Becoming Who You Are w/ David Katz

How often have you seen a plastic bottle lying on the ground?  Did you pick it up?

This is the fundamental paradigm at the heart of Plastic Bank, founded by today’s guest, David Katz, in 2013. Plastic Bank is a global network of micro recycling markets that empower the poor to transcend poverty by cleaning the environment.

One of the key premises of David’s business model is that you’ll never clean the oceans by trying to clean the oceans, instead you have to not pollute them in the first place - which is a much more complicated problem.  

So he started with the big sources of this pollution and created an ecosystem where the value of plastic could be fully realized.   

My conversation with David also showed how shared core values can increase the speed of decisions in any company, why the Plastic Bank operates as a for-profit and not a non-profit, and why he doesn’t focus on winning, but creating win-win situations instead.

He also shares a key realization that shaped how he looks at taking on new challenges: You don’t need to be the right person, you just need to start becoming the right person.

You can follow the podcast and host Chuck Swoboda on Twitter for further exploration and discussion on innovation.

The episode is also available wherever else you listen to podcasts. Enjoy!