Comment by carapace
4 years ago
In SF there was briefly something called The Bay Citizen that was funded by Warren Hellman.
> The Bay Citizen was a non-profit news organization covering the San Francisco Bay Area. It was founded as the Bay Area News Project in January 2010 with money provided by Warren Hellman's Hellman Family Foundation. On May 26, 2010 the organization launched the website, baycitizen.org.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bay_Citizen
But he passed away and it merged with the Center for Investigative Reporting.
> The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) is a nonprofit news organization based in Emeryville, California.[1] It was founded in 1977 as the nation’s first nonprofit investigative journalism organization, and has since grown into a multi-platform newsroom, with investigations published on the Reveal website, public radio show and podcast, video pieces and documentaries and social media platforms, reaching over a million people weekly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Investigative_Repor...
I really think that anything started by a bazillionaire as an instant nonprofit enterprise is bound to fail. It goes for Warren Hellman and Mitch Kapor and the rest of them. Those that start with an immediately sustainable business model, like Cityside, seem to persist.
Well, arguably the Bay Citizen didn't fail, they merged with CIR, which is a decent exit IMO. They didn't run out of money, their patron died.
I don't really know, but presumably a bazillionaire would set up a trust that then generates the funds to pay for the project from stable investments (or whatever, I really have no idea.) It's not a business model but it would be sustainable.
I figure failure would be if they folded due to lack of reader interest, but I don't think that was the case.
(I only heard of them because I interviewed there once, and I only remember the interview because it was the first time I encountered fizzbuzz. I thought they were putting me on, the interviewer had to convince me they were serious. Anyway, they seemed like they had their act together, although they passed on hiring me, which is a warning sign. ;P Maybe I'm too arrogant and full of myself?)
The success rate of startups isn't exactly spectacular either.
Growing slowly and organically isn't sexy, but it tends to build some degree of robustness and resilience.