The bottom line doesn't lie or kiss ass.

Be the asshole people want to kiss

> people being motivated by ego, power, and social status, which is basically always what you eventually end up with in any non-profit.

I've only really been close to one (the owner of the small company i worked at started one), and in the past I did some consulting work for anther, but that describes what I saw in both situations fairly aptly. There seems to be a massive amount of power and ego wrapped up in the creation and running these things from my limited experience. If you were invited to a board, that's one thing, but it takes a lot of time and effort to start up a non-profit, and that's time and effort that could be spent towards some other existing non-profit usually, so I think it's relevant to consider why someone would opt for the much more complicated and harder route than just donating time and money to something else that helps in roughly the same way.

This rings true, though I will throw in a bit of nuance. It's not greed, the desire of making as much money as possible, that is the shaping factor. Rather the critical factor is building a product for which people are willing to spend their hard earned money on. Making money is a byproduct of that process, and not making money is a sign that the product, and by extension the process leading to the product, is deficient at some level.

Excellent to make that distinction. Totally agree. If only there was a type of company which could have the constraints and metrics of a for-profit company, but without the greed aspect...

Interesting - in my experience people working in non profits are exactly like those in for-profits. After all, if you’re not the business owner, then EVERY company is a non-profit to you

Upper management is usually compensated with financially meaningful ownership stakes.

People across very different positions take smaller paychecks in non-profits that they would do otherwise and compensate by feeling better about themselves, as well as getting social status. In a lot of social circles, working for a non-profit, especially one that people recognise, brings a lot of clout.