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Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

blog.ecosia.org

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Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#91

Post by 52-6F-62 »

dwedge wrote: post #8

I'm sure Ecosia are a good company, but headlines like this always make me a little suspicious. Non profits make a lot of money for their founders without it ever being "profit". Ecosia are reporting just over 600K euros a month in wages, I'd love to see the split and what % of that goes to the CEO. You don't need to sell a business if you have plenty of income from it every month - especially if now that can't be ta…

If only there was this much scepticism around the manifestos of Thiel, Andreesen, Yarvin and the like from within the tech community.

Nah, the guys working to give people options and save trees. THEY must be up to something

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#92

Post by brookst »

notTooFarGone wrote: post #84
idiotsecant wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have any special information here, but I wanted to mention that's it's just as exhausting when people approach every single interaction assuming the worst possible intentions as the reverse. It's OK to not be cynical once in a while.

Yeah seriously. "Oh no the entire company has wages - let's assume it's exploitation" Is basic divisive language that just perpetuates the "world is bad and there is no lesser evil" bs that drives current news fatigue imo. People are sure that 1 < 100000 but Google Vs ecosia is somehow more muddy.

“They’re trying to do better, which means they’re claiming to be perfect, but I am wise enough to know nobody’s perfect, so they’re a bunch of liars who are no better than all those other liars”

It does get fatiguing.

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#93

Post by lxgr »

Gerardo1 wrote: post #73
jksflkjl3jk3 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they disclose what percentage of their revenue is donated? If it's just a token amount, then I'd rather not support a marketing gimmick and would prefer to just donate directly to an organization focused on trees. If it's a significant amount, then it seems unlikely that they'll be able to compete with for-profit alternatives that can focus on developing the best product.

But are you donating to an organization to plant trees? What has the lower barrier of entry: making a point to donate your money, or switching your default search engine?

Definitely switching default search engines.

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#94

Post by lxgr »

andy12_ wrote: post #52
jksflkjl3jk3 wrote: post #48

Their website is confusing. So it's a non-profit for planting trees.. that's also a search engine? How are those two things at all related or have any benefit to being combined into one company?

Because ad revenue can be used for the non-profit? Ecosia's whole thing is that when you use it, you indirectly help plant trees - "the search engine that plants trees".

But GP raises a good point: Are these two things that benefit from any kind of synergy in terms of skills required by the employees working there, target audience etc.?

If not, it generally seems like a better idea to keep the two concerns separate in two different non-profit organizations. (I don't think it would be a problem for one non-profit to donate funds to another, especially if doing so was explicitly stated as its goal when it's incorporated.)

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#95

Post by lxgr »

> [...] my two promises by turning Ecosia into a so-called “steward-owned company”. This model imposes two legally binding and irreversible restrictions on us:

I really hope that we'll get a legal precedent for this actually being possible and durable in at least some countries, because that was the promise of OpenAI at some point as well.

(That's not to say I have reason to suspect anything bad of the current or any potential future stewards of Ecosia, but I'll prefer a hard legal guarantee over a promise any time, especially when charitable donations are involved.)

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#96

Post by lxgr »

dwedge wrote: post #8

I'm sure Ecosia are a good company, but headlines like this always make me a little suspicious. Non profits make a lot of money for their founders without it ever being "profit". Ecosia are reporting just over 600K euros a month in wages, I'd love to see the split and what % of that goes to the CEO. You don't need to sell a business if you have plenty of income from it every month - especially if now that can't be ta…

That's certainly a fair point, but currently even the (non-)possibility of shareholder ownership and for-profit takeovers seems to be on shaky ground with what OpenAI is trying.

I think we should definitely ask for both (i.e. no executives profiting from excessive salaries and no future possibility of any dividends in any form to any owners), but I'd take at least one instead of neither any day.

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#98

Post by andy12_ »

lxgr wrote: post #94
andy12_ wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because ad revenue can be used for the non-profit? Ecosia's whole thing is that when you use it, you indirectly help plant trees - "the search engine that plants trees".

But GP raises a good point: Are these two things that benefit from any kind of synergy in terms of skills required by the employees working there, target audience etc.? If not, it generally seems like a better idea to keep the two concerns separate in two different non-profit organizations. (I don't think it would be a problem for one non-profit to donate funds to another, especially if doing so was explicitly stated…

It seems they kind of do this already. [1] "We send out payments to different partners each month to plant and protect trees in biodiversity hotspots across the globe."

[1] https://blog.ecosia.org/ecosia-financial-reports-tree-planti...

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#99

Post by nbadg »

stakhanov wrote: post #70
nbadg wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something I don't really understand, maybe you have thoughts: is there a benefit to gGmbH over the company being a wholly-owned subsidiary of a Stiftung?

They have a brief paragraph here [1] that indicates they considered these and decided against it: "The team considered several alternative ownership solutions to address these questions, including converting the business to a German non-profit and establishing a foundation. Both of these solutions had constraints, though, and neither offered the mixture of entrepreneurial flexibility and structure security they sough…

For context, I live in Germany and am familiar with the landscape here. Also, I would not equate a 501(c)3 to a gGmbH; gGmbH is more like a B Corp (at least in some of the states that allow it; corporate law differs from state to state in the US). A gemeinnützige Stiftung (Foundation for public purpose) is much closer to a 501c3 than a gGmbH, and a Familienstiftung (Family foundation) is closer to a family trust. (At least for tax purposes, which is the territory I'm most familiar with in this comparison).

But that's not what I'm asking about. Unlike in the US, Stiftungs in Germany (both family and public-purpose) can own an unrestricted percentage of shares -- including all of them -- in normal companies (Kapitalgesellschaften). And I'm specifically interested *not* in restructuring a GmbH as a Stiftung, which is what Ecosia decided against, but rather, I'm wondering if there are any resources available discussing pros and cons of forming a Stiftung as a holding entity, fully owning a GmbH subsidiary (such a construct is not legally possible in the US).

From my perspective, this holding structure would provide much better legal insulation (in both directions) from the founders, preserve the operational flexibility of the (operational) GmbH, while allowing distributions from the GmbH (which would, by definition of being a 100% stakeholder, flow exclusively into the Stiftung) to be distributed by the (purely administrative) Stiftung, according to the founding documents. But I've never seen such an arrangement discussed in depth, which is why I'm asking about it.

Re: Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

#100

Post by maltelandwehr »

dwedge wrote: post #8

I'm sure Ecosia are a good company, but headlines like this always make me a little suspicious. Non profits make a lot of money for their founders without it ever being "profit". Ecosia are reporting just over 600K euros a month in wages, I'd love to see the split and what % of that goes to the CEO. You don't need to sell a business if you have plenty of income from it every month - especially if now that can't be ta…

The CEO of Ecosia makes less than EUR 100k per year.

At least that was the case when I interviewed there for an interim CPO role.

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