[robbiep]

I think I cover that. Company does not equal backer. Bad behaviour by company is not the responsibility of investors, it’s the responsibility of the board, the exec, and ultimately the courts. Investors can shape and influence, investors hopefully provide a filter and feedback, but everyone can get swept up in a good story. Company should be caned. Yc? I’ve already said what I feel.

[pmyteh]

It's not the legal responsibility of the investors, because society has given them limited liability. It may or may not be their moral responsibility, depending on what they knew, encouraged, or whatever. And the usual payoff for morally-shady but legally-blameless behaviour is reputational damage.

[formerkrogemp]

Y-Combinator exists to make Paul Graham and it's investors money. Morality is not money. Y-Combinator doesn't exist to make morality for its investors.

[UncleMeat]

Maybe it'd be better if our society reprioritized so "these organizations are all amoral actors who exist for no other purpose except to fatten the wallets of their owners" isn't the assumed norm.

[formerkrogemp]

Perhaps the sarcasm here was not understood? Corporations should exist to serve people, broadly. Not the other way around. People over profit. We should all strive to be kinder as well where possible.

[pmyteh]

Poe's Law, sadly. I've seen people sincerely argue exactly that case :-/

[chitowneats]

Yes, of course. They should exist for the purpose of advancing things that u/UncleMeat finds important instead. \s

[UncleMeat]

Clearly I shouldn't be the arbiter of world priorities, but I think there is something horribly fatalistic about people defending corporations as amoral entities as some sort of immutable property of the universe.

[nebulous_two]

Why is it only when things go bad that people realize that human priorities are not the same as company priorities?

[etrautmann]

This is not a good argument. Of course companies can optimize for multiple objectives and to pretend that any company doesn’t is willfully blinding oneself to reality.