WEBVTT - My Little Hundred Million 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:15.796 Bushkin. 0:00:18.596 --> 0:00:21.636 In Glassboro, New Jersey, a little community half an hour 0:00:21.716 --> 0:00:24.916 south of Philadelphia, there's a statue right by the road 0:00:24.916 --> 0:00:27.596 as you drive into town. It's of a man named 0:00:27.596 --> 0:00:31.436 Henry Rowan. He liked to be called Hank. Whenever Hank 0:00:31.516 --> 0:00:34.716 Rohan came to Glassboro, he was mobbed like a rock star, 0:00:35.396 --> 0:00:38.116 which probably embarrassed him because he wasn't given to those 0:00:38.196 --> 0:00:41.436 kinds of displays. When Hank Rowan died in December of 0:00:41.476 --> 0:00:45.396 twenty fifteen, there was a huge memorial service. Then in 0:00:45.436 --> 0:00:48.796 the evening, students from the local college gathered around his statue, 0:00:49.036 --> 0:00:53.436 holding candles and sang for him as earnestly as only 0:00:53.516 --> 0:01:00.276 college kids can. 0:01:01.796 --> 0:01:02.476 Let me sell you. 0:01:17.276 --> 0:01:20.556 My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, 0:01:20.996 --> 0:01:32.676 my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This episode is 0:01:32.756 --> 0:01:35.836 my eulogy for Hank Rowan. I never met him, but 0:01:35.916 --> 0:01:39.356 he's a hero of mine. I want to understand why 0:01:39.396 --> 0:01:44.276 he didn't become everyone's hero. Why Hank Rowan's example didn't 0:01:44.316 --> 0:01:49.556 spread beyond Glassborne, Jersey. 0:01:53.676 --> 0:01:56.316 He was six foot one or so, not not a 0:01:56.356 --> 0:01:59.116 huge football player size, and you know, one hundred and 0:01:59.196 --> 0:02:03.636 eighty pounds no thin, but not skinny, and had a 0:02:03.676 --> 0:02:05.836 loud voice, strong presence. 0:02:05.996 --> 0:02:08.716 And yeah he was what was his management style, like. 0:02:10.156 --> 0:02:11.276 Benevolent dictator. 0:02:11.636 --> 0:02:15.756 I think that's Rowan's daughter, Ginny Smith. She now runs 0:02:15.756 --> 0:02:19.036 the company her father started in nineteen fifty three. It's 0:02:19.036 --> 0:02:22.596 called Inducto Therm. It's right off the New Jersey Turnpike. 0:02:23.276 --> 0:02:25.596 They make industrial furnaces for melting metal. 0:02:25.716 --> 0:02:28.956 He started the company basically in our garage and then 0:02:29.076 --> 0:02:31.236 he sold his first job to the Mint, which was 0:02:31.316 --> 0:02:33.156 kind of fun, and then the second job to Ge 0:02:33.356 --> 0:02:36.156 and then the furnaces just got bigger and bigger. Now 0:02:36.276 --> 0:02:40.036 some of them are fifty ton They're just huge. And 0:02:40.796 --> 0:02:43.396 kept branching out and acquired some companies and it kind 0:02:43.436 --> 0:02:46.236 of it grew like topsy. But he also worked very, 0:02:46.356 --> 0:02:48.236 very hard at it and hired good people. 0:02:48.796 --> 0:02:53.356 Rowan built Inducto Therm into a multinational corporation thousands of 0:02:53.396 --> 0:02:56.916 employees around the world, and he became a very wealthy man, 0:02:57.436 --> 0:02:58.716 although you wouldn't have known it. 0:02:59.116 --> 0:03:01.956 You know, he would run around and scuffed shoes and 0:03:01.996 --> 0:03:03.596 tried to not worried about that. He didn't care how 0:03:03.596 --> 0:03:04.476 he dressed her looked. 0:03:04.716 --> 0:03:09.076 Roan was an engineer, raced sailboats, flew planes, bleeding hard work, 0:03:09.436 --> 0:03:10.156 free enterprise. 0:03:10.636 --> 0:03:12.436 But you couldn't get him to buy a fancy car. 0:03:12.476 --> 0:03:14.596 He was a nash rambler guy in the early days, 0:03:14.996 --> 0:03:19.236 and he pooh poohed Mercedes because Mercedes wasn't one of 0:03:19.236 --> 0:03:20.236 our customers. 0:03:21.196 --> 0:03:23.676 Did he drive sort of nearly. 0:03:23.476 --> 0:03:27.836 Near He drove Ozama bills and buicks and finding the 0:03:27.876 --> 0:03:30.356 company here in Sicity. Drive a Lincoln. He drove it 0:03:30.356 --> 0:03:31.556 into the ground just about. 