“Consider starting a for-profit company instead” by calebp
I speak to many entrepreneurial people trying to do a large amount of good through nonprofit organisations. I think this is often an error for four main reasons. Scalability Capital counterfactuals Standards Learning potential Earning to give potentialThese arguments are most applicable to starting high-growth organisations, such as startups.[1] Scalability There is a lot of capital available for startups, and established mechanisms exist to continue raising funds if the ROI appears high. It seems extremely difficult to operate a nonprofit with a budget of more than $30M per year (e.g., with approximately 150 people), but this is not particularly unusual for for-profit organisations. Capital Counterfactuals I generally believe that value-aligned funders are spending their money reasonably well, while for-profit investors are spending theirs extremely poorly (on altruistic grounds). If you can redirect that funding towards high-altruism value work, you could potentially create a much larger delta [...] The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration. --- First published: April 21st, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wKHzfWoNMSQHxosgz/consider-starting-a-for-profit-company-instead --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.