How do you make difficult decisions when there’s no good answer? What do you believe in? What values do you hold dearly?
Mark Chen ’96 posed these three main questions when he returned to Pingry in January to deliver the John Hanly Lecture on Ethics and Morality. This lecture series is named for Pingry’s Head of School from 1987–2000, who made ethics a central tenet of his tenure. As the founder of two mission-driven organizations, Mr. Chen has faced numerous situations when he needed to make difficult decisions that forced him to choose between furthering a mission or exhibiting his personal values.
With a background in math and physics at Pingry, he studied computer science and electrical engineering at MIT, then spent the first years of his career in what he admits was an unfulfilling role in strategy consulting. He pivoted to join a solar company, which made him happy because the job combined his personal beliefs with work he liked in a supportive environment—but the company went bankrupt three years later.
Enter mission-driven organization number one: in 2011, a college friend asked Mr. Chen to help him start a business whose mission was to give people “good work-from-home jobs” (Rev Freelance). For context, as Mr. Chen noted, working from home was not “a thing” 15 years ago. Millions of people in the U.S. could have been working, but weren’t—those with disabilities and stay-at-home parents, for example.
As Mr. Chen pointed out in his lecture, Rev’s operations raised many questions, such as what it means to be a “good” job or what it means to “create jobs”. If jobs are scarce, who gets a project—someone who’s been doing good work for years, or someone who needs the experience?
He ended up leaving Rev because of—appropriate for this lecture—a disagreement over values, so what came next? Well, his family was living in San Francisco when his son, who was in Grade 7 in the fall of 2020, took a picture of a sky that had turned orange from wildfires. Wanting to have a positive impact on the atmosphere, his son asked his relatives for carbon credits instead of physical gifts (companies that emit greenhouse gases can purchase these credits, and the money goes toward projects that reduce carbon). And that inspired Mr. Chen to start mission-driven organization number two: CNaught.
CNaught’s mission is to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere by helping companies decarbonize—but after starting the company, Mr. Chen discovered ethical challenges and questions that are driving the inaction of decarbonization in the first place. He provided two examples: Southern Cardamom National Park in Cambodia and coal mining. In the first example, the park, which was created as a carbon credit project, consists of over 1 million acres and is home to more than 60 threatened animal species. The problem? The park overlaps with existing communities of Indigenous populations, who had been cutting down trees and hunting some of the endangered species. CNaught decided not to buy the credits because “the right for self-determination on the part of the villagers was not outweighed by the environmental benefits.”
In the second example, CNaught needed to decide whether to buy carbon credits to support those coal mine companies who choose to capture methane to treat it before releasing it into the atmosphere. On the one hand, buying the credits would help keep methane out of the atmosphere. On the other hand, buying the credits would ensure more profit for coal miners, in general, and perpetuate environmental concerns. Mr. Chen said the company did buy the credits because of the strong environmental benefits. “Increased profits would have little impact on the amount of coal being dug up.”
Mr. Chen used these stories as examples of why everyone should take the time to define their values. “I would argue that most folks don’t know what their values are. A lot of people are happy to share their opinions, but folks don’t always probe the values they hold dearly that are driving those opinions.” He recommends looking at values through three lenses: internal (what do you care about?), external (for people you respect, why, and for people you don’t respect, why), and long-held traditions that could be religious, cultural, or philosophical.
“You will face challenges and questions that will draw on the values you hold dear,” Mr. Chen said. “Mr. Hanly understood this. He knew that character is about having a framework for life.”
Pictured: Honor Board Chair Chloe Huang ’26 and Mark Chen ’96
Contact: Greg Waxberg ’96, Assistant Director of Communications, Writer/Editor