One of the more surprising things I learned from Karen Levy’s 80K podcast interview on misaligned incentives in global development was how her experience directly contradicted a stereotype I had about for-profits vs nonprofits:
Karen Levy: When I did Y Combinator, I expected it to be a really competitive environment: here you are in the private sector and it’s all about competition. And I was blown away by the level of collaboration that existed in that community — and frankly, in comparison to the nonprofit world, which can be competitive. People compete for funding, and so very often we’re fighting over slices of the same pie. Whereas the Y Combinator model is like, “We’re making the pie bigger. It’s getting bigger for everybody.”
My assumption had been that the opposite was true.
One of the more surprising things I learned from Karen Levy’s 80K podcast interview on misaligned incentives in global development was how her experience directly contradicted a stereotype I had about for-profits vs nonprofits:
My assumption had been that the opposite was true.