Art Min

Ex-Microsoft, Dell, startups, and launching nonprofits and mission led for profits. Now building mission led startup infrastructure @campdotorg.

[Art Min @artmin]

Everyone says “move fast.” But the smartest founders are quietly asking a harder question:

How do you stay good when you scale?

Our new study (@OpenAI, @AnthropicAI, @Etsy, @patagonia) breaks down 6 proven governance hacks that protect mission under pressure.

[Mike McCormick @MikeMcCormick_]

How can impact-oriented founders preserve their missions, even when commercial pressures hit? We studied 20+ companies to answer this one question.

This is especially important in AI.

That's why we commissioned governance experts Steve Young and @artmin to lead comprehensive research studying companies from @OpenAI, @AnthropicAI, and @Meta to @Etsy, @patagonia and @benandjerrys—interviewing 22 founders, investors, and legal experts along the way.

Their research is timely because the AI capabilities that can build a brighter future may build a bleaker one, too. The models that could cure diseases might also help bad actors create pandemic viruses. Tools for cyber defense might also be used for cyber attacks.

At Halcyon, we back teams building a secure and resilient future as AI transforms the world. Getting governance right is crucial for these high-stakes businesses.

And we hear from impact-driven founders that they WANT to take their missions seriously.

Today we're releasing our findings on mission-preservation governance mechanisms for startups.

Some examples of mission-preserving governance that work:

• @TonysChocoUS's golden share with escalating remedies
• @patagonia's permanent mission lock (though few founders will give up that much)

There's a clear pattern: No perfect mechanism exists. But layered approaches—legal safeguards + cultural reinforcement + reputational accountability—create real durability.

We've packaged this into a practical playbook: decision trees for founders, implementation checklists by stage, and 6 proven governance mechanisms.

Founders, investors, board members—if you're thinking about these questions for your own company, reach out.

Download the full report today ⬇️

[Art Min @artmin]

Are behavior based safety evals failing? In @kradleai's Four Bridges game, models sent teammates to their deaths while sounding fully cooperative. Are you surprised that @OpenAI lied ~90% of the time?

[Kradle @kradleai]

GPT-5.5 lies constantly, Grok 4.20 doesn’t.

We made a simulation to see if AI lies when the stakes are life & death.🧵

[Art Min @artmin]

Reading @ericries Incorruptible and one idea stuck with me: mission led businesses create value by generating surplus, not just profit.

Back in my EMC/Dell pricing strategy days, we used value-based pricing. If a product saved a customer $9, we'd charge about $3 and leave $6 with them.

is there an ideal share of value a company should keep? 10%? 33%? 50%? At what point does value capture become value extraction?

[Art Min @artmin]

Sorry, but the structure of your argument is off. You’re claiming Claude can infer your working style, but that’s not actually what seems to be happening. To be fair, maybe “infer” isn’t quite the right word. Perhaps what you mean is that Claude has access to a large amount of information about you and can synthesize it into advice that feels personalized. I can concede that this advice may sometimes be useful. That said, there are broader questions here about language models, pattern matching, personalization, and the way people interpret AI-generated outputs. These systems are trained on vast amounts of data and can often produce responses that appear insightful even when they’re primarily recombining existing information in sophisticated ways.

...my contrarian response using chatgpt ;)

[Art Min @artmin]

Heard from a friend who works at a hyperscaler that ML revenue has declined for the first time in the past 3 years. Apparently, customers are just using @AnthropicAI and @OpenAI vs. building their own.

Are enterprises finally realizing it’s cheaper to buy intelligence than build it?

[Art Min @artmin]

Got my copy of @ericries new book "Incorruptible." Buster and I look forward to reading it today!

[Art Min @artmin]

@ericries @ycombinator @garrytan Protecting founders at formation is the right starting point to lock in your company's mission. The harder problem is sustaining it as you raise more money and scale. Looking forward to the book!!!

[Art Min @artmin]

On using philanthropy dollars to fund for profit initiatives...the blocker isn't legality , it's probably because most foundation lawyers haven't actually done a PRI. Same for DAF sponsors. The IRS has been clear on this for years. The bottleneck is precedent.

[Art Min @artmin]

@okto13er I’m arguing for expanding the toolkit, not replacing traditional philanthropy. There are still many problems where nonprofits, public institutions, and direct grantmaking are absolutely the right mechanism. Basic scientific research as an example.

