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Instagram? Zynga? There's a lot big minds chasing small ideas

50 points by sajid 14y ago

meddlepal 14y ago
Small ideas are low risk and have a high chance of payout. Can you blame people for taking the path of least resistance to success? Further, if your small idea makes you rich you can always funnel later time and success-money into altruistic charities and start ups.
- radioxid 14y ago
  Uh… Kirk took big risks, and headed to very big success! Please you know that there is more to mankind than instagr.am
- hcarvalhoalves 14y ago
  Define "success". Not everyone equates success to getting rich - at least, not at the expense of putting time and effort on something that matters.
  - meddlepal 14y ago
    I agree - it was the wrong word. One can be successful and never be rich, however, wealth is a property of success, albeit a non-essential one. That said, I still think most people want money and will take the easiest path to money - if small ideas can get them there then they will gravitate towards implementing those ideas.
    - hcarvalhoalves 14y ago
      Success - achievement of an objective (goal) Wealth has absolutely no relation to success unless you define being wealthy as your goal. It's not even a consequence of being successful on whatever you set your life goals to.
      - mattgreenrocks 14y ago
        Most people, and especially on HN, accept the cultural defaults of success. This is not always wise.
jmduke 14y ago
At risk of speaking to my audience, I think that things like Instagram -- oh, cool, you put hipster filters on your photos -- are incredibly impressive, from the amazing backend setup to clever engineering tricks like starting a photo upload before the user applies a filter/caption. Every industry has aspects or branches that, at face value, seem small. Some people want to make it easier to take pretty photos, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  I think the complaint boils down to "these people are smart enough to do these things (like scale and optimize Instagram), but they aren't putting those smarts to work on 'good' things." I think the argument is bunk. It takes tremendous capital to solve problems like "healthcare reform" (whatever that really is) and self driving cars. I've seen few investors willing to invest in "big ideas". So, instead, we see lots of Instagrams and Zyngas.
  - jblow 14y ago
    So pick something that requires very little capital, like saving the 16000 children who die every day from starvation-related problems in developing countries. "I lack capital" is a very silly excuse given that the HN community are among the richest people in the world... by definition, if you have the luxury of even thinking about moving to Mountain View and starting some web site, you are among the richest people in the world. A lot of people wake up in the morning and their first task is to figure out how they are going to eat today.
    - bksenior 14y ago
      There is a great scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm where someone spills wine at the table and the lady yells "Somebody Do Something!" and Larry says "Why the f*$k don'you do something," I never understood these clever articles explaining why smart people are selfish. Most people writing these articles are more than capable and often (in Kara's case) rich with access to attention of the masses. There are plenty of people with big ideas, feature them, befriend them, help them get money. If you think something is important build it or help they people building it leverage it. The solution is never to make the people doing things you don't consider big feel small themselves.
grammr 14y ago
> there could be a greater effort to channel this enthusiasm into technology that has more a profound and positive impact Of course there could be, but what this woman fails to realize is that smart people are not obligated to donate their time and effort towards the betterment of a society of idiots. There is nothing wrong with pursuing "small ideas" for the sake of personal profit.
- jblow 14y ago
  ... and this attitude is exactly the problem with "kids these days". Society doesn't hold together by magic. It doesn't evolve in a mutually beneficial direction by magic. People have to make it happen. Is it okay for some people to make little games, or for some people to want to selfishly make a little money? Sure; a robust society can tolerate that. It's when these attitudes become prevalent that the problems start to happen.
  - mindcruzer 14y ago
    So? People can work on whatever ideas they please. The conversation ends there. Unless you're going to start forcing people to work on idea's that you deem will "better society" your comment is completely irrelevant.
    - mattgreenrocks 14y ago
      You seem overly fixated with defending the status quo as if it's somehow the way things 'should' be. Where's the imagination? Can you see that this is a deep cultural problem: namely the fixation on maximizing one's personal profit at the expense of ignoring bigger needs. Unfortunately, we as a society deify money to the extent that if anyone even suggests that this isn't a sustainable practice, everyone gets all pissy. I don't know what a society would look like, but I'd love to change attitudes towards money such that we stop squandering minds on the latest social mobile local app. That would be a true disruption.
    - binaryblob 14y ago
