I urge you to think more carefully about the fact that business performance is affected by the choices of economic actors: consumers, prospective employees, other businesses. Small advantages among these members could compound and make it difficult for firms without access to these advantages to compete.
I have thought about it very carefully and long before I read this post. I’ve also pointed you to many people who’ve thought about this for decades and made billions of dollars for charity and have thoughts about this specific approach. I still find you very misguided and suggest you take a few intro to business classes.
I’d suggest that you have the humility to consider that you might not have out-thought all these people. Especially as I can tell you don’t have a lot of experience actually investing in or running businesses.
But I can tell from the tone of this comment that you’re not open to being convinced. So good luck to you!
I would have much less confidence if in the couple years I’d been pursuing this, that I had ever clearly seen the idea explored of this sort of business structure being used as a philanthropic financial leverage tool.
There definitely has been lots of thought about ethical capitalism and other ways of doing business in a better ways. But I haven’t seen this sort of weaponization of philanthropic resources… It’s like you say, there isn’t the capital for it because using money in this way is just not something philanthropists are even thinking about and no one is suggesting that they even engage in experimentation regarding the size of the effects involved. You just assume that if someone has the choice to buy nearly identical products at nearly identical prices and save a kid from malaria rather than enrich some random shareholder, they’d ignore this opportunity. You just assume that a brand identity based on profits bettering the world couldn’t garner support from celebrities/influencers to better effect/lower cost.
FWIW, I’ve spoken with economists who agree that my notion is theoretically sound: PFG adds a dimension of competition on which PFGs likely excel over competitors. Perhaps they should go back to school as well.
You mistake me being incapable of being convinced with me not having been convinced by you. Rather than being interested in testing the effect size, (if any) of the performance advantage being a PFG might have, you dismiss this as having been considered and explored. I don’t think it’s my epistemics that are flawed for thinking experimentation in this area is merited.
Your recap of my thoughts is inaccurate and you are confidently unaware of an entire class of organizations. Which fits my model of you not really understanding the subject. It really is strange to see someone so confidently insisting that something that exists does not exist. But so it goes.
Regardless, we are agreed that you cannot be convinced by me. Whether that is because you cannot be convinced by anyone, that is that you’re not acting rationally, or because I do not have the skill to convince you is ultimately unimportant. It’s still a waste of both our times for me to continue. I wish you luck though, I repeat, I think it would be good for you to go learn a bit more before you try this. Of course it’s your life and if you want to go for this then you’re welcome to.
Are you referring to Benefit Corporations? Social Enterprises? The B Corp organization itself? That there are businesses (Newman’s Own, Patagonia, Humanitix, Thankyou) that are PFGs? I don’t understand what you’re asserting I am totally unaware of.
I don’t care if you respond, just don’t want comments to suggest my ignorance of such entities.
I have thought about it very carefully and long before I read this post. I’ve also pointed you to many people who’ve thought about this for decades and made billions of dollars for charity and have thoughts about this specific approach. I still find you very misguided and suggest you take a few intro to business classes.
I’d suggest that you have the humility to consider that you might not have out-thought all these people. Especially as I can tell you don’t have a lot of experience actually investing in or running businesses.
But I can tell from the tone of this comment that you’re not open to being convinced. So good luck to you!
I would have much less confidence if in the couple years I’d been pursuing this, that I had ever clearly seen the idea explored of this sort of business structure being used as a philanthropic financial leverage tool.
There definitely has been lots of thought about ethical capitalism and other ways of doing business in a better ways. But I haven’t seen this sort of weaponization of philanthropic resources… It’s like you say, there isn’t the capital for it because using money in this way is just not something philanthropists are even thinking about and no one is suggesting that they even engage in experimentation regarding the size of the effects involved. You just assume that if someone has the choice to buy nearly identical products at nearly identical prices and save a kid from malaria rather than enrich some random shareholder, they’d ignore this opportunity. You just assume that a brand identity based on profits bettering the world couldn’t garner support from celebrities/influencers to better effect/lower cost.
FWIW, I’ve spoken with economists who agree that my notion is theoretically sound: PFG adds a dimension of competition on which PFGs likely excel over competitors. Perhaps they should go back to school as well.
You mistake me being incapable of being convinced with me not having been convinced by you. Rather than being interested in testing the effect size, (if any) of the performance advantage being a PFG might have, you dismiss this as having been considered and explored. I don’t think it’s my epistemics that are flawed for thinking experimentation in this area is merited.
Your recap of my thoughts is inaccurate and you are confidently unaware of an entire class of organizations. Which fits my model of you not really understanding the subject. It really is strange to see someone so confidently insisting that something that exists does not exist. But so it goes.
Regardless, we are agreed that you cannot be convinced by me. Whether that is because you cannot be convinced by anyone, that is that you’re not acting rationally, or because I do not have the skill to convince you is ultimately unimportant. It’s still a waste of both our times for me to continue. I wish you luck though, I repeat, I think it would be good for you to go learn a bit more before you try this. Of course it’s your life and if you want to go for this then you’re welcome to.
Are you referring to Benefit Corporations? Social Enterprises? The B Corp organization itself? That there are businesses (Newman’s Own, Patagonia, Humanitix, Thankyou) that are PFGs? I don’t understand what you’re asserting I am totally unaware of.
I don’t care if you respond, just don’t want comments to suggest my ignorance of such entities.