The Unreasonable Journey of Impacting 400 Million Lives Across 180 Countries

In episode 58 of the Disruptors for GOOD podcast, I speak with Daniel Epstein, founder of Unreasonable on his long journey of building his impact portfolio of companies and supporting over 200 entrepreneurs who have raised more than $4B in financing, generated over $3B in revenue, and are impacting the lives of more than 400M individuals across 180+ countries.

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Daniel has been named by Fortune Magazine as one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders, Daniel’s life has been shaped by a fundamental belief that entrepreneurship is the answer to nearly all the issues we face today. By the time he received his undergraduate degree in philosophy, he’d already started three companies.

In addition to being on FORTUNE’s “the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders” list alongside the likes of Tim Cook, Daniel was awarded Inc. Magazine’s “30 under 30 entrepreneur”, and Forbes identified him as one of the “top 30 most impactful entrepreneurs.”

He also received the prestigious “Entrepreneur of the World” award along with Richard Branson & the President of Liberia at the Global Entrepreneurship Forum.

Daniel’s unfettered belief in entrepreneurs led to him founding and being the CEO of Unreasonable. Unreasonable is dedicated to supporting growth-equity entrepreneurs positioned to bend history in the right direction.

Part investment firm, part media house, and most importantly a global community, Unreasonable partners with multinational institutions and revered brands to align them with impactful growth-stage entrepreneurs.

Today Unreasonable actively supports over 200 entrepreneurs who have raised more than $4B in financing, generated over $3B in revenue, and are impacting the lives of more than 400M individuals across 180+ countries.

Daniel speaks frequently on topics ranging from how multinationals and governments can better work with disruptive technologies, to working with public companies on how to create a worldclass and entrepreneurial culture across their employees, to the future of capitalism and our ability to profitably solve the most pressing challenges of this century.

Daniel has given keynotes across more than 30 countries, has spoken at the White House, the UN General Assembly, in front of audiences larger than ten thousand, as part of annual corporate events and in closed door sessions with Fortune 50 executives and their boards of directors.

He personally advises CEO’s of multinationals on how to become more entrepreneurial and works with multi-billion dollar family offices on creating a new type of financial legacy with their investments — producing above market rate returns while combatting societal & environmental challenges.

About Unreasonable

Unreasonable exists to re-purpose capitalism. We are an international company that supports a Fellowship for growth-stage entrepreneurs, channels exclusive deal-flow to investors, and partners with institutions to discover profit in solving global problems.

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Full Interview

Host (Grant):

What’s up, everybody! This is Grant from Causeartist. Welcome to another episode of Disruptors for Good. Today, we’re speaking with Daniel Epstein, the founder of Unreasonable, about his long journey building an incredible portfolio of impact-driven companies. He now supports over 200 entrepreneurs who have raised more than $4 billion in financing, generated over $3 billion in revenue, and impacted the lives of more than 400 million individuals across 180+ countries.

Daniel has been recognized by Fortune magazine as one of the world’s 50 greatest leaders, and Inc. and Forbes have named him as one of the top 30 most impactful entrepreneurs. He’s also received the prestigious Entrepreneur of the World award, alongside the likes of Richard Branson. In our conversation, Daniel shares his raw and honest entrepreneurial journey, including the challenges and mistakes he made along the way, starting from when he was just 19. He talks about the mental hurdles of entrepreneurship, learning from failures, and the passion that keeps him going. I’m super excited for you guys to hear this—it’s an amazing conversation!

Before we dive in, a couple of housekeeping notes: The jobs board is back up at Causeartist.com. Also, keep an eye out for Social Impact Wire, a wire service for social impact news that I’ll be launching soon. Now, onto the episode!

[03:40]

Host (Grant):

Daniel, I noticed you studied philosophy, which I think is a unique starting point. Can you walk us through how studying philosophy led you to eventually founding Unreasonable and all the other ventures under that umbrella?

Daniel Epstein:

Yeah, it’s funny you mention that. COVID and the pandemic gave me a chance to reconnect with my roots in philosophy, which really set me on the path to becoming an entrepreneur. I started out studying math, finance, and economics, thinking I’d either be a math professor, go into business, or maybe even become a pirate—I’ll explain that in a bit. But then I took a Philosophy 101 class, and it was like this mind-opening experience. Philosophy taught me how to think, whereas business school was more about teaching me what to think. That difference drew me in.

So I dropped my math, finance, and econ studies to pursue philosophy, which confused my parents a bit. But it was through philosophy that I developed this framework of values-driven decision-making, which eventually led me to entrepreneurship. I started journaling, breaking down what it meant to be an entrepreneur, and I realized that entrepreneurship is essentially about solving problems. Once I realized that I could choose which problems to solve, I decided I would only work on problems that were worth my life’s work. That was the beginning.