      Are you saying one shouldn't reason with others, but instead just force them? That might is right? Whoa. I expected some petty selfishness and shallow sophistry, and am very pleasantly surprised by the general quality of comments here.. but yours kinda takes the cake, it's even worse than anything I braced myself for. Which says a lot. Just mind-boggling.
lnanek2 14y ago
If people want games to make their lives a little more fun, or photo sharing apps to interact with their friends a little more stylishly, then that's a very good thing to be writing. Saying you should write something more high brow is kind of selfish and full of yourself, it's like saying no one should watch TV so I'll never write anything related to TV. That's a fine opinion to have for yourself, but it's completely out of touch with society and the market, so not really something you should base a business on or expect a lot of downloads for.
- nickpinkston 14y ago
  "Out of touch with society and the market" is basically reactionary thinking right? We've all heard the "Ford" quote of "if I asked my customers what they wanted, it'd be a faster horse". The people's opinions and the market are not sacrosanct - they are very often wrong in making human progress. George Bernard Shaw knew the attitude we need to make change: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
PaulHoule 14y ago
People are chasing those opportunities because the "real" opportunities have incredible barriers to entry. I've got some friends who'd like to build a nuclear reactor powered by thorium that could produce limitless amounts of clean energy. To just fill out the paperwork to build a test reactor, they'd need as much money as Instagram got being acquired.
greghinch 14y ago
Software, web and mobile apps in particular, offers one of the last truly free arenas for innovation. There is little to no regulation, small startup costs, and frankly comparatively little training required to create something potentially great. You can lament that "big minds" are being wasted, but it's hard to say whether anyone at Zynga would be curing cancer if FarmVille didn't exist
- alexanderh 14y ago
  I have to agree. Just because these companies made succesful products does not mean they are geniuses. Just because you work for facebook doesnt mean you're the greatest mind of a generation. You just got lucky. People have been throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks for a long time. Some get lucky, some dont. I dont think Mark Zuckerburg "engineer'd facebooks success" mindfully. He was just in the right place and the right time with the right connections and enough money. Its all about who you know.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
fleitz 14y ago
There are also a lot of literary geniuses writing link bait tech blogs but you don't see entreprenuers telling journos that their making pulp to sell Adwords instead of having an impact on culture.
- tgrass 14y ago
  While that may be true (though doesn't necessarily mean the same journos aren't making that complaint about their own craft) it doesn't answer the complaint in any meaningful way.
  - jcdavis 14y ago
    I disagree. In both cases, people are taking the easy way out, because hard things are well, hard.
    - fleitz 14y ago
      Last time I checked the purpose of a business was to make money, when I see an easy way to do things I take it. It's the smart thing to do. I have a feeling that if Instagram pivoted towards curing cancer that investors would go ape shit. Likewise if someone put a billion dollars on the table and told me I could have it either by writing a photosharing iphone app or curing cancer, I'd sure as hell sign up for option a and not option b.
rokhayakebe 14y ago
This is very hypocritical if it is coming from journalists who cover the small ideas of the big minds and shrug the big ideas of small minds because they don't have funding or 20 million signs up their first week on the app store.I would urge every writer to watch the first 10 minutes of Adam sorkin's newsroom episode 3.
igorgue 14y ago
What's wrong with building fun and entertaining products? Should we all go into building, what she considers, "important" products? I tried to build an "important" product before, and I was miserable, because you have to deal with miserable people most of the time, fuck that, now I'm building fun stuff - not that, some people might find fun in the healthcare industry. Maybe she doesn't see any value on Instagram and Zinga. But I think is wrong to consider them a "small" idea. I think they're huge and they're a big part of our lives. The guy who met his new wife on Instagram might disagree with you. Or the person who avoided extreme boredom at work as a doorman because of Draw Something that allowed him to keep his job so far this year might disagree with the journalist too. In the end, not everyone think like you Kara, and I think it's your job to respect that.
- elsurudo 14y ago
  Who said she doesn't respect that? By your logic, nobody should speak their minds. I think it's naive of you to posit that Instagram, Zynga, etc. are life-changing ideas. Not that entertainment doesn't have value, but I think she's spot on in expressing some concern that some of our generation's brightest minds are working on "pornified" entertainment.
arihant 14y ago
