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salon.com
salon.com
Reading this article was like watching someone try to break into a really secure system. The reporter tried every trick in the book, and none worked. I went back and counted the number of different avenues along which he tried to attack, and there were no less than 11: Watsi's office, Chase's language, neocolonialism, race, the focus on patient care, Silicon Valley, California idealism, Watsi's investors, how real the connection is between donor and patient, why they don't fund patients in the US, and the realism of Chase's dreams. The dude is like a cynicism machine.
What's interesting about this guy though is that he's not unique in this respect. He merely represents the default/lazy reporter m.o. taken to such an extreme that it becomes a caricature. Controversy generates page views, and it's really easy to create. In his case I'm sure this is not an act, but an instance of someone's personality being naturally well suited to the work he's doing. But those of you who might one day have to deal with the press might want to keep this article in mind as an example.
Who knows, this is just one person's take, but I found the article beneficial.
PG's comment is more applicable to journalism in general. What's lamentable is that it's the job of journalists to present sides which are wrong or uninformed.
Isn't this what good critical journalism is about? There's nothing "default" or "lazy" about digging out uncomfortable facts and telling them. It's difficult to do well.
The article is full of little drive-bys, like "what about that neocolonialism?" What neocolonialism? Whose premise are they accepting? How does that premise, applied uniformly to all enterprise, implicate all of western civilization? Are we litigating modern capitalism through the lens of a tiny SF tech healthcare charity? Oh, wait, this is Salon; of course that's what we're doing. Or, "recently controversial investor [Paul Graham]" --- here Salon has literally synthesized a narrative from TechCrunch and Valleywag stories its reporter does not actually understand. Not only that, but it does so pointlessly; Graham's nonexistent controversy isn't relevant to the story even as written.
If this was a Wikipedia article, half of the text in the article would have little blue superscripts; "weasel words", "citation needed", "who?".
The author completely failed to do any real scrutiny here. Neocolonialism isn't about how awkward one westerner feels looking at pictures of others. Nothing was included about western Capital purchasing labor and resource rights from these countries, which could frame the need for the service in the first place. Namechecked indeed.
However, the rhetoric around start-ups places them as the fixers, leaders and disruptors of the economic order. Those claims invite and deserve critical analysis. It wouldn't be fair to have Watsi be a punching bag stand-in for the Dutch East India Company, but let's please not pretend that Watsi somehow stands outside of the economic order or that we shouldn't be skeptical of claims of disruption.
I know very little about Watsi, so I don't feel comfortable commenting on it in particular, but there are so many new businesses cropping up, and people are so prone to being critical in the startup world, that it would seem to make sense to try to get your defences out along with your initial publicity.
A real write-up of a start-up ought to probe at larger issues, and something more than a facile "but can $X prevail against $insertbigcompanyname here.
Being skeptical of feel-good choose-a-person donation models brought out that all get funded.
Andrew is decidely skeptical of the current zeitgeist in Silicon Valley and that's needed. It's a far different environment from when you started YC.
And if Watsis can win over Leonard, it's surely going to do well, press-coverage wise.
However valuable your time is, it isn't worth more than the $500 I'll be attributing to what should take less than 5 minutes, if Andrew's skepticism was "needed" in this case.
Sincerely,
Not-A-Fan-Of-Silicon-Valley-By-The-Way
I think Andrew did a good job of exploring the question of asking people to help an individual, when their dollars would be better spent on issue-focussed NGOs/charities (defined as greatest good for greatest number of people/tackling systemic issues).
He quotes a UC Berkeley economist to frame the criticism , invites rebuttal from Watsi Though Andrew's inclination initially resides with the economists's argument, he concludes that Watsi's model isn't likely to siphon off money that would go to a charity like Mercy Corps. He concludes, based on an interview with Watsi, that it appeals in a different way and thus isn't using a cheap fundraising model that hurts more effective charities.
Whether you agree or not with my assessment, there's no need for the donation via bet -- but if you are inclined to find another avenue for your charitable donations, I do like Mercy Corps.
Sincerely,
A-Sometimes-Fan-Of-Silicon-Valley
But there's not a single concern that holds water. They're probably valid questions -- newcomers to Watsi probably think them up on their own as they try to decide whether they want to donate -- but a legitimate concern? An actual, bona-fide "Watsi needs to address X or their trajectory will be at risk" concern? Or "we should be worried, because Watsi's success would have negative consequences for X other group" concern?
