David B. Smith is the executive director of the National Conference on Citizenship, which promotes civic engagement, community service, and greater political participation. Before participating in a panel in Palo Alto on government and technology, he talked a little trash about Stanford and revealed that his sights are set on entrepreneurship and social change in the next decade.
Q. If you could live in any other time or place what would it be?
A. The days of the founding of our country, back in the mid-1700s. It’d be really exciting to help shape a brand-new land, think about what a new governance structure should look like, how people should get engaged-but I’d like to do it with my iPhone.
Q. Who was your childhood hero?
A. The folks of Silicon Valley: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Paul Allen.
Q. If you could have a beer with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?
A. I’m fascinated with Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, and I think either of them would be exciting people to sit down and grab a beer with.
Q. Describe yourself in five words or less.
A. Passionate, entrepreneurial, energized, visionary, timid.
Q. What’s your favorite thing about Palo Alto?
A. That there’s a wonderful junior college that’s based here! Being a Cal Bear alum myself, I’m impressed that they’ve been able to build up such a wonderful Leland Stanford Junior University on this side of the Bay.
Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?
A. I’m sort of looking at the next 10 years as my next life. I’m fascinated with social ventures. I think the non-profit and for-profit sectors are going to collide within my lifetime, and we’re going to rethink both how corporate America runs, and how non-profits run. I’d love to be an entrepreneur of one of the next great social ventures.
Q. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
A. Fail hard. I was told early on in my career that people are more respected for their significant failures than for many of their accomplishments.
*Photo by Brian Smeets.