Embracing Big Bets

We live in challenging times. Faced with myriad global crises, it is easy to feel overwhelmed or cynical about our future. The good news is, we have solved significant problems before, and we can do it again. The problems our world is facing today—from conflict to climate change, from poverty to energy poverty—are the reasons I wrote Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens, which hits shelves today. I wanted to remind people what's possible when we set ambitious goals, identify innovative solutions, build partnerships to scale them, and measure our progress along the way.

I know this is possible because I’ve done it. Now I want you to join me.

This is the best time there has ever been for individuals to make a difference. It’s true that making big bets once required you to be a saint, a billionaire, a president, or someone who just happened to find themselves in the exact right place at the exact right time. Those days are in the past.

Now, anyone can make big bets. Anyone with the hearts and the smarts, the insight to identify a systemic problem, and the courage to work toward solving it.

Meeting the Moment with Big Bets

Now is the time for big bettors to step up. Today, inequalities determine who can eat well, enjoy good health, receive a quality education, make a living, vote, or even have reason to hope for a better future. As we embrace revolutions in renewable energy, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and more, we find ourselves at a crossroads: will we allow those advances to widen or shrink the gaps in human opportunity?

On one hand, we’ve seen new technologies used to limit people’s potential. For example, reporting from The Economist’s Intelligence Unit has found that less than seven percent of the global population lives in a full democracy. The rise of digital authoritarianism through mis- and dis-information, censorship, and automated surveillance systems has undeniably played a role in the decline of democracy worldwide.

On the other hand, we’ve seen how technological advances, when used for the right purposes, can benefit humanity. Renewable energy technologies, like solar-powered mini-grids, have empowered people living far from the grid, allowing them to participate in the modern economy and build better, more prosperous lives. Data and digital tools have helped health care workers improve child and maternal health in their communities. AI is helping us analyze and respond quicker and more effectively to climate crises, disease outbreaks, food shortages, and more.

These innovations can, and should, be forces for good. But that will require intentional, collaborative action among would-be changemakers.

The Next Generation of Big Bettors

There is no shortage of reasons to be optimistic about our ability to create a better future, but there is a shortage of belief that a better future is even possible. I hope Big Bets will help you and many others realize that together, we can make transformational change and build a world that is fairer, freer, and safer.

I hope that Big Bets inspires you to act, that you will share the book with the people in your life that you want to inspire as well, and that you will join me in making big bets for our collective future. I can’t wait to see what we can accomplish together.

 If you want to learn more about the big bets The Rockefeller Foundation is making or join our Big Bets community, you can do that here. And if you want to purchase a copy of Big Bets for yourself, a friend, or a loved one, you can do that here.