Jan 18, 2023 · 1h 7m · we-live-to-build
3 White Male Co-Founders Noticed a Pattern and Changed It
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of We Live to Build, host Sean Weisbrot interviews Simon Schillebeeckx, Chief Strategy Officer of Handprint, exploring how digital technology transforms corporate sustainability into a regenerative growth engine. They also examine the realities of scaling global startups, overcoming homophilic hiring biases, and managing cross-cultural remote teams in Asia.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Sean holds 31.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Sean as informed peer 4.8 Guest teaching 5.7 Guest disagreement 2.1 Sean pushing back 2.1
speaking balance: gold is Sean, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 54:15 Simon Dismisses the Golden Rule as Bullshit
Simon forcefully rejects Sean's approach to universal personal check-ins, labeling the biblical principle of treating others as you want to be treated as inappropriate in cross-cultural workplaces.
Hardest push from Sean ▶ 50:04 Sean Calls Out Simon's Scaling PremiseSean bluntly tells Simon that designing 500-person processes at 40 employees is a mistake, insisting that organizational systems naturally break multiple times.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 30:01 Etymological Reframe of CompetitionSimon counters Sean's moral criticism of competition by drawing on the Latin root 'competare' to define healthy non-zero-sum collaboration.
Sean holds their own ▶ 50:20 Sean Defines the Four Core CEO DutiesSean demonstrates deep management expertise by outlining the four fundamental pillars of CEO responsibility and defending why cultural dissemination takes precedence.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Sean as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Sean pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simon's Academic Background and Founding Handprint | 3 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Sean introduces the background and asks about the naming distinction between footprint and handprint. Simon explains the academic origin at MIT and the positive sustainability framework. | |
| Handprint's Business Model and NGO Productization | 4 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Sean brings up an anecdote about a CSR firm in China taking budget cuts. Simon explains Handprint's transition from philanthropic donations to discrete impact productization and SaaS subscriptions. | |
| Strategic Philanthropy as an Engine of Growth | 2 | 7 | 1 | 0 | Simon outlines global differences in corporate giving across India, the US, and Europe. Sean listens as Simon frames impact as an engine for core business growth. | |
| Embedding Impact into Consumer Transactions | 5 | 6 | 2 | 2 | Sean raises consumer skepticism about checkout charity add-ons. Simon explains why tacking fees onto consumers fails and how embedding impact in prices creates positive engagement. | |
| Blockchain and the Proof of Impact Uniqueness | 5 | 7 | 2 | 2 | Sean asks whether blockchain is necessary without tokens. Simon breaks down the technical need for public ledgers to establish proof of uniqueness and prevent double selling of social impact. | |
| Internal Messaging, Brand Identity, and Education | 4 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Sean asks how Handprint pitches its unique value proposition to new hires. Simon discusses thought leadership and the crucial legal distinction between selling impact and fundraising. | |
| Benevolent Competition in the Impact Space | 5 | 7 | 4 | 4 | Sean questions the concept of competitors in the social impact sector. Simon counters by citing the Latin etymology of competition and advocating for non-zero-sum benevolent competition. | |
| Overcoming Homophily and Prioritizing Team Diversity | 4 | 7 | 2 | 1 | Simon explores how three white male founders risked falling into homophily and explains the trade-off between conversational harmony and cognitive diversity. | |
| Navigating Cross-Cultural Team Dynamics and Vision | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Sean shares a detailed anecdote about cross-cultural friction with his Filipino CTO and using his COO as an intermediary buffer to manage communication. | |
| Structuring Founder Roles and Emotional Intelligence | 5 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Simon details how their third co-founder provides emotional intelligence and mediates founder egos. Simon also explains why he deliberately removed himself from early hiring screens. | |
| Cultural Alignment and the Hiring Pipeline | 6 | 4 | 3 | 3 | Sean outlines his hiring methodology of screening for culture first. Simon questions whether this approach scales when moving from 40 to 500 people. | |
