For some reason, I still think they have value and that their problems are worth solving, regardless of what the market thinks of them.
Also, getting paid by the government to do something is decisively a non-market solution, given that the government gets its money through taxes.
Panera Bread gross revenue $2.8B, McDonalds gross revenue $22.8B
Nordstrom gross revenue $14.4B, Walmart gross revenue $500.3B
Payday loan revenue in the rich burbs roughly-zero, Payday loan revenue nation wide mysteriously between $6B and $46B depending on data source
Now can you get a cool and trendy very high social status hipster job to brag about on social media in the coolest office with only the best "personality fit" coworkers helping poor people, oh heck no you'd be savaged here if you admitted to working for McD, but the market of poor people products, at least in some areas of business, is about ten times as large as rich people products.
But, I'm not trying to comment on either of those, just that you can create utility for a poor person and still have a viable business. If it relies on government for funding, because society has decided it's worth funding that sort of work, so what? We have an entire defense industry in the US based on that idea. Most of our education is too. Other countries have their entire healthcare systems based on that idea. You can decide you don't want to be paid directly by taxed money, but that's on you, not on the viability of such a model.
My point is, you have to compare them entirely. At least Gates seems to have moved into the "good" quadrant later in life.