Nope. There simply aren't any. So either I'm just not clever enough, or there aren't any arguments that can be made against Watsi which don't simultaneously make the inquisitor sound like a complete douchenozzle.
As far as I can tell, Watsi is the perfect example of (a) technology uplifting quality of life, (b) Silicon Valley making it possible (would Watsi have been possible without SV?), and (c) that it's possible to live life without being forced to be motivated by greed or glory (the Watsi founders just want to help people).
Man, I can't wait for the Watsi API to roll out.
Now that would be interesting, letting various sites get their members to sponsor people directly. I bet there are a lot of church sites that would be happy to put something like that on their web page.
That's meaningful to me. This journalists praise at the tail end of a diligent fault finding effort carries more weight than something closer to a "fluff" piece, IMHO.
Clearly, he has (or was representing) a dim view of Silicon Valley in general¹, but all the issue he brought up about Watsi are things I could imagine a skeptical reader wondering about. And, as you pointed out, the article either debunks or at least presents a counter-argument to each of those points.
To me, the article came across as a generally-positive piece about Watsi, using some lazy appeals to populist memes about Silicon Valley to help make them stand out from the rest of the herd.
¹ A view that, incidentally, I mostly disagree with. But the article wasn't about Silicon Valley; it was about Watsi.
There are so many examples of scams operating as a charity that to find a genuine charity could easily be a surprise to a died-in-the-wool reporter.
You're a security professional, you have a very highly developed and sophisticated ability to discern scams from non-scams. Normal people are not like this, scam charities are actually a big problem that they have to watch out for. That is just the sad reality.
A foundation that I used to collect for turned out to be a scam. Plenty of others that I'm aware of did marginal good still managed to make off with the majority of the take.
The ratio of funds disbursed to goal:funds taken to run the charity is the key indicator. Once you start to look at charities that way a disproportionally large number of them come up wanting. I've lost my appetite for charity long ago and I now use my funds in a different way, I help people directly where and whenever I can without any middle men/women.
Watsi seems to be a very rare thing, I wished that weren't the case but it certainly seems like that to me. Feel free to disagree. Props to this journalist for making doubly sure that he's not going to regret making a recommendation. Like I regret going door to door taking money from not-so-wealthy people to see it all go away to what turned out to be thieves in suits.
Watsi is extremely good in this respect, they're very transparent about what they do with the money. Most other charities do not cross that threshold for me, I'm happy to hear that other charities do cross that threshold for you.
Is a good place to start when considering giving to a charity. And if it isn't listed there then you're probably better off giving it a miss rather than your hard earned money.
Most charities do all they can to avoid revealing the percentage of their income that goes to the charity's goals. They are under no legal obligation to do this, and there are any number of ways to make administrative costs look like charitable spending.
A typical -- typical -- case history is that of Greg Mortenson, of "Three Cups of Tea" fame, who made off with a million dollars of foundation money for his personal expenses, all justified of course as legitimate expenditures related to the foundation. The only reason this story went south is because some disgruntled insiders blew the whistle on him, and he has been ordered to pay the money back ... eventually.
Story told in detail here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Cups_of_Deceit
Bona fide administrative costs are part of the money that goes to the charity's goals.
> A typical -- typical -- case history is that of Greg Mortenson, of "Three Cups of Tea" fame, who made off with a million dollars of foundation money for his personal expenses, all justified of course as legitimate expenditures related to the foundation
Repeating and italicizing the claim that the case is typical isn't actually justifying the claim; in any case, there's a pretty big difference between the allegations against Mortenson in Three Cups of Deceit (or the findings of the Montana investigation into Mortenson's use of CAI funds) and bona fide administrative expenses.
Abuse of funds (whether administrative or not) is an issue orthogonal to the share of funds used for administrative purposes.
Yes, but that requires a definition of "bona fide", something easier said than done. Yo can run a charity with 50 staff, or five staff and terrific computer software, as just one example where there's no wrongdoing, but a big difference in outcome. The problem is that many charities don't think of themselves as businesses with a bottom line.
I speak as a philanthropist with many decades of experience.
> ... there's a pretty big difference between the allegations against Mortenson in Three Cups of Deceit (or the findings of the Montana investigation into Mortenson's use of CAI funds) and bona fide administrative expenses.
You clearly missed the point of the "Three Cups" story. It only came to light because some insiders weren't on board. That problem is easily solved -- feather each nest equally.
> Abuse of funds (whether administrative or not) is an issue orthogonal to the share of funds used for administrative purposes.
