Saw Jacqueline Novogratz

The founder of the Acumen Fund, she was well-spoken and a compelling presence. She told the amazing story of the titular blue sweater (of which I won a signed copy in a raffle!), touched on Sachs/Moyo/Easterly ("Dambisa raised the right debate but the answer needs more nuance"), told of how Acumen had to "start with the mediocre" (although one of their first three investments was Aravind - not bad!) and how her biggest challenge is to "maintain the intellectual honesty and moral courage to keep confronting the biggest new issues that arise". Perhaps the best part was her career advice of being true to yourself ("There are a lot of people who come to me saying they want to be social entrepreneurs, but they aren't entrepreneurs... they should be supporting them in some way"). She and her brother Mike (a co-founder of Fortress) are both true to their respective childhood dreams about how to change the world (Mike's is more the get-rich-and-powerful-first approach). All in all her combination of passion and intellect is formidable and I'm glad I grabbed the opportunity to see her.

Update: Finished the book (~50% word-for-word, ~50% heavy skimming). It was good. I was already familiar with Acumen and some of their success stories, so it wasn't completely eye-opening, but she has led a fascinating life and is an admirable role model of someone living with purpose and powerfully melding intellect with compassion to make the world a better place.

Update 2: MR's Alex Tabarrok enjoyed it.