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Comment by saeedjabbar | Hacker News Reader

Why the focus on only profit making for-profit companies when the bulk of what you mentioned is currently being serviced by non-profits?

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When non-profits succeed they have to ask for more money. When for-profits succeed, they fund themselves. So it's far better for a for-profit to solve a given problem than a non-profit, as they are inherently more scalable.

>When non-profits succeed they have to ask for more money.

That's not true at all. I worked for 3 years on a non-profit that funded itself and it received external donations and investments. This is not "either self-funding or external-funding". The whole idea of a nonprofit is that instead of sharing the surplus of revenues between shareholders, leaders or members, it will invest the surplus further into the company development and projects. It has nothing to do with scalability.

I think it's more about aligning incentives with investors. Money put into a non-profit is a full write-off and so can really only have altruistic motivations. For-profit allows for investments that are motivated by a mixture of altruism and self-interest, which (for better or worse) allows for a much larger supply of capital.

> When non-profits succeed they have to ask for more money. When for-profits succeed, they fund themselves.

Having managed a non-profit and having worked at a very successful one before, this just makes you sound so out-of-touch it's not even funny.

Yes, some non-profits are driven by donations, but many are not.

> So it's far better for a for-profit to solve a given problem than a non-profit, as they are inherently more scalable.

If by, "more scalable," you mean, "less accountable," then you're correct.

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