7 ms·

I'm sure Ecosia are a good company, but headlines like this always make me a little suspicious. Non profits make a lot of money for their founders without it ev

by dwedge 2y ago

I'm sure Ecosia are a good company, but headlines like this always make me a little suspicious. Non profits make a lot of money for their founders without it ever being "profit". Ecosia are reporting just over 600K euros a month in wages, I'd love to see the split and what % of that goes to the CEO. You don't need to sell a business if you have plenty of income from it every month - especially if now that can't be taken away from you.

tdb7893 2y ago
Honestly even if they had super high executive pay like current tech companies do but then used the profits for good that's still like 100x better than tech companies now.
__alexs 2y ago
Yes avoiding another Mozilla situation should be a high priority for anyone interested in this area in future.
stavros 2y ago
No, but it aligns with the interests of the consumers better if you're actually targeting consumers (for the recurring revenue) rather than burning cash to get as many users as you can lock in, and then selling to someone who will milk them when they have no option.
- dwedge 2y ago
  That's true, but the product can still get worse chasing revenue from those consumers.
  - stavros 2y ago
    Hm, I've seen this line of argumentation a lot, and I'd like to name it as a fallacy. It's basically "perfect is the enemy of the good", where one good action is dismissed because it's still not perfect. The product will get less bad for me when chasing revenue from me than how bad it will get for me when it's chasing revenue from someone who isn't me.
    - dwedge 2y ago
      > The product will get less bad for me when chasing revenue from me than how bad it will get for me when it's chasing revenue from someone who isn't me. I'd like to name this as a fallacy - begging the question. The product will be better chasing revenue from you because it will be worse chasing revenue from someone else. Every company has the option of chasing extra revenue from customers. This company has no other options. Perhaps this makes them better as a company and want to develop a better product so that people naturally want to use it more. Or perhaps they, like so many companies before them, try to see how much they can milk out of their userbase before they lose it. They also aren't immune to costs around them. If their office rent goes up, or power for their servers costs more, they have limited options. Reduce wages (unlikely), do less good, or get more from users.
      - stavros 2y ago
        > I'd like to name this as a fallacy - begging the question. The product will be better chasing revenue from you because it will be worse chasing revenue from someone else. I said the product will be better for me. I generally believe that things are better for me when they're trying to entice me versus when they're trying to entice someone who isn't me, but we can debate that, if you want.
        dwedge 2y ago
        I agree with you that it's usually true, I just don't agree that it has to be true. When a company is well funded and focusing on userbase, that's great. When they need more money, it might not be. I know they are totally different types of companies, but look at social networks - when they are expanding they are good for everyone, once they decide it's time to earn more money from their exist users (focusing on the user) that's when it gets worse. In Ecosia's case it's different I think - without accounts and nothing keeping you there, every customer today is a customer that needs enticing again tomorrow.
        stavros 2y ago
        The problem with social networks is that they decide to earn more money from advertisers by selling the users. I don't know how a company can say "I'll only ever want a specific kind of customer", but at least saying "I'll never want to sell" is a step in that direction.
- zbyforgotp 2y ago
  They can do the milking without selling - don’t they?
  - Nevermark 2y ago
    If they are planting a million trees a month why "worry" that they might be getting paid, sorry "milking", to do their jobs? The company is doing the work to earn that money. Nobody would call it "milking" money if they were a billionaire owned company rapaciously leveraging their trapped customers for every dime. I don't think its the right word to use here.
- HunOL 2y ago
  Yes, but opposite of "maximizing profits" does not automatically imply targeting consumer or better product. In this example they state that they interested in maximizing amount of tree they plant. Cool, good for them, but it's not something I'm interested in when using a search engine. After one of Vivaldi's recent updates, I was asked to try Ecosia as my default engine, and I did, but after a few days I went back to Google.
MattGaiser 2y ago
Even if the CEO makes a million a year, it is a pittance compared to the potential equity value of a tech company.
motbus3 2y ago
I would love to see it too. Also relations with for profit companies as well. But how much a CEO of a company like this should make? It seems quite lot of work and one needs to make a living. But how much would be fair in your opinion? I honestly have no idea
- ghaff 2y ago
