Hi! I've worked for a few non-profits over the years. They are no panacea! Many businesses at least have a clear success mode: do good things for people and they'll pay you so you can do more good things for them.

But the business model of many non-profits is something like, "Sell good feelings to rich people, and then use the surplus to Do Good." This is a much messier feedback loop, and it's very hard to build a precise enough agreement of what "Good" means to prioritize and focus. And big-dollar donations often come with strings attached, meaning it can end up feeling like the problems you get in early enterprise software companies, where the tail wags the dog.

All kinds of organization have problems with the sorts of people who really want to be in charge. It's true that non-profits have fewer very greedy people, but they have at least as many people who want to be famous. Or who enjoy exercising power in a hierarchy.

That said, I know people who have found the right circumstances and have had great jobs. And one of the benefits of every non-profit I've worked for is that the people are great. Smart, dedicated, caring, and mission driven. So although nobody should think of it as utopia, I'd encourage people to check it them out.