That's quite false. In many cases of charity abuse, administrative costs is the exploitable and exploited defect, as it certainly was in the "Three Cups" story. Another is the cost of fundraising, which in some cases undermines the entire charity by paying too much in fundraising costs for each donated dollar.
Examples:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampbarrett/2012/02/22/chari...
I don't agree that that is "the" point of the story, but I didn't miss that fact. So what? Regular independent audits which are published (or at least available to funders) are a means of monitoring to detect and avoid abuse -- whether in administrative expenses or elsewhere -- and also, themselves, an administrative expense. Transparency is the antidote for abuse, but transparency requires spending money tracking things and making it available (and having someone periodically reviewing the practices of those doing the day to day tracking.)
Minimizing administrative expenses is not a means of avoiding abuse.
> In many cases of charity abuse, administrative costs is the exploitable and exploited defect
And in many cases, non-administrative costs nominally serving the charities direct mission that just happen to be used to purchase goods from firms owned by decision-makers in the charity are the exploited defect.
Share of costs that go to administrative purposes is orthogonal to abuse. Whether funds are (administrative or otherwise) are spent in a way that actually serves to advance the goals of the charity rather than the other personal interests of the charity's decision makers is the key issue, and it is neither the case that abuse is specific to administrative costs, or that increasing the share of resources devoted to administrative functions cannot improve the ability of the organization, on the same total expenditures, to advance its goals.
Share of expenditures on administrative costs is a simple metric, but it's not really a good one for either measuring the effectiveness of a charity or the risk of abuse (which aren't the same thing, although abuse is linked to lack of effectiveness.)
> Another is the cost of fundraising, which in some cases undermines the entire charity by paying too much in fundraising costs for each donated dollar.
Fundraising is actually the most common problem; its very rare for a charity with serious abuse in the way it uses other funds (administrative or non-administrative) to not also be spending virtually all of its money on fundraising, often spending it on fundraising firms that have an incestuous relationship with the charities own decision-making (to the extent that probably the single most common charity scam is charities that are essentially set up by fundraising companies with which they immediately forge exclusive contracts and serve basically as a means for funnelling donations into fundraising appeals to raise more donations to feed into more fundraising appeals.)
I already pointed out that the "Three Cups" story falsifies this claim. And that story is by no means uncommon. People of limited commitment to a charitable cause find it very easy to justify personal expenditures as "administrative" costs. Again, this is based on decades of experience inside and outside charities (both as a funding source and as a volunteer).
I can't find anything to object to in your final paragraph -- it's well worth reading.
The story of an incident of abuse of administrative costs does not falsify the claim that the share of administrative costs is orthogonal to the level of overall abuse; that incident doesn't demonstrate a positive relation between administrative costs and abuse any more than the many, many stories of self-dealing and other abuse by charity decision-makers in the non-administrative costs of non-profits demonstrates a positive relation between non-administrative costs and abuse.
Lack of accountability measures (which themselves tend to be things that actually involve administrative expenditures) are probably the single biggest risk factor for abuse, since its the one thing that is directly related to being able to get away with abuse.
Greg Mortenson abused his foundation to the tune of over a million dollars by withdrawing administrative funds for his personal use. That demonstrates a positive relationship between administrative costs and abuse.
Have a nice day.
No, it doesn't. A correlation between two variables can't be demonstrated by a single data point.
Students go around asking for thousands of dollars to send local kids to go "build a {house, school, well} in {third-world country}". If you look at the budget breakdowns, something like 80% of it goes to the flights getting the students down to said country in the first place.
Let's also be clear that in this case, with Watsi, there's no cannibalization to refer to. Watsi is in many cases working with Partners in Health, which is pretty close to being an unimpeachable charity.
I just now donated to re-setting a rice farmer's broken arm so she can keep farming and feed her family. That feels like more than a band-aid to me, and presumably to her.
(a) Have you recently given to something like Watsi and (b) were you already trying to involve yourself in real social change for the rural poor? Or are you like the rest of us, mostly concerned with "first world" problems and in no meaningful way already engaged with the problem? If it's the latter: better that we should get you to cough up some bandaids.
b) . . . rural poverty isn't something I focus on, no . . . but as regards systematic health care reform . . . I do not own health insurance, but belong to a health-sharing plan, somewhat analogous to using a credit union instead of a bank . . . not necessarily a solution to world-wide health coverage (or rural poverty), but perhaps a step in right direction.
Band-aids and system solutions ought to go together, and I'm open to learning more about how to do both better.
