Podcast here. A lot more in Pierre of Adam Smith than Aristotle or Jesus. Will Pierre mature? Or is this a taste of what "philanthropy" will mean as our high tech people, relatively innocent of the liberal arts, or familial traditions of public service, impose a venture capital framework on all they do? My thought is that micro-loan-sharking is not philanthropy, even if the role of Rocky Balboa is played by Tufts University, and even if you can undercut the local loan sharks by a few percentage points. Ask yourself, if you took away Pierre's name and billions, are the self-satisfied views he presents here worth a Tinker's Curse. I doubt he could get a B- from any decent professor in politics, philosophy or economics. The talk is shot through with streaks of naivete to rival Candide - like saying that the measure of a venture's profit is simulateneously a good shorthand for its positive social impact. By that measure, Phillip Morris is a social venture and so is Halliburton. Then, again, Pierre is very rich, and so I am very likely mistaken. If I were so smart, I would be rich. As Adam Smith showed, the rich bear it away.
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As always the devil is in the details. I'm more cynical than ever about Onet. The latest round of community funding has even less community input than the last two. It's pretty depressing.
Posted by: Gerry | November 13, 2006 at 02:50 PM
On the plus side, I just booked my travel to the EFN gathering/workshop coming up in a couple of weeks. I think it will be very productive.
Posted by: Gerry | November 13, 2006 at 02:53 PM
"we look for three things in our investements"
1. Level playing field, open access.
2. Communication around shared interests, people connecting to to other people
3. Sense of ownership, are they engaged.
Three cheers for formalism.
Have you designed a business model that maintains those three "values" [sic].
Posted by: klauswit | November 14, 2006 at 12:29 AM
An example is loaning money to extremely poor people at rates low enough to undercut the local loan sharks who charge say 35% or more. That, I believe, is the biggest grant Pierre has made, to Tufts, to pioneer commercially viable micro-lending so that Tufts, after all expenses, nets 9% on the backs of the worlds poorest people. Probably will do more good than harm, but it is hard to see this as advancing philanthropy. Business is good; philanthropy is good. But no good comes of starting a loan sharking business and calling it "giving."
Posted by: Phil | November 14, 2006 at 08:53 AM
http://www.mediaforchange.org/index.php?title=Pierre_Omidyar
Feel free to add to the article.
Posted by: Margaret | November 30, 2006 at 11:58 AM
Thanks, Margaret, blogged it.
Posted by: Phil | November 30, 2006 at 04:05 PM