DROPTHE GOOD
How We Compute the Good Score
Every point has a source. The formula is public. Challenge it.
The Good Score answers one question for every entity in our database: what good has this done for the world?
It measures contribution, not morality. It counts outputs, not intentions. It uses data, not opinions. A person who provides internet to a million people scores higher than someone who appeared in a hundred films. That is a deliberate choice.
Below is exactly how we compute it. If you disagree with a weight, a source, or a methodology choice, tell us. Transparency is the entire point.
The Three Layers
Good Score
Computed
Calculated from verified data using transparent methodology. Positive only. 0-100 scale.
Public Vote
Crowd
How the world feels about this entity. Thumbs up or down, displayed as a percentage. Like Rotten Tomatoes, but for everything.
Context
Factual
Notable public events. Awards, milestones, court records. Sourced, not scored. Provides the "why" behind the numbers.
Principles
Positive Only
The score measures how much good an entity has contributed. It never penalizes. A low score means "hasn't accumulated much measured positive impact," not "is bad."
Primary Sources
Scores are computed from government filings, financial disclosures, and peer-reviewed institutional data. We do not weight NGO opinions, media editorials, or institutional rankings. Every point has a primary source.
Data, Not Narrative
We don't repeat what institutions say about a country or a company. We show what the numbers say. Murder rate data, employment data, patent filings. Raw indicators, not filtered judgments.
Transparent Formula
The weights, the dimensions, the sources, the limitations. It's all here. If we got something wrong, show us the data and we'll update it.
The Five Dimensions
Every entity is scored across five universal dimensions. The same framework applies to people, companies, countries, and crypto. Entertainment is valuable, but real-world impact dominates.
Lives directly improved. Jobs created. People served. Access provided. Health improved. This is the heaviest dimension because creating real value for real humans is the highest form of good.
New things brought into existence. Businesses founded. Technologies created. Scientific breakthroughs. Products that changed how the world works. Creating something new that serves others.
Verified giving back. Philanthropy, open-source contributions, humanitarian work, public service. What you gave to others without requiring payment in return.
How lasting is the contribution? Institutions that outlive their founder. Systems that self-sustain. A hospital that runs for 50 years matters more than a single donation.
Art, entertainment, education, inspiration. This dimension is capped at 10%. Entertainment is valuable, but 100 films are still less important than providing water or internet to 100 people. That is the position we take, transparently.
Example: Elon Musk
Probably the most versatile human being on earth. Founder of companies spanning electric vehicles, space exploration, satellite internet, brain-computer interfaces, solar energy, and tunneling infrastructure. Here is how his Good Score breaks down.
Why This Score
Tesla employs 150,000+ people. SpaceX employs 13,000+. Starlink provides internet access to millions in underserved regions. SolarCity brought solar energy to hundreds of thousands of homes. The downstream human impact through his companies is among the largest of any living person.
Founded or co-founded 7+ companies across 7 different industries: payments (PayPal), electric vehicles (Tesla), space (SpaceX), solar energy (SolarCity), neurotechnology (Neuralink), infrastructure (The Boring Company), and AI (xAI). First private company to send humans to the ISS. First successful orbital-class reusable rocket. Mass-market electric vehicles.
Open-sourced all Tesla patents (2014). Musk Foundation supports renewable energy education and pediatric research. Provided Starlink terminals during Ukraine conflict and natural disasters. Pledged to give away majority of wealth. Verified foundation giving exceeds $100M+.
Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink are operational institutions that will likely outlast their founder. The shift to electric vehicles is permanent. Reusable rocket technology permanently reduced the cost of space access. These are lasting structural changes to industries.
Cameo appearances in Iron Man 2, The Simpsons, Rick and Morty. Hosted Saturday Night Live. Became a cultural icon that inspired a generation of engineers and entrepreneurs. Cultural contribution is real but is not his primary dimension, and the cap reflects that.
The Time Layer
The Good Score is not a snapshot. It is a story. Every entity has a timeline showing how their score evolved over time. The score started at 0 and climbed with each verified contribution.
This timeline is constructed from verified public records: SEC filings, incorporation records, patent databases, and company disclosures. Every event has a primary source.
Scoring by Entity Type
The five dimensions are universal, but the data sources and signals differ by entity type. Here is how the Good Score is computed for each.
People
The Good Score for people measures verified positive contributions to the world. A founder's score reflects the downstream impact of their companies through our knowledge graph: jobs created, people served, technologies developed.
Entertainment is capped at 10%. Making 100 films contributes to culture, but employing 150,000 people or providing internet to millions contributes more measurable good.
Signals: Companies founded (via entity links), employees of those companies, products created, patents filed, verified philanthropy, awards, cultural works.
Companies
The Good Score for companies measures how much positive impact the organization has created. Jobs sustained, products that serve people, innovations that advance industries, and what the company gives back.
Signals: Employee count, products launched, years of operation, geographic reach, open-source contributions, patents, verified CSR initiatives.
Countries
The Good Score for countries measures progress, not just current state. A country that dramatically improved its safety, education, or health scores higher than a wealthy country that stayed flat. We use raw indicators from the World Bank, WHO, and UNESCO. No institutional judgments, no NGO opinions. Just the numbers.
