NetSquared is exciting and cool, but it is not yet a success.

I would say the same of GiveWell.

The difference between “cool idea” and “success” is not semantic or trivial. To be overly general for a moment, it’s a difference that I think the for-profit sector recognizes way better than the nonprofit sector.

I have no idea why you think I have called it in a failure. You can look anywhere on the web, at anything I’ve written, and you will not find this anywhere. You will find me calling it an “exciting idea” on my blog. You will find the first paragraph of my getting-notorious “Frustrations” post filled with praise for the idea and the preliminary signs.

What I object to is calling it a success. A success, to me, does NOT mean something that is “perfectly executed” or “as good as it could be.” It means something that has a good OUTCOME - i.e., the purpose for which the project was started has been accomplished to at least some degree. NetSquared was started to promote great projects. That hasn’t happened yet. It may, with or without perfect execution, but it hasn’t happened yet. As for democracy, the extent to which this poll serves as an example of what democracy can do, vs. an example of where it falls short, is still under debate … but when you guys started calling it a “watershed,” we literally didn’t even have a result to look at yet.

When I look at my favorite charities, I don’t think they’re as good as they could be … but I have seen enough evidence that they improve people’s lives to call them “great.” When I look at Bill Gates’s decision to attack the world’s biggest problems, I don’t think he’s doing it as well as he can (for example, he could be more transparent), but I would definitely call the establishment of his foundation a “watershed event” because it has changed the way people think about charity - where “changed the way they think” is a result, separate from and beyond “was a good idea.”

What I’m insisting on here is not that “success” means “perfection,” but that it means “results.” What I’m harping on is not the chasm between what is and what could be, but the chasm between idea and outcome. What I advocate is not that we call NetSquared a “failure,” but that we wait and see what happens before making any grand declarations. That isn’t a product of my idealism - quite the opposite, it’s a product of my realism, and my personal experience that words, plans, and ideas are cheap, and execution and results are a whole different ballgame.