The largesse of an entrepreneur comes not from philanthropy or charitable giving, but from the value his company creates when people use its products, and the wages and formation its employees reap.

Sure, giving away money is nice, and going to be part of any [successful] entrepreneurs journey, but it will be substantially less than the wages its employees will take home.

If you make $10M per year in profit, the business probably does somewhere between $30M and $200M in revenue. Costs are 67-95% of the revenue. Costs are made up of employees and suppliers.

Employees are the end user of the financial system. Suppliers are distribution channels to get money to more end users.

You could give away all $10M you make in profit, which is laudable, but it’s just half of what you’re contributing via your expenses.

That’s not even counting the value of the education and human formation. If you build a good work environment that helps us grow in virtue and skill, it provides a lot more than giving ever will.

Caveat lector: You Could Be Destroying Value & Harming Souls

The other side of the coin is, you could be extracting value from the commons and not actually helping the world. I like to think of nuclear fusion. It’s only energy breakeven if you decide the system inputs, ahem, rigorously.

If you’ve got a toxic work environment where lives are being ruined, or you’re dumping harmful byproducts into the physical or virtual world, the funds and skills your employees are receiving are just like buying carbon credits to offset the damage you’re doing. Not good man. Not good.