Adam Grant

It's not obvious to me, though, that that would be the immediate route to go.

I was in Slovenia recently, and they just passed a constitutional amendment giving everyone the right to clean water.

That just seems like it should be a fundamental human right, right?

You could have gone to lobby Congress, or the UN for that matter.

How did you decide on microfinance, Gary?

It's, I mean, it's so compelling and at the same time not at all obvious, I think, to the average person, right?

I think people understand hunger more viscerally than they do thirst.

Because people have been hungry.

Exactly.

And also you just look around and you assume water's everywhere, whereas food shortages are kind of easy to imagine, right?

So how are you thinking now about making this more vivid and more visceral?

You can show a water shortage in The Martian.

You can film the Odyssey around water.

Right.

What have you learned about how to get people to taste and feel how important this is?

You know, I'm thinking a little bit about there's a whole body of research on the baby Jessica effect.

You remember back in the late 80s, right, when the baby girl fell down the well and donations poured in that really were not needed.

And that single identifiable victim is so much more motivating than the statistical problem.

I know.

So, I mean, that seems like one way to humanize this issue is to pick the particular girl in Zambia and show both the need and also the impact.