0:03:32.036 --> 0:03:32.196 Oh. 0:03:32.196 --> 0:03:34.476 It had a Cadillac once, but he towed his boats 0:03:34.476 --> 0:03:36.476 with that too, because it had a bigger engine. You know, 0:03:37.756 --> 0:03:40.196 none of us drive around and wave at people's stuff. 0:03:40.276 --> 0:03:40.516 Yeah. 0:03:40.716 --> 0:03:41.676 Yeah. 0:03:41.916 --> 0:03:44.876 Almost thirty years ago, Hank Rowan became friends with a 0:03:44.876 --> 0:03:47.756 man named Phil to Minia. To Minya was head of 0:03:47.796 --> 0:03:51.716 development for the local college, Glassboro State, just down the road, 0:03:52.156 --> 0:03:54.836 a little university started back in the nineteen twenties on 0:03:54.876 --> 0:03:58.316 twenty five acres too. Minya would drop by and see 0:03:58.396 --> 0:04:01.196 Rowan on his way up to Trenton. Everyone involved with 0:04:01.236 --> 0:04:03.956 Glassboro and Rowan has their own version of this story, 0:04:04.556 --> 0:04:07.076 but here's how Rowan remembered it in an interview he 0:04:07.116 --> 0:04:09.996 gave a few years before he died with Don Ferris, 0:04:10.036 --> 0:04:13.396 who's the former president of Glasboro State. He asked Rowan 0:04:13.676 --> 0:04:15.796 how he first got involved with the college. 0:04:16.196 --> 0:04:18.996 Well, I think we blame it all on Phil Tomidia 0:04:19.716 --> 0:04:23.956 because he came to see me and asked if I 0:04:24.036 --> 0:04:27.556 might make a donation to the scholarship fund of fifteen 0:04:27.676 --> 0:04:31.196 hundred dollars. Well that sounded easy, fifteen hundred dollars, so 0:04:31.836 --> 0:04:34.596 we gave him fifteen hundred dollars. And you know what 0:04:34.836 --> 0:04:35.396 he came. 0:04:35.236 --> 0:04:38.796 Back to many I wanted Rowan to give money to 0:04:38.836 --> 0:04:41.916 the business school, which was pretty dilapidated. 0:04:42.156 --> 0:04:44.596 So he pushed that for a while and finally said, Phil, 0:04:44.876 --> 0:04:48.716 I have zero interest in your school of business. What 0:04:48.876 --> 0:04:54.156 this world needs is more engineering, how to make things 0:04:54.236 --> 0:04:57.636 we have to produce? And Phil, what would you do 0:04:57.676 --> 0:05:01.276 with one hundred million dollars? And he nearly fell off 0:05:01.276 --> 0:05:05.836 the chair. But that's how we got to that level, 0:05:05.876 --> 0:05:07.796 and that's what was the beginning. 0:05:08.396 --> 0:05:11.196 So you're the one that suggested one hundred million dollar figure. 0:05:11.036 --> 0:05:13.036 Not oh yeah, you were talking about ten. 0:05:13.316 --> 0:05:17.516 I see, this is nineteen ninety two, A generation ago. 0:05:18.076 --> 0:05:21.236 Almost nobody gave donations of one hundred million dollars. Back then, 0:05:21.796 --> 0:05:25.596 this was unheard of money. Rowan's gift made headlines around 0:05:25.636 --> 0:05:28.116 the country. He set a new standard. 0:05:28.316 --> 0:05:30.956 Did you think it changed the world? The in right ability. 0:05:32.276 --> 0:05:35.396 At Rowan's memorial service, phil Toominia gets up and says, 0:05:35.516 --> 0:05:38.716 I think accurately that Roan is the person who triggered 0:05:38.836 --> 0:05:41.636 what has become one of the greatest explosions in educational 0:05:41.636 --> 0:05:45.556 philanthropy since the days of Andrew Carnegie and the Rockefellers. 0:05:45.716 --> 0:05:49.596 From July of nineteen ninety two until the end of 0:05:49.636 --> 0:05:54.596 that decade, twenty gifts twenty gifts of one hundred million 0:05:54.636 --> 0:05:57.836 dollars of war we were given out in this country. 0:05:58.356 --> 0:06:01.596 According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy. As of right now 0:06:01.756 --> 0:06:05.076 spring of twenty sixteen, we're up to eighty seven gifts 0:06:05.156 --> 0:06:07.436 of one hundred million dollars or more to higher education. 