

Corporate Social Responsibility & Startups - c1sc0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Social_Responsibility
This one has been on my mind recently: how does corporate social responsibility affect the dog-eat-dog world of startups? Is CSR a good idea or should we just let the markets decide?
======
harscoat
Startups can show the way in Corporate Social responsibility to the rest of
the business community. Startups are the new blood, they carry the new 21st
century DNA, with new usage and culture. They are the ones bold and visionary
enough to think that selflessness is good "in the end" for our own interest.
Startups today in their core have to follow the socially responsible values to
be successful: value driven vs BS, open vs closed, fair, sharing (open
source), admitting when they scewed up, accountable, listening to people
(employee as well as customer), and knowing that if it creates something that
people want, "in the end" they will do well financially. To be successful,
funded by worldclass angels/VCs, become "thunder lizzard", they cannot afford
to be shortsighted, they have to think big and global.

That means changing the world not just thinking money. Tim Ferriss just said:
"I’d rather create a thousand millionaires than become a billionaire." on his
blog post about "real world MBA"

It is not about forcing people to spend money on fake impulsive need they
don't really have. In marketing the same battle goes on between the sophists
mercenaries and the Socrates. Just going for the profit first vs value first
is bad karma. Because it is denying the fact that we are in a system (Cf Ted
talk "how I fell in love with a fish"). It is about caring for people and the
ecosystem we all live in. We are part of a very big alive system and startups
by definition we are part of a system. To be innovative startups embrace
complexity, they show the rest of the business community that business can be
part of the product life cycle of Life. Put People and Planet first, it is "in
the end" good for Profit. People and Planet are the greatest positive feedback
loops. Let's not wait for anybody else but us to show this in everything we
do. Startups are by definition pioneers. Unleashing People and Planet positive
feedback loops is the new frontier, the Karma frontier.