[Art Min @artmin]

While the operational gap Nan reference is real, there's a bigger one underneath, the framing gap on what philanthropy is allowed to fund. Context: I've spent the past decade working closely with billionaires on setting up and running their foundations and tech-for-good initiatives, and launched a number of mission-led for-profits and nonprofits along the way.

Philanthropic capital doesn't have to fund only nonprofits. Private foundations CAN make investments into startups. DAFs CAN back public benefit corporations. Government matched funding CAN underwrite commercial ventures. While controversial, @OpenAI itself began as a nonprofit. The problem is that it's kind of a hassle to process these transactions.

Yes, I agree with the need for a YC for nonprofits. But, I'd add that the scope should cover both nonprofits AND mission-led for-profits. If we default to 501(c)(3) grants because that's how philanthropy has always operated, half the deployment surface area to achieve real impact gets left out.

Thoughts?

[Nan Ransohoff @nanransohoff]

New blog post: The third wave of American philanthropy

Hundreds of billions of dollars in new philanthropic capital will soon become liquid. The OpenAI Foundation holds 26% of OpenAI, worth about $220B at today’s valuation. Anthropic’s seven co-founders have pledged to give away 80% of their wealth and have instituted the most aggressive donor matching program for employees in tech history.

How much does this all add up to? And how meaningful is that in the context of philanthropy today?

I was doing some simple napkin math to wrap my head around the scale of what’s coming, and radicalized myself in the process. I had dramatically underappreciated the scale of the philanthropic capital that’s about to become available and the corresponding gap in talent and organizations that will be needed to make the most of it.

This piece aims to directionally sketch the scale of what’s coming, the gap in operational capacity needed to absorb it, and what we can do to fill it.

(Link to full post in reply)

[Art Min @artmin]

There are over 1.9 million nonprofits in the US. Other than ego, I can't think of a good reason why I'd start a new one. Because of the volume and diversity of nonprofits, we have lots of fragmentation around standards, siloed data and infrastructure, and fundraising efforts. Some of the highest leverage work may be nonprofit rollups, shared services, and coordination infrastructure that helps existing orgs collaborate more effectively. FYI - @everydotorg is exploring parts of this through an AI enablement lens.

[Art Min @artmin]

rare to see @elonmusk and @JeffBezos agree on things. but many philanthropists believe the same thing. mission-led for-profit companies can create more societal impact than traditional charity alone.

yes, it involves more paperwork.
yes, it may not count toward a foundation’s payout requirements. but, those shouldn’t be the reasons not to invest.

philanthropy should back nonprofits AND mission-driven startups.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

True

[Art Min @artmin]

@zachlatta @curl_justin @nanransohoff Especially if a living donor is involved.

[Art Min @artmin]

@zachlatta Agreed. I got a little exposure on fiscal sponsored orgs through @everydotorg. I didn't realize how many there were and also the challenges on making sure it's done right. Will check out Hack Club! @Thrice_Chilled fyi

[Art Min @artmin]

@more_marka of course!

[Art Min @artmin]

@byersblake @_sholtodouglas Agreed! My take on how you do it: https://t.co/WrNG56zFrP

[Art Min @artmin]

While the operational gap Nan reference is real, there's a bigger one underneath, the framing gap on what philanthropy is allowed to fund. Context: I've spent the past decade working closely with billionaires on setting up and running their foundations and tech-for-good initiatives, and launched a number of mission-led for-profits and nonprofits along the way.

Philanthropic capital doesn't have to fund only nonprofits. Private foundations CAN make investments into startups. DAFs CAN back public benefit corporations. Government matched funding CAN underwrite commercial ventures. While controversial, @OpenAI itself began as a nonprofit. The problem is that it's kind of a hassle to process these transactions.

Yes, I agree with the need for a YC for nonprofits. But, I'd add that the scope should cover both nonprofits AND mission-led for-profits. If we default to 501(c)(3) grants because that's how philanthropy has always operated, half the deployment surface area to achieve real impact gets left out.

Thoughts?

[Mike McCormick @MikeMcCormick_]

Good news: There is about to be WAYY more philanthropic capital available for the world’s most important problems.

Bad news: There aren’t NEARLY enough excellent projects to fund

That’s what we’re working to fix at @HalcyonFutures

[Art Min @artmin]

@stuartbuck1 @aishdoingthings Very cool. Will follow up!

[Art Min @artmin]

@SexyLikeMeiosis We're on the same page and happy to compare notes! I think it starts with good governance structures: https://t.co/GngRa3IXJf

[Art Min @artmin]

Also, a big reason why I backed @MikeMcCormick_ and @rossmatican at @HalcyonVC who are doing this today.