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This isn't spare cash, its equity. I agree with your sentiment, eg. some company giving 10% of your salary to charity on your behalf - thats obviously not a goo

This isn't spare cash, its equity. I agree with your sentiment, eg. some company giving 10% of your salary to charity on your behalf - thats obviously not a good idea, thats your money. In the same vein, if you have equity in a company, you are free to do with it as you please - and donating 1% to charity is quite noble.

mattmanser 14y ago
You both are part of the problem, where has this meme come from that companies should be heartless bastards? Companies have become poor citizens and it's this kind of thinking that's causing it.
- alexkearns 14y ago
  Before accusing people of being part of the problem, you should perhaps be a little critical of yourself and your own incoherent arguments. No-one has called for companies to be heartless bastards. Nor are companies citizens of any kind. Companies are bureaucratic capitalist structures - they don't have hearts and cannot be citizens. My reason for disliking companies giving to charities is because it imposes a single or a small number of charities on a group of people. Not all people in that group may agree with that charity's aims. I also think charity giving is a moral issue, and morality resides within individuals not bureaucratic capitalist structures. Not that I expect you to understand the nuance of this argument. I am just part of "the problem" - whatever that problem might be.
  - rooshdi 14y ago
    You just explained the problem yourself. Companies put cash and profits over causes and people. The "1% of Nothing" initiative is only encouraging founders to invest a percentage of this cash to a philanthropic cause. If I understand correctly, employees and other shareholder equity will remain unaffected. Furthermore, if they don't believe in the company's philanthropic efforts, they are still free to work or invest elsewhere.
    - alexkearns 14y ago
      But the problem of good and bad companies is not about how much they give to charity. I bet tobacco and arms companies give huge wads to charities but that does not make them good. Good companies are companies whose work (their "cause" enacted by their "people") is socially beneficial. Such companies do not need to give 1% of their equity away to charities to be good - indeed to do so, would be to distract from their socially beneficial mission.
      - rooshdi 14y ago
        So, you support socially beneficial companies, yet object to companies diversifying their social contributions by a percentage or so? I'm sorry, but I just don't buy the argument that donating a percentage of equity from each founder would be distractive.
        alexkearns 14y ago
        It would be 1% distracting.
        rooshdi 14y ago
        Also, 1% diversified. If 99% of a company's social value isn't good, at least a percentage may be.
  - Drbble 14y ago
    Does morality lie within a charitable nonprofit corporation? If not, how is there morality in charitable giving? Where does that morality go?
- chrischen 14y ago
  So is a company a person now?
  - rooshdi 14y ago
    In a way, it already is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood If anything, this pledge is just trying to invoke one percentage of empathy in the mind of this sociopath.
    - Drbble 14y ago
      That's a (disputed) point of law, not a law of sociology or psychology or spirituality or such.
alexkearns 14y ago
It's all cash in the end, including equity. That cash could be spent on rewarding staff, reinvesting in the business, angel investing another start-up or on a charity. I personally think 'giving to charity' is the worst option, my reason being that that charity giving is a moral issue and that morals should be left to individuals rather than businesses. Your employees may find the business's favoured charity morally repulsive. I certainly would not like the fact that 1% of the effort I was giving went to a charity with whose aims I disagreed.
- _delirium 14y ago
  In a cooperative that's true, but in a capitalist corporation, the equity is owned by whoever owns it, who can dispose of it as they see fit (barring any shareholder agreements preventing certain sales). It's not like Zuckerberg is going to give his Facebook IPO capital gains to his employees, or reinvest them in the business; he's going to put them in his personal bank/brokerage account. If he had donated 1% of the equity to a charity 5 years ago, the only thing that would be different is that his personal account would have 1% less of Facebook stock in it. None of the employees or the other shareholders would be affected. When it comes to companies spending on things that their employees might find morally repulsive, I think political contributions are a much bigger problem than charity donations. Especially since those actually come from the company's revenues, rather than being taken out of an owner's equity--- I would have much less problem with political contributions if they were donations of stock by the company's owner, rather than checks written out of the corporate budget. In any case, the most likely thing that 1% would go into if it weren't donated, in the case of startup success, is just luxury goods/travel for the founders. Do you really think a private jet for the founder is morally superior to donating to charity? What if some of the employees are morally opposed to private jets (e.g. on environmentalist grounds)?
  - drumdance 14y ago
    No, it would've hit everyone. That 1% would be dilutive to all shareholders unless he specifically carved it out of his share.

