Episode Details

Daniel's been wrestling with a question that cuts to the heart of modern capitalism: can the profit motive actually fix the problems it creates? This episode traces the evolution of formal philanthropy from Andrew Carnegie's libraries to Sir Ronald Cohen's impact investing revolution, and asks whether attaching financial returns to social good can ever work at scale. We dig into the mechanics of impact multiples, the additionality problem, Goodhart's Law, and what alternatives exist—from mission-driven public-private hybrids to Patagonia's radical ownership structure. If the market only responds to price signals, and public goods are by definition abundant, can you ever point that machine at something that shouldn't be scarce?