[pmarca]

For what it's worth, those six nonprofits weren't just chosen randomly. Each GP picked one he and his family had direct experience with.

For my part, I don't know as much about this as some people, but my wife teaches philanthropy at Stanford and has studied, written about, and taught the topic of effective giving for her whole career, so that works out nicely for me. (Can't resist plugging her recent book "Giving 2.0" for people interested in the topic.)

[waterlesscloud]

Thank you for taking the questions here seriously and taking the time to address them thoughtfully.

This sort of topic brings out high emotions on both sides, and it's good to bring the rhetoric level down a bit. Certainly it's the way to win people over to your way of thinking and have even more of an impact.

I'm curious, has your wife written about the sorts of topics raised here? Would she do so on the web, if she hasn't already? There's a notable portion of the entrepreneurial community that has these sorts of legitimate questions and it would seem like she'd be in a unique position to discuss them and sway hearts and minds.

[zmitri]

Hey Marc, speaking of giving 2.0, do you think there's some value in making it easier for companies to promote positive initiatives like this? Or do you think the action is more of a means in itself?

For example, if a16z said "Hey users of instagram (or users of a16z product that just sold), we're going to let you decide which cause some of this money goes to," would that create a delta in value from the original proposition?

[pmarca]

I'm not an expert (and don't want to comment on any particular company or product), but it's an intriguing idea. I think Marc Benioff was an early innovator in this area. It will be interesting to see what new ideas entrepreneurs -- or their investors -- come up with along these lines.

[nikcub]

a16z would be giving a lot of money towards capturing Kony if you did that.