"But we also believe in taking risks, because that's how you move things along"
About this Quote
Risk gets framed here not as thrill-seeking, but as civic machinery: the thing that keeps institutions from calcifying. Melinda Gates’ “we also believe” does quiet rhetorical work. It smuggles a value judgment into a collective identity, inviting the listener to join an imagined “we” that is already reasonable, forward-looking, and morally awake. The sentence is built like a reassurance to cautious stakeholders: yes, we’re responsible - and yes, we’ll still gamble. That “also” is the tell. It anticipates pushback from people who equate risk with recklessness, especially in philanthropy where money is supposed to be safe, measurable, and politely incremental.
The subtext is about power and permission. When Gates talks about “taking risks,” she’s often speaking from the perch of enormous resources, where failure can be absorbed and rebranded as learning. That’s not hypocrisy; it’s an admission of how change gets bought and tested. In global health, education, and gender equity, the status quo is its own kind of risk - just distributed onto people without the cushion to fail. The line positions bold experimentation as an ethical choice: if you have capacity, you have an obligation to try.
“Move things along” deliberately avoids ideology. It’s a technocratic euphemism that makes disruptive aims sound like simple progress, like turning a stuck gear. The intent is persuasion-by-pragmatism: risk as the only credible alternative to inertia, and momentum as the proof of virtue. (Also, Gates is a philanthropist, not a clergyman; that matters, because the moral language here is managerial rather than devotional.)
The subtext is about power and permission. When Gates talks about “taking risks,” she’s often speaking from the perch of enormous resources, where failure can be absorbed and rebranded as learning. That’s not hypocrisy; it’s an admission of how change gets bought and tested. In global health, education, and gender equity, the status quo is its own kind of risk - just distributed onto people without the cushion to fail. The line positions bold experimentation as an ethical choice: if you have capacity, you have an obligation to try.
“Move things along” deliberately avoids ideology. It’s a technocratic euphemism that makes disruptive aims sound like simple progress, like turning a stuck gear. The intent is persuasion-by-pragmatism: risk as the only credible alternative to inertia, and momentum as the proof of virtue. (Also, Gates is a philanthropist, not a clergyman; that matters, because the moral language here is managerial rather than devotional.)
Quote Details
| Topic | Motivational |
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