How Daniel Epstein Of Unreasonable Group Is Helping To Address The Growing Challenge Of Food Insecurity
An Interview With Martita Mestey
I wish that at the start of my journey, someone would have told me that failure isn’t only not a bad thing — it’s a necessary part of striving for anything great. The analogy I like the most revolves around learning how to ride a bike. If you want to learn how to ride a bike, you’re not going to read reports about how other people have ridden bikes. You’re going to get on it and pedal. You’ll fall over, get back up and go. And that’s how I believe we learn best. It’s certainly how I have learned in my entrepreneurial career — wisdom comes from failures, and nowhere is that more true than with entrepreneurs.
In many parts of the United States, there is a crisis of people having limited reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. As prices rise, this problem will likely become more acute. How can this problem be solved? Who are the leaders helping to address this crisis?
In this interview series, we are talking to leaders who are helping to address the increasing problem of food insecurity who can share the initiatives they are leading to address and solve this problem.
As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Daniel Epstein, CEO and Founder of Unreasonable Group.
Recently named by Fortune Magazine as one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders, Daniel’s unfettered belief in entrepreneurs led him to found and become the CEO of Unreasonable Group — an organization dedicated to supporting an international Fellowship for growth-stage entrepreneurs who are profitably solving global issues.
Today Unreasonable actively supports over 300 growth-stage CEOs; channels exclusive deal-flow to hundreds of investors and investment funds; and partners with multinational brands and institutions to discover profit in solving global challenges.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Almost the entirety of my adult life, starting in university, has been shaped by a fundamental belief that entrepreneurship is the answer to nearly all the issues we face today. By the time I received my undergraduate degree in philosophy, I’d started three companies. Although these startups were in entirely unique sectors, the one thing they had in common was a desire to leverage business to solve seemingly intractable societal problems.
The genesis of Unreasonable was simple: I felt like a misfit and wanted to seek refuge amongst fellow misfits — entrepreneurs who are foolhardy enough to believe that they can change the world, but so hellbent and determined they won’t stop anything short of that. Unreasonable has always been about a community of support for entrepreneurs looking to re-purpose capitalism. From its inception to where we are today, we exist to leverage business to create a more just future. Now.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I worked for a house-cleaning business as a teenager. It was a really interesting job both at the time and in hindsight. Most of the employees at this company were from a prison-release programme, and then you had me — a 16-year-old kid who at that time was living in the suburbs. And they gave me all the worst jobs. I really got to hear their stories and realise how fortunate I was, and the luck I was born into.
I worked throughout middle school and high school, from when I was about 12, but my dad told this story that I don’t even recall from my first year of university, when working at a small biotechnology company in Colorado. Apparently I called my dad a month into the job and said, “I’m really enjoying it and love what they’re doing, but I’m probably not going to work for somebody ever again.” I was already thinking about what it would look like to start something with a blank slate. I never had any ‘career aspiration’ job. My ambition was always to either be an entrepreneur or to step outside of our capitalist system entirely. I’m grateful that I chose to play a part in changing the system rather than just living outside of it. Maybe someday I’ll do both.
Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?
If I’m honest, I cannot think of a specific tipping point. In general, I’ve approached business with the same lens my entire entrepreneurial career. It’s a belief that yes, business is business but more so than anything, business is people. The greatness of what we achieve will be dictated by the quality of relationships we have with the people around us. I’ve always felt that people (and the planet) are more important than numbers and I’ve always felt that culture is more important than strategy. If you forced me to pick a tipping point in particular though, I may suggest it was the introduction to philosophy class that I took my freshman year of university. I later would drop out of the business school and just study philosophy. Philosophy taught me how to think instead of what to think and most importantly, it taught me how to question the world around me. These questions in many ways led me to the work that we now lead at Unreasonable.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
One of the people I’ve learned the most from is George Kembel, the Director and Co-Founder of the d.school at Stanford and a serial entrepreneur from Silicon Valley. He and I ran a programme together called Unreasonable at Sea, where we had a ship that sailed round the world with 11 technology companies, helping them scale into new international markets. A reason for admiring George was he never said the word “I”, he only ever said “we”. He attributes that to having an identical twin and going through life as a twin, but he’s taken that into how he leads. I haven’t seen a leader who unearths creative potential in their teammates better than George. He genuinely believes that no matter how smart one individual is, a team of people in the right culture is smarter.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
I don’t see myself as a “successful” leader. Rather, I see myself as someone who is constantly seeking to lead better, with more integrity, with more heart, and in a way that better uplifts the team I’m here to support. But I’d say our greatest leaders are those who see vulnerability as a strength, prioritize people and the planet over numbers, and act with integrity.