0:06:08.396 --> 0:06:17.596 So everyone followed Rowan's lead, except not really. Rowan gave 0:06:17.636 --> 0:06:20.996 his money to Glasporo State College, a public university in 0:06:21.036 --> 0:06:23.676 a sleepy little town in South Jersey that no one 0:06:23.716 --> 0:06:27.676 had ever heard of. The college was close to broke 0:06:28.156 --> 0:06:30.796 at the time. They had an endowment of seven hundred 0:06:30.836 --> 0:06:34.436 and eighty seven thousand dollars. But the people who followed 0:06:34.436 --> 0:06:37.596 Hank Rowan, who were inspired by the size of his donation. 0:06:38.956 --> 0:06:42.036 Almost all of them gave money to wealthy, prestigious schools. 0:06:42.876 --> 0:06:44.836 Let me just read to you the names of some 0:06:44.916 --> 0:06:48.476 of the educational institutions that had received the largest donations 0:06:48.516 --> 0:06:53.876 in American history. Ready, in twenty thirteen, the billionaire co 0:06:53.916 --> 0:06:57.236 founder of Nike, Phil Knight, pledged half a billion to 0:06:57.276 --> 0:07:00.716 the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Okay. Not 0:07:00.796 --> 0:07:05.356 the most prestigious institution in America. But wait, then, come 0:07:05.756 --> 0:07:08.836 three four hundred million dollar donations. The first is the 0:07:08.836 --> 0:07:12.116 billionaire John Klugie's gift to Columbia University in two thousand 0:07:12.156 --> 0:07:15.836 and seven. The second is the hedge fund manager John 0:07:15.876 --> 0:07:19.916 Paulson's gift to Harvard University in twenty fifteen. The third 0:07:20.156 --> 0:07:23.036 is Phil Knight's gift to Stanford University in twenty sixteen. 0:07:23.716 --> 0:07:26.556 And after that, in order, here are the universities that 0:07:26.596 --> 0:07:33.076 get the biggest donations. JOHNS. Hopkins Harvard again, University of Chicago, Princeton, Tuft's, 0:07:33.116 --> 0:07:38.556 Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Yale, Penn, Claremont McKenna, Columbia again, Baylor, 0:07:38.876 --> 0:07:43.916 USC Columbia a third time, Michigan University of California, Wisconsin. 0:07:45.916 --> 0:07:48.396 I could go on if you want, through all eighty seven, 0:07:48.676 --> 0:07:52.236 but basically we're talking about the same wealthy, elite schools 0:07:52.516 --> 0:07:57.116 getting the biggest donations again and again. Hank Rowan did 0:07:57.156 --> 0:08:07.876 something unprecedented, and nobody followed him. This episode is the 0:08:07.916 --> 0:08:11.956 third in my three part revisionist history miniseries re examining 0:08:11.996 --> 0:08:15.636 the promise of higher education. The first installment was about 0:08:15.676 --> 0:08:19.316 why the educational system struggles to find talented, low income students. 0:08:20.036 --> 0:08:23.156 The second episode was a comparison of Vassar and Boden 0:08:23.436 --> 0:08:26.036 and why it's so difficult for some colleges to find 0:08:26.076 --> 0:08:28.996 the money for financial aid. But today I want to 0:08:29.036 --> 0:08:32.756 talk about educational philanthropy, which I think is an issue 0:08:32.756 --> 0:08:36.876 that doesn't get talked about nearly enough. Higher education in 0:08:36.876 --> 0:08:40.596 the United States runs on philanthropy. There are almost no 0:08:40.796 --> 0:08:43.236 schools that can pay their bills just on the strength 0:08:43.276 --> 0:08:47.476 of students tuition. Those days are over. Philanthropy is what 0:08:47.596 --> 0:08:51.556 makes the wheels turned. But there's a problem. A lot 0:08:51.556 --> 0:08:54.716 of that philanthropy doesn't make any sense. It's going to 0:08:54.756 --> 0:09:02.116 the wrong places for the wrong reasons. Those of you 0:09:02.156 --> 0:09:04.396 who follow me on Twitter will know that I'm obsessed 0:09:04.476 --> 0:09:07.836 with this issue. After John Paulson gave his four hundred 0:09:07.836 --> 0:09:10.356 million dollars to Harvard and to twenty fifteen, I had 0:09:10.356 --> 0:09:14.156 a kind of Twitter meltdown, sending tweet after tweet, including 0:09:14.636 --> 0:09:16.836 it came down to helping the poor or giving the 0:09:16.876 --> 0:09:20.116 world's richest university fond of million dollars. It doesn't need 0:09:20.516 --> 0:09:24.876 wise choice, John, and then if billionaires don't step up, 0:09:25.116 --> 0:09:27.556 Harvard will soon be down to its last thirty billion. 