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DeVliegendeHollander comments on Can You Give Support or Feedback for My Program to Alleviate Poverty? - Less Wrong Discussion

10 Post author: Brendon_Wong 25 June 2015 11:18PM

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Comment author: Brendon_Wong 26 June 2015 12:20:36AM *  0 points [-]

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.

Comment author: [deleted] 29 June 2015 09:10:56AM 0 points [-]

Charitability and profitability are not opposites. Perhaps you interpret for-profit as "grab as much as you can" but it does not necessarily have to be so. You can keep 51% ownership to yourself and take 0 pay as a compensation for your work and reinvest all the profits into the organization, making it effectively non-profit, while the 49% shareholders will make their gains through share prices going up if the organization is expanding based on the hope that at some future day you will pay them dividends.