alt Hacker NewsA PBC is not a charity or a non-profit. PBCs are for-profit businesses with the goal of making money. In day-to-day business they're indistinguishable with other for-profit corporations, including fundraising and investment. The only real practical difference is that they give directors a little more leeway in their fiduciary duties to say "no" to doing evil things.
The advantage to a PBC is protecting founders from a serious problem with standard corporations: you might bring on investors who could subsequently demand you pollute, exploit people, and/or do other immoral activities for profit. You don't have to do these things to grow a business quickly.
> The only real practical difference is that they give directors a little more leeway in their fiduciary duties to say "no" to doing evil things.
I’d like to provide maybe a clarification here that there is zero existing fiduciary duty in regular corporations to say yes to evil things, or even to turn a profit at all. A for-profit C corporation can legally sell stock, lose money every year, and go out of business, if the board of directors approves that strategy. Fiduciary duty exists primarily in areas of accurate communication and the avoidance of crime, fraud, etc.
A B corp basically is a C corp, but one that has formally published that their strategy includes a commitment to some social benefit. But if a C corp wanted to publish the same message to shareholders it could, and shareholder recourse would basically be to either try to replace the board, or sell the stock.