Sustainability

By editor on January 28, 2018 — 1 min read

Capitalism is a fantastically good thing. It aligns interests, it draws talent, it can organize productive outcomes that no other mechanism that I know of can do. But there’s a difference between short term profiteering and long term profit. And people don’t have the patience for the latter. So everyone over-optimizes for the former.

Asking, “Why would you charge someone 7.5% when you could charge them 12%?” The reason is because you want to own them for 30 years, not 3! I think it was Warren Buffett who said, “The greatest invention of all time was compound interest.”

You give people the ability to do right, do well, pay less, be an earnest participant of the economy, and they’ll be with you for years. And you’ll make money. You’ll have a much more sustainable product, and the more important thing is that person will be more sustainable, productive, and predictable in society.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHslS0QPMSc (54:55)

Posted in: Capitalism

Editor's Note

These are Chamath Palihapitiya's words. They are probably some of the best thoughts on VC, business, and life, but were scattered around the Internet. They live now in this archive.