Ideally, Skepticism >>> Concern >>> Regurgitation, and at least the article places itself in the middle category.
It's a decent article by normal standards, and a great article by standards of tech writing.
http://daringfireball.net/2011/03/bending_over_backwards
> The whole thing is a crock, an example of trying to be fair/balanced/objective by bending over backwards to find negative things to say about the [subject of article].
And my point is: Watsi should have a button that would, at some minimum donation floor, fund every patient equally. Make it a little expensive! I would push that button every time, and you'd be harnessing a broken part of my thought process to make me make better decisions.
Also: man, does Watsi need an API. We're doing more public contests soon! Big ones! It would be freaking awesome if I could plug my analytics stuff directly into Watsi so I could make automatic donations.
† Before you assume this is some kind of humblebrag, know that I'm not donating my own money; we send $20 to Watsi for everyone who finishes our crypto challenges, which are a lot of work, so in a real sense it's the challenge-takers who are doing the funding here.
Others wonder whether focusing donations on individuals, no matter how worthy, diverts funding and attention from efforts aimed at tackling the more systemic causes of inadequate healthcare in impoverished parts of the world.
I can only respond with "The Starfish Parable":
One day, an old man was walking along a beach that was littered with thousands of starfish that had been washed ashore by the high tide. As he walked he came upon a young boy who was eagerly throwing the starfish back into the ocean, one by one.
Puzzled, the man looked at the boy and asked what he was doing. Without looking up from his task, the boy simply replied, "I'm saving these starfish, Sir".
The old man chuckled aloud, "Son, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you. What difference can you make?"
The boy picked up a starfish, gently tossed it into the water and turning to the man, said, "It made a difference to that one!"
Without a lot of research that answer seems difficult to get to. I think in the interim, helping these people is a fine use of some people's disposable income.
Also, consider that money going to Watsi does not necessarily stop money going to a different/more effective cause. Many people donating to this may not donate to a different idea, and vice versa.
[1] http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/ins...
Reality is the star fish are all fine come next tide but the boy goes home thinking he's done a good dead, in reality having done nothing but made himself feel better.
The old man is probably wise and realises the issue is bigger than throwing a star fish in the ocean and is probably sad.
He too might do nothing, but I'd like to think ever now and again one or two of these wise old people actually does something that saves millions and has a real effect on the world.
Maybe something like creating a site like Watsi.
That was a pretty great feeling. I certainly won't miss the $20 I gave, and I got to see how they would make a concrete difference for someone who didn't get as lucky as I in the humanity lottery.
If my memory serves me right, this is the first time I've ever given to a charity (I've donated to Wikileaks when they had server cost issues, that's the only other instance I remember - having been a student for most of my adult life so far, I never really had the disposable income for donations). When people approach me on the street to give money for their organization X, I find it extremely invasive and have no concrete desire to give. How do I know my money is actually going to serve a real purpose?
I love how transparent Watsi is, and how I can trust my donation to have a real meaning.I really hope they're around for a long, long time.
Only in a "first-world" country would be imaginable the complaint, "people in rich countries deciding who gets treatment in poor countries" shameful! Only an idiot would make that judgement.
The PICTURES make it real. Real human beings. It encourages people to give.
I'm no bleeding heart, but more VCs, entrepreneurs, and (especially) people of means should be using more of their vast resources to start and promote more things like Watsi.
That judgement is actually quite accurate. Watsi may do something good, but it does work with existing charities to provide medical services. Why charity is needed and the role charity plays in systemic issues in this and other countries is an important thing to examine.
"Thanks for the message! Our entire team is currently in Nepal and will be slow / unable to respond to email until Wednesday, 9/4.
Looking forward to connecting with you."
Isn't this exactly how Kiva works? AFAIK, profiles on Kiva have already received funding from their respective microlending institution. Kiva then pays the microlending institution from the funds they raised. That's a reason why repayment rates are so high; the borrowers have already been vetted and given the loan...
I think the narrow focus is part of the charm of Watsi.
If a charity can guarantee (and, ideally, show evidence ex post facto) that 100% of my donation will go to the program/activity/whatever I want to support, and that their administration overheads will be covered from other funding sources (e.g. corporate donations), that would eliminate any concern I might have that a large chuck of my donation would end up being spent on swanky offices and fat-cat executives.
There is a big opportunity here for Watsi to build a platform that can be re-purposed for other types of charitable activities.
1: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-charities-...
For me, the fact that it would save more lives would compensate for the lying to people.
