Yea, I guess this is one of those things where American being composed of states maybe makes things weird. A corporation (or LLC or whatever) is a creation of state law. When you form a corporation, you file paperwork with the secretary of state of one of the states, not even necessarily one you are particularly closely connected to, and then your corporation is controlled by the corporate law of that particular state. Many businesses famously incorporate in the state of Delaware because its corporate law is very friendly to businesses. Whereas 501c3 is a tax status that the federal government confers on an organization that has the right kind of purpose.
I think what Andrew may have been referring to is a 990. A 990 is a form that non-church 501c3s have to file with the federal government every year. Churches don’t have to, but that exemption is statutory law, not constitutional law. I’ve never thought of the form 990 as “snooping”. It’s just reporting what the major programs are, what money is coming in and flowing around at a high level, who the directors and officers are, etc. The idea is that in exchange for these tax advantages, the public ought to have access to this information. But I guess if you have a stronger notion of privacy or something you might regard it as snooping.
I don’t want to give too strong an impression about CEOs being board chairs. There definitely are organizations that do that, and no real legal constraints on it. And I’m sure there are Americans who think it is just fine. There has been a bit written on the EA forum about how different people seem to have rather different conceptions of what a board is for. But on the boards where I served, we understood the board’s most important role as being the CEO’s boss, and we saw that as incompatible with having the CEO on the board, or even present for the portions of board meetings where we discussed the CEO’s performance. And yes, when I look at OpenAI and see Sam Altman on the board, that does not look great to me, though it would not be my first point of concern about OpenAI.
There is a concept in American nonprofit law that board members and staff members shouldn’t be paid too much, but there is no clearly defined threshold of what constitutes too much, and little enforcement in practice. It’s more a matter of looking at what similar nonprofits are doing, and not being too out of line with that. And in the case where the top staff person was on the board, that board status wouldn’t prevent paying them like a top staff person.
Yea, I guess this is one of those things where American being composed of states maybe makes things weird. A corporation (or LLC or whatever) is a creation of state law. When you form a corporation, you file paperwork with the secretary of state of one of the states, not even necessarily one you are particularly closely connected to, and then your corporation is controlled by the corporate law of that particular state. Many businesses famously incorporate in the state of Delaware because its corporate law is very friendly to businesses. Whereas 501c3 is a tax status that the federal government confers on an organization that has the right kind of purpose.
I think what Andrew may have been referring to is a 990. A 990 is a form that non-church 501c3s have to file with the federal government every year. Churches don’t have to, but that exemption is statutory law, not constitutional law. I’ve never thought of the form 990 as “snooping”. It’s just reporting what the major programs are, what money is coming in and flowing around at a high level, who the directors and officers are, etc. The idea is that in exchange for these tax advantages, the public ought to have access to this information. But I guess if you have a stronger notion of privacy or something you might regard it as snooping.
I don’t want to give too strong an impression about CEOs being board chairs. There definitely are organizations that do that, and no real legal constraints on it. And I’m sure there are Americans who think it is just fine. There has been a bit written on the EA forum about how different people seem to have rather different conceptions of what a board is for. But on the boards where I served, we understood the board’s most important role as being the CEO’s boss, and we saw that as incompatible with having the CEO on the board, or even present for the portions of board meetings where we discussed the CEO’s performance. And yes, when I look at OpenAI and see Sam Altman on the board, that does not look great to me, though it would not be my first point of concern about OpenAI.
There is a concept in American nonprofit law that board members and staff members shouldn’t be paid too much, but there is no clearly defined threshold of what constitutes too much, and little enforcement in practice. It’s more a matter of looking at what similar nonprofits are doing, and not being too out of line with that. And in the case where the top staff person was on the board, that board status wouldn’t prevent paying them like a top staff person.