mattmanser 14y ago

You both are part of the problem, where has this meme come from that companies should be heartless bastards? Companies have become poor citizens and it's this kind of thinking that's causing it.

alexkearns 14y ago
Before accusing people of being part of the problem, you should perhaps be a little critical of yourself and your own incoherent arguments. No-one has called for companies to be heartless bastards. Nor are companies citizens of any kind. Companies are bureaucratic capitalist structures - they don't have hearts and cannot be citizens. My reason for disliking companies giving to charities is because it imposes a single or a small number of charities on a group of people. Not all people in that group may agree with that charity's aims. I also think charity giving is a moral issue, and morality resides within individuals not bureaucratic capitalist structures. Not that I expect you to understand the nuance of this argument. I am just part of "the problem" - whatever that problem might be.
- rooshdi 14y ago
  You just explained the problem yourself. Companies put cash and profits over causes and people. The "1% of Nothing" initiative is only encouraging founders to invest a percentage of this cash to a philanthropic cause. If I understand correctly, employees and other shareholder equity will remain unaffected. Furthermore, if they don't believe in the company's philanthropic efforts, they are still free to work or invest elsewhere.
  - alexkearns 14y ago
    But the problem of good and bad companies is not about how much they give to charity. I bet tobacco and arms companies give huge wads to charities but that does not make them good. Good companies are companies whose work (their "cause" enacted by their "people") is socially beneficial. Such companies do not need to give 1% of their equity away to charities to be good - indeed to do so, would be to distract from their socially beneficial mission.
    - rooshdi 14y ago
      So, you support socially beneficial companies, yet object to companies diversifying their social contributions by a percentage or so? I'm sorry, but I just don't buy the argument that donating a percentage of equity from each founder would be distractive.
      - alexkearns 14y ago
        It would be 1% distracting.
        rooshdi 14y ago
        Also, 1% diversified. If 99% of a company's social value isn't good, at least a percentage may be.
- Drbble 14y ago
  Does morality lie within a charitable nonprofit corporation? If not, how is there morality in charitable giving? Where does that morality go?
chrischen 14y ago
So is a company a person now?
- rooshdi 14y ago
  In a way, it already is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood If anything, this pledge is just trying to invoke one percentage of empathy in the mind of this sociopath.
  - Drbble 14y ago
    That's a (disputed) point of law, not a law of sociology or psychology or spirituality or such.

alexkearns 14y ago

It's all cash in the end, including equity. That cash could be spent on rewarding staff, reinvesting in the business, angel investing another start-up or on a charity. I personally think 'giving to charity' is the worst option, my reason being that that charity giving is a moral issue and that morals should be left to individuals rather than businesses. Your employees may find the business's favoured charity morally repulsive. I certainly would not like the fact that 1% of the effort I was giving went to a charity with whose aims I disagreed.

_delirium 14y ago
In a cooperative that's true, but in a capitalist corporation, the equity is owned by whoever owns it, who can dispose of it as they see fit (barring any shareholder agreements preventing certain sales). It's not like Zuckerberg is going to give his Facebook IPO capital gains to his employees, or reinvest them in the business; he's going to put them in his personal bank/brokerage account. If he had donated 1% of the equity to a charity 5 years ago, the only thing that would be different is that his personal account would have 1% less of Facebook stock in it. None of the employees or the other shareholders would be affected. When it comes to companies spending on things that their employees might find morally repulsive, I think political contributions are a much bigger problem than charity donations. Especially since those actually come from the company's revenues, rather than being taken out of an owner's equity--- I would have much less problem with political contributions if they were donations of stock by the company's owner, rather than checks written out of the corporate budget. In any case, the most likely thing that 1% would go into if it weren't donated, in the case of startup success, is just luxury goods/travel for the founders. Do you really think a private jet for the founder is morally superior to donating to charity? What if some of the employees are morally opposed to private jets (e.g. on environmentalist grounds)?
- drumdance 14y ago
  No, it would've hit everyone. That 1% would be dilutive to all shareholders unless he specifically carved it out of his share.