Signals: Life expectancy trend, poverty reduction, literacy rate, school enrollment, homicide rate change, internet access growth, renewable energy adoption.
Movies and Series
Entertainment content uses the Feelgood Score instead of the Good Score. It measures how the content makes you feel, not how much "good" the movie did for the world. Different product, same DropThe Good umbrella.
Dimensions: Warmth, humor, inspiration, comfort, tension (inverse). Computed from genre analysis, keyword signals, and AI refinement. 233,000+ titles scored.
Data Sources
We use a strict trust hierarchy. Our scores are computed exclusively from Tier 1-3 sources. NGO reports and media editorials may appear as context but carry zero weight in the score.
Government filings and official records
SEC EDGAR, patent offices, court records, OSHA logs, census data. These are legal documents filed under penalty of perjury. Highest trust.
Self-reported verified data
Company annual reports, financial disclosures, published donor lists. Verifiable but self-serving. Weighted fully when corroborated.
Structured institutional data
World Bank, WHO, UNESCO, United Nations. Methodological, peer-reviewed, openly published. We use their raw indicators, not their composite scores or rankings.
NOT used in scoring
NGO reports, media investigations, editorial rankings, opinion pieces. These may appear as context on entity pages but carry zero weight in the Good Score computation. Institutions have biases. We measure outputs, not opinions about outputs.
The Knowledge Graph Advantage
What makes the Good Score unique is that it flows through our knowledge graph. We don't score entities in isolation. A founder inherits a fraction of their company's impact. A company inherits signals from its products and partnerships. A country's score reflects the aggregate of its institutions.
1.8 million entities. 3 million+ connections. The Good Score propagates through the graph.
What We Acknowledge
No scoring system is perfect. We are transparent about our limitations.
Entertainment data dominance
Most people in our database come from TMDb (film/TV industry). Scientists, teachers, and humanitarians are underrepresented. We are actively acquiring external datasets to correct this.
English-language bias
Our data sources skew Western. Contributions in Bollywood, Nollywood, East Asian cinema, and non-English industries may be underrepresented. We acknowledge this and improve coverage continuously.
Philanthropy data gaps
Verified philanthropy data exists primarily for billionaires and major foundations. The everyday generosity of millions of people is not captured. The Giving dimension is limited by available data.
Country data reliability
Some countries self-report unreliable statistics to international institutions. Where data quality is uncertain, we note it. Scores are only as good as the underlying data.
Historical vs. living
Historical figures with long completed legacies may score higher than mid-career living people. This is expected. The time layer shows that every score started at zero.
Questions
Who decides the weights?
We do, transparently. The weights are published on this page. Human Impact is 35% because we believe creating real value for real humans is the highest form of good. Cultural Uplift is capped at 10% because entertainment, while valuable, is not the same as providing water, internet, or jobs. If you disagree, tell us why. The formula evolves.
Why positive only?
Two reasons. First, measuring contribution is defensible and factual. Measuring "badness" requires moral judgment that varies by culture and era. Second, the Public Vote handles sentiment. If someone has done terrible things, the Public Vote will reflect it. The Good Score measures what they built. The vote measures how people feel about them.
Can someone dispute their score?
Yes. Contact us with evidence. If we made an error in our data or calculation, we update it. The methodology is versioned and the changelog is public.
How is this different from ESG?
ESG rates companies only, relies heavily on NGO reports and self-disclosures, and is opaque (MSCI and Sustainalytics disagree on the same company 40% of the time). The Good Score rates all entity types, uses only primary sources, is fully transparent, and includes a public vote. Also, ESG costs money. This is free.
Is this a social credit score?
No. Social credit systems are government-controlled, punitive, and affect your rights (travel, loans, jobs). The Good Score is informational, positive-only, and has no power over anyone. It is closer to a Wikipedia page than a government program.
Why does entertainment cap at 10%?
Because we believe providing internet to a million people, creating 150,000 jobs, or developing a vaccine that saves millions of lives contributes more measurable good than appearing in films. Entertainment enriches culture and that matters. But it is not the same as building infrastructure, curing disease, or feeding people. We take this position transparently and explain it here rather than hiding it behind opaque weights.
How often do scores update?
Entity scores recompute when new data enters the system. For people and companies, this happens during our regular data enrichment cycles. For countries, when new World Bank or WHO data is published (typically annually). The Public Vote updates in real time.
What about entities with very little data?
If we cannot meaningfully score at least two of the five dimensions, the Good Score tile does not appear on the entity page. We never display a score based on insufficient data. Better to show nothing than to show something misleading.
Methodology Version
Current version: v1.0 (February 2026)
This is the first version of the Good Score methodology. As we acquire more data sources and receive feedback, the formula will evolve. All changes are logged here with dates and rationale.
The Good Score is a living system. Version 1.0 reflects what we can measure today. It will get better.
Challenge It
If you found a flaw in this methodology, a missing data source, or a weight that does not make sense, we want to hear about it. The best scoring systems are the ones that get challenged and improve.
