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evand comments on Can You Give Support or Feedback for My Program to Alleviate Poverty? - Less Wrong
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Comments (39)
I agree with ChristianKl. you said:
why won't it be profitable? Can't you make it profitable? There is a market failure connecting people in places where minimum wage is too high to employ locals with employees willing to work for less. (in that its not easy to hire an international team)
I would be interested in getting involved in a for-profit version of this idea. (and was taking small steps towards researching similar ideas)
The venture could be profitable, yes. Would it generate massive amounts of income? That is also possible. I did not consider a for-profit version of the idea because the project itself was supposed to be charitable in nature. I am considering starting a for-profit branch of this idea, and would be open to hearing other people's ideas and motivations. Is your motivation and other's in getting involved in a for-profit implementation of this idea to earn money?
To elaborate more on profits, the initial implementation of this idea might not be incredibly profitable because we are relying on third party virtual employment services like the aforementioned upwork.com to ensure the initial implementation (this summer!) would be a success and members would be able to find guaranteed work. Directly contracting with people and organizations wanting virtual workers is expected to be a lot more profitable.
To frame it from the "capitalist virtues" perspective...
If you squint a bit, your version sounds a lot like "we're going to create a lot of value for a lot of people, in a way that is neatly measured in dollars, and therefore we can't possibly make a for-profit company." That is... really weird, from where I sit.
Alternate perspective: if you're creating a lot of value for a lot of people, but you can't extract any of it to compensate yourself for the infrastructure you build and the risks you take building it, are you actually really sure you're creating as much value as you thought you were?
The way I see it, making the project a nonprofit allows it to better compete with for-profit companies because of tax-advantages. It can also get donations. A for-profit corporation has the advantage of attracting investments from people hoping to make a profit, but I am quite sure that I would not be able to attract large sums of investment capital. That pretty much gives starting this program as a nonprofit the only logical choice.
Regarding your point about re-compensation, I don't think I cannot extract the value, it will just be difficult to pay myself an extraordinarily large sum of money all at once, in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. If that ever did become a reality, then hypothetically I could create a for-profit branch of the organization that could partner up with the nonprofit branch in managing core revenue generating operations, thus allowing me to siphon income out of the nonprofit.