

PG chooses healthcare non-profit Watsi as his first board seat - sethbannon
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/20/y-combinators-paul-graham-chooses-healthcare-non-profit-watsi-as-his-first-board-seat

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rattray
I wonder if this has to do with the fact that, since Watsi is a nonprofit, pg
can still lay claim to the rather unique boast of not serving on any company
boards. (This is as opposed to accepting the position simply because he thinks
Watsi > other startups)

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karamazov
Most people can claim not to serve on any company boards.

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rattray
My mistake; implicit was unique among the world of Startup luminaries and
investors.

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jacquesm
It is not at all unique in the world of startup luminaries and investors
either.

Board seats have pros and cons.

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gbog
This made me think that often giving money is not the best way to help.
Microcredit has been tried and don't fix everything. A development economist
made a strong point showing that micro deposit was more likely to be helpful,
for example incountries were it was not culturally acceptable to hold some
tangible wealth when some neighbours are in need (in some parts of Kenya,
people tend to eat all their corn once harvested as fast as possible to avoid
having to give a part of it to... faster eaters).

Also, buying goods from peasants in poor countries is a more sustainable way
to help. Just imagine an Amazon or a Taobao where you buy spices or coffee
straight from the producer.

edit and move: In fact, a part of the pleasure of eating a good baguette is
because you bought it to the boulangerie and met the guy who made it, or his
wife. Same with cheese, or even more with wine (the summun of wine-snobism in
to drink bottles that you got from the chateaux' cellar)

The Nescafe coffee I drink don't give me any pleasure of this kind, because I
am not (or try not to be) emotionally affected by brands and commercials. But
reversing the arrow: I would be fine and happy with buying my coffee grains
from a Watsy-like website, choosing the guy and his family from a picture and
short description (which is weak, but better than nothing). At least I would
know who to curse if I found roaches in the bag (happened to me with
industrial cereals).

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Evbn
So you actively and intentionally promote inefficient production strategies,
or want to be sold a fake image of pre-industrial cottage production that
doesn't much exist, especially as prices you'd want to pay. That is not the
way to lift people out of poverty.

Better to buy cheap cheese and then pay someone to make bread for his
neighbors.

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gbog
Sorry, but in France and in China, the two countries I have lived in, it is
easy to buy relatively cheap food that is not produced "efficiently" from food
industries.

Example:

\- bread, cheese and wine in France. I mean the cheese, not the plastic yellow
industrial thing that hijacked the name. You could visit a cheese-making farm,
I bet you won't say it is "efficient".

\- in Beijing, I buy my breakfast mantous (steamed buns) in a mantou place 30
meters away. I have seen the bags of wheat coming in the truck in the morning.
They serve a block with very good mantous, but they are probably not as
"efficient" as a couple of factories doing it for a 10M city.

But obviously, these way to produce food is in long term much more efficient
than factories. Why? Because good food is good for health, and food cannot be
good and at the same time produced "efficiently" by robots in factories.

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greenonion
Maybe this comment is off-topic here but I can't help but feel that Watsi is
in a way making all these individuals "compete" in terms of who is more
likable, or whose situation is the worst, in order for them to get the help
they need. Maybe I'm exaggerating but this model really troubles me.

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chaseadam17
Watsi guarantees funding for every patient profile that's accepted, so donor
bias doesn't impact who receives care and who doesn't.
([http://blog.watsi.org/post/43199420898/watsis-operational-
pr...](http://blog.watsi.org/post/43199420898/watsis-operational-process-
version-2-0))

~~~
greenonion
Thank you for that link, I wasn't aware of that. Even though the reasoning
behind their model is mostly logistics it is good to know that every person on
Watsi will get his/her treatment regardless of when/if it gets funded.

I believe that information should be on a prominent spot on their website.

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edouard1234567
I really like how their operation cost is only covered by tips instead of a
cut from donations like most other charitable organization. Not sure if they
are first to do that.

I'd be curious to know what the average tip is.

When I give tips at the restaurant or the car wash, the more I give the better
I feel about myself, it's not only a reward for the quality of the service but
also the feeling of helping somebody who needs money more than I do. There's a
little bit of charity in every tip, at least for me.

In this case the physiology is reversed. I'd rather donate more to the patient
and less to the institution. I also have no reference of what a good tip is
for Watsi. It would typically be the minimum amount to keep them operating and
donate the rest to the patient.

Should they add a suggested tip?

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sgpl
Kiva does that [<https://www.kiva.org>].

Kiva is a lending platform focused on micro-finance. All the money you lend
directly goes to the borrowers(via its lending partners), and once the lender
returns the money, you can recycle the amount to another borrower on the
website.

They do have suggested donations to Kiva, usually 10%/15%/20%/self-specify of
the loan amount.

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larubbio
Vittana works in a very similar way except they are focused exclusively on
helping to fund education.

<http://www.vittana.org/>

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dmix
I had a random curiosity recently wondering if PG would ever reduce his
responsibilities with YC. Or maybe take a break one semester.

It seems to be a very intensive thing to keep doing twice annually, year after
year.

But it also must be very exciting and constantly motivating.

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rdl
They get a month off twice a year (in between sessions), effectively, and
outside of a few peak intensity periods (interviews, demo day, maybe
applications), it seems dramatically lower stress than working at a startup.

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jl
It was low stress when there were 8 startups. With several hundred, it's a lot
more work. PG says it's now pretty similar to Viaweb.

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rdl
Ah, yes. I guess stress scales with total size of portfolio vs. just number of
companies in current batch, too.

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pcolton
Saw Watsi's presentation at Demo Day. Watsi is pretty special.

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coffeebite
It is.

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ta20
Pain and hunger are the two main sensations that can cripple a person,
preventing them from "competing" in the real world. I'm glad Watsi's tackling
one of them. In my country, doctors are often equated to God, and Watsi should
be commended for serving the same role.

That said, I'd love to see YC fund a company that can create more fundamental
and lasting impact. Kalibrr, also from YC W13, somewhat falls into this
category, even though it's positioned at a decently developed economic rung of
society.

I'd love to see YC fund a company with a scalable model that can uplift a
society and affect significant lasting change (doesn't matter if the company
is non-profit or not). I guess this would require YC to fund more companies
that're based out of developing countries and that have innovative business
models. I'd like to think there's a lot of economic gain to be made in the
process too.

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DanBC
Watsi is great.

I really hope this model gets extended by other people to cover things like
community development.

EG "This village wants to build a wash block. They'll charge people to use it,
so it'll be self-maintaining. The benefits of sanitation are clear, here's the
evidence base. But they need $X to build it. Here are the costed plans so
far."

Add some video commentary before, during, and after and I think it'd be pretty
good.

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mcintyre1994
The issue is that Watsi commit to funding all projects themselves, so they'd
need more and more donors in order to support bigger projects.

