his prior experiences that the key to success of Bancosol in Bolivia which is a commercial entity that provides financial services to low income community was a first mover advantage, scale and STRONG management which drives increasing cost efficiencies despite price competition. This example has spawned hundreds of similar banks throughout latin america.

Personal notes: MC has 1 son working for a NY law firm and lives in Boston. I will keep him updated on my career both in terms of the MD/MBA and my experience in Burundi this winter. I think documenting these rituals in Burundi and finding opportunities for commercial ventures is one of my goals for the upcoming trip to Burundi.