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by yourcousinbilly
2090 days ago
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Political vs apolitical is just semantics. Will companies deciding not to be socially active have a political impact? Yes. Does not engaging in political activities support the status quo? Yes. Is a particular political group more affected by a ban on activism? Yes. And I agree focus on their goal is a great, abstract guiding principle for a company. But the better question is does a socially active company have a more positive impact on the world?
Brian believes social activism has "the potential to destroy a lot of value at most companies, both by being a distraction, and by creating internal division." That might be true, but in many cases, I doubt the cost of employee annoyance and loss of focus is more than the benefit of enacting minor policy changes and fund diversion that could positively impact millions. |
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> But the better question is does a socially active company have a more positive impact on the world?
Your total impact tends to be greatest when all your effort is concentrated on a small surface area. An organization that optimizes for two things almost always has less total impact than it would if it optimized for either one alone. To maximize impact, you'd be better served starting a company that's 100% focused on solving the problem you wanted to solve in the first place.
> I doubt the cost of employee annoyance and loss of focus is more than the benefit of enacting minor policy and fund diversion that could positively impact millions.
Generally if you want to impact millions in a real and lasting way, it will cost you more than some minor annoyances and fund diversions — even at a company as big and successful as Coinbase. The tradeoffs here are real, and I strongly suspect Brian is speaking empirically when he talks about destruction of value.