For people who agree that Instagram, for example, is a small idea. I am going to leave you with an excerpt from a Hal Abelson lecture: "Now, the reason that we think computer science is about computers is pretty much the same reason that the Egyptians thought geometry was about surveying instruments. And that is, when some field is just getting started and you don't really understand it very well, it's very easy to confuse the essence of what you're doing with the tools that you use. And indeed, on some absolute scale of things, we probably know less about the essence of computer science than the ancient Egyptians really knew about geometry. Well, what do I mean by the essence of computer science? What do I mean by the essence of geometry? See, it's certainly true that these Egyptians went off and used surveying instruments, but when we look back on them after a couple of thousand years, we say, gee, what they were doing, the important stuff they were doing, was to begin to formalize notions about space and time, to start a way of talking about mathematical truths formally. hat led to the axiomatic method. That led to sort of all of modern mathematics, figuring out a way to talk precisely about so-called declarative knowledge, what is true. Well, similarly, I think in the future people will look back and say, yes, those primitives in the 20th century were fiddling around with these gadgets called computers, but really what they were doing is starting to learn how to formalize intuitions about process, how to do things, starting to develop a way to talk precisely about how-to knowledge, as opposed to geometry that talks about what is true." Ideas do not have to be earth shaking breakthroughs to push the human race forward. Things build on each other, effect of which is often missed. There is wisdom is thinking long term, but not too long. The mental trap smart people fall into of thinking their idea should make an impact that will last longer and deeper only makes them vulnerable of being wrong. When you're just scratching the surface and don't know what's beneath, it's better to keep scratching than to speculate. Even in short term, "no wireless, less space than a Nomad" changed the music industry. "Just a bigger iPod touch" is changing education.
- angersock 14y ago
  Dude, it's Instagram. It lets you add faux vintage to your pictures. Building pyramids we are not.
  - ryanwaggoner 14y ago
walru 14y ago
Big ideas can get you burned, just ask Bruno or Galileo. Of course nobody is going to be so prosecuted today, but I think we as a society tend to sequester those with radical views from voicing them. So I do think there are some 'Big Minds' working on 'Big Ideas' (eg. every so often you hear about someone building a car that runs on alternate fuel resources). However, if by chance these ideas do make it to a main stage then more times than not they are summarily ridiculed/discredited. The political arena seems to be the biggest example of this. Big ideas are hard for people to get their head around. People are more likely to attack that which they don't understand, rather than give a new viewpoint the proper time to be digested and then considered as a valid opinion. Just because someone says I have a better form of health care, democracy, capitalism, or any other 'Big Idea' that's needed, and they want to introduce it to the world. That doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot if those with the power to implement the change aren't willing to listen (and let's face it, more times than not they aren't). Of course the resources of those building said 'Big Idea' also needs to be considered. I have a whole host of projects I'd love to build -- some of them bigger than others, but until I have the resources to put into them, and the people around me to back that up, I can't even begin to get started. That's why I'm working on the small ideas now. In fact, since she noted them specifically, I have some educational word games for kids coming in the next few weeks. So this is where I embrace the small idea by saying, combined, small ideas bring about the sea change. Of course not every small idea will contribute, but in time, due to the demands of the market, things will change.
- alberich 14y ago
  > That doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot if those with the power to implement the change aren't willing to listen. The sad part about this is that in many ocasions we are those with the power to implement the changes. Though we can rationalize and find an excuse not to change... after all, why me? why bother with a 'society of idiots' like someone have pointed here already?
  - walru 14y ago
    Of course we're the ones with the power. However, I think more often than not people lack the ability to see how their small action can add up to something big. The vote with your wallet analogy being the greatest of all. If the hive-mind would focus their energy tidal waves would erupt.
cletus 14y ago
I agree with Kara on this one. Before I continue let me add that I'm guilty of this too to some degree: I work on display ads. Now I personally believe that advertising has done an enormous amount of good for the world by providing services for free that otherwise couldn't be free, which is actually much more important for the developing world (GMail being free matters much more to a user in Africa than it does to a user in the US, generally speaking). But I'm certainly not working on a big idea. It's interesting to see some of the responses here. They are in some cases quite defensive and/or dismissive of this observation. Some of the defenses raised: 1. Deferred altruism: "I'm making the easy money now but I'll (work on big ideas,give back,etc) later." I question the sincerity of these statements. For one thing, human nature is funny when it comes to money. How much is enough? Most of us here aren't independently wealthy so we probably think several million dollars will do, tens of millions will be plenty. I bet you'll find many people with that kind of net worth still thinking they're poor and they need to make more. It's probably an easy trap to fall into. People think money won't change them. For most people it does. More to the point, the biggest motivator is the need to succeed. One reason startups are successful is it's either succeed or die. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that. I truly believe you're much more motivated and productive when your (financial) life depends on it. If you're wealthy, most of the time you're just not going to be as motivated. It's a rare individual that is the exception. 2. Big problems are hard/expensive. No actually they're not. Some are, sure. Thorium reactors would be an expensive problem. A lot of other problems in the fields of machine learning, bioinformatics, etc are largely just software problems. Computing power continues to get exponentially cheaper. The Khan Academy is a big idea with very little costs to entry or operational costs. 3. "This is happening in other areas too!" Who cares? You're not responsible for anyone's behaviour other than your own. Plus of course two wrongs don't make a right. I get the desire to strike it rich. I really do. There's nothing wrong with that. It seems disingenuous--even dishonest--to suggest there is a deeper altruistic motive. Most of the time there isn't. I don't see Kara's comments (or mine for that matter) as a criticism of the motives of any particular individual or company, merely a lament that society as a whole places such value on what are really shallow desires and distractions. I'm sure it'd be harder to get funding for something as unsexy as, say, protein folding than it would be for creating a social network for cats and that really is sad.
- 14y ago
wilfra 14y ago
You have to start small to get traction and to get funded. Facebook is overthrowing governments. Google is making self driving cars and elevators to the moon. Neither of these companies stated this as their mission or probably even dreamed of these things in year 1 or 2. A generation from now we'll see what can happen when you give young, brilliant, idealistic founders complete control of their multi-billion dollar companies. This is just the beginning.
- ballooney 14y ago
  Google and Facebook are the exception to the rule. You are not going to be them. Also google are not making elevators to the moon, don't be so silly. Photocopiers used to be banned, with huge punishments for ownership, in east Germany due to their power to spread ideas quickly. But it's as silly to say that xerox brought down the berlin wall as it is to say that Facebook is bringing down governments. You are full of it.
  - wilfra 14y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator
mcphilip 14y ago
I've spent my last five years working first at an electronic medical records place and then a startup working on a relatively untapped market of aggregating and reporting on enterprise infrastructure related risk management data across disparate data sources. I wouldn't argue that either is a game changer that I should feel very noble about being a part of, but I must confess it is somewhat discouraging to see all the money being thrown at relatively simple problems that make life 'more fun'. Things like instagram, foursquare. etc. It's especially frustrating on the recruiting side to get highly skilled developers interested in working in the 'boring' world of enterprise software with no obvious path to a quick liquidity event. I'd like to think working on big data problems related to aggregating and reporting on things like vulnerability and security incident management across fortune 100 global networks would attract some of the best and brightest, but instead I'm stuck with just hoping a candidate could fumble their way through fizz buzz without too much difficulty.
toddh 14y ago
This is like saying helping a little old lady across the street isn't a big enough good, what a waste, ignore the lady and figure out how to save all of the peoples. Only then have you done something truly good. But the little old lady might disagree.
mattgreenrocks 14y ago
This is a huge issue for me presently. I want to work on big/hard problems that affect people's lives. Things that require imperfect solutions, or require a lot of research. Is there any way to find these? I tend toward more of a research bent, personally, but it's hard to hear about them in the HN bubble. I'm not looking to make a gazillion dollars, but rather to find something that is intellectually challenging enough to last me quite awhile. Anyone have any ideas?
- ippisl 14y ago
  If you're interested in research, pick an interesting subject, and look for an open research question/projects in new published articles. If you're interested in impact, i think it's easier to build an influential project(influencing 1000+ or more people in a reasonably important way) than a meaningful research. There are many useful research papers by academia that haven't been developed or commercialized and could be the base for useful projects. For example: [1]. [1]ParkNet: Drive-by Sensing of Road-Side Parking Statistics
zerostar07 14y ago
Why is it assumed that there are big minds behind these companies? (question, not trolling)
- georgemcbay 14y ago
  big money == big minds. amirite?
  - zerostar07 14y ago
    No.
signalsignal 14y ago
Wow, current.com really hates Mitt Romney.