[07:52]

Host (Grant):

That’s such an inspiring realization. How did you go from that to actually starting Unreasonable? What were the first steps?

Daniel Epstein:

It was messy, for sure! One of my mentors, Tom Chi, who helped design Google Glass, once told me that learning to be an entrepreneur is like learning to ride a bike. You can’t just read about it or talk to others—you have to get on and start pedaling, fall over, and learn from it. That’s exactly how Unreasonable started.

Before Unreasonable, I had started a couple of companies, including one to make higher education more affordable and another focused on ecotourism. While working on these, I had this lightbulb moment after attending a global leadership program in Prague. The program was focused on empathy, but I realized I wanted more than empathy—I wanted action. There wasn’t a community of entrepreneurs who were crazy enough to think they could change the world but determined enough to actually do it. That’s where the idea for Unreasonable came from.

In 2008, we ran a pilot program in Boulder with 17 entrepreneurs from 14 countries. We lived together in a sorority house—last minute, by the way, since our original housing plan fell through. It was chaotic, but it worked. We learned a lot from that first experience, including how to better align expectations with partners. From that mess, we eventually launched the Unreasonable Institute in 2010.

[12:14]

Host (Grant):

You mentioned things were chaotic. What were some of the biggest challenges during those early years?

Daniel Epstein:

One of the biggest lessons I learned was the importance of contracts, even with people you trust. During that first pilot program, we had a dispute with one of the partners, and I received my first letter of intent to sue. That was terrifying. I fell into this episodic depression for about two weeks, thinking everything was falling apart.

Then I met with a mentor, Paul Berberian, who told me, “You’re the luckiest person I’ve seen in months.” He explained that failure isn’t about things going wrong—it’s only failure if you stop. He said, “Get out there, do it again, but do it better.” That conversation completely changed my perspective.

After that, I teamed up with one of the participants from the pilot program, Vladimir Popovic, and we co-founded Unreasonable Institute. It took about a year to launch the first official program in 2010, and from there, we just kept going.

[17:24]

Host (Grant):

It sounds like there were a lot of tough moments. Did you ever feel like quitting?

Daniel Epstein:

Never. That’s the crazy thing. Even when I was $80,000 in credit card debt, with no way to pay payroll, I had this unfathomable confidence that we would make it work. At the time, I was being recognized with awards like Entrepreneur of the World, but behind the scenes, I was beyond broke. I remember walking with my girlfriend in San Francisco and seeing a guy holding a sign that said “Broke as F***,” and she paused and said, “You’re more broke than he is.”

But even with all that, I never doubted that we’d succeed. I think a big part of that confidence came from privilege—I had a safety net. I could always crash on someone’s couch or go back to my parents’ house. That’s something I think is important to acknowledge when telling entrepreneurial stories.

[22:59]

Host (Grant):

Let’s fast forward to today. Unreasonable has grown into something massive. Can you talk about some of the successes and what you’re most excited about right now?

Daniel Epstein:

Sure! Today, Unreasonable supports over 200 CEOs who run companies solving big societal and environmental challenges. Collectively, they’ve raised over $4 billion in equity and generated around $3 billion in revenue. But more importantly, they’ve impacted over 400 million people in 180+ countries. These are companies like AeroFarms, which operates the world’s largest vertical farm, and 1mg in India, which is providing affordable healthcare to millions of people.

We also launched Unreasonable Capital, an investment fund focused on emerging markets and companies that are solving issues related to poverty. The fund is doing really well, and we’re now gearing up to raise a new global fund that will focus on scaling these kinds of solutions even further.

[32:29]

Host (Grant):

It’s incredible to hear about the impact you’re making. You mentioned emerging markets—what trends are you seeing there, and how are entrepreneurs in those regions driving innovation?

Daniel Epstein:

Honestly, I think the smartest solutions in the world are coming out of emerging markets. The design constraints are tougher, and that breeds creativity. For example, mobile money platforms like M-Pesa in Kenya were years ahead of what we’re doing with Apple Pay in the U.S. Emerging market entrepreneurs are solving problems in ways we haven’t even thought of yet.

The biggest challenge they face is access to capital. It’s much harder for them to raise funds, but they’re building groundbreaking solutions nonetheless. I think the next wave of entrepreneurial innovation is going to come from these regions, and we’re just starting to see the beginning of it.

[42:46]

Host (Grant):

Will your new fund focus on emerging markets as well?

Daniel Epstein:

Yes, the new fund will be global, just like our fellowship. It will provide exposure across different regions and industries, which will help reduce risk. We want to invest in companies that are solving the world’s toughest problems, no matter where they’re based.

[43:49]

Host (Grant):

Thanks so much for taking the time, Daniel. I wish we had more time to dive deeper, but maybe we can do a part two sometime soon!

Daniel Epstein:

I’d love that, Grant. Thanks for having me, and let’s definitely stay in touch!