Idea Machines

To those who say, “Well, wouldn’t it be better if the person with good ideas had been the one to get fabulously wealthy instead?” – sure, but in the same way that a founder wants to focus on building their company, not being an investor, sometimes “idea operator” types aren’t the same people who have eight-to-ten-figure startup outcomes. In this wo... See more

DAOs are an example of idea machines that can be initialized by a community. It may require more work to raise the funds and awareness to capitalize an idea machine without a major funder, but once they are initialized, DAOs must adopt similar tactics – develop an agenda, spin up and fund support organizations, invest into scene building, attract o... See more

With a more decentralized structure, modern idea machines can “arm the rebels” right where they are, instead of hiring them into a foundation. The popularity of so-called regrantor programs (i.e. scout programs) reflects this trend, where talented individuals are given funding to make grants on behalf of the grantmaking organization.

Because foundations can exist into perpetuity [4], they can even be usurped and weaponized towards other goals.

The modern Idea Machine better reflects how people self-organize today. They are decentralized, more closely intertwined with public dialogue, and work symbiotically with a community that anyone can join: many individual nodes operating in a loosely-organized network, instead of a monolithic organization.

The federal regulation of foundations didn’t mean the death of idea machines, however. It just meant that that foundations were no longer the best place to house them. It’d be like if the government decided to heavily regulate Delaware C Corps: if it were bad enough, founders would stop using them for startups, but they’d eventually find some other... See more

By the mid-20th century, foundations had reached the height of their power and influence, triggering a congressional investigation into whether foundations were manipulating public opinion and thought. The lawyer Rene Wormser, who wrote the final report, described foundations as a “cartel” that threatened to direct our entire intellectual and cultu... See more

An Idea Machine is a self-sustaining organism that contains all the parts needed to turn ideas into outcomes:- It starts with a distinct ideology, which becomes a memetic engine that drives the formation of a community- The community’s members start generating ideas amongst themselves- Eventually, they form an agenda, which articulates how the ideo... See more

If philanthropy is pluralistic – and, like any idea marketplace, that is one of its virtues – then there is no single school of thought that can “solve” complex social questions, because everyone has a different vision for the world. If you’re pro-pluralism in startups, you should also be pro-pluralism in philanthropy.