Why We Chose to Be a Public Benefit Corporation
By Christopher Jones
When we incorporated Iqinsio, we had a choice that most founders don't think much about: what kind of corporation should we be? The default answer for a tech startup is a Delaware C-Corp. It's what investors expect, what lawyers recommend, and what every accelerator tells you to do.
We chose differently. Iqinsio is a Delaware Public Benefit Corporation.
A Public Benefit Corporation, or PBC, is a specific legal structure in Delaware corporate law. It requires the company to identify one or more specific public benefits in its certificate of incorporation, and it legally mandates that the board of directors balance three things: stockholder interests, the interests of those materially affected by the corporation's conduct, and the specific public benefit identified in the charter.
For Iqinsio, our stated public benefit is twofold: bridging the AI accessibility gap so that powerful AI tools are available to every business, and pioneering existentially-safe artificial general intelligence that advances human knowledge and resilience.
This isn't a marketing tagline. It's in our legal charter. Our directors have a fiduciary duty to pursue it.
Why does this matter? Because we're building AI, and the incentive structures of the companies building AI matter enormously.
A traditional C-Corp has one legal obligation: maximize shareholder value. Every decision, from product strategy to pricing to data handling, is evaluated through the lens of "does this make more money for shareholders?" That's fine for a widget company. It's dangerous for a company building increasingly powerful AI systems.
The AI industry has already shown us what happens when shareholder value is the only compass. We've seen companies rush AI products to market without adequate safety testing. We've seen data privacy treated as an afterthought. We've seen the people most affected by AI systems, workers, communities, small businesses, treated as externalities rather than stakeholders.
As a PBC, we can't do that. Our legal structure requires us to consider the impact of our decisions on all stakeholders, not just investors. When we design PinVista, we have to think about whether our AI recommendations actually help small business owners, not just whether they increase engagement metrics. When we develop AURA's capabilities, we have to consider the safety implications, not just the competitive advantage.
Some people ask whether being a PBC makes it harder to raise funding. The honest answer is: it depends on the investor. Some investors are specifically drawn to PBCs because of the alignment between profit and purpose. Others see it as a constraint. We've found that the investors who understand our mission and believe in our approach are exactly the investors we want on our cap table.
The PBC structure also creates accountability. Delaware law requires PBCs to publish a biennial statement about their public benefit performance. We go further than that: we publish an annual benefit report that details our progress, our impact, and areas where we need to improve. Transparency isn't optional for us; it's a legal obligation.
Being a PBC also shapes our culture in profound ways. When every employee knows that the company's legal mandate includes public benefit, it changes how people approach their work. Engineers think about accessibility from the start, not as an afterthought. Product managers consider the impact on small business owners, not just power users. Growth strategies focus on genuine value creation, not engagement tricks.
We believe that the companies building the most powerful technology in human history should be legally obligated to consider its impact on humanity. The PBC structure is how we hold ourselves to that standard.
As AI continues to advance, the question of corporate governance will become increasingly critical. We chose to answer that question from day one, by building a company that is legally required to balance profit with purpose, growth with responsibility, and innovation with safety.
That's why we're a Public Benefit Corporation. It's not just what we do. It's what we are.