50 points by sajid 14y ago

Small ideas are low risk and have a high chance of payout. Can you blame people for taking the path of least resistance to success? Further, if your small idea makes you rich you can always funnel later time and success-money into altruistic charities and start ups.

radioxid 14y ago
Uh… Kirk took big risks, and headed to very big success! Please you know that there is more to mankind than instagr.am
hcarvalhoalves 14y ago
Define "success". Not everyone equates success to getting rich - at least, not at the expense of putting time and effort on something that matters.
- meddlepal 14y ago
  I agree - it was the wrong word. One can be successful and never be rich, however, wealth is a property of success, albeit a non-essential one. That said, I still think most people want money and will take the easiest path to money - if small ideas can get them there then they will gravitate towards implementing those ideas.
  - hcarvalhoalves 14y ago
    Success - achievement of an objective (goal) Wealth has absolutely no relation to success unless you define being wealthy as your goal. It's not even a consequence of being successful on whatever you set your life goals to.
    - mattgreenrocks 14y ago
      Most people, and especially on HN, accept the cultural defaults of success. This is not always wise.

jmduke 14y ago

At risk of speaking to my audience, I think that things like Instagram -- oh, cool, you put hipster filters on your photos -- are incredibly impressive, from the amazing backend setup to clever engineering tricks like starting a photo upload before the user applies a filter/caption. Every industry has aspects or branches that, at face value, seem small. Some people want to make it easier to take pretty photos, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

SoftwareMaven 14y ago
I think the complaint boils down to "these people are smart enough to do these things (like scale and optimize Instagram), but they aren't putting those smarts to work on 'good' things." I think the argument is bunk. It takes tremendous capital to solve problems like "healthcare reform" (whatever that really is) and self driving cars. I've seen few investors willing to invest in "big ideas". So, instead, we see lots of Instagrams and Zyngas.
- jblow 14y ago
  So pick something that requires very little capital, like saving the 16000 children who die every day from starvation-related problems in developing countries. "I lack capital" is a very silly excuse given that the HN community are among the richest people in the world... by definition, if you have the luxury of even thinking about moving to Mountain View and starting some web site, you are among the richest people in the world. A lot of people wake up in the morning and their first task is to figure out how they are going to eat today.
  - bksenior 14y ago
    There is a great scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm where someone spills wine at the table and the lady yells "Somebody Do Something!" and Larry says "Why the f*$k don'you do something," I never understood these clever articles explaining why smart people are selfish. Most people writing these articles are more than capable and often (in Kara's case) rich with access to attention of the masses. There are plenty of people with big ideas, feature them, befriend them, help them get money. If you think something is important build it or help they people building it leverage it. The solution is never to make the people doing things you don't consider big feel small themselves.

grammr 14y ago

> there could be a greater effort to channel this enthusiasm into technology that has more a profound and positive impact Of course there could be, but what this woman fails to realize is that smart people are not obligated to donate their time and effort towards the betterment of a society of idiots. There is nothing wrong with pursuing "small ideas" for the sake of personal profit.

jblow 14y ago
... and this attitude is exactly the problem with "kids these days". Society doesn't hold together by magic. It doesn't evolve in a mutually beneficial direction by magic. People have to make it happen. Is it okay for some people to make little games, or for some people to want to selfishly make a little money? Sure; a robust society can tolerate that. It's when these attitudes become prevalent that the problems start to happen.
- mindcruzer 14y ago
  So? People can work on whatever ideas they please. The conversation ends there. Unless you're going to start forcing people to work on idea's that you deem will "better society" your comment is completely irrelevant.
  - mattgreenrocks 14y ago
    You seem overly fixated with defending the status quo as if it's somehow the way things 'should' be. Where's the imagination? Can you see that this is a deep cultural problem: namely the fixation on maximizing one's personal profit at the expense of ignoring bigger needs. Unfortunately, we as a society deify money to the extent that if anyone even suggests that this isn't a sustainable practice, everyone gets all pissy. I don't know what a society would look like, but I'd love to change attitudes towards money such that we stop squandering minds on the latest social mobile local app. That would be a true disruption.
  - binaryblob 14y ago
    Are you saying one shouldn't reason with others, but instead just force them? That might is right? Whoa. I expected some petty selfishness and shallow sophistry, and am very pleasantly surprised by the general quality of comments here.. but yours kinda takes the cake, it's even worse than anything I braced myself for. Which says a lot. Just mind-boggling.

