Ask HN: Which companies are doing anything good for the world?

11 points

11 years ago

Disclaimer: I know that 1) this will sound horribly naive of me and 2) I probably haven't had enough rejection emails to set me straight yet and 3) most of the people on this planet would kill to have a random, whatsoever job so nothing gives me the right to be picky; I'm down to earth enough to acknowledge all these are valid points, but I still don't care :) So now that we have these out of the way, here's my question:

What are some lesser known companies that are doing anything good for the world, and could benefit from my programming skills? [0]

I'm confident platonic-like meta-discussions [1] about what does it mean to do good can be avoided by applying some cheap common sense, so the question is left broad on purpose to fit multiple viewpoints.

Also, it's not like saving children is the only way to fit the profile; I'm sure there are tons of great companies involved with scientific research, activism, helping minorities, saving the whales, fighting global warming, treating loneliness, creating communities for older people, helping butterflies to mate and so on that I never heard of; and I'd love to get up in the morning knowing that my work will do a little more than increasing the GDP and selling ads.

Just to make it clear: I'm not looking down at people who sells ads for a living, but I'm in a very lucky position (white young male from a first-world country, with no debt and nobody depending on me) and I want to leverage this. I guess a lot of like-minded people out there would do the same if they knew where to look. Apologies for the --verbose.

TL;DR: see title

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXuFrtmOYKg [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_of_the_Good