Our greatest leaders are those who seek common ground rather than point out differences and care for those they lead as much as they care for themselves. Even the most prepared and experienced amongst us will make mistakes (we are all human), but I‘d say our most “successful leaders” are those who believe that the greatest mistake would be a lost opportunity to recognize and learn from the missteps we will make along the way.
Can you please give us your favourite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
There’s a quote along the lines of: “Ask not what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive, because what the world needs is more people who come alive”. Although I resonate with this quote, I also believe that there is a false paradox inherent in it. What happens if we are lucky enough to find the intersection of both what the world needs and what makes you come alive? I feel I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have found that convergence in my work of supporting our global community at Unreasonable.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. Can you describe to our readers how your work is helping to address the challenge of food insecurity?
Today, we support more than 50 companies that are working on solving challenges related to food insecurity. They are operating in over 150 countries and are looking at everything from hydroponic farming to regenerative agriculture, cell-based meat production and making protein out of pollution to being able to pull clean drinking water out of the atmosphere. You can read more about the companies we support looking at the future of food and water here.
Our job at Unreasonable is to identify the companies we feel are most likely to solve for the toughest challenges of this century (like food security) and to give them the resources and a global community of support that they need to ensure they have as much impact as possible.
Can you share something about your work that makes you most proud? Is there a particular story or incident that you found most uplifting?
I’m proud to be affiliated with the more than 300 CEOs who we support across the Unreasonable Fellowship. They have dedicated their life’s work to solving challenges around the seemingly intractable problems of our times — whether that’s food security, water shortages, the climate crisis, universal healthcare access, the future of education and learning or the fabric of how governments govern. To play even a small part in wrapping their dedication to having a positive impact on the world with a community of support, that’s truly what I’m most proud of.
In your opinion, what should other business and civic leaders do to further address these problems? Can you please share a few things that can be done to further address the problem of food insecurity?
At Unreasonable, we are believers in focusing our efforts on “scaling what works.” I’d encourage anyone who wants to move the needle on global challenges to explore the solutions our team and community are lucky enough to be supporting. We’re already supporting more than 300 solutions and you can take a look at them here. If you are an investor, through the Unreasonable Collective we are aligning a select community of investors with companies operating at the nexus of global impact and profit.
For Collective members, we make it easy to access highly-vetted, late-stage deals backed by top institutional groups without taking a management fee. If you are a government, a family office, or a multinational, we work with partners who believe that solving the world’s toughest problems is not only a moral imperative: it’s also an unprecedented financial opportunity. You can read more about potentially teaming up with us here. In short, we are a global community that believes the world’s greatest challenges will never be solved by one person, one team, or one company. We believe that when businesses focus on having a collaborative advantage over a competitive edge, they will outperform. We’d love to collaborate.
Are there other leaders or organisations who have done good work to address the challenge of food scarcity? Can you tell us what they have done? What specifically impresses you about their work? Perhaps we can reach out to them to include them in this series.
I genuinely believe that the entrepreneurs we are supporting have the best pulse and understanding about how the world will solve the myriad challenges related to food scarcity and insecurity. Below are just a few examples of the more than 50 ventures in this space that we support:
- Upside Foods is developing a way to produce real meat from animal cells, without the need to feed, breed and slaughter actual animals.
- Aerofarms is responsibly and sustainably feeding humanity by growing flavorful, safe, and healthy food in the world’s largest indoor vertical farm.