  In the US, the CEO/executive director of a mid-size non-public company would probably expect a few hundred $K/year. Which isn't starvation wages, especially by European standards, but is something a lot of individual contributors in Silicon Valley would consider a relative pittance. And toss in no equity.
  - sponaugle 2y ago
    That is a good estimate. You can see US non profit compensation online - https://datarepublican.com/nonprofit/assets/ https://datarepublican.com/nonprofit/assets/ Many of the presidents/vps make in that exact range (~$200 - $300k), although there are other like: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/363673599/202421219349301757/full https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/363... Feeding America, which pays their CEO a tad under $1m.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
fadesibert 2y ago
I'm not sure how much that's creating outsized income for the founder... There are between 98 (2022 annual report number) and 120 (ZoomInfo) and 133 (LinkedIn number). German filings are notoriously opaque vs Europe or UK. So that's 637k EUR / 120 employees (although the payroll number jumps around between 450 and ~640 - weird, but who knows, # of employees shifting around or some paid quarterly or on commission?). That's around 5,300 EUR / month per employee, or 64k / year. Germans notoriously don't work on the cheap - so unlikely that everyone else is working below market to line the CEO's pockets. That said - they are still a profit seeking enterprise (another commenter noted that they aren't gGMBH - but also they set up a Feeder fund in January - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1999332/000199933224000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1999332/000199933224...) Which presumably CAN be profit seeking. So yeah - it doesn't invalidate their mission - if you're into that - but it's not 100% of what it says on the tin. Also - monthly financial statements may be a German thing (sorry, I actually quite like Germany and Germans - just German company law is quite cumbersome) - but annual statements would give a clearer and more transparent picture.
- HenryBemis 2y ago
  > That's around 5,300 EUR / month per employee If the salary is 4300 (instead of 5300) per employee for those 120, that would give the CEO the extra 120x1000 per month. I am not implying the CEO does that, I am merely saying that "non-profit" is a relevant term and unless supervised/regulated can become a big earner for one/some/all of the staff. Unless they report all salaries (anonymised) and this would be signed-off by an independent/external auditor (give 20k per year to one of the Big4) we would be somehow certain that there isn't a hockey-stick graph (with the CEO and his wife/husband/son/etc/) getting 70% of the salaries for 3 people versus 30% of the salaries for the 117 people.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    In the US salaries for the top dogs at nonprofits is reported. Some trick this with “consulting fees” to companies controlled by the top dogs, but it sat least something.
- 2y ago
stakhanov 2y ago
FWIW: They have provisions in their bylaws (which can only be changed with the assent of their public interest asset-locked shareholder) that restrict salaries to a level that's commonplace in the industry specifically in Germany. In Germany, software engineers and managers tend to make a lot less than they do in the U.S., certainly not an amount of money that's a meaningful tradeoff for giving up rights to dividends and other distributions.
elric 2y ago
Depending on where in the world you are, paying yourself a high wage results in much higher taxes than paying profits in the form of dividends. These taxes may benefit society at large, which may well be in line with their goals.
- antonkochubey 2y ago
  Oh but you can pay expenses to a "consulting company" that your wife/brother/daughter/... owns which will keep their profits and pay off dividents
  - Galanwe 2y ago
    Yes, you can, but that's not legal. If you want to compare the merits of two systems, you have to do it on legal grounds. If you allow cheating, then nothing is comparable, everything is possible, no system is better.
    - ahartmetz 2y ago
      There is also legal cheating that only works if there is enough money involved. For example, for German companies, a holding company in Malta with low corporate taxes - but it happens not to make sense for typical freelancers. Or the Irish shenanigans of US tech companies.
      - elric 2y ago
        Those shenanigans really ought to be illegal. They probably are to some extent.
        ahartmetz 2y ago
        The majority state-owned (well̃, >30% federal state and >20% city) Frankfurt airport company has a holding... sorry, "management" company in Malta. Maybe they are doing just enough business in Malta to hold up to scrutiny. Most are based on no one looking too closely. But it's not a very meaningful difference. Heck, maybe I'd occasionally fly to Malta and work from there if that helped to "optimize" taxes like the big boys.
idiotsecant 2y ago
I don't have any special information here, but I wanted to mention that's it's just as exhausting when people approach every single interaction assuming the worst possible intentions as the reverse. It's OK to not be cynical once in a while.
- notTooFarGone 2y ago
  Yeah seriously. "Oh no the entire company has wages - let's assume it's exploitation" Is basic divisive language that just perpetuates the "world is bad and there is no lesser evil" bs that drives current news fatigue imo. People are sure that 1 < 100000 but Google Vs ecosia is somehow more muddy.