0:09:28.396 --> 0:09:31.196 Then when Phil Knight gave fondred million dollars to Stanford, 0:09:31.516 --> 0:09:33.756 I got called up for comment by The New York Times. 0:09:34.276 --> 0:09:36.596 I said that Stamford was part of a crazy arms 0:09:36.676 --> 0:09:39.556 race and ought to cut its endowment in half and 0:09:39.596 --> 0:09:41.996 give the balance to schools that actually need the money. 0:09:42.636 --> 0:09:44.996 The next day, I got an email from the President 0:09:45.036 --> 0:09:48.436 of Stanford, John Hennessy. He wanted to get together and 0:09:48.516 --> 0:09:51.436 convince me I was wrong. So I talked to him, 0:09:51.676 --> 0:09:54.916 and we'll get to that conversation in a minute. For now, 0:09:54.996 --> 0:09:58.636 I will only say that I was completely baffled by 0:09:58.676 --> 0:10:01.236 my talk with Hennessy. It was as if he and 0:10:01.276 --> 0:10:05.156 I were speaking different languages. I understand the people who 0:10:05.196 --> 0:10:08.316 give money to those who need money, the people who 0:10:08.396 --> 0:10:10.796 give money to these those who already have all the 0:10:10.796 --> 0:10:14.596 money they need. I don't understand that. What are they thinking? 0:10:19.236 --> 0:10:21.436 Let me run an idea by you, which I think 0:10:21.516 --> 0:10:25.796 helps to frame this question. It has to do with soccer, actually, 0:10:25.956 --> 0:10:29.876 the difference between soccer and basketball. This idea comes from 0:10:29.876 --> 0:10:33.396 two economists named David Sally and Chris Anderson, who wrote 0:10:33.396 --> 0:10:35.316 a really great book a couple of years ago about 0:10:35.316 --> 0:10:38.876 soccer called The Numbers Game. One of the questions they 0:10:38.876 --> 0:10:41.716 asked was what matters more if you want to build 0:10:41.716 --> 0:10:44.716 a great soccer team, how good your best player is 0:10:45.316 --> 0:10:48.516 or how good your worst player is. And their answer was, 0:10:48.996 --> 0:10:52.476 in soccer, what matters is how good your worst player is. 0:10:53.036 --> 0:10:55.796 Soccer is a game where if you get a single goal, 0:10:55.836 --> 0:10:57.796 if you just happen to be lucky, that goal may 0:10:57.836 --> 0:10:58.396 hold up. 0:10:58.716 --> 0:11:00.236 That's David Sally, and. 0:11:00.196 --> 0:11:03.876 So mistakes turn out to be a very important part 0:11:04.036 --> 0:11:07.036 of soccer as a team sport that leads you to 0:11:07.116 --> 0:11:10.756 think about well, mistakes more often happen or more often 0:11:10.756 --> 0:11:12.796 produced by weaker players on the pitch. 0:11:13.236 --> 0:11:16.836 Sally's argument goes like this, a soccer team has eleven 0:11:16.876 --> 0:11:19.876 players on the field at any one time. Suppose one 0:11:19.956 --> 0:11:23.236 is a superstar and your worst player is maybe only 0:11:23.316 --> 0:11:26.876 forty five percent as good as a superstar. Because soccer 0:11:26.956 --> 0:11:29.636 is a sport where everyone on the field depends on 0:11:29.796 --> 0:11:33.476 everyone else, that forty five percent player can make one 0:11:33.516 --> 0:11:37.076 mistake and completely negate the skill of the best player. 0:11:37.276 --> 0:11:39.396 You can have eight beautiful passes in a row, but 0:11:39.436 --> 0:11:42.516 if your worst player, your forty five percent player, botches 0:11:42.636 --> 0:11:46.356 the ninth, then all the previous eight beautiful passes are 0:11:46.396 --> 0:11:46.876 all wasted. 