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*Building Social Business** The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanity's Most Pressing Needs
**Building Social Business** The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanity's Most Pressing Needs
By Muhammad Yunus
**Estimated Reading Time:** 45 minutes
**What You'll Learn** Why the world needs a new form of business that exists to solve problems rather than accumulate wealth. How social businesses operate, what makes them sustainable, and why they represent the missing piece in contemporary capitalism. You will encounter real companies that are already transforming lives, from banks owned by the poor to yogurt factories fighting malnutrition, and you will learn the principles required to build one yourself.
**Who This Book Is For** This book is for anyone who senses that business as usual is not enough. It is for entrepreneurs who want their work to mean something beyond a balance sheet. It is for corporate leaders who feel unfulfilled by profit alone. It is for policymakers, students, and citizens who believe that poverty, disease, and environmental collapse are not inevitable features of modern life but solvable problems waiting for the right kind of organization.
In 1974, Muhammad Yunus was a young economics professor at the University of Chittagong in Bangladesh. He taught elegant theories about markets and development in a comfortable classroom. Outside, a famine was killing people. He could see them dying in the streets. The theories he was teaching had nothing useful to say about what was happening a few hundred yards from his lecture hall. This gap between academic abstraction and human suffering became unbearable. He decided to step outside and learn from the people themselves. What he found changed the course of his life and eventually reshaped how millions of people think about business and poverty. He met a woman named Sufiya Begum who made bamboo stools. She borrowed money from a moneylender to buy raw materials, then sold the finished stools back to the same moneylender at a price he dictated. After repaying the loan with extortionate interest, she earned about two cents a day. She was trapped not by laziness or lack of skill but by a financial arrangement that made escape impossible. Yunus made a list of forty-two people in the village caught in the same trap. The total amount they needed to free themselves was twenty-seven dollars. He lent them the money himself. They all repaid him. That simple act, lending small amounts to poor people without collateral, eventually became Grameen Bank, an institution that has lent billions of dollars to millions of borrowers, almost all of them women, with repayment rates that would make most commercial banks envious. Grameen Bank is not a charity. It is a business that exists to solve a social problem. It covers its costs. It grows. It serves. It does…
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Get the complete summary in the appSocial business is a business that exists to solve a social problem, not to maximize profit. It covers its costs and rei
There are two types. Type I is a non-loss, non-dividend company. Type II is a profit-making company owned by poor people
The existing capitalist system is incomplete because it only recognizes the selfish dimension of human nature. Social bu
Grameen Bank proved that poor people are creditworthy. It lends without collateral, is owned by its borrowers, and has a
A good social mission does not guarantee success. Social businesses must compete on product quality, price, and customer
Cross-subsidization allows social businesses to serve both paying and non-paying customers sustainably.
"Building Social Business" is a strong fit if you want practical ideas around business—especially themes like social business is a business that exists to solve a social problem, not to maximize profit. it covers its costs and rei; there are two types. type i is a non-loss, non-dividend company. type ii is a profit-making company owned by poor people. The MinuteRead summary distills these concepts into a focused read, whether you're deciding whether to buy the book or applying its lessons at work.
Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi economist and banker renowned for pioneering microcredit and founding Grameen Bank. His work in providing small loans to entrepreneurs too poor for traditional banking has earned him global recognition, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Yunus has received numerous honors for his efforts in economic and social development. As a professor turned social entrepreneur, he has challenged conventional capitalism by promoting businesses that prioritize social impac…
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