Episode 64: Stop Taking Programmatic Approaches to Systemic Issues with Ben Hecht President & CEO at Living Cities

Startup HandMeDowns

This was a slightly different type of interview as I did not interview a serial entrepreneur who’s built multiple tech companies and sold it for millions or a venture capitalist but instead, I spoke with a different type of entrepreneur. Ben Hecht, Ben is an unusual type of entrepreneur because he actually focuses on philanthropy and more specifically on shortening the race pay gap and the racial wealth gap. I don’t think based on his work he’d call himself an entrepreneur but his approach to solving this problem is nothing short of entrepreneurial and it’s been he’s life’s work for over 20 years. From creating a site in the early 2000s allowing people from economically challenged backgrounds to improve their skills to today where he’s the CEO of Living Cities which is collaborating with large corporations and local governments to help achieve dramatically better results for low-income people through investment, research, networks. We talk about everything from systemic issues surrounding low-income households to what can be done to change things over the next 100 years. We also discuss his latest book Reclaiming the American Dream: Proven Solutions for Creating Economic Opportunity for All.

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