- TurtleTree Labs is recreating the full composition, functionality and taste of milk using the latest cutting edge innovation in biotech.
- Olio is connecting neighbours and local shops so surplus food and other household items can be shared, rather than thrown away.
- Mimica is reducing food waste and improving safety with a groundbreaking food expiry label that allows consumers to monitor freshness with a simple touch.
- Shiok Meats is transforming the food industry in Asia with cell-based meat and seafood.
If you had the power to influence legislation, are there laws that you would like to see introduced that might help you in your work?
If I could change anything about legislation, I’d make it so that lobbying was no longer allowed and I’d put a cap on the amount of campaign finance any politician could raise when running for office.
Although I’m a big believer in the private sector’s ability to create positive and lasting change, I do not think it should have the level of undue influence it currently has on many democracies — especially the United States. If we took private interest lobbying and campaign finances out of politics, I genuinely believe we’d see the incumbent solutions being changed to more sustainable alternatives, like the ones I’m highlighting in this conversation, much faster.
In short, if we removed private sector financing from politics I believe we’d see a much more representative government — something closer to a true democracy. Which, at least in the US, I don’t feel we currently have.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
I wish that at the start of my journey, someone would have told me that failure isn’t only not a bad thing — it’s a necessary part of striving for anything great. The analogy I like the most revolves around learning how to ride a bike. If you want to learn how to ride a bike, you’re not going to read reports about how other people have ridden bikes. You’re going to get on it and pedal. You’ll fall over, get back up and go. And that’s how I believe we learn best. It’s certainly how I have learned in my entrepreneurial career — wisdom comes from failures, and nowhere is that more true than with entrepreneurs.
When you’re a first-time entrepreneur and you probably don’t have more expertise than incumbents in the market, the only way to figure out a path is by doing it. Thinking is far less effective than doing in terms of learning about business and leadership. Towards this end, I don’t think I’d be looking for things I wished people had told me. Instead, in reflecting back, what I’m most grateful for are the individuals who encouraged me to try, to embrace me even after I had failed, and who pushed me to introspect on both wins and losses — seeing them both for what they are — lessons to be absorbed along the journey of life.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I don’t believe I’m honestly that influential. That said, the community we support at Unreasonable is and the fact that I get to play a role in bringing together this globally diverse community is an incredibly humbling position to be in. If I could be a part of any movement that was dedicated to impacting not only people but also the planet, I would genuinely do what I, and our whole team at Unreasonable, are dedicated to doing each day.
It’s the only reason why after 16 years, I am still so passionate about the movement we are working to build and better support. As a movement, we want to re-purpose capitalism itself. Harnessing it in a way that will create a more equitable and just future for both people and the planet. To me, there is no movement I’d rather play a humble part in than this one. And I welcome anyone who is reading this to join us.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Politically, I file not as a Democrat or a Republic, but as an Independent. I think it’s important to not affiliate with any given party, but rather with policies and decisions that most align with what any individual feels is right. That said, if I could sit with anyone and share a private meal, I think it would be President Obama. To me, he embodies the epitome of what great leadership looks like.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
- Website: https://unreasonablegroup.com
- Personal Page: https://unreasonablegroup.com/daniel-epstein/
- For Investors: https://unreasonablecollective.com
- Contact Form: https://unreasonablegroup.com/connect#contact
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/unreasonable
- Twitter: @unreasonable
Ultimately, business isn’t just business. Business is people. The greatness of what we achieve will be determined by the breadth and depth of the relationships that we hold. Although Unreasonable is a company, our mission is to leverage business to drive lasting and scalable change. That’s why we build a community between entrepreneurs, institutions, and investors to solve pressing global problems profitably.
Sound Unreasonable? We hope so. Because reasonable ideas seldom change anything. If you want to join us on the journey, we’d love to hear from you.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much, and we wish you only continued success.
How Daniel Epstein Of Unreasonable Group Is Helping To Address The Growing Challenge Of Food… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.