Allis on Allis
by Cal Newport

Ryan Allis is a 23-year-old technology entrepreneur. And he's damn good at it. His online software company, Broadwick Corp., employs over 50 people and brings in some $6 million a year in revenue. He drives a fancy car. He graces magazine covers. He's writing a book for McGraw-Hill about making his first million; the standard whiz-kid litany.

Even with all these successes, however, Allis raised a few eyebrows when, in 2005, he publicly declared his next challenge: by the year 2025 he will reduce, by half, the total number of people worldwide living in extreme poverty. That's over a billion people. And less than twenty years.

This is ambition of a Bill Gatesian magnitude. But 23-year-old Allis states it with a straight face. Flak wanted to find out more about the person behind this quixoticism. So we got Allis on the phone and asked him to explain, in his own words, who he was and how he planned to accomplish the impossible. The following is excerpted from that conversation:

The Mission

"I started the Anti-Poverty Campaign in September of 2005. I started it as a blog to build awareness of what's going on in many countries in the world. This past summer we had over 25 contributors, from Tanzania, Guatemala, Uganda and Kenya, as well as students from Chapel Hill and Duke who are reporting from their summer trips to developing countries.

Right now, this is in the early stages. But long-term, I want it to grow into a non-profit that ends extreme poverty in my lifetime. I want � and this is perhaps ambitious � to try to end warfare and genocide in my lifetime.

I'm still learning a lot about the 'hows.' I think the most important things now are the 'whats' and the 'whys.'

If I do continue to succeed in business, I hope to use this to help create meaningful change. I'm at a point of life where I am mainly focused on business to increase my assets so that 10, 20, 25 years from now I can make real progress. I also hope to work through politics to help change the United States' policy on how we work with other countries on these matters. [Ryan states on his website: "long-term goals include being a US Senator."] In general, I see public policy, business, philanthropy, and social entrepreneurship as key elements I can harness to end extreme poverty.

The work will span my lifetime."

The Man

"A struggle I had as a teenager was that I really didn't understand the purpose of life. I got depressed for a period of a few months. Around this time, some books I read really influenced me; Rich Dad Poor Dad on the business side and Think and Grow Rich on the personal development side.

When you read Think and Grow Rich at 17, you realize that if you shoot for the stars you end up in the tree tops, and if you shoot for the tree tops you end up in the mud.

There was this book called The Lexus and the Olive Tree, by Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist. I read that at 17. That got me interested, along with an AP economics class, in developing economies and globalization. I started learning about trade and trade policy and how we interact with other countries. I came across The End of Poverty by Jeffery Sachs. I learned that 2.7 billion people, 42 percent of the world population, live on under two dollars a day.

It made me want to get involved.

The Anti-Poverty Campaign is probably just a subset of my life's work to end poverty; it's part of a bigger campaign I might someday call the Humanity Campaign.

I think there is enough momentum that I am hopeful that extreme poverty and warfare will end in my lifetime whether or not I am involved. But I do hope that by using my skills and assets I will push those goals on a quicker timeline."

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