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In all honesty, I don’t think the author correctly identified his error. And I think that’s a shame. It’s right here: > Here I was, living the Silicon Valley d

In all honesty, I don’t think the author correctly identified his error. And I think that’s a shame. It’s right here: > Here I was, living the Silicon Valley dream: making the world a better place through technology. I don’t know how this has become a thing people believe, however widely it might be believed. But if it’s representative of SV or tech innovation at all, it’s either wildly distorted through a wealthy person’s pet futurism project—or held in the imagination of someone aspiring to that stature. SV is about making money, that’s it, that’s the whole story. The totally overlapping error here was assuming those things—making the world better, and making money—aren’t inherently in conflict. And overlapping that: assuming that a profit driven health care system has altruistic goals as such, rather than in concert with its profit-driving priorities. This project could have been successful (and could still do if the author or anyone else wants to pursue it). And it could have been a valuable contribution to society. The author would probably have realized this error if he’d considered entering a global market where health care has different economic incentives. Programs like this which help people are funded by government contracts and grants, not by payment from arbitrary people acting on their arbitrary interests.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
> I don’t think the author correctly identified his error. This is his error right here: “It had been a bit of a working assumption of mine over the past few weeks that if you could improve the health of the patients then, you know, the doctors or the hospitals or whatever would pay for that.”
- kirso 5y ago
  Show me the incentives and I will show you the outcome!
- unityByFreedom 5y ago
  Or this tech founder isn't much of a salesperson. Sellers won't say "So you don’t think this product is useful?" and certainly won't be left speechless as OP was, > So I’d sorta just be, like, donating this money if I paid you for this thing, right? >> I had literally nothing to say to that. There may be a sales angle for the product that he could not find. Improving patient outcomes is absolutely in the interest of doctors, patients, and hospitals. The question is who to sell it to, and how.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  That’s just one facet of the error I pointed out. He repeats the same error in different ways every step of the way. He started with consumers before this point. He may have gone after other incentive-conflicted or fickle revenue sources too if he’d had more runway.
unityByFreedom 5y ago
> The totally overlapping error here was assuming those things—making the world better, and making money—aren’t inherently in conflict They're not in conflict. Competition makes better products. Apple benefited from Microsoft's existence, and vice versa. There's a lot of great free software, but it comes from people who already earned enough to spend time on it.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  Better products don’t necessarily make the world better. They often make the world worse. I don’t have a particular chip on my shoulder about Apple, or Microsoft, or free software. There are things I appreciate that all of them produce, and good in the world because of some of those efforts by each. But yes, making the world better and making money are inherently in conflict. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to reconcile them acceptably for this endeavor, I even addressed that. Ugh I have half a mind to post a Wikipedia link, but it’s going to be really upsetting if I play a part in dialectics becoming another inscrutable topic on HN like monads.
  - unityByFreedom 5y ago
    > Better products don’t necessarily make the world better. It depends who you ask. Someone is buying those products. We use money and public opinion to proxy for what we value. Without freedom to use those someone would need to dictate what's valuable.
  - ironmagma 5y ago
    If money disappeared overnight, a lot of people would die (almost all of them). So, money allows the survival of people. If you are not a misanthropist, then, the world is better with money, since it allows people to live. Therefore, making money is simply something that must be done to allow the existence of human life. This is not in conflict of making the world better, it's in service of it.
    - eyelidlessness 5y ago
      > If money disappeared overnight, a lot of people would die If asbestos disappeared overnight lot of people would die. I almost made this a list but it would detract from the point. Making something disappear overnight is almost always harmful in any systemic context. There are a lot of things I want to eradicate from existence, and I don’t think I could name one which I would want eradicated overnight. But I wasn’t even advocating for eliminating money. I was acknowledging a tension between incentives. Please don’t make me elaborate about dialectics. No one will enjoy it.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago

> I don’t think the author correctly identified his error. This is his error right here: “It had been a bit of a working assumption of mine over the past few weeks that if you could improve the health of the patients then, you know, the doctors or the hospitals or whatever would pay for that.”

kirso 5y ago
Show me the incentives and I will show you the outcome!
unityByFreedom 5y ago
Or this tech founder isn't much of a salesperson. Sellers won't say "So you don’t think this product is useful?" and certainly won't be left speechless as OP was, > So I’d sorta just be, like, donating this money if I paid you for this thing, right? >> I had literally nothing to say to that. There may be a sales angle for the product that he could not find. Improving patient outcomes is absolutely in the interest of doctors, patients, and hospitals. The question is who to sell it to, and how.
eyelidlessness 5y ago
That’s just one facet of the error I pointed out. He repeats the same error in different ways every step of the way. He started with consumers before this point. He may have gone after other incentive-conflicted or fickle revenue sources too if he’d had more runway.

unityByFreedom 5y ago

> The totally overlapping error here was assuming those things—making the world better, and making money—aren’t inherently in conflict They're not in conflict. Competition makes better products. Apple benefited from Microsoft's existence, and vice versa. There's a lot of great free software, but it comes from people who already earned enough to spend time on it.

eyelidlessness 5y ago
Better products don’t necessarily make the world better. They often make the world worse. I don’t have a particular chip on my shoulder about Apple, or Microsoft, or free software. There are things I appreciate that all of them produce, and good in the world because of some of those efforts by each. But yes, making the world better and making money are inherently in conflict. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to reconcile them acceptably for this endeavor, I even addressed that. Ugh I have half a mind to post a Wikipedia link, but it’s going to be really upsetting if I play a part in dialectics becoming another inscrutable topic on HN like monads.
- unityByFreedom 5y ago
  > Better products don’t necessarily make the world better. It depends who you ask. Someone is buying those products. We use money and public opinion to proxy for what we value. Without freedom to use those someone would need to dictate what's valuable.
- ironmagma 5y ago
  If money disappeared overnight, a lot of people would die (almost all of them). So, money allows the survival of people. If you are not a misanthropist, then, the world is better with money, since it allows people to live. Therefore, making money is simply something that must be done to allow the existence of human life. This is not in conflict of making the world better, it's in service of it.
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    > If money disappeared overnight, a lot of people would die If asbestos disappeared overnight lot of people would die. I almost made this a list but it would detract from the point. Making something disappear overnight is almost always harmful in any systemic context. There are a lot of things I want to eradicate from existence, and I don’t think I could name one which I would want eradicated overnight. But I wasn’t even advocating for eliminating money. I was acknowledging a tension between incentives. Please don’t make me elaborate about dialectics. No one will enjoy it.