&gt; What can startups do to increase prosperity for everyone?<p>Startups as a whole can do nothing -- it&#x27;s like asking &quot;what can car companies do to increase prosperity?&quot; except that would be a little more reasonable given the amount of resources and relative free-time those companies have.<p>In startup land, you typically don&#x27;t even have a sustainable business let alone vast amount of resources lying around to fix the world&#x27;s problems. They cannot be concerned with something this vague.<p>What they can do is work on the correct problems that will put them in a position to make a legitimate societal impact down the road. Even better if they work on problems that is directly correlated to society&#x27;s well-being.<p>You mentioned food. If a startup could compete with the likes of Monsanto, but wasn&#x27;t run by a bunch of scumbags, they might be able to create such a rich company that it starts shipping food crates free of charge to places in need. This depends entirely upon the kind of person running the company.<p>Since I respect that you have to view startups in the aggregate, I would probably turn around and ask you, what can you do to fund better startups by better people with long-term Do No Harm terms? The terms might even be bullshit like &quot;You will do everything in your power to help the world rather than just helping yourself.&quot; It wouldn&#x27;t be something you hold up in court, but it would be a major internet foul to find out &quot;Super Rich CEO&quot; signed those terms and &quot;Super Rich CEO&quot; was found being immoral. With the leader&#x27;s reputation at stake, you might have a chance at nurturing Good Guy CEOs.<p>At any rate, startups have enough to worry about. If you want to help the world, you&#x27;ll find a way. If you want to make a bunch of money and fuck the world, you&#x27;ll find a way to do that too. The problem is cultural and resides at the individual level.