0:11:46.996 --> 0:11:50.836 That's right, and because of the nature of soccer that 0:11:50.916 --> 0:11:54.596 those eight beautiful passes may have only increased your likelihood 0:11:54.636 --> 0:11:57.156 of victory by a small percent, but then it goes 0:11:57.276 --> 0:11:59.796 right back to zero because somebody turns the ball over. 0:12:00.276 --> 0:12:04.036 Sally and Anderson did a statistical analysis. They looked at 0:12:04.036 --> 0:12:06.556 the top soccer clubs in Europe and showed that if 0:12:06.596 --> 0:12:10.516 those teams upgraded their poorest players instead of their best players, 0:12:10.916 --> 0:12:14.556 they would score more goals and win more games a 0:12:14.596 --> 0:12:17.556 lot more. Soccer is a weak link game. 0:12:18.036 --> 0:12:21.356 Yes, having a better superstar was of course better, but 0:12:21.876 --> 0:12:24.916 actually having a better end of the bench or eleventh 0:12:24.956 --> 0:12:27.876 guy on the pitch was actually more influential to whether 0:12:27.916 --> 0:12:29.596 you won matches or not, which. 0:12:29.436 --> 0:12:32.916 Would be the exact opposite of basketball. 0:12:33.116 --> 0:12:36.116 Yeah, basketball is probably the opposite end of the continuum 0:12:36.156 --> 0:12:39.436 from If you think about soccer is maybe the weakest 0:12:39.476 --> 0:12:43.356 link sport, Basketball is probably the most superstarter of a 0:12:43.396 --> 0:12:44.396 team sport that we have. 0:12:44.876 --> 0:12:48.156 Even the greatest basketball teams often have won, and sometimes 0:12:48.196 --> 0:12:52.556 even two players who are barely better than mediocre. What 0:12:52.596 --> 0:12:55.676 matters in basketball is not how good your fifth player is, 0:12:55.956 --> 0:12:59.516 It's how good your superstar is. It's a strong link game. 0:13:00.996 --> 0:13:04.076 Think about Lionel Messi, maybe the greatest soccer player of 0:13:04.076 --> 0:13:07.996 his generation, versus Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of 0:13:07.996 --> 0:13:08.596 his generation. 0:13:09.276 --> 0:13:12.836 Jordan could do on a basketball court was Jordan could 0:13:12.916 --> 0:13:15.716 guarantee or virtually guarantee that he could get the ball. 0:13:15.796 --> 0:13:18.636 You couldn't really stop him, right. He could go to 0:13:18.716 --> 0:13:20.956 the back court, pick up the ball. He could dribble 0:13:20.996 --> 0:13:23.956 it forward. He could break double teams. You could try 0:13:23.956 --> 0:13:26.996 to send three guys at him, but then you're really 0:13:27.036 --> 0:13:29.436 opening yourself up. He could go and get a shot. 0:13:29.876 --> 0:13:34.796 Leo Messi is so good that sometimes from rare times 0:13:35.156 --> 0:13:37.596 where in fact he can dribble the length of the pitch. 0:13:37.956 --> 0:13:40.876 But the fact is that he in most instances, he 0:13:40.916 --> 0:13:43.196 really can't. He needs to be He needs those eight 0:13:43.236 --> 0:13:46.396 beautiful passes to set him up, and then he could 0:13:46.436 --> 0:13:48.676 do something amazingly transcendent with it. 0:13:54.556 --> 0:13:58.316 I think the weak link strong link distinction is incredibly 0:13:58.436 --> 0:14:01.476 useful in making sense of certain kinds of problems. I 0:14:01.516 --> 0:14:05.236 suppose I said to you, for example, here's fifty billion dollars. 0:14:05.836 --> 0:14:07.876 Spend it in a way that makes air travel in 0:14:07.916 --> 0:14:10.876 the United States more efficient. The last thing you would 0:14:10.876 --> 0:14:12.636 do is to go to Denver, which has that big, 0:14:12.676 --> 0:14:15.796 gorgeous new airport, and make it even bigger and even 0:14:15.836 --> 0:14:18.996 more gorgeous. No, you go to the worst and most 0:14:19.036 --> 0:14:22.876 crowded airports in the country, LaGuardia, Newark, Kennedy, and make 0:14:22.956 --> 0:14:26.596 them better. Because every single day, delays at Newark and 0:14:26.676 --> 0:14:30.796 LaGuardia and Kennedy ripple across the country and delay planes everywhere. 