Comment by traceroute66
8 days ago
> $25-30M per year is a lot for a non-profit
First, whether IA or any other large non-profit/charity. When you are in the double-digit/triple-digit multi-million bracket, you are no longer a non-profit/charity. You are in effect a business with a non-profit status.
Whether IA or any other large entity, when you get to that size, you don't benefit from the "oh they are a poor non-profit" mindset IMHO.
To be able to spend $25-30M a year, you clearly have to have a solid revenue stream both immediate and in the pipeline, that's Finances 101. Therefore you are in a privileged and enviable position that small non-profits can only dream of.
Second, I would be curious to know how much of that is of their own doing.
By that I mean, its sure cute to be located in the former Christian Science church on Funston Avenue in San Francisco’s Richmond District.
But they could most likely save a lot of money if they were located in a carrier-neutral facility.
For example, instead of paying for expensive external fiber lines (no doubt multiple, due to redundancy), they would have large amounts of capacity available through simple cross-connects.
Similar on energy. Are they benefiting from the same economies of scale that a carrier-neutral facility does ?
I am not saying the way they are doing it is wrong. I'm just genuinely curious to know what premium they are paying for doing it like they are.
Probably the advantages of its location outweigh the extra costs for the IA. Having your datacentre sited on land and in a building you own, behind a non-shared front door, has legal advantages similar to the ones which drive organisations to keep their data centres on-premises. A distinctive location in a nice area of San Francisco probably helps to keep cultivating the goodwill of the SV tech industry and of local and state politicians. It's also an advantage to be within easy walking distance in a neighbourhood where people like the IA and would be inclined to go there and protest if government forces rolled up and started pushing their way inside. To be sure, I presume that 300 Funston Ave. also being a very pleasant workplace for senior IA people has something to do with why the Archive moved there and remains there; but remaining there seems justifiable for other reasons.
This seems like a lot of zesty made-up assumptions.
And a lot of non-profits would be very very surprised to hear that once you cross the threshold of $9,999,999 costs, you are a business.
> This seems like a lot of zesty made-up assumptions.
Nope.
The second half of my post, anyone who has been seriously involved with large carrier-neutral facilities will likely agree with me.
It is a fact that IA will be incurring a premium to DIY and as I quite clearly spelt out, I am NOT trying to say they are wrong, I am just genuinely curious as to what the premium they are paying is.
Regarding my comment about large non-profits. This is from personal experience. Once they get to a certain size, non-profits do switch to a business mentality. You might not like that fact, but it is a fact. They will more often than not have management boards who are "competitively remunerated". They will almost always actively manage their spare cash (of which they will have a large surplus) in investment portfolios. Things will be budgeted and cost-centered just like in larger businesses. They will have in-house legal teams or external teams on retainer to write up philanthropic contracts and aggressively chase after donations people leave them in wills. etc. etc. etc. etc.
You absolutely cannot place a large non-profit in the same mindset as your local community mom & pop non-profit that operates hand to mouth on a shoestring.
That is why I discourage people donating to large non-profits. You might feel good donating $100. But in reality its a sum that wouldn't even be a rounding-error on their financial reports. And in the majority of cases most of your donation is more likely to contribute to management expenses than the actual cause.
Large non-profits are more interested in large corporate philanthropic donations, preferably multi-year agreements. They have more than enough money for the immediate future (<=12–18 months), they want large chunks of future money in the pipeline and that's what the large philanthropic agreements give them.
The assumptions are still pretty zesty, now you just made them longer.