lnanek2 14y ago

If people want games to make their lives a little more fun, or photo sharing apps to interact with their friends a little more stylishly, then that's a very good thing to be writing. Saying you should write something more high brow is kind of selfish and full of yourself, it's like saying no one should watch TV so I'll never write anything related to TV. That's a fine opinion to have for yourself, but it's completely out of touch with society and the market, so not really something you should base a business on or expect a lot of downloads for.

nickpinkston 14y ago
"Out of touch with society and the market" is basically reactionary thinking right? We've all heard the "Ford" quote of "if I asked my customers what they wanted, it'd be a faster horse". The people's opinions and the market are not sacrosanct - they are very often wrong in making human progress. George Bernard Shaw knew the attitude we need to make change: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

PaulHoule 14y ago

People are chasing those opportunities because the "real" opportunities have incredible barriers to entry. I've got some friends who'd like to build a nuclear reactor powered by thorium that could produce limitless amounts of clean energy. To just fill out the paperwork to build a test reactor, they'd need as much money as Instagram got being acquired.

greghinch 14y ago

Software, web and mobile apps in particular, offers one of the last truly free arenas for innovation. There is little to no regulation, small startup costs, and frankly comparatively little training required to create something potentially great. You can lament that "big minds" are being wasted, but it's hard to say whether anyone at Zynga would be curing cancer if FarmVille didn't exist

alexanderh 14y ago
I have to agree. Just because these companies made succesful products does not mean they are geniuses. Just because you work for facebook doesnt mean you're the greatest mind of a generation. You just got lucky. People have been throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks for a long time. Some get lucky, some dont. I dont think Mark Zuckerburg "engineer'd facebooks success" mindfully. He was just in the right place and the right time with the right connections and enough money. Its all about who you know.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

fleitz 14y ago

There are also a lot of literary geniuses writing link bait tech blogs but you don't see entreprenuers telling journos that their making pulp to sell Adwords instead of having an impact on culture.

tgrass 14y ago
While that may be true (though doesn't necessarily mean the same journos aren't making that complaint about their own craft) it doesn't answer the complaint in any meaningful way.
- jcdavis 14y ago
  I disagree. In both cases, people are taking the easy way out, because hard things are well, hard.
  - fleitz 14y ago
    Last time I checked the purpose of a business was to make money, when I see an easy way to do things I take it. It's the smart thing to do. I have a feeling that if Instagram pivoted towards curing cancer that investors would go ape shit. Likewise if someone put a billion dollars on the table and told me I could have it either by writing a photosharing iphone app or curing cancer, I'd sure as hell sign up for option a and not option b.

rokhayakebe 14y ago

This is very hypocritical if it is coming from journalists who cover the small ideas of the big minds and shrug the big ideas of small minds because they don't have funding or 20 million signs up their first week on the app store.I would urge every writer to watch the first 10 minutes of Adam sorkin's newsroom episode 3.

igorgue 14y ago

What's wrong with building fun and entertaining products? Should we all go into building, what she considers, "important" products? I tried to build an "important" product before, and I was miserable, because you have to deal with miserable people most of the time, fuck that, now I'm building fun stuff - not that, some people might find fun in the healthcare industry. Maybe she doesn't see any value on Instagram and Zinga. But I think is wrong to consider them a "small" idea. I think they're huge and they're a big part of our lives. The guy who met his new wife on Instagram might disagree with you. Or the person who avoided extreme boredom at work as a doorman because of Draw Something that allowed him to keep his job so far this year might disagree with the journalist too. In the end, not everyone think like you Kara, and I think it's your job to respect that.

elsurudo 14y ago
Who said she doesn't respect that? By your logic, nobody should speak their minds. I think it's naive of you to posit that Instagram, Zynga, etc. are life-changing ideas. Not that entertainment doesn't have value, but I think she's spot on in expressing some concern that some of our generation's brightest minds are working on "pornified" entertainment.