0:14:31.116 --> 0:14:34.836 You'd spend all fifty billion dollars in New York. If 0:14:34.916 --> 0:14:37.916 you do that, you're essentially saying air travel in the 0:14:37.996 --> 0:14:41.476 United States is a weak link problem. We're limited by 0:14:41.516 --> 0:14:44.556 how good our appalling New York airports are more than 0:14:44.596 --> 0:14:48.716 by how good our best airports are. Here's another example, 0:14:49.356 --> 0:14:52.036 One of the great puzzles of the Industrial Revolution is 0:14:52.036 --> 0:14:55.716 why it began in England, why not France or Germany. 0:14:56.796 --> 0:14:58.836 One theory is that Britain was lucky enough to have 0:14:58.876 --> 0:15:01.956 more geniuses than anyone else, like James Watt who invents 0:15:01.956 --> 0:15:05.756 the steam engine. But there's an economist named Joel Moker 0:15:05.916 --> 0:15:09.596 who makes a really compelling argument that England's advance is 0:15:09.636 --> 0:15:13.036 that it had way more craftsmen and skilled engineers and 0:15:13.196 --> 0:15:18.156 experienced in mechanically minded backyard tinkers than anyone else. Those 0:15:18.156 --> 0:15:20.676 were the people who were able to take those inventions 0:15:20.716 --> 0:15:24.276 and perfect them and make them useful. Moker is saying 0:15:24.476 --> 0:15:28.356 that the Industrial Revolution was a weak link phenomenon, not 0:15:28.396 --> 0:15:32.116 a strong link phenomenon, and because Britain had more craftsmen 0:15:32.156 --> 0:15:35.676 than France or Germany, that gave Britain a huge advantage. 0:15:39.756 --> 0:15:43.996 So what's Hank rowan? Hank Rohn is a weak link guy. 0:15:44.116 --> 0:15:46.276 He wants to make a difference to make his country 0:15:46.316 --> 0:15:49.316 a better place, and he thinks the best way to 0:15:49.396 --> 0:15:52.236 do that is to improve the forty five percent player, 0:15:52.596 --> 0:15:56.876 not the superstar. He thinks America is soccer, not basketball. 0:15:57.636 --> 0:16:00.716 You're a graduate of MIT right here. 0:16:00.756 --> 0:16:03.396 He is again in the interview with Don Ferish of 0:16:03.436 --> 0:16:04.356 Glasboro State. 0:16:05.116 --> 0:16:09.316 Now, I would assume that MIT at that time would 0:16:09.316 --> 0:16:12.596 have been interested in receiving a gift of that size 0:16:12.596 --> 0:16:15.556 from you. Did you did you think about giving it 0:16:15.636 --> 0:16:17.116 to that university? 0:16:17.196 --> 0:16:20.516 You're no, okay. They were at the time trying to 0:16:20.636 --> 0:16:28.116 raise seven hundred and fifty million dollars, and my little 0:16:28.316 --> 0:16:30.836 Hunter Mayon wouldn't have made hardly any immerge at. 0:16:30.716 --> 0:16:36.156 All, hardly any difference at all. That's David Sally's point 0:16:36.156 --> 0:16:40.316 about soccer. Upgrading the superstar doesn't help as much as 0:16:40.396 --> 0:16:44.476 upgrading the worst player. Here's Hank Rowen's daughter Jinny again. 0:16:44.836 --> 0:16:49.356 Basically, he said MIT had the greatest engineering school bar none. 0:16:49.396 --> 0:16:52.156 He said it was the best education he could ever imagine. 0:16:52.556 --> 0:16:54.396 And he said, I'm sure they would do good things 0:16:54.436 --> 0:16:56.876 with my money, they'd build a building or do something positive. 0:16:56.916 --> 0:16:59.556 But he said it wouldn't make the difference that it's 0:16:59.596 --> 0:17:02.116 going to make down here. He said, I enjoy making 0:17:02.156 --> 0:17:03.436 a difference in this world. 0:17:04.316 --> 0:17:07.716 So he funds an engineering school in Glassboro. It's not 0:17:07.836 --> 0:17:10.676 the best or the fancy engineering school in the country, 0:17:10.996 --> 0:17:15.916 but it's not supposed to be. So it's one one 0:17:15.996 --> 0:17:16.796 four story building? 