This is a good development. I don’t disagree* with the charter of C-Corp (increase shareholder value), after all, most of us benefit from that every day (phones, cars, healthcare, most things in our homes). However, having a mechanism for a different model is a very good thing. This is an article about how KickStarter didn’t do the normal Silicon Valley thing.
In the two years since Chen and Strickler had those conversations, Kickstarter has undergone a change that makes it unique in the technology industry. At the end of 2015, it announced that it would reincorporate from a C-Corp to a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), vowing that it would never sell the company or go public. Both announcements were radical in the cutthroat world of Silicon Valley. In a world of “grow as fast as you can and then cash out,” Kickstarter took a defiant left turn.
*[added 6/3/2019: There is more to corporate responsibility than just to shareholders. I won’t detail my thoughts here, but the Conscious Capitalism effort is moving in the right direction. ]