I know that a whole bunch of our fellow Heretics are working on organizations aiming to have a positive impact on humanity — be it in the form of a non-profit or a for-profit company. What often gets muddled up in these organizations is the question of money: For some, money seems to be the root of all evil and thus they have a hard time squaring the need for it with the desire to grow their business. We had a fair amount of this in the earlier days of Mozilla.
Kip Tindell (founder of The Container Store) coined the term Conscious Capitalism as a different way to think about this and a new way to build businesses.
He made the following comment in a recent Inc. Magazine interview:
“An important part of conscious capitalism is that it is OK to make a profit. Costco pays its employees higher salaries than its competitors do. You can’t do that unless you’re profitable. You can’t change the world if the company isn’t making money.”
That last sentence is key:
You can’t change the world if the company isn’t making money.