Investors

Warren Buffett Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway A Business Model, Not a Charity An Open Letter to Warren Buffett Dear Mr. Buffett, You’ve said you’re “going quiet.” But you also said you’re not going to sit at home and watch soap operas. This isn’t a pitch for money. It’s a pitch for scrutiny — from someone who’s spent 60 years understanding what makes businesses work. ▶ The Model Liana Banyan is a cooperative commerce platform with a fixed margin: Cost + 20%. On every transaction, the creator keeps the rest. On a $500 transaction, the creator gets $416.67... Liana Banyan is a cooperative commerce platform with a fixed margin: Cost + 20%. ...

Melinda French Gates Founder, Pivotal Ventures What Comes After the Foundation A Letter to Melinda French Gates Dear Ms. French Gates, You spent decades building one of the largest philanthropic organizations in history. Then you left, started Pivotal Ventures, and began doing things differently — faster, more focused, less institutional. I’m writing because you’ve seen what works and what doesn’t at scale. And because the thing I’ve built needs someone who understands that helping women often means helping everyone, and that infrastructure beats charity every time. ...

Anand Giridharadas Author, Winners Take All Dear Anand, You wrote the book on why billionaire philanthropy fails — how “changing the world” became a cover for protecting the systems that create the problems philanthropy claims to solve. How the people who benefit most from inequality get to decide how to address it, and unsurprisingly decide on solutions that don’t threaten their position. I read Winners Take All. I’m not writing to argue with it. I’m writing because I built something that tries to route around the whole problem. ...