0:17:16.876 --> 0:17:19.036 Is it four is it's three story building? And then 0:17:19.076 --> 0:17:20.916 it has two wings to it, and there's labs. 0:17:20.956 --> 0:17:21.676 We'll walk down. 0:17:22.196 --> 0:17:24.676 I went for a tour with Joe Cardona, the university's 0:17:24.716 --> 0:17:25.356 head of pr. 0:17:26.796 --> 0:17:28.916 You know, we're in a state institution, so a building 0:17:28.956 --> 0:17:29.716 like this was like wow. 0:17:29.716 --> 0:17:30.436 I was bang. 0:17:30.476 --> 0:17:33.156 You know, look it's an engineer and building. Yeah, and 0:17:33.796 --> 0:17:35.356 so here, why don't we just walk down a holiday 0:17:35.396 --> 0:17:35.516 of it. 0:17:35.636 --> 0:17:36.596 Yeah. 0:17:36.996 --> 0:17:39.196 The school was built in the mid nineteen nineties for 0:17:39.276 --> 0:17:42.756 five hundred students. They've now crammed seven hundred and fifty 0:17:42.796 --> 0:17:45.116 into the building while they wait for a new annex 0:17:45.156 --> 0:17:48.396 to be finished next door. Eventually they want to double 0:17:48.436 --> 0:17:52.076 the school size. The point is not to be more exclusive, 0:17:52.516 --> 0:17:56.596 it's to get bigger to serve more students. Cardona and 0:17:56.636 --> 0:17:58.876 I stopped by a lab where a group of students 0:17:58.876 --> 0:18:02.076 were working on a Baja car, basically a home engineer 0:18:02.156 --> 0:18:05.076 doom buggy that will race against other engineering schools on 0:18:05.116 --> 0:18:06.116 an endurance course. 0:18:06.556 --> 0:18:09.116 So we got some aircraft grade aluminum. We have it 0:18:09.156 --> 0:18:11.476 two access water jack cutter that can cut out profiles, 0:18:11.836 --> 0:18:14.596 and we design a part that's bolted together that way. 0:18:15.116 --> 0:18:16.076 It's nice and strong. 0:18:16.076 --> 0:18:18.276 And they're graded bolt. But if it does break, you 0:18:18.276 --> 0:18:21.196 can replace individual pieces without having to make a whole 0:18:21.236 --> 0:18:21.836 new assembly. 0:18:22.116 --> 0:18:25.076 The four students I meet, Matt, Seohn, Owen, and Kyle 0:18:25.436 --> 0:18:28.516 all grew up around here. Are most of the students 0:18:28.516 --> 0:18:30.156 in the engineering school from New Jersey? 0:18:31.316 --> 0:18:34.196 I would say, yeah, yeah. 0:18:34.716 --> 0:18:38.196 Net tuition in state is about nine thousand dollars a year, 0:18:38.556 --> 0:18:42.276 which is pretty reasonable for an engineering school. Ninety five 0:18:42.316 --> 0:18:45.316 percent get jobs in engineering when they graduate, and. 0:18:45.276 --> 0:18:47.156 We really want to do what I call a blue 0:18:47.156 --> 0:18:50.996 collar research, research that is practical that people can see 0:18:51.036 --> 0:18:52.116 the tangible. 0:18:51.636 --> 0:18:56.476 Result of Ali Hushman, the university's president. He's an immigrant 0:18:56.516 --> 0:18:58.916 from Iran. He grew up in a slum in Tehran, 0:18:59.036 --> 0:19:00.236 fifth in a family of ten. 0:19:00.556 --> 0:19:02.516 People used to ask me to compare you. That said, 0:19:02.556 --> 0:19:05.116 the best competison would be to tell you, if you 0:19:05.156 --> 0:19:07.756 have seen slum Dog Millionaire, you look at that. This 0:19:07.876 --> 0:19:12.036 one was twice as hard and tough. Oh. Yes, we're 0:19:12.036 --> 0:19:16.636 a very close family, but very poor. I mean poor 0:19:16.796 --> 0:19:20.276 to the extent that you walk in the streets without shoes. 0:19:20.756 --> 0:19:23.796 Hushman runs marathons, which is kind of what you'd expect, 0:19:23.876 --> 0:19:26.076 right for someone who made it out of the slums 0:19:26.076 --> 0:19:29.996 of Tehran, A typical student at the engineering school. Where 0:19:30.036 --> 0:19:31.836 are they from? Can you give me a kind of 0:19:31.916 --> 0:19:32.996 profile of it. 0:19:33.076 --> 0:19:36.516 A profile of a kid from engineering. Your father is 0:19:36.556 --> 0:19:41.076 a you know, fireman, a mom is a teacher. The 0:19:41.196 --> 0:19:45.356 kid has been going to a public school. He's from 0:19:45.836 --> 0:19:50.756 forty miles from here, and he's just a brilliant young 0:19:50.796 --> 0:19:53.876 man or woman. Gone through public school and got great 0:19:53.876 --> 0:19:56.756 schools and very much focused. 0:19:57.516 --> 0:20:01.076 It's you in other words, Yes, yes, school full of valley. 