Number of words: 189<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ambiguity between social and financial goals doesn\u2019t help. But the ambiguity in the word \u201csocial\u201d is even more of a problem: if something is \u201csocially good,\u201d is it good for society, or merely seen as good by society? Whatever is good enough to receive applause from all audiences can only be conventional, like the general idea of green energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Progress isn\u2019t held back by some difference between corporate greed and nonprofit goodness; instead, we\u2019re held back by the sameness of both. Just as corporations tend to copy each other, nonprofits all tend to push the same priorities. Cleantech shows the result: hundreds of undifferentiated products all in the name of one overbroad goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Doing something different is what\u2019s truly good for society\u2014and it\u2019s also what allows a business to profit by monopolizing a new market. The best projects are likely to be overlooked, not trumpeted by a crowd; the best problems to work on are often the ones nobody else even tries to solve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tesla is one of the few cleantech companies started last decade to be thriving today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n