> OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence (AI) organization consisting of the non-profit OpenAI, Inc.[4] registered in Delaware and its for-profit subsidiary corporation OpenAI Global, LLC.[5]
IKEA [0] and Rolex [1] are structured in a similar manner, although different since they’re not US based.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stichting_INGKA_Foundation
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Wilsdorf#Hans_Wilsdorf_...
Nonprofits can already raise funds by e.g. selling T-Shirts, baked goods, ai services, etc…
And maybe to allow choosing the right people for the right job. If the non-profit has an ideological purpose, its leadership should probably reflect that. At the same time, the for-profit subsidiary probably works better under professional management.
Have you read any news about Mozilla's budget in the past 10 years or so?
> Robert Bosch GmbH, including its wholly owned subsidiaries, is unusual in that it is an extremely large, privately owned corporation that is almost entirely (92%) owned by a charitable foundation. Thus, while most of the profits are invested back into the corporation to build for the future and sustain growth, nearly all of the profits distributed to shareholders are devoted to humanitarian causes.
> [...] Bosch invests 9% of its revenue on research and development, nearly double the industry average of 4.7%.
(Source: Wikipedia)
I always considered this a wonderful idea for a tech giant.
You basically never have a person in the chain actually making decisions for anything but to maximize profit.
Revenue/Expenses/Net Assets
2013: $314m/$295m/$255m
2018: $450m/$451m/$524m
2021: $600m/$340m/$1,054m
(Note: "2017 was an outlier, due in part to changes in the search revenue deal that was negotiated that year." 2019 was also much higher than both 2018 and 2020 for some reason.)
2018 to 2021 also saw their revenue from "Subscription and advertising revenue"— Representing their Pocket, New Tab, and VPN efforts to diversify away from dependence on Google— Increase by over 900%, from $5m to $57m.
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/who-we-are/public-records/
Seriously, Mozilla gets shat on all the time, presumably because they're one of the few sources of hope and therefore disappointment in an overall increasingly problematic Internet landscape, and I wish they would be bigger too, but they're doing fine all things considered.
Certainly I wouldn't say their problems are due to this particular apsect of their legal structure.
Closing the huge fundraising gap OpenAI had as a nonprofit by returning profits from commercial efforts instrumental to, but distinct from, the nonprofits charitable purpose, without sacrififing any governance or control of the subordinate entity.
I think they get shat on all the time because of what you mentioned but also because they consistently fail to deliver a good browser experience for most of their still loyal users.
Most of the people I talk to who still use their product do so out of allegiance to the values of FOSS despite the dog-shit products they keep foisting upon us. You'd think we'd wise up several decades in by now.