  - brookst 2y ago
    “They’re trying to do better, which means they’re claiming to be perfect, but I am wise enough to know nobody’s perfect, so they’re a bunch of liars who are no better than all those other liars” It does get fatiguing.
    - dwedge 2y ago
      That's a lot of projection in a forum where you're supposed to assume the best of people you talk with. I never presented that false dichotomy.
      - brookst 2y ago
        Apologies if it seemed personal. I was observing a far too common pattern here, where, as you say, charitable interpretations are encouraged.
- dwedge 2y ago
  You're right. I don't necessarily assume the worst from them and I don't assume the worst in general, but it's difficult to switch off from the fact that this article is marketing, and it's marketing for a company that the author makes money from. Listening to cool ideas like this is nice, but a little skepticism when sharing marketing is, I think, valid.
52-6F-62 2y ago
If only there was this much scepticism around the manifestos of Thiel, Andreesen, Yarvin and the like from within the tech community. Nah, the guys working to give people options and save trees. THEY must be up to something
lxgr 2y ago
That's certainly a fair point, but currently even the (non-)possibility of shareholder ownership and for-profit takeovers seems to be on shaky ground with what OpenAI is trying. I think we should definitely ask for both (i.e. no executives profiting from excessive salaries and no future possibility of any dividends in any form to any owners), but I'd take at least one instead of neither any day.
- maltelandwehr 2y ago
  Both of these conditions are true for Ecosia. They have bylaws that prevent excessive salaries. In 2020, no one there made more than 100k as far as I know. Source: I interviewed at Ecosia for an interim CPO role.
maltelandwehr 2y ago
The CEO of Ecosia makes less than EUR 100k per year. At least that was the case when I interviewed there for an interim CPO role.
- emseetech 2y ago
  I don't see a problem with a non-profit CEO (or any employee) taking a large salary. Even if they do, the non-profit structure still removes large shareholders, who are not employees and can have an outsized influence without a commitment to the project or an understanding of its workings. A successful non-profit that's also able to pay big, healthy salaries should be celebrated.
fsckboy 2y ago
>headlines like this always make me a little suspicious. Non profits make a lot of money for their founders without it ever being "profit" or more to the point, profits are not "bad", they are a measure of "good". profits mean you are providing something of value that people want, that without you is otherwise scarce. your profits attract competition/substitution, driving the price down and the value up to consumers. there are many sources of distortion to markets and eliminating them increases the good that markets do, but profits are not bad, just a measure of what is happening elsewhere in the market or in adjacent markets.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  Profits are not a measure of good. It's just as profitable to mitigate a problem that you caused as it is to authentically solve a problem for people. Profits are a measure of efficacy, but there's no reason to expect that a profitable endeavor isn't making things worse for everybody nearby.
- jmcqk6 2y ago
  Profits are bad when they exist due to unethical cost cutting. Profits are bad when they artificially lower the cost of the good by exporting the costs to other people. If a clothing company is profitable because they use slave labor, that is not good profit. If an oil company is profitable because they do not address the environmental impact they have, that is not good profit. If an insurance company is profitable because they refuse required treatments for their customers, that is not good profit. You have a very simplistic view of profit that is not based in actual history. We have centuries of seeing this exact thing happen over and over again. Just because something is profitable does not make it good. Only someone obsessed with theory while ignoring the practice could think otherwise.
  - nosefurhairdo 2y ago
    In other words, profits are bad when they necessitate some threshold of negative externalities.
  - BurningFrog 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
gdubs 2y ago
Nobody wants to see grift, but we should also normalize non-profit employees and CEOs making a good living.
charlie0 2y ago
So your argument is that people who do good things must be poor or else they actually aren't good people?
- bmicraft 2y ago
  I'd say they mustn't be filthy rich. Otherwise "doing good" clearly isn't the main priority.
odiroot 2y ago
I'm proud to say that I have worked for Ecosia, though ages ago. Christian, the CEO, is really one of the kindest and most honest people I have worked with. Also 100% committed to the cause, he walks the walk. Yes I'm just some rando from the Internet, and things might have changed since I've left, but I have my faith in that guy.
- justusw 2y ago
  Chiming in to say the same. I was there in their earlier years. Ecosia set the standard for me what an ethical company should be like. And hey odiroot ;)
  - odiroot 2y ago
    Hi Justus. Long time no see :)

