[dragonwriter]

501c3's also have governing internal rules, and the threat of penalties and loss of status imposed by the IRS gives them additional incentive to safeguard against even the appearance of conflict being manifested into how they operate (whether that's avoiding conflicted board members or assuring that they recuse where a conflict is relevant.)

If OpenAI didn't have adequate safeguards, either through negligence or becauase it was in fact being run deliberately as a fraudulent charity, that's a particular failure of OpenAI, not a “well, 501c3’s inherently don't have safeguard” thing.

[kevin_thibedeau]

Trump Foundation was a 501c3 that laundered money for 30 years without the IRS batting an eye.

[hnbad]

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a 501c3 and I'd expect that even the most techno-futurist free-market types on HN would agree that no matter what alleged impact it has, it is also in practice creating profitable overseas contracts for US corporations that ultimately provide downstream ROI to the Gates estate.

Most people just tend to go about it more intelligently than Trump but "charitable" or "non-profit" doesn't mean the organization exists to enrich the commons rather than the moneyed interests it represents.