Why Ethical Entrepreneurs Need To Take Their Companies Public When They Are Ready?

Take Facebook, for instance, instead of developing social media into something that was of real value to mankind, their early investors' desire to get their returns on their investments as soon as possible forced Mark Zuckerberg to go for the advertising-based solution to monetize his company. And their greed led us to where we are today, with an insane person in charge of our nuclear arsenal because any rich person or troll can now hire enough trolls or create sufficient fake accounts to tip the results of democratic or any other elections with illusory truths, otherwise known as propaganda, or alternative-facts according to Trump's supporters. 

As we saw during the past election, a thoroughly researched exposé by the New York Times on Trump only got one-third of the exposure that the fake news about Pope Francis endorsing Trump received on Facebook's platform. To confine this article to a reasonable length, I won't mention other similar examples where the trash overwhelmingly outperformed the fact-based content in terms of steering voters toward what was right. But, as my my reader is well aware, he or she can Google "fake news" or "top fake news" to get a better understanding of the destructive effect of such click-bait news.

The long-term consequence of the click-based advertising phenomenon is starting to impact industries in powerful negative ways that affect who we are at the very core of our value system. At this point, it's doubtful that Facebook can go back to its idealistic vision of connecting the world so that we can better understand one another. But that doesn't mean it's too late for the rest of the world to reverse course. After all, the Chinese blocked Facebook in 2009, and that has worked out well for them. So it's possible that other countries will do the same. As a matter of fact, I personally wouldn't be surprised if Russia were to become the next country that blocks Facebook. Putin has already inquired about the Chinese's great firewall, and rumors are that Putin intends to do the same as the Chinese in order to prevent the current administration from retaliating when Putin comes up for re-election in March 2018.

We, ethical entrepreneurs, must realize that our planet needs more than its participants being able to connect with one another in order to keep moving forward. We need a plan to provide electricity to more than one billion people; we need a plan to provide safe drinking water to a bunch of other human beings; we need a plan to provide proper shelter to a bunch of others; we need a plan to provide education for several billion people; we need a plan to provide opportunities and jobs for billions of people if we want to keep on making progress; otherwise, the disenfranchised will keep on using drastic measures to make sure that their voices are heard. 

We can't effectively meet our planet's needs by putting short-term results ahead of our long-term aims. That's why we need entrepreneurs with long-term visions that will keep our planet moving in the right direction, not backwards. In order to compete with a Goliath, such as Facebook, that clearly is leading the world in the wrong direction, ethical entrepreneurs must go public once they establish the right vision for their company so that the Facebook’s of the world do not reduce our planet to dystopia. The chaos that I'm referring to here is self-evident in the crazy way that Trump's ban was implemented. It disrupted the lives of millions of people without really having any real benefit to show for it. And the ban was produced solely for the effect of reminding the world that a lunatic was now in charge of the most powerful army in the world along with the latter's nuclear codes.

We, ethical entrepreneurs, must lead the world. We can't be timid. The only way we can get people behind us is to lay out our long-term vision to change the world. And to do that, we must not hesitate to take our companies public. For what the world needs most right now is hope. Without hope, we can't find the courage within ourselves to change the world for the better.