Weaver is a global expert on social entrepreneurship and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network. She conducted the first large-scale empirical study on the social, economic, and legal activities of social enterprises in the U.S. and is the Founder of Weaver's Social Enterprise Directory. In 2023, she joined the Global African Descent Social Entrepreneurship Network sponsored by the Biden-Harris Administration.
Over 20 states in America have instituted policies that require high school students to take financial literacy courses. These policies aim to prepare students to manage finances, debt, and credit card usage: activities that are critical to their social mobility and economic well-being.
This education is necessary, but it is incomplete. In addition to financial literacy, students also need to understand social entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship education, in general, can prepare students to design businesses that address consumer needs and offer job creation opportunities in their communities.
Social entrepreneurship—the process of using entrepreneurship to combat social problems—provides an even greater value by focusing entrepreneurship skills on alleviating social issues like poverty, inequality, climate change, racial tension, and more. Examples of social enterprises include Warby Parker, the glasses company that donates a pair of glasses to someone who cannot afford them with each purchase from a consumer; The Village Market, a marketplace that offers products made by Black entrepreneurs; and Newman’s Own, the brand that sells food and beverages and donates all profits to charity. In my volume Social Entrepreneurship: A Practical Introduction, I attempt to educate readers, including youth, on how to ensure their businesses can reap profits while also working toward the public good.
Social Entrepreneurship is the Future of Business
A study by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor in 2020 reports that most entrepreneurs see and feel the weight of the problems of the world and want to address them. However, most do not know how to do so. Social entrepreneurship is viewed as a medium for alleviating social issues that are unaddressed by government, businesses, or charitable organizations.
A recent report states that Millennials and Gen Z desire work that aligns with their personal values and to work on their own terms. They have grown up in a time when societal problems are at an all-time high and social media usage is so common that these problems are on display in the palm of their hands via their cell phones and laptops every day. Social entrepreneurship education would grant them the tools needed to design, launch, and scale social enterprises.
How to Educate High School Students in Social Entrepreneurship
- There are various ways that high school administrators can advance social entrepreneurship education.
- Knowledge: My book Social Entrepreneurship: A Practical Introduction and other resources can be used in classrooms to teach students to design, launch, and run a social enterprise. High schoolers may be eager for opportunities to work with these curricula.
- Training: Online training programs for social entrepreneurs like those I have organized can be tailored to audience needs for implementation in U.S. high schools and beyond. Short but intensive training programs can boost skills quickly and deliver extra support to students who have decided they are strongly interested in pursuing entrepreneurship.
- Inspiration: High schools should invest in inviting guest speakers that share their social enterprise success stories with students. Organizations like B Lab and Social Enterprise Alliance would be great resources to identify speakers that are running high-profit social enterprises that are indeed transforming lives.
- Competitions: Our youth have amazing ideas! Entrepreneurial pitch competitions are a valuable way to allow students to share their idea with an audience, learn how to design their social enterprise with mentors, and then launch it with funding they can win in the competition.
- Exposure: A number of successful and popular social enterprises like Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory in Burlington, Vermont, and Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, New York offer tours of their facilities. These tours provide an opportunity for students to see how their products are made, explore the history of the organization, and outline opportunities for students to work or volunteer.
Social entrepreneurship is the future of business. The better we can prepare future leaders to run businesses that not only create value for themselves and their consumers, but that advance quality of life for society as a whole, the more likely they are to succeed. High school administrators who follow the above guidelines can help create the conditions necessary for their success.
This writing was originally published through the Scholars Strategy Network.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.