I found your discussion of institutional morality as a factor in employee retention and motivation to be compelling.
Although the focus in my work on Guided Consumption has been more on how companies explicitly working for charities instead of traditional shareholders might gain favorable treatment among consumers, this could definitely true for employees as well.
Ownership or right to profit by charities would also provide a degree of a Ulysses pact regarding commitment to charitable purpose. I don’t believe that there is much risk of this happening, but, theoretically, Sam Bankman-Fried could wake up tomorrow and abandon his commitment to EA principles, thus drastically reducing, or eliminating, the utility of money in his hands. A more realistic issue would be that founders/​owners may have difficulty credibly signaling their own commitment to virtuous principles. If a founder/​owner committed equity interests irrevocably to worthy charitable causes much fewer questions would be reasonable. Even if said actor was insincere in his/​her virtuous commitment and/​or changed beliefs or motivations in the future, the equity of his/​her business would still be benefiting the same purposes. Furthermore, it may be that different actors within our economy, such as consumers, feel differently about their activity benefiting a cause area directly rather than their activity benefiting another entity who will predictably relay that benefit for good.
One obvious disadvantage to profit accumulation through Guided Consumption rather than profit accumulation to an individual EA agent is the lack of flexibility. A Guiding Producer is committed to accruing profits to charities and/​or nonprofits according to how it advertises. Often what is the most cost-effective organization to assist will vary across time, and thus, under a very basic profit destination model, a Guiding Producer/​Company would not be able to exploit the highest value charitable opportunities. One possible solution to this would be profit destinations that are themselves flexible to conditions, such as Open Philanthropy. Of course, consumers, employees, and other economic actors may be less likely to discriminate in favor of flexible charitable profit destinations.
I found your discussion of institutional morality as a factor in employee retention and motivation to be compelling.
Although the focus in my work on Guided Consumption has been more on how companies explicitly working for charities instead of traditional shareholders might gain favorable treatment among consumers, this could definitely true for employees as well.
Ownership or right to profit by charities would also provide a degree of a Ulysses pact regarding commitment to charitable purpose. I don’t believe that there is much risk of this happening, but, theoretically, Sam Bankman-Fried could wake up tomorrow and abandon his commitment to EA principles, thus drastically reducing, or eliminating, the utility of money in his hands. A more realistic issue would be that founders/​owners may have difficulty credibly signaling their own commitment to virtuous principles. If a founder/​owner committed equity interests irrevocably to worthy charitable causes much fewer questions would be reasonable. Even if said actor was insincere in his/​her virtuous commitment and/​or changed beliefs or motivations in the future, the equity of his/​her business would still be benefiting the same purposes. Furthermore, it may be that different actors within our economy, such as consumers, feel differently about their activity benefiting a cause area directly rather than their activity benefiting another entity who will predictably relay that benefit for good.
One obvious disadvantage to profit accumulation through Guided Consumption rather than profit accumulation to an individual EA agent is the lack of flexibility. A Guiding Producer is committed to accruing profits to charities and/​or nonprofits according to how it advertises. Often what is the most cost-effective organization to assist will vary across time, and thus, under a very basic profit destination model, a Guiding Producer/​Company would not be able to exploit the highest value charitable opportunities. One possible solution to this would be profit destinations that are themselves flexible to conditions, such as Open Philanthropy. Of course, consumers, employees, and other economic actors may be less likely to discriminate in favor of flexible charitable profit destinations.