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Comment by unescape | Hacker News Reader

It's been pointed out that there's a world of difference between a private school and a for-profit school.

A for-profit school has an obligation to its shareholders to maximize profits. If it can make more profits by providing an inferior product at inflated prices, and convince consumers it buy it - then it basically has to do that, or they are defrauding their shareholders. Otherwise the shareholders should pull there money and invest it elsewhere.

Private schools, by contrast, have an obligation to remain solvent, but also a broader mission to educate people, promote learning, make the world a better place and so on.

The word "privatization" in this context implies BIA is pursuing the for-profit model. By contrast a charter school in the US, or religious school, may be either for-profit or private and not-for-profit.

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> A for-profit school has an obligation to its shareholders to maximize profits.

No, it doesn't. A for-profit corporation has an obligation to serve it's shareholders interests faithfully, but that is not, generally, a narrow obligation to profit maximization.

Tell that to Carl Icahn. Management that puts public good over return on investment is likely to be replaced. The interest of shareholders are generally construed as maximizing return.

Carl Icahn's position, of course, matters if Icahn is a major shareholder of the firm in question; less so otherwise.

My guess is that maximizing ROI is also popular among investors not named Carl Icahn. I don't think I've ever worked for a company where the investors said "we want you to make money, and also accomplish socially relevant goal XXXX" where decided to sacrifice any part of "making money" for the sake of XXXX.

I've worked with plenty of investors who had goals which went beyond purely making money. There's even a legal movement to formally tie corporations to non-profit motivations (see benefit corporations).

Thinking about non-profit vs for-profit as a strict dichotomy is unhelpful. There are plenty of investors who shy away from particular for-profit investments and prefer other ones for entirely non-financial reasons.

Sounds like a good idea, provided it's more a more specific and verifiable commitment than Google's vacuous "don't be evil".

No, "privatization" does not inherently imply a for-profit model.

You'll see plenty of people complaining about the "privatization" of public schools when they're replaced by (non-profit) charter schools.

Also, the strict dichotomy of non-profit vs. for-profit isn't always enlightening. Particularly in the education sector, you'll find there are investors who are not exclusively looking for the highest possible return.

In this specific case, I am 100% positive that Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are not investing in BIA to maximize their profit. They both have access to far more lucrative investment options.

I agree, in the context of US schools, privatization may imply a non-profit. However in this case, BIA is explicitly described as for-profit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/06/...

In this specific case, I am 100% positive that Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are not investing in BIA to maximize their profit. They both have access to far more lucrative investment options.

I don't think this follows. You can't put all of your money into the most lucrative investment option. You have to diversify. For example people often invest in fine art, not because they're trying to make the world a better place by encouraging art, but as a hedge against other investments.

In this case there are assertions that BIA has a strategy of providing less individual attention to students in order to minimize costs, while taking money from the World Bank which could have gone to free public education otherwise. Sounds like Gates and Zuckerberg aren't in this to lose money.

My original comment wasn't about BIA specifically. Frankly, I have absolutely no idea if it's a good system or not.

It was about the dogmatic preaching of people that "privatization" is inherently evil.

In terms of Gates and Zuckerberg, I obviously can't offer you concrete proof. But I can ask you to seriously reconsider about the motives you ascribe to people. That investing in third world schools would be their best investment option (ignoring altruistic intentions) defies belief. Especially when they both have directly donated hundreds of millions of dollars to schools.

I am fairly confident that Gates and Zuckerberg are in this to lose money. They both have more money than they could ever do and have signed pledges to donate the majority of their fortunes before their death.

What seems more likely?

A. Billionaire philanthropists (who have donated millions to education already) invest in a small chain of private schools in order to fool millions of poor children and to enrich themselves.

B. Billionaire philanthropists are interested in improving education around the world and have donated millions of dollars to that cause, including to some for-profit ventures.

Certainly Gates & Zuckerberg are trying to bring about what they see as a positive vision for the world. Their track record is to provide a product (Windows, Facebook) that's "good enough", and creates a network effect that keeps more worthy competitors out of the market for a long time ("worse is better"). That's their idea of bringing good into the world.

It's a mistake to think that because a country is underdeveloped, there's little opportunity for return on investment. Actually that's where there's the most opportunity. The first investment doesn't have to pay off - just put a stake in the ground. Do you think China is also building infrastructure in Africa for philanthropic reasons?

> Do you think China is also building infrastructure in Africa for philanthropic reasons?

No, but China is not generally giving away billions of dollars without getting anything in return.

Gates at least has been consistently doing that.

Like I said, there's nothing I can say to convince you that they're not secretly evil capitalists hell-bent on making money from poor people around the world. All I can say is that it seems rather unlikely that they would go to so much trouble to hide their intent if that were the case. There are plenty of billionaires who exploit humanity without bothering to sign philanthropy pledges.

Large-scale philanthropy is not incompatible with a lust for power. I'm sure most people who try to effect wide-ranging change think of themselves as quite magnanimous - say, any third world dictator or 19th century robber baron. The effects of their "charity" may not be quite what the recipients were hoping for when they signed up.

Perhaps, but that's an entirely different argument from your original one (that Gates and Zuckerberg are trying to sell African schoolchildren a substandard product at inflated prices).

I suspect the G&Z agenda is to set up a sustainable model of investment in Africa by western countries. They don't want BIA to lose money because that would scare off investment partners who are more loss-averse. They believe in the long term, the most important thing is for people in democratic countries to engage with Africa and bring it about to their way of life. The collateral damage is that children may not be getting a great education; it may or may not be better than what they would have got otherwise, but it's breaking the old model of cyclic dependency on foreign aid.

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