A Vision of Generous Business

A person starts a business after retiring from their primary career.

They decide to create a business with three constraints:

• We can’t turn anyone away.

• We can’t compromise quality.

• We must be self-reliant.

In other words, this company will offer free services.

In fact, about 60% of their business comes from people who do not pay (and these are services that have significant per-service costs, not digital services).

Yet the business offers cutting-edge, excellent services to all its customers, even those paying nothing. It’s widely regarded as a leader in its field.

The business does not fundraise or take investment. Its revenue pays for all its staff and services.

At the time this story was shared, the business had an operating surplus of $13M on revenues of $27M. (It’s a non-profit, so the surplus allows it to reinvest to offer more services and products).

It’s also a huge source of job development, training women from nearby villages to become nurses at the same certification level as RNs in the US.

And remember, they offer their services for free.

This might seem absolutely impossible, a work of fiction. Yet it’s absolutely true.

Here’s the story from the founder’s niece.

What can we learn from this story?

That we can’t find success with a non-extractive path is one of the biggest lies of the system we are in, that allows exploitation to creep into even the most well-intentioned companies and their founders.

Humans have an amazing ability to imagine new things, and to figure out how to do things when there are constraints. Though I feel we’re in a period of unprecedented collapse, and that humans are the primary cause of the situation, I also have the sense that when things go wrong, at least some people are and will still be able to find ways to survive, to collaborate and be creative.

One of the critical aspects of the success of this model seems to be generosity. In the value frameworks of industrialized civilization, generosity seems to be regarded with suspicion or the sense that it’s foolish.

The US and other ‘wealthy’ countries are beset by a narrative that suggests it’s rational or admirable to get yours, to put yourself first, to disregard the needs of others.

In this paradigm, being compassionate and being generous are paths to exploitation.

How provocative to imagine that it’s exactly the opposite. Yes, the power-hungry are sucking out the resources of the system and seem hell-bent in making slaves of as many people as possible, but the kind of wealth and power that produces is deeply precarious.

To be clear, charting a different path isn’t easy.

It requires a ton of self-sacrifice. After all, Aravind’s founder didn’t retire, he became way more busy than he had been in his regular career. His family put aside other dreams to realize this one.

What we seem to have forgotten, partly because it’s in the interest of an extractive system, is that it feels good to struggle together, when there’s so much love and benefit from the work we do.

In the mission-driven folks around me, effort seems to sometimes hinge on whether the project offers some form of status or recognition in exchange. So many “visionaries” who don’t contribute their time to supporting the ecosystem beyond their own projects. A lot of signaling.

Many people are engaged in projects that offer some good, but not enough that there are people willing to pay for it. This leads to unsustainability and/or dependence on entities that are not receiving value directly.

In the video above. Pavi Mehta explains that though Aravind does not require anyone to justify receiving free care, the people who do pay value the services, which are excellent. They are also able to see the benefits to their communities in the free services provided.

Too much of the time, projects that are “mission-driven” either offer only free services, which are unsustainable without external support, or they become extractive (i.e. the enshittification trap).

Many services are free, of course, in the land of tech. It’s just that most of them either seem to have very shady ulterior motives, or they can’t sustain themselves.

Might the problem be one of framing?

It might be constraints that lead to creative solutions and value creation.

We can experiment. Choose to do things that can only be bootstrapped (growing at the speed that we can support without external financing), that are uncompromised in quality, and for which no one must pay but can choose to.

If we work in spaces where there is real, genuine need, and if we stop trying to compete with one another to invent the perfect approach and collaborate (did I mention that Aravind offers training to their competitors?) maybe we would discover there’s actually a very sustainable way to do things.

As I go through life these days, I am noticing more and more how illusory the argument that “being realistic” equates to compromise and participation in harm.

Let’s not become caught in the idea that mission alone is the answer.

What Aravind demonstrates is that we have to start with our own barriers to generosity. The sense of scarcity, the unwillingness to be vulnerable, the manufactured “needs” that we’re told are what make us acceptable, comfortable, or safe. Generosity and welcoming are the seeds of our own belonging.

When we abandon the striving of corporate jobs or startup-minded entrepreneurship, we can begin the work of true solidarity with others who are not protected in this system. We realize what enormous gifts we’ve been offered and what joy we can receive by giving without expectation of recompense.

The story of Aravind could make it sound like this one person was the source of success. We seem to need these personality-based narratives, maybe because they reflect the story that “I might do something that matters too.” People with ideas are what we lionize, but change reqires people who are willing to lead with generosity.

This means taking responsibility, accountability, doing the work. Anyone can choose to be a contributor. It’s not a function of intellect or privilege. In fact, the most meaningful positive change in most communities emerges from its own context.

Will we save the world this way? What does that even mean?

Realistically, we’ve gone past certain thresholds, regarding climate and in geopolitcal action, that will lead to destruction, death, and violence.

But every day, we can put these tools down and look around. We can find what is in us to give.

We can consider what it might be like to put our energy into something that offers life to other beings. We can choose not to compromise when it comes to our core values. Life is too short already to keep pretending we don’t matter.