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Comment by charcircuit | Hacker News Reader

The library is owned by Samual Library Inc which is not the government or a public company.

Profit is not neccessary to deliver value, but it helps optimize it.

If someone knowing kids names is worth it people would be willing to pay more for the service. If people would rather pay less and use kiosks then that may be a better option.

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Samual Library Inc is a "not-for-profit nonstock corporation ... organized exclusively for charitable and educational purposes." Its bylaws prohibit distributing earnings to "directors, officers, or other private persons, except that the corporation shall be authorized and empowered to pay reasonable compensation for services and to make payments and distributions in furtherance of the purposes set forth in article 6 hereof." - https://samuelslibrary.net/images/about/policies-more/articl...

And you think that makes it a private equity company?

My LLC, which I ran my consulting business under, was neither a government nor a public company ... and neither was it a private equity company.

Would you consider Library Systems & Services, from the article, a private equity company?

You are the one strangely claiming a 401(3)(c) not-for-profit nonstock company is a private equity company.

I assume you have changed the topic because you know you are wrong.

As the article says, Library Systems & Services is 'private equity owned'. If you can't tell the difference being a private equity owned company and being a private equity company then you really don't understand this topic at all.

You’re saying that nonprofits are the same as “private equity.” That’s an odd take.

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/540...

It's a very common "gotcha" comment on HN unfortunately — latch on some specific definition of a term then dismiss anything that doesn't fit it. Not sure what we can do about it unfortunately

> Profit is not neccessary to deliver value, but it helps optimize it.

How?

You seem a bit confused. Samuels Library Inc is a tax-emempt 501(c)(3) non-profit, which is kind of the opposite of private equity.

The opposite of private equity would be public equity where the public has ownership of it.

A non-profit like this literally cannot be owned and thus no equity to be public or private. It is a legal entity controlled by its board and there are no ownership shares which can be bought, sold, or transfered.

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