After a couple chapters, this book dragged and felt hard to get through. While I don't disagree with the author at all, I feel like he cherry-picked people to include. (And at times I wondered if the subjects he included were aware of how they were going to be portrayed in his book.) Finally, while everyday individuals obviously contribute to the unequal society we currently inhabit, why point the finger at everyday folks instead of the people with, you know, actual power? ( )

Thought leaders p.6 improving lives W/in the faulty system; p.30 McKinsey-Market World "its own thinkers called thought leaders"; p.38 self styled thought leaders (Adam Grant); p.60 conferences and companies ( )

This book was a real eye-opener for me. It helped me to understand why I was always vaguely uncomfortable with elites helping the disadvantaged. It is because they are offering the equivalent of "band-aid" solutions without addressing the underlying causes of inequality, poverty or discrimination. They are, in effect, protecting the status quo and their privileged position within it.

The other insight I gained was that when powerful, market-based elites step in, they are crowding government out. They want to avoid regulations that could hurt their businesses, so they provide "solutions" such as apps to average out fluctuating wages hoping to avoid labour laws that would provide employees with more stable hours of work. Governments are accountable to citizens; corporations are not. As a society, we need to work through our democratic institutions, not undermine them.

As the author points out, not every philanthropist is evil; they may not think too hard about what they are doing. In their minds, they work hard. They donate millions. They are good people. Sadly, I fear, this will only make bringing about change more difficult. But not impossible.

A critically important book! Well written in an engaging style. ( )

Loved this book. This has been a topic I've been very interested in. I feel like for the last few years, I have been reading and listening to things that help to give me tools to describe why Silicon Valley makes me very uncomfortable and why I don't think it should be a model for the rest of society. This book goes a lot broader than that and I loved everything it covered. I loved it as a sociology major but I would recommend it for anyone. ( )

"The winners of our age must be challenged to do more good. But never, ever tell them to do less harm." These are lines from a speech given by Anand Giridharedas, the author of this book, at the Aspen Institute which eventually led him to write this book. It is the central theme and driving force for the book and it really crystallized for me something that I was having trouble defining. I believe in solving problems through government and we have totally abandoned that idea for the "win-win" based world of private philanthropy. As he says "when a society helps people through its shared democratic institutions, it does so on behalf of all, and in a context of equality." I miss those days. The distrust of government, exacerbated by the crimes of Watergate and then boosted by President Reagan in the 80s has left us wide open to those who "weren't interested in making politics work better, but insisting on their own proprietary power..." This book is fascinating and it benefits greatly from the author's acknowledged insider status. The questions it asks are important and not easy to answer, but in the end it made me feel better to have read it, to remember the way we used to work together to make systems better instead of just making them so some people could make egregious profits. If we EVER fix the tax system to get back to a reasonable set of rates (hell, even the Reagan rates would be better than what we have now), if we strengthen labor laws so we don't allow companies to classify everyone as a contractor and not provide any steady wages or benefits, and if we provide an education system that lifts everyone in public schools then things can get better. I am so tired of the ubiquity of business talk in all segments of life and the elevation of the entrepreneur to the pinnacle of our society. Fixing the systems is what we need to be doing, not throwing some band aids at the symptoms. As Mr. Girdharadas says, "Generosity is not a substitute for justice." Far too often now we "replace civic goals with narrower concerns about efficiency and markets." Government should not be run like a business. I think we can all see that now. I am going to look at all the candidates for public office and really throw my support to those that want to fix things not figure that a rising tide will raise all boats. My only complaint about this book is that a couple of times he seems to circle back and introduce someone we have already met and there is some level of repetition throughout the book, but it is a very readable and understandable book that makes extremely important points. ( )