arihant 14y ago

For people who agree that Instagram, for example, is a small idea. I am going to leave you with an excerpt from a Hal Abelson lecture: "Now, the reason that we think computer science is about computers is pretty much the same reason that the Egyptians thought geometry was about surveying instruments. And that is, when some field is just getting started and you don't really understand it very well, it's very easy to confuse the essence of what you're doing with the tools that you use. And indeed, on some absolute scale of things, we probably know less about the essence of computer science than the ancient Egyptians really knew about geometry. Well, what do I mean by the essence of computer science? What do I mean by the essence of geometry? See, it's certainly true that these Egyptians went off and used surveying instruments, but when we look back on them after a couple of thousand years, we say, gee, what they were doing, the important stuff they were doing, was to begin to formalize notions about space and time, to start a way of talking about mathematical truths formally. hat led to the axiomatic method. That led to sort of all of modern mathematics, figuring out a way to talk precisely about so-called declarative knowledge, what is true. Well, similarly, I think in the future people will look back and say, yes, those primitives in the 20th century were fiddling around with these gadgets called computers, but really what they were doing is starting to learn how to formalize intuitions about process, how to do things, starting to develop a way to talk precisely about how-to knowledge, as opposed to geometry that talks about what is true." Ideas do not have to be earth shaking breakthroughs to push the human race forward. Things build on each other, effect of which is often missed. There is wisdom is thinking long term, but not too long. The mental trap smart people fall into of thinking their idea should make an impact that will last longer and deeper only makes them vulnerable of being wrong. When you're just scratching the surface and don't know what's beneath, it's better to keep scratching than to speculate. Even in short term, "no wireless, less space than a Nomad" changed the music industry. "Just a bigger iPod touch" is changing education.

angersock 14y ago
Dude, it's Instagram. It lets you add faux vintage to your pictures. Building pyramids we are not.
- ryanwaggoner 14y ago

walru 14y ago

Big ideas can get you burned, just ask Bruno or Galileo. Of course nobody is going to be so prosecuted today, but I think we as a society tend to sequester those with radical views from voicing them. So I do think there are some 'Big Minds' working on 'Big Ideas' (eg. every so often you hear about someone building a car that runs on alternate fuel resources). However, if by chance these ideas do make it to a main stage then more times than not they are summarily ridiculed/discredited. The political arena seems to be the biggest example of this. Big ideas are hard for people to get their head around. People are more likely to attack that which they don't understand, rather than give a new viewpoint the proper time to be digested and then considered as a valid opinion. Just because someone says I have a better form of health care, democracy, capitalism, or any other 'Big Idea' that's needed, and they want to introduce it to the world. That doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot if those with the power to implement the change aren't willing to listen (and let's face it, more times than not they aren't). Of course the resources of those building said 'Big Idea' also needs to be considered. I have a whole host of projects I'd love to build -- some of them bigger than others, but until I have the resources to put into them, and the people around me to back that up, I can't even begin to get started. That's why I'm working on the small ideas now. In fact, since she noted them specifically, I have some educational word games for kids coming in the next few weeks. So this is where I embrace the small idea by saying, combined, small ideas bring about the sea change. Of course not every small idea will contribute, but in time, due to the demands of the market, things will change.

alberich 14y ago
> That doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot if those with the power to implement the change aren't willing to listen. The sad part about this is that in many ocasions we are those with the power to implement the changes. Though we can rationalize and find an excuse not to change... after all, why me? why bother with a 'society of idiots' like someone have pointed here already?
- walru 14y ago
  Of course we're the ones with the power. However, I think more often than not people lack the ability to see how their small action can add up to something big. The vote with your wallet analogy being the greatest of all. If the hive-mind would focus their energy tidal waves would erupt.