by dwedge 2y ago

tdb7893 2y ago

Honestly even if they had super high executive pay like current tech companies do but then used the profits for good that's still like 100x better than tech companies now.

__alexs 2y ago

Yes avoiding another Mozilla situation should be a high priority for anyone interested in this area in future.

stavros 2y ago

No, but it aligns with the interests of the consumers better if you're actually targeting consumers (for the recurring revenue) rather than burning cash to get as many users as you can lock in, and then selling to someone who will milk them when they have no option.

dwedge 2y ago
That's true, but the product can still get worse chasing revenue from those consumers.
- stavros 2y ago
  Hm, I've seen this line of argumentation a lot, and I'd like to name it as a fallacy. It's basically "perfect is the enemy of the good", where one good action is dismissed because it's still not perfect. The product will get less bad for me when chasing revenue from me than how bad it will get for me when it's chasing revenue from someone who isn't me.
  - dwedge 2y ago
    > The product will get less bad for me when chasing revenue from me than how bad it will get for me when it's chasing revenue from someone who isn't me. I'd like to name this as a fallacy - begging the question. The product will be better chasing revenue from you because it will be worse chasing revenue from someone else. Every company has the option of chasing extra revenue from customers. This company has no other options. Perhaps this makes them better as a company and want to develop a better product so that people naturally want to use it more. Or perhaps they, like so many companies before them, try to see how much they can milk out of their userbase before they lose it. They also aren't immune to costs around them. If their office rent goes up, or power for their servers costs more, they have limited options. Reduce wages (unlikely), do less good, or get more from users.
    - stavros 2y ago
      > I'd like to name this as a fallacy - begging the question. The product will be better chasing revenue from you because it will be worse chasing revenue from someone else. I said the product will be better for me. I generally believe that things are better for me when they're trying to entice me versus when they're trying to entice someone who isn't me, but we can debate that, if you want.
      - dwedge 2y ago
        I agree with you that it's usually true, I just don't agree that it has to be true. When a company is well funded and focusing on userbase, that's great. When they need more money, it might not be. I know they are totally different types of companies, but look at social networks - when they are expanding they are good for everyone, once they decide it's time to earn more money from their exist users (focusing on the user) that's when it gets worse. In Ecosia's case it's different I think - without accounts and nothing keeping you there, every customer today is a customer that needs enticing again tomorrow.
        stavros 2y ago
        The problem with social networks is that they decide to earn more money from advertisers by selling the users. I don't know how a company can say "I'll only ever want a specific kind of customer", but at least saying "I'll never want to sell" is a step in that direction.
zbyforgotp 2y ago
They can do the milking without selling - don’t they?
- Nevermark 2y ago
  If they are planting a million trees a month why "worry" that they might be getting paid, sorry "milking", to do their jobs? The company is doing the work to earn that money. Nobody would call it "milking" money if they were a billionaire owned company rapaciously leveraging their trapped customers for every dime. I don't think its the right word to use here.
HunOL 2y ago
Yes, but opposite of "maximizing profits" does not automatically imply targeting consumer or better product. In this example they state that they interested in maximizing amount of tree they plant. Cool, good for them, but it's not something I'm interested in when using a search engine. After one of Vivaldi's recent updates, I was asked to try Ecosia as my default engine, and I did, but after a few days I went back to Google.

MattGaiser 2y ago

Even if the CEO makes a million a year, it is a pittance compared to the potential equity value of a tech company.

