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Comment by rossdavidh | Hacker News Reader

So, I can totally believe that this particular idea didn't work well. I can totally agree that we should learn from it, perhaps that people want to give $ to feed the poor only when they don't have to sit next to them, or that people on lunch break don't want to have to tackle a moral quandary just then.

But, the article seemed needlessly negative. So, the CEO of Panera tried something, put his business experience to work seeing if this idea would succeed, and when it didn't, after giving it a fair shot, he shut it down. I don't think that's a reason to hate on him for trying it, or that anyone who thought it was worth a try should have known better. Just a reason for solving hunger in a different way (perhaps the simpler one of just giving food-insecure people some lunch money).

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Yeah, no kidding. A guy tried to find a way for his company to positively contribute to society and failed while absorbing losses. So he should be lambasted? What did Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein do?

Judging from his articles[1] he's a professional kvetch.

[1] https://lareviewofbooks.org/contributor/robin-kaiser-schatzl...

Sounds like a standard case of people applying the Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics[0]. That is: you've somehow associated yourself with a problem, so now you get to be blamed for it. Heaven forbid you tried to make money solving it - now you're a monster.

[0] - https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...

Right, programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). But I do agree that TFA was needlessly negative. I mean:

> Unsurprisingly, Shaich never mentions SNAP in his TED talk. If he did, he may have had to admit that Panera Cares was nothing but an elaborate branding exercise, a solution to a problem we already know how to solve. Panera Cares was an experiment that, in the end, was exactly like Shaich: full of empty, unpleasant, and superfluous gestures.

I rather envy people who do gestures well. I've been coached at it, but I'm still pretty wooden.

AKA: "No good deed goes unpunished."

That last line is all I'll remember about this article. It makes the whole thing into an unnecessary, personal attack.

In the U.S. a large segment of the population (100M+) is told over-and-over again that they should rely on the expertise and charity of the elite in business and politics to take care of them.

Examples like this just show how naive and detached from reality that self appointed elite is and how little value their "charity" provides.

"self appointed elite" is a weird bag of people, which would likely contain Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, and many random CEOs in between the spectrum. Their approach/value is radically different, so it's generalising here useful?

I think the point the article was trying to make was that what the CEO tried is classically delusioned thought processes from a rich privileged person. His business experience was not applicable to the situation but he thought it was. And it's people like him, and his broader political views, that are stymieing the things that have been shown to work.

It's negative because it's tiresome. Will these people ever realize that their time, money, and lobbying are better put towards programs that work?

This article isn’t a criticism of the CEO of Panera, per se, it is a criticism of conscious capitalism and libertarian ideology trying to solve collective problems with individual actions, that the marketplace is the proper place to express our morality.

The reason it's so negative is because it already notes that prior research showed consumer responsibilization doesn't work. Shaich might see himself as good-minded, even volunteering as cashier, but he comes off more as misguided (what with his Ted Talk enthusiasm) and out of touch (note the vast gap between the customers and this man who made $2 million that year). I'm not sure why you expected some bland analytical article. The author clearly doesn't agree with Libertarian ideals or conscious capitalism.

The only research this article cites is a 2017 study that looked at Panera Cares itself. You can hardly fault the Panera CEO for trying when his efforts are what allowed the research to be done in the first place.

Okay I was incorrect on that front, [0] but the field of economics isn't exactly new, nor is the general idea itself (things like pay-what-you-want, voluntary contributions, etc).

[0]: Here's the paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/205157071454056...

Exactly. It's negative because Shaich acted without doing any research, purely trusting his "gut" about how he, a rich white man, thought food insecurity could be "solved" despite being the last person in the world who would know anything about it.

It's negative because it was a waste of time and money that could have been applied much more effectively to help the problem if some research was done first instead of trying to swoop in like some Ayn Randian super hero.

Hmmm...I don't see much Randian about this effort. I'm not sure Rand would have approved of a CEO trying to help the poor at all. His point about soup kitchens being depressing places to have to eat, whether it is accurate or not, is at least evidence of thinking about the psychological need for respect of the recipient. Anyway, again, I'm not saying this was the right approach, I'm just saying the article should be more "let's learn what we can here", and less "look at this dumb rich guy being a jerk for trying to help people in a way that didn't work well".

These kinds of things are typically done for optics rather than any actual empathy for the vulnerable/less fortunate, It's just a failed attempt to win over the hearts of more of those consumers that can and will pay. Wealth/income inequality can only be solved by a redistribution. And such a redistribution can't rely on the same dynamics that caused the inequality in the first place. (How did these people become so food insecure?) The project was clearly doomed to fail from the outset and I think it makes sense to call people like this on their feel-good bullshit.

You're right. It sure was morally wrong of them to take a chance on a novel way to help people. I also hate the CEO for constantly shouting, "end all other redistributive efforts, we solved it ourselves!" /s

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