The story of a Microsoft executive who walked away from millions to bring books and schools to children around the developing world.
"'Leaving Microsoft to Change the World' is a first-person account of my decision to walk away from one of the world's most successful companies while at the peak of my career. At age 35, I was not in search of a comfortable retirement on the golf course. Inside, I had a burning desire to make the world a better place by helping poor communities in Asia to develop schools and libraries. My obsession with the idea -- breaking the cycle of poverty through the lifelong gift of education -- was impossible to ignore. Against the advice of my closest friends and peers, I walked away from the security of my senior executive position for an uncertain future." -- John Wood.
In 1998, John Wood was a rising executive at Microsoft when he took a vacation that changed his life. What started as a trekking holiday in Nepal became a spiritual journey, and then a mission: to change the world one book and one child at a time by setting up libraries in the developing world. He was soon driven to leave his career with only a loose vision of the change he wanted to bring to the world.
Over the next five years John would make the unlikely marriage between Microsoft business practices and the world of non-profits to create Room to Read, an organisation that has created a network of over 2,000 schools and libraries.
