When I invest in a company, there are always a few crucial components I look for: a strong leadership team, product-market fit, and a clean balance sheet. But there’s one component — possibly the most important one — that truly makes me excited: a commitment to purpose.
Without purpose, nothing else matters.
My team manages the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Ventures portfolio, and over the past decade, we have watched purpose-driven companies flourish. The founders of these companies care deeply about the businesses they’ve created and the problems they have set out to solve, often based on personal experience.
When these founders see people looking for solutions, they seize opportunities to help. They take advantage of AI and other emerging technologies to enhance their existing offerings and discover new ones. They go all-in on people who believe in their mission. They understand that business ebbs and flows, but a firm commitment to purpose is a North Star – both in good times and in periods of uncertainty and disruption.
This purpose-first perspective creates an environment where people are motivated and determined to keep pushing forward.
And importantly, mission-driven founders often align themselves naturally with impact investors like us who understand their purpose and have an abiding interest in their long-run impact.
Knowing our companies intimately allows us to support their iterative journeys.
Founder-driven resilience
Throughout our portfolio, we’ve seen numerous examples of how purpose created the opportunity for companies to show their mettle.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, San Francisco-based Handshake doubled down on virtual recruiting, which was the reason many companies could continue recruiting college students at all as campuses shut down. In recent years, it has acted as a lifeline for struggling graduates. The company’s latest evolution demonstrates how mission focus creates unexpected opportunities: it is now connecting the world’s best academic talent with top AI labs to validate frontier technology, shape next-generation models, and develop the skills of tomorrow’s academic vanguard.
What has kept Handshake going? Its co-founder Garrett Lord’s lived experience. He decided to start Handshake after personally breaking down barriers to find internship and job opportunities at a rural college, which didn’t attract recruitment from major employers. Even during difficult periods since starting the company, the fact that he has been in the shoes of the students he serves continues to drive innovation at Handshake.
Lovevery, based in Boise, Idaho, offers another case study into how a mission can drive a company. As a parent of a newborn, co-founder Jessica Rolph was interested in better understanding childhood neurological development. She quickly learned that not enough babies were being exposed to experiences that helped form links between the 100 billion nerve cells present at birth. She wanted to find a way to facilitate those connections.
This motivated Jessica to found a company offering play kits that help nurture young children’s fertile minds based on their stage of development. Even as the company has grown and taken on the challenges of global scale, Jessica’s determination to keep children and families at the center of the design and development process has ensured Lovevery continues to produce high-quality products that support the child’s growth.
The mission bedrock
Why exactly does a tight mission make companies stronger?
Purpose provides a clear decision-making framework during uncertainty. Companies anchored in mission have a North Star for tough choices: How do we prioritize? Should we cut this program? Does this pivot serve our purpose? The answers are easier to find when you know where to begin the conversation.
Mission also helps to create product-market fit that transcends economic cycles. Certain non-negotiables – like parents wanting a quality education and reliable healthcare – will always be present, as will the need for companies that meet this demand in an authentic and differentiated way.
Purpose in the age of AI
Sticking to purpose will only grow more difficult as AI increasingly shapes the way we work and live.
We all remember the shock of our initial conversations with ChatGPT. A transformation like the generative AI revolution requires a clear sense of purpose to ensure priorities don’t blow away in a gust of wind.
Our portfolio companies have taken on this challenge: How can they leverage this dynamic technology to make the world better?
Take Boston-based Somite AI. It is building foundation models to rapidly accelerate the development of novel cell therapies, with the potential to significantly compress timelines and benefit millions of people.
Or look at Citizen Health, headquartered in San Mateo, Calif. Co-founder Nasha Fitter’s daughter was diagnosed with a rare disease that changed Nasha’s life and fueled her passion to spur the development of rare disease therapies. Nasha’s personal connection to its mission gives the company an insider’s view of the challenges that rare disease communities face.
Citizen Health brings patient data from disparate specialists and providers together into a unified medical record. This record, combined with AI tools for patients and caregivers, helps new providers get up to speed, streamlines care navigation, drives key insights, and helps researchers better categorize rare diseases.
The company is transforming how research is conducted in rare conditions by addressing one of the field’s biggest barriers: bringing down the cost to study meaningful patient data. Using AI and machine learning to analyze large amounts of historical patient data, researchers can answer key questions in months, rather than the years that traditional studies take to conduct. Promising research results, in turn, can lead to more clinical trials and therapies.
As we face an AI transformation that is dwarfing previous disruptions, mission-driven leadership like this will remain critical. AI has tremendous potential to democratize access to education and healthcare, accelerate scientific discovery, and solve previously intractable problems. But it also carries risks like the potential for misuse and amplification of falsehoods.
Purpose-driven companies have an important role to play in ensuring AI is deployed responsibly with humans at the center. Companies that do so will earn the respect of customers and the general public — and thrive.
When I look at our portfolio companies, I’m heartened to see that many are stronger than ever despite the new challenges — and opportunities — that have emerged recently, with many achieving revenues exceeding $100 million while expanding globally.
It turns out that in times of disruption, mission is the ultimate competitive advantage.
Vivian Wu is the managing partner of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Ventures team, which makes impact investments in life sciences and education.
This post is part of a series of content sponsored by Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
