Narrator: In a small village in Bangladesh, a woman making bamboo stools was trapped. To buy the raw bamboo for her work, she needed to borrow a mere 5 taka—the equivalent of just a few cents. But with no access to a formal bank, her only option was a local moneylender who not only charged exorbitant interest but also demanded that she sell her finished stools back to him at a price he dictated. Her daily profit was just two pennies. She was locked in a cycle of debt and poverty, not by a lack of skill or will, but by the lack of a system designed to serve her. This single, stark reality ignited a revolution in economic thinking, led by the man who witnessed it, Muhammad Yunus.

In his groundbreaking book, Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity’s Most Pressing Needs, Yunus dismantles the core assumptions of our economic world. He argues that the story of the stool-maker is not an isolated tragedy but a symptom of a systemic failure. The book presents a powerful and practical alternative: a new kind of enterprise designed not for personal profit, but to solve the very problems that traditional capitalism has created or ignored.

Narrator: At the heart of Yunus's philosophy is a radical reframing of poverty. He asserts, "Poverty is not created by poor people. It is created by the system we have built." Traditional economic theory, he argues, has failed the poor by designing institutions—like banks—that are inaccessible to them. The system assumes that individuals without collateral or a credit history are not creditworthy, effectively shutting them out of the economic engine.

The founding of Grameen Bank is the ultimate testament to this conviction. When Yunus, then an economics professor, tried to persuade conventional banks to lend to the poor villagers of Jobra, he was met with refusal. The bankers insisted the poor were too high-risk. In response, Yunus offered to personally guarantee the loans. He started by lending $27 of his own money to 42 people. To the astonishment of the financial world, the loans were repaid. This small experiment grew into Grameen Bank, an institution that has since lent billions of dollars to millions of borrowers, 97% of whom are women, with a repayment rate consistently near 98%. The success of Grameen Bank proved that poverty is not an issue of capability but of opportunity. The system was the problem, and by building a new one, poverty could be systematically dismantled.

Narrator: Conventional capitalism is built on the idea of Homo economicus—a one-dimensional human being driven solely by the selfish pursuit of profit. Yunus argues this is a profound and damaging oversimplification. He proposes that humans are multidimensional, possessing a powerful selfless impulse alongside their selfish one. We are driven by a desire to help others and contribute to the common good, but our current economic framework provides no outlet for this motivation.

This concept is the bedrock of social business. It operates on the belief that investors and entrepreneurs can be motivated by the desire to solve a problem, not just to make money. A social business is defined as a non-loss, non-dividend company. Investors get their initial investment back over time, but all profits are reinvested into the business to expand its reach and deepen its social impact. This model creates a new space in the market, one that harnesses the altruistic side of human nature that traditional capitalism ignores.

Narrator: A social business is not a charity; it must be a self-sustaining enterprise. It competes in the marketplace, but its goal is social good. The story of Grameen Danone is a powerful case study of this model in the real world. In 2006, Yunus partnered with Franck Riboud, the CEO of French food giant Danone, to tackle child malnutrition in Bangladesh. Their goal was to produce a nutrient-fortified yogurt, named Shokti Doi ("energy yogurt"), that was affordable for poor families.

The journey was not easy. The venture faced a global food crisis that caused the price of milk to skyrocket, forcing them to raise the yogurt's price. This led to a collapse in sales and required a complete re-think. The team had to be flexible and adaptive. They reformulated the product into a smaller, more affordable size and developed a two-tiered market strategy, selling the yogurt at a higher price in urban areas to cross-subsidize the lower price in poor rural villages. The experience proved that a social business must be just as innovative, efficient, and well-managed as any profit-maximizing company to succeed. It must be prepared to learn, adapt, and overcome real-world challenges to achieve its social mission.

Narrator: The social business model is not limited to a single product or country; its principles can be applied to solve humanity's most fundamental problems. The book highlights several ventures that extend the model into critical sectors like healthcare and clean water.

One such example is the partnership with Cure 2 Children, an NGO dedicated to treating thalassemia, a genetic blood disorder common in developing countries. By forming a social business with Grameen Healthcare Trust, they created a model to provide bone marrow transplants in Bangladesh. The business plan is designed to be self-sufficient through cross-subsidization: wealthier families pay the full cost of around $20,000—a fraction of the price in the West—which in turn covers the cost for poor families who can afford to pay little or nothing.

Similarly, the Grameen Veolia Water project was created with the French water giant Veolia to address the crisis of arsenic-contaminated water in Bangladesh. The social business built a local water treatment plant to provide safe, affordable drinking water to villagers. These examples demonstrate the model's versatility, proving that complex services like advanced medical care and essential utilities can be delivered sustainably to the world's poorest populations.

Narrator: What began as a radical idea has evolved into a global movement, attracting some of the world's largest corporations. The book details how major companies are leveraging their expertise and resources to launch social businesses.

• BASF, the German chemical company, partnered with Grameen to create BASF Grameen Ltd. The venture uses BASF's technology to produce long-lasting, chemically treated mosquito nets to fight malaria and micronutrient sachets to combat malnutrition. * Intel launched Grameen Intel, a social business that uses information technology to improve maternal and infant healthcare in rural Bangladesh, connecting remote patients with doctors via mobile technology. * Adidas embarked on a quest to design a shoe that could be sold for around one euro, aiming to provide footwear for the millions who go without, thereby preventing soil-transmitted diseases and providing dignity.

These partnerships show that social business is not an anti-corporate idea. Instead, it offers a new way for corporations to engage with society, using their immense power, technology, and expertise not just for profit, but to create lasting social value.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Building Social Business is that we are not prisoners of our current economic system. The deep-seated problems of poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation are not inevitable outcomes but the results of a flawed design. Muhammad Yunus provides a meticulously detailed and inspiring blueprint for a new engine of change—one that redefines the purpose of business and unleashes the latent power of human selflessness.

The book is more than an economic treatise; it is a call to imagination and action. It challenges us to stop passively predicting a future shaped by old rules and instead start actively building the world we wish to see. The final, powerful message is that our most audacious dreams for humanity are not impossible; they are simply waiting for new models, new institutions, and new mindsets to make them real. The question it leaves us with is not whether a world without poverty is possible, but what role each of us will play in building it.