Building Sunslider: Values-First Social Networking
Remember Patagonia's "Don't buy this jacket" ad?
It wasn't about Patagonia not wanting you to buy their products. It was about them wanting you to think more deeply about what you were buying, how you were buying it, and why you were buying it.
Sunslider is being designed to match that ethos. It's not about having inferior products; it's about having better products—products that respect us more and don't end up concentrating tens of billions of dollars in a single set of hands.
How will we do it? We're still at the beginning of the journey, but here are the principles we're working with right now.
More Democratic Internal Governance
Startups tend to resemble dictatorships at the beginning, because it's hard to create something from nothing. Decision-making needs to be quick, rooted in an extremely clear vision of what's being built.
The problem is that too many founders then see themselves as needing to remain dictators, instead of building a company that can function with or without them. But the right team doesn't need to continually check in to know what they should be doing; the right team is motivated not only by the mission but also by concrete incentives (such as annual bonuses or profit sharing) to keep the company thriving.
It shouldn't stop there, though. Whether through unionization, moving to a co-op model, or any number of other possibilities (if you have great ideas, get in touch!), we want to continue pushing a democratic model within the company.
So if we're stable and profitable but haven't yet achieved this vision, please—whether you're a user or an employee—keep our feet to the fire to make sure we get there. How will you know?
More Transparency
One real benefit of public companies is that they're required to provide regular reporting that anyone can access, clearly detailing how the company is functioning.
As I mentioned in this previous post, the goal at Sunslider is to stay private so that we don't fall into the "shareholders-above-all" mentality that drives bad product, social, environmental, and other decisions. But even without any legal requirement to do so, we will issue an annual report detailing our finances, company structure, and other insights to ensure everyone on Sunslider knows where their money is going and why. (Defector Media's annual report is a good example of how this can work.)
Again, we believe in creating profits (there are reasons why we aren't a non-profit, but those are for another post), and we believe that our early investors deserve a great return for the risk they're taking.
But how much profit is "great"? When can we say, "Hey, we've made plenty this year, let's pull back on the advertising for a while"? When can we say, "We've got extra money, let's give our users two months free next year"? These are the kinds of questions we can't wait to ask ourselves. And by publishing our annual numbers, you can hold us accountable.
Giving Back
Beyond Patagonia's own efforts, Yvon Chouinard's 1% for the Planet initiative is a model we will follow, dedicating 1% of our annual revenues to causes that are close to our hearts and aligned with our business.
This will take various forms, but some causes we plan to support include:
Caring for content moderators, who have been doing the extremely dirty work of training AI so that the public at large is not exposed to the many, many, MANY attempts by bad actors to make our online lives worse.
The ongoing battle for women's rights, from domestic violence initiatives to ensuring access to appropriate, patient-centered healthcare.
Supporting LGBTQ+ communities, so that every individual can live their truth, choosing the path that best matches their needs and desires.
Debt cancellation, relieving massive, long-term stresses that burden far too many individuals and families.
All of this is possible by starting with the initial form of a French SAS, which is basically the equivalent of an LLC. It’s an adaptable structure that lets us raise money initially, relying on individuals rather than venture capital funds.
Later, when the company and team are stable, we can adjust the corporate structure to move toward a co-op/employee-driven model that can keep delivering long-term value without ever losing sight of the one thing that will keep us healthy over the long term: happy users.
Don't miss our other two launch blogs, where we explain more about Sunslider: The Patagonia of Social Networks and Social Media's Broken Promise: Why We're Building Sunslider.