srvo

Flock typifies a batch of "real world/real problem" platforms building things that are raytheon-tier risky with restaurant-grade governance.

Literally, the word "govern" seems to appear only with reference to others (new deployments) on their website. My jaundiced hope is that they follow the path of openai and anthropic to restructure as a PBC before their listing. That would make their marketing-y public benefit statements legally binding under a standard that has yet to be applied.

Nobody cares, but this sort of thing gets me all hot and bothered. Public Benefit Corporations are definitely overrepresented in the portfolios I manage at [Ethical Capital](https://ethicic.com). Much of what's out there is transparently sketchy (a for profit college, sugar water, payday lending) but wouldn't it be nice if it came to resemble a legitimate asset class?

Today it's more of an aesthetic format and a way to shield directors from liability.

But it's possible investor pressure could result in one or more of these companies' boards being held liable for neglecting their public purpose. These statutes have not been adjudicated in Delaware court, which puts double extra secret pressure on the activist's target to reach an out of court settlement.

Incidentally: tech workers, if you're looking for a long term way to organize and your company is on the march to IPO, now is the time to make sure that your "don't be evil" sits somewhere it can't be easily revoked. Governance is how systems survive individuals. It matters for ai agents, why not the people who run your company?

Ethics often fold under the face of commercial pressure.

The pentagon is thinking [1] about severing ties with anthropic because of its terms of use, and in every prior case we've reviewed (I'm the Chief Investment Officer of Ethical Capital), the ethics policy was deleted or rolled back when that happens.

Corporate strategy is (by definition) a set of tradeoffs: things you do, and things you don't do. When google (or Microsoft, or whoever) rolls back an ethics policy under pressure like this, what they reveal is that ethical governance was a nice-to-have, not a core part of their strategy.

We're happy users of Claude for similar reasons (perception that Anthropic has a better handle on ethics), but companies always find new and exciting ways to disappoint you. I really hope that anthropic holds fast, and can serve in future as a case in point that the Public Benefit Corporation is not a purely aesthetic form.

But you know, we'll see.

[1] https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5740369-pentagon-anthropi...

I think that stake is called taxes. As for the shares, they're supposed to come in the form of government services.

Thanks for clarifying! I misspoke there, but from my standpoint (portfolio manager/equities investor) that's better.

Wafer fabs are capital intensive, complex, and need constant retooling. The bulk of the commercial value lives in the stuff you do on your whiteboard.

From a geopolitical standpoint, I'll concede there's value in having the ability to actually make the stuff without acceding to the duopoly. But I'd still rather see the capital invested in basic research which might change the capital dynamics of the industry in the intermediate to long term.

The problem here isn't that the government gets involved in businesses. That has always been something they do.

The problem is that these days they do it capriciously, without any sort of plan or intention.

The government played a foundational role in supporting the early stage research that enabled companies like Intel to emerge. Underwriting that sort of long-term investment that wouldn't easily attract commercial capital is a great place for them to be.

Meanwhile, is it even the case that the American chip industry is declining? Apple, Nvidia, and Google all have significant chip manufacturing operations. And this isn't an industry I even follow particularly closesly.

the corporate credit rating scale is different from the sovereign one. That said, msft credit has traded through govt bonds multiple times. So arguably the market-based rating system agrees with you (even though the ratings agencies dont neccessarily)

This is the way that foundations and endowments should operate.

Too many well-intentioned organizations wind up milquetoast tax-exempt hedge funds aimed primarily at self-preservation because the received wisdom is that they should focus on building endowments and keep their withdrawal rates below 4% in order to achieve immortality.

I'm a big believer in research-driven philanthropy and mission-driven organizations. But i've seen the institutional desire for self-preservation supersede essential purposes at a few of them, with disastrous implications for their effectiveness.

The Gates foundation probably controls ~5% of the ~$2T that charitable foundations have in endowments globally. If the majority of these organizations adopted these sorts of depletion goals, their program budgets could probably more than double.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

I probably have terminal "investor brain," but whenever this stuff happens my first thought is "my favorite store is having a sale."

Then I think about everyone that's getting hurt by this and kick myself for giving into my lizard brain.

Honestly, the fact that J.P. Morgan employees are even pondering this credibly enough for it to get picked up by Barron's is a watershed moment for the labor rights movement in the U.S.

Yeah, some places have an unwritten "just write us and we'll do it" policy. It's nice to know they're up for it, but the cognitive load of reaching out is like 100x higher than just putting it in your preferences. I know there's no good solution here though, so I guess i'll just shout at the sky.

Does HN allow this? When I transitioned I made a new username and sort of started over. But it led to me disengaging from the platform.

This seems to happen a lot when one's experience is statistically unlikely, or when it doesn't neatly mesh with a commercial opportunity.

For instance, I am a transgender woman and I get THE WEIRDEST ads. Makes sense, since an algorithm meshing together my engagement histories from ten years of social platforms must see something quite strange.

The only appropriately targeted advertisements I get are from academics interested in studying me. Like: "are you a trans woman? Take this study and win a gift card."

When platforms attempt to monetize me, they wind up pushing the brooks brothers dress shirt deals and so on that I used to gobble up in my prior life.

I've taken my business local as a result, but the algorithmic rejection of my reality on these platforms takes a pretty consistent toll. I don't know what the solution is, but wanted to underscore that this is a broader problem.