As the executive director of a tech nonprofit (https://www.stellar.org/), this is a topic I spend a lot of time thinking about. Certain problems need scalable, open, global public infrastructure, like global open system for identity, money, healthcare, energy research, climate data, etc. Unfortunately, the current model of foundation philanthropy doesn't fund these kinds of solutions well because the current charity funding model focuses on funding "programmatic services" (programs that service recipients directly). To put in more familiar HN terminology, foundations prefer to fund front-end services rather than back-end infrastructure. But Wikipedia cannot exist without http. And who funds the development of http-like projects?

With the growth of the Internet and the open-source movement, we, the tech industry, understand why open protocols and technology are crucial to providing access and opportunity to more people. I am a big believer in for-profit companies too, but there are certain things in tech that should be executed with a more philanthropic bent. When asked why Stellar.org is nonprofit, decentralized and open-source, we reply, "Can you imagine if the Internet had been owned by a for-profit company?

The thesis of Parker's post in the WSJ really struck a chord with me. There is a unique role that technologists can to play in philanthropy. We understand infrastructure and we should be funding the big tech bets that the world needs. Our industry is full of the unreasonable optimists - let's take that optimism and invest in an unbelievable future:)