this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
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Not everything has to be a buisness.
This is the part that Silicon Valley doesn't get. We can, do, and need good things that don't make money.
They need to make some money - infrastructure isn’t free, employees need paid, etc. they should be self sustaining.
They don’t need to be 2009-Google profitable though. That pipe dream needs to end. 3-5% YoY growth is plenty.
Or, how about a simple nonprofit that charges a nominal fee to fund infrastructure? I'm willing to pay for a good service, especially if I'm pretty sure they're using my money to improve the service itself.
The idea that non-profits aren’t profiting-seeking is the biggest misunderstanding in the world. I work for a large one, and it’s absolutely the same rampant penny-squeezing 30%-unsustainable-growth-seeking monstrosity as anything in the Valley. The pittance that gets thrown to “charitable causes” is just another tax dodge in an otherwise profit-demanding venture. Swap “shareholders” with “the endowment” and there’s no difference at all.
Much better to be a for-profit company with a charter demanding where profits in excess of modest growth targets are spent internally.
That's too bad. I'd be interested to see some statistics about how customer experience is, on average, with non-profits vs private companies vs public companies. Maybe it's still a net win even if there are awful non-profits
Most nonprofits don’t do a lot with the general public. They have the community they serve (which is getting something for nothing and therefore “customer service” is not a thing) and the community that funds them (where, of course, service is king). How the company treats you on the outside very much depends on which side of that equation you’re on.
This is necessary behavior for nonprofits, at least in the US, because of the demand for charitable giving. It’s ultimately a decent structure for a charity, but a pretty awful way to run a product or service business, since the incentives are all on the opposite side of “good product/service”. Private for-profits with strong, conscientious leadership do much better - I encourage you to read up on Patagonia and Gore-Tex as examples.
Yeah, I've read about Patagonia and love their model. I'm just skeptical in general because leadership can change. The Non-Profit stamp provides certain legal rules, whereas a private charter is enforced by the people who have power to change it.
I'm absolutely a fan of responsible for-profit companies like Valve (esp. wrt company structure), and I wish that was the norm instead of the exception.
That’s what I’m saying - there’s absolutely nothing about nonprofit status that demands a company not act like a total asshole. Have a look at all the really bad ones like the Komen Foundation or Red Cross if you want an example.
Best bet, barring adding more legal mechanisms to the law, is a private for-profit with careful leadership. Yeah, it can change, but companies that put values first can and often do confer those same values to future leadership. Versus, of course, publicly traded companies where rampant growth at all costs is the only legal requirement.