0:20:01.196 --> 0:20:04.196 Yes, yeah, that's the beauty of it, Malcolm. That's why 0:20:04.236 --> 0:20:05.716 I say it's a blue collar university. 0:20:10.076 --> 0:20:12.996 Now I'm convinced by Ali Huschmann and by Hank Rowen. 0:20:13.596 --> 0:20:17.916 I think American society really is soccer. We're so interdependent 0:20:18.116 --> 0:20:20.636 and we need so many perfect passes to score a 0:20:20.676 --> 0:20:24.836 goal that our challenges are weeklink, not strong link. What 0:20:24.916 --> 0:20:28.316 matters is how good our eleventh player is, not our first. 0:20:28.916 --> 0:20:32.236 We're in a second industrial revolution, and the lesson of 0:20:32.316 --> 0:20:34.596 this one isn't any different from the lesson of the 0:20:34.676 --> 0:20:38.876 last one. But it's really hard to get people to 0:20:38.956 --> 0:20:44.596 accept weeklink arguments. David Sally, the economist who studied soccer, 0:20:44.956 --> 0:20:47.996 says he'll go to some billionaire oligarch who owns an 0:20:47.996 --> 0:20:51.436 English Premier League team and say, don't spend your eighty 0:20:51.516 --> 0:20:55.116 million pounds on one superstar player, spend it on four 0:20:55.556 --> 0:20:59.276 pretty good players at twenty million pounds each. But the 0:20:59.276 --> 0:21:00.676 oligarch doesn't want to hear that. 0:21:01.356 --> 0:21:05.996 If the oligarch is only worried about winning soccer matches, 0:21:06.956 --> 0:21:11.116 I can sell that that's believable. Oligarchs by teams for 0:21:11.196 --> 0:21:13.996 many other reasons, including wanting to hang out with really 0:21:14.036 --> 0:21:18.196 good looking soccer strikers and wanting to sell a lot 0:21:18.196 --> 0:21:21.356 of shirts. A weak link strategy is not gonna be 0:21:21.436 --> 0:21:22.636 the most glamorous thing. 0:21:23.036 --> 0:21:28.196 And that's the problem. Superstars are glamorous. Nobel Prize winners 0:21:28.276 --> 0:21:32.796 are glamorous. Regional universities in rural South Jersey, and solid 0:21:32.916 --> 0:21:34.836 capable midfielders are not. 0:21:36.676 --> 0:21:40.796 What people remember are the unbelievably beautiful goals. 0:21:41.236 --> 0:21:42.556 It's a brilliant road for missing. 0:21:42.756 --> 0:21:43.676 I'm going to go all away. 0:21:45.596 --> 0:21:49.076 It's gonna be great coming away final goals. 0:21:49.836 --> 0:21:53.476 They may not realize that the seven, maybe less glamorous 0:21:53.476 --> 0:21:56.916 passes that set up that eighth beautiful through ball were 0:21:56.956 --> 0:22:00.276 maybe arguably just as important, but they were much more mundane, 0:22:00.356 --> 0:22:03.516 and they just involved simple movement to open spaces, and 0:22:04.316 --> 0:22:06.436 people don't adequately value that. 0:22:10.676 --> 0:22:13.636 When we asked ourselves the question, what could Stanford do 0:22:13.876 --> 0:22:17.116 to make a better contribution to the world, we quickly 0:22:17.156 --> 0:22:20.276 converged on building a scholarship program that would bring the 0:22:20.316 --> 0:22:23.636 most talented students and prepare them to be leaders in 0:22:23.676 --> 0:22:26.036 the world, to lead on attacking the. 0:22:26.036 --> 0:22:30.436 Important John Hennessy, president of Stanford University since two thousand, 0:22:31.036 --> 0:22:35.196 widely considered one of the greatest presidents in Stanford history. 0:22:35.996 --> 0:22:38.596 As I began to think about the end of my 0:22:39.196 --> 0:22:43.476 term as president, I started to think, was there something 0:22:43.556 --> 0:22:46.876 else perhaps we could do where we could build on 0:22:47.476 --> 0:22:51.916 everything we've put in place at Stanford and offer something 0:22:52.036 --> 0:22:54.876 that would be a great thing for the world. 0:22:55.516 --> 0:22:58.036 Not long before we talked, I took a walk across 0:22:58.036 --> 0:23:02.196 the Stanford campus and it's like entering a shrine higher education. 0:23:02.916 --> 0:23:08.516 Everything is gleaming, gorgeous, groomed green. That's all Hennessy's work. 0:23:09.116 --> 0:23:12.996