cletus 14y ago

I agree with Kara on this one. Before I continue let me add that I'm guilty of this too to some degree: I work on display ads. Now I personally believe that advertising has done an enormous amount of good for the world by providing services for free that otherwise couldn't be free, which is actually much more important for the developing world (GMail being free matters much more to a user in Africa than it does to a user in the US, generally speaking). But I'm certainly not working on a big idea. It's interesting to see some of the responses here. They are in some cases quite defensive and/or dismissive of this observation. Some of the defenses raised: 1. Deferred altruism: "I'm making the easy money now but I'll (work on big ideas,give back,etc) later." I question the sincerity of these statements. For one thing, human nature is funny when it comes to money. How much is enough? Most of us here aren't independently wealthy so we probably think several million dollars will do, tens of millions will be plenty. I bet you'll find many people with that kind of net worth still thinking they're poor and they need to make more. It's probably an easy trap to fall into. People think money won't change them. For most people it does. More to the point, the biggest motivator is the need to succeed. One reason startups are successful is it's either succeed or die. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that. I truly believe you're much more motivated and productive when your (financial) life depends on it. If you're wealthy, most of the time you're just not going to be as motivated. It's a rare individual that is the exception. 2. Big problems are hard/expensive. No actually they're not. Some are, sure. Thorium reactors would be an expensive problem. A lot of other problems in the fields of machine learning, bioinformatics, etc are largely just software problems. Computing power continues to get exponentially cheaper. The Khan Academy is a big idea with very little costs to entry or operational costs. 3. "This is happening in other areas too!" Who cares? You're not responsible for anyone's behaviour other than your own. Plus of course two wrongs don't make a right. I get the desire to strike it rich. I really do. There's nothing wrong with that. It seems disingenuous--even dishonest--to suggest there is a deeper altruistic motive. Most of the time there isn't. I don't see Kara's comments (or mine for that matter) as a criticism of the motives of any particular individual or company, merely a lament that society as a whole places such value on what are really shallow desires and distractions. I'm sure it'd be harder to get funding for something as unsexy as, say, protein folding than it would be for creating a social network for cats and that really is sad.

14y ago

wilfra 14y ago

You have to start small to get traction and to get funded. Facebook is overthrowing governments. Google is making self driving cars and elevators to the moon. Neither of these companies stated this as their mission or probably even dreamed of these things in year 1 or 2. A generation from now we'll see what can happen when you give young, brilliant, idealistic founders complete control of their multi-billion dollar companies. This is just the beginning.

ballooney 14y ago
Google and Facebook are the exception to the rule. You are not going to be them. Also google are not making elevators to the moon, don't be so silly. Photocopiers used to be banned, with huge punishments for ownership, in east Germany due to their power to spread ideas quickly. But it's as silly to say that xerox brought down the berlin wall as it is to say that Facebook is bringing down governments. You are full of it.
- wilfra 14y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

mcphilip 14y ago

I've spent my last five years working first at an electronic medical records place and then a startup working on a relatively untapped market of aggregating and reporting on enterprise infrastructure related risk management data across disparate data sources. I wouldn't argue that either is a game changer that I should feel very noble about being a part of, but I must confess it is somewhat discouraging to see all the money being thrown at relatively simple problems that make life 'more fun'. Things like instagram, foursquare. etc. It's especially frustrating on the recruiting side to get highly skilled developers interested in working in the 'boring' world of enterprise software with no obvious path to a quick liquidity event. I'd like to think working on big data problems related to aggregating and reporting on things like vulnerability and security incident management across fortune 100 global networks would attract some of the best and brightest, but instead I'm stuck with just hoping a candidate could fumble their way through fizz buzz without too much difficulty.

toddh 14y ago

This is like saying helping a little old lady across the street isn't a big enough good, what a waste, ignore the lady and figure out how to save all of the peoples. Only then have you done something truly good. But the little old lady might disagree.

mattgreenrocks 14y ago

This is a huge issue for me presently. I want to work on big/hard problems that affect people's lives. Things that require imperfect solutions, or require a lot of research. Is there any way to find these? I tend toward more of a research bent, personally, but it's hard to hear about them in the HN bubble. I'm not looking to make a gazillion dollars, but rather to find something that is intellectually challenging enough to last me quite awhile. Anyone have any ideas?

ippisl 14y ago
If you're interested in research, pick an interesting subject, and look for an open research question/projects in new published articles. If you're interested in impact, i think it's easier to build an influential project(influencing 1000+ or more people in a reasonably important way) than a meaningful research. There are many useful research papers by academia that haven't been developed or commercialized and could be the base for useful projects. For example: [1]. [1]ParkNet: Drive-by Sensing of Road-Side Parking Statistics

zerostar07 14y ago

Why is it assumed that there are big minds behind these companies? (question, not trolling)

georgemcbay 14y ago
big money == big minds. amirite?
- zerostar07 14y ago
  No.

signalsignal 14y ago

Wow, current.com really hates Mitt Romney.