4 ms·

You gotta understand - in tech - a company's brand value is important for early adopters and legitimacy. Part of that brand has to be 'benevolence'. In tech,

You gotta understand - in tech - a company's brand value is important for early adopters and legitimacy. Part of that brand has to be 'benevolence'. In tech, it's important to be seen as 'the good guys'. 'We're on a cause to help, the money is secondary' - is the basis for a SV company brand. Understand that the materiality of the benevolence is irrelevant. Only the perception. The soon to be Princess Merkle (or whatever) and Angelina Jolie spend a little bit of time making speeches written for them - and all of a sudden they are 'amazing, altruistic people' - irrespective of their actual commitment. And it's bizarre how intelligent people eat it up and believe it. We ignore the middle aged lady down the street who volunteers at the Salvation Army two days a week about it and doesn't say a peep about it, doesn't put it on her resume. So the dissonance between the 'reality' of some way to help and the words of the auteur don't really matter that much. I don't entirely believe this is just all for show or disingenuous, but I do also believe that it's part of the resume building elements of individuals and organizations. Remember Google's original premise was to do something about 'ads that were destroying the internet' and to 'do no evil'. This PR and brand positioning - even if everyone on the inside has fully drunk the kool-aid and believes it to be true. In fact, it works better when founders drink their own kool-aid. But to say that YC is doing more good for humanity than Airbus ... is debatable. Just some very minor legislation that changed how drugs and medical services are priced ... could yield some pretty big social change in terms of quality of access etc.. So we don't want to be too cynical, just enough to recognize that public figures calling for some moral thing usually have something indirect to gain from it personally.

lodi 9y ago
> Remember Google's original premise was to do something about 'ads that were destroying the internet' and to 'do no evil'. Well, during that time they did replace the obnoxious flash/gif ads of the day with unobtrusive text ads, and iirc mostly did no evil. > We ignore the middle aged lady down the street who volunteers at the Salvation Army two days a week about it and doesn't say a peep about it, doesn't put it on her resume. The problem with silent altruism of this sort is that Angelina Jolie donating a few million to some cause will be less effective (in her particular situation) to that cause than Angelina Jolie donating a few million and also running a social media blitz to raise another few million from fans. I understand that as a side effect she might become more popular, which might lead to more lucrative movie contracts, etc. But I wouldn't even begin to be cynical about this until it was pretty conclusively demonstrated that her net benefit (from increased popularity, or whatever) actually exceeded her own interest (e.g. what some despicable televangelists do.)

lodi 9y ago

> Remember Google's original premise was to do something about 'ads that were destroying the internet' and to 'do no evil'. Well, during that time they did replace the obnoxious flash/gif ads of the day with unobtrusive text ads, and iirc mostly did no evil. > We ignore the middle aged lady down the street who volunteers at the Salvation Army two days a week about it and doesn't say a peep about it, doesn't put it on her resume. The problem with silent altruism of this sort is that Angelina Jolie donating a few million to some cause will be less effective (in her particular situation) to that cause than Angelina Jolie donating a few million and also running a social media blitz to raise another few million from fans. I understand that as a side effect she might become more popular, which might lead to more lucrative movie contracts, etc. But I wouldn't even begin to be cynical about this until it was pretty conclusively demonstrated that her net benefit (from increased popularity, or whatever) actually exceeded her own interest (e.g. what some despicable televangelists do.)