Bill Clinton On The Importance of Entrepreneurship

No president has, upon leaving office, launched himself as vigorously into supporting entrepreneurship as Bill Clinton. Both the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative have created programs to fund and mentor hundreds of entrepreneurs at home and abroad. In a wide-ranging interview - on everything from electric car charging stations to the proper role of banking regulation - the 42nd president shares with Inc. his vision and priorities for business leaders in the 21st century.

- An Inc. Interview with Bill Clinton By James Ledbetter, photograph by Marco Grob

Inc.: Let’s start by talking about the Clinton Global Initiative. Where does support for entrepreneurship fit into the broader CGI mission, and how has that role changed since the beginning?

Bill Clinton: When we started, we had this simple idea that people went to a lot of these meetings, and talked about solving a lot of these problems, and nobody ever did anything. So we were going to be different: If you wanted to come back next year, you had to commit to do something. For the first two or three years, about two-thirds of the commitments were made by foundations or standalones or NGOs. By 2008, and since then, more than 90 percent have been partnerships. And the success rate in terms of their stated goals basically went from about 86 percent [for stand alones] to 101 percent [for partnerships]. They exceeded their goals because they were working together.

So the first thing about entrepreneur ship in the context of CGI is that diverse partnerships make better decisions on new problems and challenges, and all these collaborations have really worked. And now it’s sort of our routine deal, and it’s made a big difference.

At CGI America, I remember several years ago President Obama said that the country needed 100,000 new STEM teachers in high schools. And it was obvious once the Republicans won the House of Representatives that he wasn’t going to get any more money. So the Carnegie Corporation came together to form 100Kin10—and we work with them—and they wound up with more than 200 other partners. To date, they have raised more than $80 million with no government money.