motbus3 2y ago

I would love to see it too. Also relations with for profit companies as well. But how much a CEO of a company like this should make? It seems quite lot of work and one needs to make a living. But how much would be fair in your opinion? I honestly have no idea

ghaff 2y ago
In the US, the CEO/executive director of a mid-size non-public company would probably expect a few hundred $K/year. Which isn't starvation wages, especially by European standards, but is something a lot of individual contributors in Silicon Valley would consider a relative pittance. And toss in no equity.
- sponaugle 2y ago
  That is a good estimate. You can see US non profit compensation online - https://datarepublican.com/nonprofit/assets/ https://datarepublican.com/nonprofit/assets/ Many of the presidents/vps make in that exact range (~$200 - $300k), although there are other like: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/363673599/202421219349301757/full https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/363... Feeding America, which pays their CEO a tad under $1m.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

fadesibert 2y ago

I'm not sure how much that's creating outsized income for the founder... There are between 98 (2022 annual report number) and 120 (ZoomInfo) and 133 (LinkedIn number). German filings are notoriously opaque vs Europe or UK. So that's 637k EUR / 120 employees (although the payroll number jumps around between 450 and ~640 - weird, but who knows, # of employees shifting around or some paid quarterly or on commission?). That's around 5,300 EUR / month per employee, or 64k / year. Germans notoriously don't work on the cheap - so unlikely that everyone else is working below market to line the CEO's pockets. That said - they are still a profit seeking enterprise (another commenter noted that they aren't gGMBH - but also they set up a Feeder fund in January - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1999332/000199933224000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1999332/000199933224...) Which presumably CAN be profit seeking. So yeah - it doesn't invalidate their mission - if you're into that - but it's not 100% of what it says on the tin. Also - monthly financial statements may be a German thing (sorry, I actually quite like Germany and Germans - just German company law is quite cumbersome) - but annual statements would give a clearer and more transparent picture.

HenryBemis 2y ago
> That's around 5,300 EUR / month per employee If the salary is 4300 (instead of 5300) per employee for those 120, that would give the CEO the extra 120x1000 per month. I am not implying the CEO does that, I am merely saying that "non-profit" is a relevant term and unless supervised/regulated can become a big earner for one/some/all of the staff. Unless they report all salaries (anonymised) and this would be signed-off by an independent/external auditor (give 20k per year to one of the Big4) we would be somehow certain that there isn't a hockey-stick graph (with the CEO and his wife/husband/son/etc/) getting 70% of the salaries for 3 people versus 30% of the salaries for the 117 people.
- bombcar 2y ago
  In the US salaries for the top dogs at nonprofits is reported. Some trick this with “consulting fees” to companies controlled by the top dogs, but it sat least something.
2y ago

stakhanov 2y ago

FWIW: They have provisions in their bylaws (which can only be changed with the assent of their public interest asset-locked shareholder) that restrict salaries to a level that's commonplace in the industry specifically in Germany. In Germany, software engineers and managers tend to make a lot less than they do in the U.S., certainly not an amount of money that's a meaningful tradeoff for giving up rights to dividends and other distributions.

elric 2y ago

Depending on where in the world you are, paying yourself a high wage results in much higher taxes than paying profits in the form of dividends. These taxes may benefit society at large, which may well be in line with their goals.

antonkochubey 2y ago
Oh but you can pay expenses to a "consulting company" that your wife/brother/daughter/... owns which will keep their profits and pay off dividents
- Galanwe 2y ago
  Yes, you can, but that's not legal. If you want to compare the merits of two systems, you have to do it on legal grounds. If you allow cheating, then nothing is comparable, everything is possible, no system is better.
  - ahartmetz 2y ago
    There is also legal cheating that only works if there is enough money involved. For example, for German companies, a holding company in Malta with low corporate taxes - but it happens not to make sense for typical freelancers. Or the Irish shenanigans of US tech companies.
    - elric 2y ago
      Those shenanigans really ought to be illegal. They probably are to some extent.
      - ahartmetz 2y ago
        The majority state-owned (well̃, >30% federal state and >20% city) Frankfurt airport company has a holding... sorry, "management" company in Malta. Maybe they are doing just enough business in Malta to hold up to scrutiny. Most are based on no one looking too closely. But it's not a very meaningful difference. Heck, maybe I'd occasionally fly to Malta and work from there if that helped to "optimize" taxes like the big boys.

idiotsecant 2y ago

I don't have any special information here, but I wanted to mention that's it's just as exhausting when people approach every single interaction assuming the worst possible intentions as the reverse. It's OK to not be cynical once in a while.

