Comment by kvinogradov
1 day ago
Consider this as a nonprofit startup that has just raised a pre-seed round. The current size of $700K is indeed immaterial, as our plan is to scale it significantly in the coming years.
The closest real-world comparable to what we are building is the Wikimedia Endowment, whose former Director is among OSE’s advisors. Like Wikimedia, we aim to be supported not only by large donations but also by contributions from large community — in our case, 150M+ GitHub users.
Our target audience is diverse - from highly successful founders to everyday developers. The Open Source Endowment is prepared to accept donations in both cash and stock from these groups.
While 5% of equity may be too much, 1% seems achievable. I am personally ready to commit 1% of the carried interest from my own VC fund to the endowment.
What is a preseed round? You guys don't "make" money when the ROI is primarily about funding long term maintenance of open source projects.
"Preseed round" is just the small funding when the project is a very early stage. We expect to raise more funding when the endowment matures. There is no ROI, it is a pure charity.
Running a non-profit with the mentality of SV, what could go wrong?
Definitely something I will actively avoid after parent comment
Seems better like the current state...of there not being anything like that? Perfect is the enemy of good.
There are many existing projects like this, I'm not going to pick the one started by a former VC
Ask if those have not changed things, why would a VC run thing make things better? The last 2 decades have shown us what VC centeredness has brought us
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What are your specific concerns?
By the way, only 1 out of 6 core team members is based in SV.
SV is not a geographical location in the sense I'm using it
Taking capital, using it, taking fees, and then distributing leftovers... sounds like Trumponomics
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