This article was first published in the June 2016 issue

of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.

This edition was born in a New York conference room packed with financially successful startup founders brought together by Founders Forum. After intense panel discussions covering exit strategies, growth-revenue metrics and unicorn valuations, Yancey Strickler, a co-founder of Kickstarter, took to the stage to offer an alternative world view. "We will never sell our company," Strickler told the assembled founders and investors. "Congratulations 
to those of you that do, but fuck that."

Kickstarter had just turned itself into a public benefit corporation, committed to upholding ethical and values-led goals while pursuing profit. The more time I spent with Strickler, the more I began to understand that rising profits at a business like his were not in spite of its mission-driven approach - to some extent, they were because of it.

A dinner conversation with Julie Hanna, executive chair of micro-loans marketplace Kiva and an investor in success stories such as Lyft and Lending Club, then clarified why purpose-driven businesses have a clear advantage. Why was so much smart tech talent wasting time building yet another laundry app, Hanna wondered, when it could be put towards solving real problems at scale - and in the process building long-lasting companies whose very purpose serves to attract world-class staff?

This month we meet businesses ranging from Patagonia toPigeonly that have a social or environmental mission at their core - which in itself helps build market value. As Ayah Bdeir of littleBits points out, building a business with a social goal (in her case, to let anyone be an inventor) is wholly compatible with a focus on profit: "Making money is important," she says. "Money is freedom for a company." But purpose is what brings Google employees to take pay cuts to join, and what boosts morale during a startup's stress points. If a company optimises for both, Bdeir says, "It feeds your head, heart and pocket. There's no better way to live your life." No wonder the WIRED team have been feeling particularly uplifted while preparing this edition.

As part of our own mission to showcase the people who we know will excite you, we are finalising our plans for our fourthWIRED Money conference in London on June 23. And here, 
yet again, it's the purpose-driven founders who seem to be winning. From companies bringing transparency to insurance to entrepreneurs using tech to re-invent the usurious money-transfer industry, we see real value being created. And not just value measured in pounds.