notTooFarGone 2y ago
Yeah seriously. "Oh no the entire company has wages - let's assume it's exploitation" Is basic divisive language that just perpetuates the "world is bad and there is no lesser evil" bs that drives current news fatigue imo. People are sure that 1 < 100000 but Google Vs ecosia is somehow more muddy.
- brookst 2y ago
  “They’re trying to do better, which means they’re claiming to be perfect, but I am wise enough to know nobody’s perfect, so they’re a bunch of liars who are no better than all those other liars” It does get fatiguing.
  - dwedge 2y ago
    That's a lot of projection in a forum where you're supposed to assume the best of people you talk with. I never presented that false dichotomy.
    - brookst 2y ago
      Apologies if it seemed personal. I was observing a far too common pattern here, where, as you say, charitable interpretations are encouraged.
dwedge 2y ago
You're right. I don't necessarily assume the worst from them and I don't assume the worst in general, but it's difficult to switch off from the fact that this article is marketing, and it's marketing for a company that the author makes money from. Listening to cool ideas like this is nice, but a little skepticism when sharing marketing is, I think, valid.

52-6F-62 2y ago

If only there was this much scepticism around the manifestos of Thiel, Andreesen, Yarvin and the like from within the tech community. Nah, the guys working to give people options and save trees. THEY must be up to something

lxgr 2y ago

That's certainly a fair point, but currently even the (non-)possibility of shareholder ownership and for-profit takeovers seems to be on shaky ground with what OpenAI is trying. I think we should definitely ask for both (i.e. no executives profiting from excessive salaries and no future possibility of any dividends in any form to any owners), but I'd take at least one instead of neither any day.

maltelandwehr 2y ago
Both of these conditions are true for Ecosia. They have bylaws that prevent excessive salaries. In 2020, no one there made more than 100k as far as I know. Source: I interviewed at Ecosia for an interim CPO role.

maltelandwehr 2y ago

The CEO of Ecosia makes less than EUR 100k per year. At least that was the case when I interviewed there for an interim CPO role.

emseetech 2y ago
I don't see a problem with a non-profit CEO (or any employee) taking a large salary. Even if they do, the non-profit structure still removes large shareholders, who are not employees and can have an outsized influence without a commitment to the project or an understanding of its workings. A successful non-profit that's also able to pay big, healthy salaries should be celebrated.

fsckboy 2y ago

>headlines like this always make me a little suspicious. Non profits make a lot of money for their founders without it ever being "profit" or more to the point, profits are not "bad", they are a measure of "good". profits mean you are providing something of value that people want, that without you is otherwise scarce. your profits attract competition/substitution, driving the price down and the value up to consumers. there are many sources of distortion to markets and eliminating them increases the good that markets do, but profits are not bad, just a measure of what is happening elsewhere in the market or in adjacent markets.

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
Profits are not a measure of good. It's just as profitable to mitigate a problem that you caused as it is to authentically solve a problem for people. Profits are a measure of efficacy, but there's no reason to expect that a profitable endeavor isn't making things worse for everybody nearby.
jmcqk6 2y ago
Profits are bad when they exist due to unethical cost cutting. Profits are bad when they artificially lower the cost of the good by exporting the costs to other people. If a clothing company is profitable because they use slave labor, that is not good profit. If an oil company is profitable because they do not address the environmental impact they have, that is not good profit. If an insurance company is profitable because they refuse required treatments for their customers, that is not good profit. You have a very simplistic view of profit that is not based in actual history. We have centuries of seeing this exact thing happen over and over again. Just because something is profitable does not make it good. Only someone obsessed with theory while ignoring the practice could think otherwise.
- nosefurhairdo 2y ago
  In other words, profits are bad when they necessitate some threshold of negative externalities.
- BurningFrog 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

gdubs 2y ago

Nobody wants to see grift, but we should also normalize non-profit employees and CEOs making a good living.

charlie0 2y ago

So your argument is that people who do good things must be poor or else they actually aren't good people?

bmicraft 2y ago
I'd say they mustn't be filthy rich. Otherwise "doing good" clearly isn't the main priority.

odiroot 2y ago

I'm proud to say that I have worked for Ecosia, though ages ago. Christian, the CEO, is really one of the kindest and most honest people I have worked with. Also 100% committed to the cause, he walks the walk. Yes I'm just some rando from the Internet, and things might have changed since I've left, but I have my faith in that guy.

justusw 2y ago
Chiming in to say the same. I was there in their earlier years. Ecosia set the standard for me what an ethical company should be like. And hey odiroot ;)
- odiroot 2y ago
  Hi Justus. Long time no see :)