We’re so excited to welcome Kyle McEneaney to Astera’s growing team. Kyle joins us with a unique perspective on philanthropy and change, with previous roles leading work in digital infrastructure and climate technology at Schmidt Futures, and with a background in deploying technology in emerging markets. At Astera, Kyle will drive our strategy for catalytic philanthropy in science and technology. In our most recent Substack post, Kyle shares his perspective on philanthropic investing and why it matters for Astera’s mission:
“We have two very good engines for scaling and distributing “good things” in the world (however we define those things): markets and governments. If those “good things” can generate equivalent value for a lower cost as compared to alternatives—or, better yet, create new value—markets will deploy them widely and quickly. And for their part, governments can organize and shape markets, operate at large scale, and allocate resources to things that create value for society, but insufficient capturable value for markets (e.g. health for lower-income populations; last-mile postal or internet service, or electricity; basic research; etc).
But markets and governments have some limitations that can prevent them from scaling good things well, or quickly. Market actors are constrained by time horizons, opportunity costs, and economic incentive structures, and do not necessarily allocate to “good” things. And governments are slow to act, risk averse, and constrained by bureaucracy and political incentive structures. This is a very compelling opportunity for philanthropy: to mobilize the far greater resources in markets and government toward scaling good things by altering incentives and/or filling gaps those other actors by their nature cannot.”
Read more on Substack https://lnkd.in/gi6sqn9J