Our Values
Freedom
We hate exploitation. Jobs should never be taken out of desperation. We’re opposed to coercion. Bellies should be filled first; only then can we win hearts and minds. We think paternalism at a distance is silly. When it comes to strangers, we almost certainly don’t know what they need better than they do.
People
There was a time when time was all we needed. People could survive by putting in the effort. Those days are gone. We’ve made it easy for society to supply the basics, but impossible for individuals to secure them on their own. We need to give every person an asset so they can fully engage.
Dignity
UBI looks like systematic generosity, but we should be careful with the messaging. It’s a shared right of progress. UBI is best thought of as a dividend paid out to everyone for the progress we’ve made as a species—or as compensation for the loss of our ability to plant a field, build a house, start a fire, and survive. Progress robbed time of its value for producing the basics—but that freed it for what truly matters, as we intended. Paid work is not the only type of work that matters. Those engaged in non-paid work are often doing the things we find most valuable and that deliver real dignity.
Time
We’ve been told that time is money, but that’s backwards. Money was invented to free time. And we hate spending our time doing boring or unpleasant things. The goal is spending more time doing what we want. Leisure matters, but what we really want is to do interesting and important things with the people we love. UBI supercharges this pursuit of freeing time.
Progress
We’ve been trying to free time from the beginning. We want people to look for better ways to do their tasks, not fear it will cost them their job. We’re no different: we champion UBI to work ourselves out of the job of automating trust. We want it baked into the system so we can move on to solving the next problem.
(Almost) Humility
We’re convinced that unconditional cash transfers work, but we know we don’t have all the answers. We don’t know the optimal parameters, or how quickly it should scale. We need more data, and we want to follow its lead.
Generosity
UBI doesn’t eliminate the need for each of us to be generous. It makes our generosity more effective.
Charity
We don’t want to eliminate charities. We want them to focus on what they’re good at and be able to pay top dollar for top talent. Today, charities naturally get pulled “down” into supplying basic needs, since a full belly and good night sleep is needed before other services can fully be leveraged. But those basic needs are best served by the market. UBI, delivered with a helpline, a handshake, or a hug, is the winning formula.
(Almost) Free Markets
If a stranger needs something, we prefer to convert any “gift” we want to give them (minimum wages, food stamps, job training, etc.) into cash and let the market work its magic. Only if we need something as a society that individuals can’t buy (like clean air) do we need to step in to constrain or entice the market.
Hacks
We don’t want to upend the entire system. We want to apply a simple hack that lets the system hum once again. Progress is a history of hacks (money, free markets) that let prosperity scale. It’s time to do it again.
Rationality
We’re moved by the stories of people living on the edge, but we’re guided by data and logic to solve these important problems. And we expect people to behave rationally. Our current system is designed to be gamed: 300 million (or 8 billion) people being generous in an uncoordinated fashion and a system littered with rules, roles, hoops, and traps. A simple hack fixes all of this.
Measuring What Matters
Is GDP really what we’re after? Is dinner and a movie worth that much more than a picnic and a game of softball? And efficiency should matter only when it matters. Charities fighting cancer or building wells should optimize every dollar in pursuit of those goals. But efficiency was meant to create space to be inefficient, so we can do important and interesting things with the people we love. Let’s come up with some new metrics.