If you ask an entrepreneur for a book suggestion, I can almost guarantee they will tell you to read “How to Make a Few Billion Dollars” by Brad Jacobs, and I can’t blame them. Brad is a money-making genius having built multiple billion dollar brands.
But the world does not need more billionaires. It needs innovators that make life better for billions of people.
Extreme wealth is hero’d by much of society, even while it bears negative consequences. And yet, our system – especially our startup ecosystem – is rigged to celebrate venture capital raises, purse growth at all costs, and build obscene wealth for a few.
I’ve always thought there was a better way. And as an entrepreneur myself, I’ve consistently been living in a state of tension...
Do I increase the valuation of my company, or do I pay my team members more?
Do I maximize our earnings, or offset our carbon?
Do I build new partnerships for shared prosperity, or do I compete to seize new customers and expand our market size?
The list goes on
If we were VC-backed, the answer would be simple: Revenue and earnings at all costs — even if that means degrading the environment and exacerbating inequalities.
And if you look for any company-building advice, from Founder’s Podcast to First Round Review to INC’s click-bait headlines, they all tell the same story: As an entrepreneur, the only thing that matters is growing your valuation.
But why? Because it makes a good PR headline? Because it makes them rich?
And at what REAL cost?
Without exception, the for-profit entrepreneurs I know have all experienced AT LEAST one of the following: Depression, crippling anxiety, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, broken relationships, kicked out of their homes by significant others, been ousted by their Boards… If you look at this from a more abstract setting, it’s pretty wild that we celebrate people that take venture capital, when, almost without exception, EVERYBODY knows that taking the money increases their odds of being removed as CEO, increases their stress, decreases their health, and ensure they will experience more work and less life. And for what? To get rich?
You see… There is a problem with entrepreneurship today.
A BIG problem.
The pursuit of profits above purpose is degrading the environment, making social inequality worse, and fracturing society. And in the majority of cases, it degraded the lives of entrepreneurs themselves.
We see a better way, and we’re bringing it the spotlight it deserves.
Join us as we explore "social entrepreneurs" that prioritize purpose above profits, employees above investors, and communities above capital.
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