IIRC, the patients aren't even told Watsi is an option until a doctor on the ground identifies them as a potential candidate.
Given that they're having trouble keeping up with donor demand, that hardly seems like a problem, at least for now. And just as the pictures and stories are a clever hack to get people to donate and allow them to feel more meaning from their donations, I'm sure that more hacks can be invented to get more money to the less cute patients if that becomes a problem in the future.
It doesn't change my donation behavior, but just makes me angry at this kind of journalism.
Yeah, I'm probably being shallow, but I take it as a challenge to my personal illusion that I'm not easily manipulated.
When one considers that publications have people whose job it is to try to write link-baity titles, it doesn't always make sense for HN submissions to use the article's title.
Consider: it's not infrequent that writers loathe the cotton-candy bait their articles are given.
"But along with the cash, Watsi has also raised eyebrows. To some critics, there’s something distinctly neocolonialist and off-putting about the spectacle of well-off do-gooders in the U.S. choosing which brown people live and die in the developing world based on who has a cuter picture on Watsi. Others wonder whether focusing donations on individuals, no matter how worthy, diverts funding and attention from efforts aimed at tackling the more systemic causes of inadequate healthcare in impoverished parts of the world. Watsi must also bear the misfortune of coming of age during a simmering backlash against Silicon Valley. We’ve gotten tired of hearing the name brand Silicon Valley bigwigs who have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Watsi talk about the merits of “disrupting” existing industries, when all that really seems to end up happening is that a few people get rich while the competitive screws tighten on the many."
You have an urge to save a life? Make a direct donation yourself or to one of the hundreds of charities that exist. Some charities are certainly better than others, but the options are out there. Watsi is a pathetic excuse for a "company" where this sort of pick-and-choose comes across as a form of good when it's really quite creepy and saddening.
Startups don't need to exist in order to do good, and you don't need to hide behind the veil of backing a company in order to seem like a good person. Give someone the money yourself or go visit those countries if you really give a shit, because there's more to their problems than individuals who happen to need medical care. Most of them don't have any at all.
I am a homosexual. I donate to the Salvation Army on occasion. The Salvation Army is known for condemning homosexuals along with a litany of other things I truly disagree with. However, having been to Harbor Light/Acres of Hope in Detroit and seeing that they are willing to provide shelter and food to those in need allows me to support them, in some way. The concept of "this isn't ideal - I want NOTHING to do with it" is simplistic and doesn't reflect real-world situations.
I have found that torch-bearing zealotry with regards to ideals only works in the abstract world.
The one useful thing about your comment is that it gives us a way to measure the background radiation of mean-spiritedness online. Watsi is about as good as anything ever gets. The founders are as selfless as anyone I've known. And they are not merely unrealistic do-gooders. They know well what things are like in the field. If people wholly focused on doing good and very effective at it still manage to get attacked online, that's therefore the baseline for being attacked online.
Personally, I think the best response to such is show me. If you can do it better, JUST DO IT instead of telling me how much better your ideas are. Because mostly those people just want to be heard when they have half-baked opinions and no experience whatsoever.
Here, let me elaborate: Stop trying to tie yourself to the individual and look at the greater problem. It's a west coast elitist mentality that gives you the "hey, look at this person I'm helping out!" Ever see those commercials they've been doing for decades now where you make an generic donation, and the charity sends you photos of people you're helping? That's a much better approach.
You might be genuinely interested in helping others but other people might not. People are not equally determined in overcoming any obstacle in their way to help someone in need. So making it easier for people to help would let more people receive help.
Do you agree this would be helpful to more people?
What striked me as interesting in your comment is how passionate you are about it. It's the kind of comment someone honest and genuinely caring makes after they've been burned. If someone treated you unfairly it can become an impetus for you to do great things.
I also wish HN readers tried to be more understanding.
(Note: I did not downvote you.)
The "pick-and-choose" mechanism Watsi uses is a (pretty brilliant) psychological hack to grab attention and elicit empathic concern [1]. I suspect a lot of Watsi's donors would not have donated to a similar cause otherwise; if so, Watsi isn't competing for their money with traditional charities.
I would love to see the statistics on how many of the people donating to Watsi are first-time donors to any charity.
[1] Phrased this way it might sound like a bad, manipulative thing to do but I don't think it necessarily is one -- at least in this case.
It's intellectually dishonest to argue - without substantiation - that Watsi diverts funds from other charities.
We can argue about improving their efficiency, but the zero-sum argument is counterproductive.