We are at an unprecedented point in American history, and I’m concerned we may lose sight of the American Dream.
We are at an unprecedented point in American history, and I’m concerned we may lose sight of the American Dream:
- The costs of housing, healthcare, and education have soared far beyond the pace of inflation and wage growth.
- We are a democracy, but 144 million Americans – 42% of the adults who live here – do not vote and have no say in what happens.
- Wealth concentration has reached historic levels. The top 1% of households control 32% of all wealth, while the bottom 50% only have 2.6%.
We must act now to keep the dream alive. Our family made eight $1 million donations to nonprofit groups working to support those most currently in need:
- Team Rubicon – Mobilizing veterans to continue their service, leveraging their skills and experience to help Americans prepare, respond, and recover from natural disasters.
- Children’s Hunger Fund – Provides resources to local churches in the United States and around the world to meet the needs of impoverished community members.
- PEN America – Defends writers against censorship and abuse, supports writers in need of emergency assistance, and amplifies the writing of incarcerated prisoners. (One of my personal favorites; I’ve seen the power of writing transform our world many times.)
- The Trevor Project – Working to change hearts, minds, and laws to support the lives of young adults seeking acceptance as fellow Americans.
- NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund – Legal organization with a historic record of advancing racial justice and reducing inequality.
- First Generation Investors – Introduces high school students in low-income areas to the fundamentals of investing, providing them real money to invest, encouraging long-term wealth accumulation and financial literacy among underserved youth.
- Global Refuge – Supporting migrants and refugees from around the globe, in partnership with community-based legal and social service providers nationwide, helping rebuild lives in America.
- Planned Parenthood – Provides essential healthcare services and resources that help individuals and families lead healthier lives.
I encourage every American to contribute soon, however you can, to organizations you feel are effectively helping those most currently in need here in America.
We must also work toward deeper changes that will take decades to achieve. Over the next five years, my family pledges half our wealth towards long term efforts ensuring that all Americans continue to have access to the American Dream.
I never thought my family would be able to do this. My parents are of hardscrabble rural West Virginia and rural North Carolina origins. They barely managed to claw their way to the bottom of the middle class by the time they ended up in Virginia. Unfortunately, due to the demons passed on to them by their parents, my father was an alcoholic and my mother participated in the drinking. She ended up divorcing my father when I was 16 years old. It was only after the divorce that my parents were able to heal themselves, heal their only child, and stop the drinking, which was so destructive to our family. If the divorce hadn’t forced the issue, alcohol would have inevitably destroyed us all.
My parents may not have done everything right, but they both unconditionally loved me. They taught me how to fully, deeply receive love, and the profound joy of reflecting that love upon everyone around you.
I went on to attend public school in Chesterfield County, Virginia. In 1992 I graduated from the University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson.
During college, I worked at Safeway as a part-time cashier, earning the federal minimum wage, scraping together whatever money I could through government Pell grants, scholarships, and other part-time work to pay my college tuition. Even with lower in-state tuition, it was rocky. Sometimes I could barely manage tuition payments. And that was in 1992, when tuition was only $3,000 per year. It is now $23,000 per year. College tuition at a state school increased by 8 times over the last 30 years. These huge cost increases for healthcare, education, and housing are not compatible with the American Dream.
Programmers all over the world helped make an American Dream happen in 2008 when we built Stack Overflow, a Q&A website for programmers creating a shared Creative Commons knowledge base for the world. We did it democratically, because that’s the American way. We voted to rank questions and answers, and held elections for community moderators using ranked choice voting. We built a digital democracy – of the programmers, by the programmers, for the programmers. It worked.
With the guidance of my co-founder Joel Spolsky, I came to understand that the digital democracy of Stack Overflow was not enough. We must be brave enough to actively, openly share love with each other. That became the foundation for Discourse, a free, open source tool for constructive, empathetic community discussions that are also Creative Commons. We can disagree in those discussions because Discourse empowers communities to set boundaries the community agrees on, providing tools to democratically govern and strongly moderate by enforcing these boundaries. Digital democracy and empathy, for everyone.
In order for digital democracy to work, we need to see each other through our screens.
We often behave online in ways we never would in the real world because we cannot see the person on the other side of the screen. But as our world becomes more digital, we must extend our kindness through that screen.
I’ve always felt Stack Overflow and Discourse are projects for the public good that happen to be corporations. I probably couldn’t have accomplished this in any other country, and I was rewarded handsomely for a combination of hard work and good luck. That’s what the American Dream promises us.
We built it, and people came. I earned millions of dollars. I thought that was the final part of the American Dream. But it wasn’t.
I recently attended a theater performance of The Outsiders at my son’s public high school. All I really knew was the famous “stay gold” line from the 1983 movie adaptation. But as I sat there in the audience among my neighbors, watching the complete story acted out in front of me by these teenagers, I slowly realized what staying gold actually meant: sharing the American Dream.
In the printed program, the director wrote:
This play is a reminder that strength lies not just in overcoming hardships but in staying true to ourselves and lifting up those around us.
We hope you feel the raw emotions, sense the camaraderie, and connect with the enduring themes of resilience, empathy, and unity. Whether you’ve read this story recently, long ago, or not at all, I hope you are able to find inspiration in the strength and passion of youth. Thank you for being part of this journey with u
