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Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact

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Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact

#181

Post by eeZah7Ux »

lowkey_ wrote: post #131
AussieWog93 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think at least part of the objection would be to Palantir being on the list. They got into all kinds of hot water for helping Trump administration do various unethical things (I don't remember the specifics)

I listed them in the defense category as it's not universally viewed as positive (though I think it very much is sadly necessary and positive), but in addition to that, Palantir works with tons of positive organizations including the NCMEC (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children) on tracking and preventing child sex trafficking.

Poe's law intensifies.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact

#182

Post by 3riverdev »

Impact Upgrade solely works with nonprofits and missional businesses, mainly focusing on process automation and systems integration. If anyone is interested in a small team and big impact, we'd love to chat. https://www.impactupgrade.com or my email is in my bio.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact

#183

Post by dfrankow »

some_random wrote: post #88

One field I haven't seen anyone mention yet is cybersecurity. It's a huge problem, and one that could really use more people (and not just security researchers).

Please say more about how it could use people who aren't security researchers.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact

#184

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

If you stand with Ukraine, consider either Raytheon or Lockheed Martin, as it's a joint venture of those two companies that makes the FGM-148 Javelin.

Or, for the stage the war is now entering, consider instead cranking out M777 howitzers with BAE Systems, either in Barrow-in-Furness, UK (parts), or in Hattiesburg, MS (assembly).

I'm joking, but only half. There's a point in here about non-"social-impact" companies sometimes doing important and worthwhile things.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact

#185

Post by yboris »

muffinman26 wrote: post #138
yboris wrote: post #20

Regardless of where you end up working, consider donating some non-trivial part of your income to cost-effective charities (ones that use research-proven methods to help as many individuals as possible "biggest bang for the buck"). Finding such organizations is easier now than ever, since GiveWell has been working on this problem for over a decade: https://www.givewell.org/ And 10% seems like a good amount to give to…

Do you know if there are any organizations or websites that do what GiveWell does for more specific issues? Perhaps something like a money-to-impact-in-chosen-field rating? As best as I could tell when I last checked, GiveWell's one metric is life years added/dollar. That's a great goal, to the point where it feels selfish to care about anything else, but when I look at my local community I do also want to know: What…

I wish I knew, but I'm unsure. I think with effectiveness in mind, the Effective Altruists are your best community to explore and interact with. There are various Facebook groups (and other areas on the web) within EA that focus on specific topics (environment, well-being, etc) so I suspect you could find something if you search around and ask around.

https://www.effectivealtruism.org/

ps - A humble thought. As tempting as it is to help within one's community, it's worthwhile to recognize that given the inequality in the world, and that it's just a luck-accident that you were born in this community rather than another, and that it very likely is the case that you can do a lot more good by focusing on individuals living in less-well-off-areas than what is nearby, it is good to reflect and see if you'd be willing to direct some of your philanthropic actions towards the more-effective endeavors.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact

#186

Post by em-bee »

aj-angaza wrote: post #89

Hi op! I work at Angaza, a social impact company. We've built a Saas platform which enables life-changing products, such as solar home energy systems, to be sold on payment plans in off-grid regions around the world. Angaza helped pioneer this industry by creating an embedded software solution, now open source, which connects a solar home system battery pack to a payment plan. Our product has helped millions of peopl…

that sounds interesting, do you any potential openings outside the US? (i'd like to learn more about your work and potential options. could you please share a contact or email me at the address in my profile?)

Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact

#187

Post by muffinman26 »

yboris wrote: post #185
muffinman26 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know if there are any organizations or websites that do what GiveWell does for more specific issues? Perhaps something like a money-to-impact-in-chosen-field rating? As best as I could tell when I last checked, GiveWell's one metric is life years added/dollar. That's a great goal, to the point where it feels selfish to care about anything else, but when I look at my local community I do also want to know: What…

I wish I knew, but I'm unsure. I think with effectiveness in mind, the Effective Altruists are your best community to explore and interact with. There are various Facebook groups (and other areas on the web) within EA that focus on specific topics (environment, well-being, etc) so I suspect you could find something if you search around and ask around. https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ ps - A humble thought. As tempt…

That's a great recommendation. I'll have to give Effective Altruism a look.

Well, yes, helping one's community instead of helping individuals in less well-of areas seems selfish to the point of evil, but at the same time, it's easy to feel like https://xkcd.com/871/. If I volunteer or donate in my community, I can personally verify that something has changed, in a way that I can't on another continent.

Also, I don't personally value the years of my own life that highly. There are plenty of things that I'd happily sacrifice my own life for or rather die than endure, so it makes sense to dedicate some of my donations to helping others avoid those fates.

So yes, rationally, I think GiveWell is an amazing organization and I'm a terrible person for not donating all of my philanthropic work to malaria eradication, but realistically I'm likely to donate more in total if I also find other organizations helping with causes I'm personally invested in.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact

#188

Post by RickJWagner »

The very best companies I've worked at were mostly apolitical. Everybody recognized and respected that politics and religion did not belong in the workplace. (You could be as passionate as you wanted outside the workplace. Once at work, professionalism ruled the day.)

In these environments, it seemed everybody was respected. The most diverse company will be the one that has the greatest variety of employees, including diversity of religion, politics, skin color, sexuality, etc.

To find the company with positive social impact, find one that walks the walk, not just talks the talk.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact

#189

Post by em-bee »

yboris wrote: post #185
muffinman26 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know if there are any organizations or websites that do what GiveWell does for more specific issues? Perhaps something like a money-to-impact-in-chosen-field rating? As best as I could tell when I last checked, GiveWell's one metric is life years added/dollar. That's a great goal, to the point where it feels selfish to care about anything else, but when I look at my local community I do also want to know: What…

I wish I knew, but I'm unsure. I think with effectiveness in mind, the Effective Altruists are your best community to explore and interact with. There are various Facebook groups (and other areas on the web) within EA that focus on specific topics (environment, well-being, etc) so I suspect you could find something if you search around and ask around. https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ ps - A humble thought. As tempt…

i am not sure, i feel that helping individuals remotely is sort of like giving people fish instead of teaching them to fish. i'd focus on projects that actually have an impact on a community by helping the community to develop themselves. the best i can think of to help an individual is to offer them a job, but other help ought to be more community oriented. unless you have the ability to actually move to those places and help through building friendship. but that is much harder to achieve.

Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact

#190

Post by riezebos »

hcnews wrote: post #153
orzig wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no money you can donate I understand you don't mean that literally, but (to minimize disinformation among others): There is absolutely some number of lives saved which would compensate for that. https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities Before writing off an entire industry, I beg you to consider that $45,000 could save 10 lives and improve many more (Yes; it's not precise. No; it's not out of their…

Again there are different people with different value systems. 1. Some people are happy with creating more positive than negative. 2. Some people want to do no negative. The practical problem with what you proposed is that now I need to vet the charities I donate and make sure its not a scam. Its a hard task to (i) spend 8 hours a day doing net negative (ii) spend more time per day to make sure you as a whole are net…

That is a practical problem, but it does not apply to the proposed solution. The proposed solution is an organization whose purpose is literally to do the vetting for you. You only need to vet GiveWell, you can then outsource the rest of the vetting to them.

From their website: "GiveWell is a nonprofit dedicated to finding outstanding giving opportunities and publishing the full details of our analysis to help donors decide where to give."

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