“Can for-profit companies create significant, direct impact?” by T.K.

Thank you to @Jacintha Baas, @Judith Rensing, and the @CE team for your help in editing and improving this post. Introductory Context Hi, I’m Trish. This is my first post on the EA forum. I spent the past decade building VC-funded, high-growth startups (from pre-revenue to $10M+, from founding team to 250+ employees; pre-funding through Series B), and supporting 100s of early-stage founders through the communities at On Deck and Unreasonable Group. Last year, I joined the team at AIM to help build the Founding to Give program, which helps people start high-impact for-profit tech startups. AIM's Founding to Give program aims to launch for-profit startups that create impact through two ways: Build a startup, exit, and donate to effective charities (similar to earning to give) Direct positive impact created through the startup AIM's research and Founder's Pledge data show high expected value (EV) for the [...] ---Outline:(00:18) Introductory Context(01:33) Summary(02:10) Overview: The Bull & Bear Case(03:05) Reasons often given for why for-profits can't have significant impact (and their counterexamples)(03:13) #1 You can't serve two masters(03:56) #2 Show me a for-profit that is solving for rural malaria prevention(05:02) #3 For profits can't solve problems for those suffering the most(06:37) #4 But what about the perverse incentives that will inevitably emerge(08:07) #5 It would have happened anyway(10:24) #6 DuoLingo is designed to keep you using the app, not to deliver real learning outcomes(11:42) Some ideas for where for-profits might be able to create significant direct impact(13:15) Some ideas for where for-profits might be able to uniquely contribute to the impact ecosystem(15:06) Next Steps--- First published: July 11th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Se7gdAbjHPLLnRgbf/can-for-profit-companies-create-significant-direct-impact --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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