Kickstarter Is a PBC. Here’s What That Means and Why It Matters.
A note from Kickstarter Chairman and CEO Perry Chen.
In 2015, Kickstarter converted from Kickstarter Inc. to Kickstarter PBC — a Public Benefit Corporation.
Becoming a PBC allowed us to unshackle from the extractive, inhuman, and societally unsustainable framework that compels companies to optimize for profit over everything.
Remarkably, more than 100 shareholders — which included current and former employees, as well as investors — voted to allow Kickstarter to convert to a PBC, giving up their right to legally compel the company to focus on maximizing profitability.
Today, more and more of us are rejecting the religion of runaway capitalism. A real sense of what’s at stake when we live in a framework that compels profit at any cost is, thankfully, growing in the public dialogue.
The introduction of PBCs represented a seismic shift in corporate governance. They allow for the true legal existence of for-profit companies that “intend to produce public benefits, and to operate in a responsible and sustainable manner.”
We explain our mission and mandate as a PBC like this:
Kickstarter PBC exists to help bring creative projects to life. It’s our mission and our North Star.
As a Public Benefit Corporation, we are for-profit and we seek to benefit shareholders as we pursue our mission. However, unlike typical corporations, profit maximization is not our mandate. We won’t seek profit at the expense of our mission-focus and values.
We readily acknowledge that Kickstarter PBC is not the most successful business by any traditional metric. We didn’t sell for a spectacular sum, we don’t have any interest in an IPO, and we don’t have thousands of employees. If Kickstarter’s existence matters, it is because of the positive impact we’ve had through the over 150,000 projects that we’ve helped bring to life, and the model, design and standards we introduced that have shaped the way people think about online funding.
Some say that companies can’t balance making money and other interests, that it’s a pipe dream, that an organization must either be nonprofit or a stop-at-nothing and eat-the-world for-profit.
But as humans, we balance our desire for material things, our passions, our community, and more, every day. If we can attempt this balance individually, why can’t we do it when organized? Simply, we can.
Some say that companies can’t balance making money and other interests. . . . But as humans, we balance our desire for material things, our passions, our community, and more, every day.
The Public Benefit Corporation form is the structure that best fits our vision for how we want to operate Kickstarter for as long as we may continue to exist. As one of the best-known PBCs, we have an opportunity to be a leading example that there is a viable alternative to the pursuit of profit above all else. A growing movement of successful and sustainable PBCs can prove that profit-at-all-costs is a choice, not a necessity, and that there are better ways to leave one’s mark on the world.
Kickstarter is about to enter its 10th year, and we’re excited to redouble our efforts to help bring creative projects to life.
We recently published a look back at how we lived up to our PBC charter in 2017, including ways that we aimed to fulfill our mission and practice good governance.
Thanks for reading.
Perry Chen
Chairman and CEO, Kickstarter PBC