| CEO Responsibilities and Cross-Cultural Employee Engagement | 7 | 6 | 6 | 7 | Sean rejects Simon's premise, stating processes must break as companies scale and defending 1-on-1s. Simon pushes back forcefully, rejecting the golden rule as cultural imposition, while Sean counters with employee testimonials. | |
| Normalizing Failure and Fostering a Learning Culture | 6 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Sean discusses radical honesty and vulnerability in leadership. Simon shares Handprint's institutionalized 'biggest mistake' sessions and managing project post-mortems across cultures. |
Statements from this episode (14)
Schillebeeckx: Handprint methodology for positive impact was designed at MIT
“There is a, it's a scientific term that is not so popular, but it basically captures all the positive impact you're creating in the world. And there's an entire scientific methodology that mainly was designed by people at MIT that tries to help organizations f…”
Schillebeeckx: Maximizing positive 'handprints' beats reducing negative footprints for corporate sustainability
“Our overarching thesis is that the environmental responsibility of an organization should not be limited to simply reducing its negative impact. There's a much more aspirational goal to be found in working with companies to create a positive impact in the worl…”
Schillebeeckx: Handprint acts as commercial agents selling NGO impact products
“We work as commercial agents for nonprofit organizations that we bring into our ecosystem. That means that we are responsible for selling their impact products. And so we kind of move away from fundraising. We work with NGOs to turn them to kind of help them e…”
Schillebeeckx: India mandates corporate philanthropy once companies turn profitable
“Except like in countries like India, you have a regulatory obligation to do some kind of philanthropic giving from the moment that you become profitable.”
Schillebeeckx: Forcing retail customers to donate at checkout backfires on brands
“It should not force the customer to make an additional payment because this is unlikely to work and actually it's more likely to backfire. It might create negative impact.”
Schillebeeckx: On-chain impact tokenization adds corporate friction unless abstracted
“The tokenization of impact itself is not necessarily something you want to do on a blockchain because it's going to create quite a lot of friction, especially in terms of corporate adoption, right? So unless if you can make it really opaque, So that companies …”
Schillebeeckx: Handprint removed 'fundraising' from marketing to avoid regulatory liabilities
“We very recently had to do a massive sweep through our website, all of our sales materials. And so to make sure that the word fundraising does not appear in that in the, in that documentation, because it's very easy to explain to people that, This is, we work …”
Schillebeeckx: 90% to 95% of sustainability competitors focus on carbon offsets
“Why we deliberately develop a narrative that deviates from what 90 to 95% of our competitors are doing. Because most of our competitors are focusing on Carbon offsetting and reducing your footprint. And this is a narrative that we don't embrace.”
Schillebeeckx: Homophilic hiring severely limits an early team's exploratory range
“If you have very strong homophilic team, very similar backgrounds, let's say the first five people that we hire are also white males in their mid to late thirties that have also somehow maybe moved to Asia, then you're really hiring very similar people. And th…”
Weisbrot: Early hiring prioritized immediate execution over diversity or team harmony
“Was going for wasn't diversity or harmony. It was who are the best people to get the job done right now. And if those are not the right people to get the job done in the future, I'll deal with that in the future.”
Schillebeeckx removed himself from early hiring stages at Handprint
“For me personally, it's become very obvious that I'm not very good at hiring people, or necessarily firing people, but I'm not very good at that decision-making based on very
An incomplete and rudimentary information about someone.
And as a consequence, I've s…”
Weisbrot: Founders should screen for culture first to save team time
“I wanted to make sure that they passed me before they could pass everybody else, because if they pass everybody else and then they fail me, I've wasted the team's time. I would rather waste a little bit of my time first and not the team's time. Cause I think t…”
Schillebeeckx: Treating employees 'how you want to be treated' is management bullshit
“The risk in this kind of approach is that it's like this idea that it comes from the Bible, right? So you should treat people the way you want to be treated. That's like a biblical narrative. Bullshit. Because that assumes that people are the same as you. You …”