17 ms·

We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators

444 points by pgrote 14y ago

pgrote 14y ago
News article discussing the event where presented: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2013/mar/27/joe-downtown-downtown-too-insular-its-own-good/ http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2013/mar/27/joe-downtown-...
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Hario 14y ago
This is the best thing I've read on Hacker News in a long time.
- scrapcode 14y ago
  Very motivating and enlightening. You took the words right from me. It definitely hits home, and should be strongly considered by many.
obviouslygreen 14y ago
This is certainly true for a lot of people who work in startups. However, the author seems to believe that "we" encompasses not just him and his short-sighted friend, but anyone working on a startup. 1. No, not everyone in this position confuses "iteration" with "innovation." 2. No, not all people who are working on startups or startup products consider themselves "innovators." 3. No, all of us certainly do not confuse "poverty" with "lack of startup initiative." Yeah, most of what "we," in the sense the author seems to mean, do is iteration (at best). But suggesting that this is a standard mistake is a confusing assumption and, to me, suggests that beyond the iteration/innovation mistake, the author has made so many generalizations that by making one point he's missed several that are painfully similar.
austenallred 14y ago
I see every innovation as a conglomeration of different things one has experienced. Or in other words, iterations. This goes to the core of creativity: Creativity usually comes from combining things or ideas that are normally compartmentalized in others' minds. Have you ever noticed how most of the startup founders you know have a wide diversity of experiences to draw upon? Most of them have lived in foreign countries and are well acquainted with subcultures most of us are barely even aware of. The reason curiosity is such a positive trait is because it gives you more inputs to operate off of. The article gives a perfect example: "A long time ago, when I was a columnist at the Las Vegas CityLife, my editor called me up one day and asked if me if I ever wanted to find out what was in the storm drains under the city. And because I have notoriously poor self-preservation skills, I grabbed a Mag-Lite and headed on down." That's the kind of crazy, insatiable curiosity that ends in you seeing the world differently. That's why innovators seem so crazy, but what they're doing makes complete sense in their minds. In other words, in my mind it's impossible to draw a line between "innovation" and "iteration," because every innovation is really an iteration of different ideas no one had ever really put together before.
- lelandbatey 14y ago
  It's true. It is very hard to draw a line through what is "innovation" vs what is "iteration." All the tiny things we build sit on top of the other tiny things built by those before us, and in the grand scheme, everything is quite small. However, this makes me wonder if maybe we shouldn't be focused on "innovating." Maybe it's not the goal (or it shouldn't be the goal). But then, what should? What should we aspire to build or create? Should we aspire to any particular thing? Maybe we should just do what we want and ignore what others have to say? I don't really know, and I'd love to hear what others thoughts are.
  - czr80 14y ago
    Aspire to solve problems.
jiggy2011 14y ago
Totally agree. Something that I find worrying is that there is an increasing share of the capital converging at top of society. The result of this is that if you want to build a profitable company, you are best off getting revenue by targeting these people rather than the middle and lower classes. Unless you have a product like tobacco or farmville that happens to be addictive of course. So there are more people worried about solving problems like "I have a house full of massive TVs but I still need to press the remote to change channels!" than problems like "I'm poor and can't get a job". The accepted Wisdom on HN seems to be that if you are targeting average consumers you better make your product free because they don't have money to pay for it. So you still need to build the business model around high net worth people (like advertising companies).
clintjhill 14y ago
Don't forget to look at industries where maybe there already exists large solutions or organizations, but aren't doing as much as can be done to help those that need it most. Education and Healthcare are a few of these. You might not make billions of dollars improving Kindergarten classes in North America, but you could "change" the world.
kayoone 14y ago
Innovation isnt black and white and happens on many levels. Theres your innovative app that lets you hire private taxis for getting around town. Theres your new 3D Game Engine that introduces a few new features and pushes the boundaries of computer graphics. Theres a guy in india building cheap bicycles from cardboard. Theres your electric car company that pushes our understanding of a good all-electric car to new levels. Theres your Space company that makes Space endeavours a lot less expensive and wants to put humans on Mars in 10 years. This is all iteration, standing on the shoulders of giants and all, but its also innovation, just on completely different scales.
cllns 14y ago
> A few months ago, a startup developer friend said to me "I don't understand why poor kids, ghetto kids, don't do startups to get out of poverty." I've got just about zero tolerance left for people who don't acknowledge their privilege.
- calinet6 14y ago
  Correction: zero tolerance for a system they've spent their entire lives within that never taught them the right way to think about their position in society.
  - cllns 14y ago
    Maybe. This is a tough point. The 'system' obviously sucks but I don't want to skirt personal responsibility. It's the upper-middle class straight white cisgendered male's fault if he doesn't take the time to learn about his privilege. He has the resources, but chooses to ignore it. (Note: I'm not saying the person from the article necessarily fits this description; I'm speaking more generally)
    - theorique 14y ago
      It's the upper-middle class straight white cisgendered male's fault if he doesn't take the time to learn about his privilege. He has the resources, but chooses to ignore it. What's in it for him?
      - deleted 14y ago
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      - mdpye 14y ago
        Growth, and positive interaction with the rest of the world?
        jbooth 14y ago
        Balance that against the positive ego effects of thinking that you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps and built the log cabin you were born in. Parent post was right for a good number of people.
lmm 14y ago
Are porn sites really that easy to make money from? The impression I've had from here is that while there's lots of money to be made, there's also lots of competition and the business relationships you need can be difficult to obtain and keep.
- mr_spothawk 14y ago
  "business relationships"?
- gmu3 14y ago
  And obviously most advertisers don't want to be associated with inappropriate content. I remember in moot's TED talk he briefly alluded to the problem.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  The business models that seem to work in porn are either: 1) Provide lots of free content, get users to upload it themselves and just be on hand to deal with DMCA takedowns etc. SEO the hell out of your site with every technique you can get your hands on, finance it with aggressive ads and concentrate your efforts on a/b testing to get the maximum number of ad clicks. 2) Produce high quality , unique content and charge for access. You need very regular updates (almost daily) and you need somebody full time issuing DMCA takedown notices in order to beat the pirates. Basically you need to make it easy for your customers to just sit back and fap rather than combing tube sites and closing popups to find the content they want. It also seems to help if you can somehow sell it as "art porn" so that people won't feel embarrassed recommending it to their friends. Also perhaps build a community around the porn in some way. Note: I don't work in porn, so I don't know too much but this seems to be my observations based on which sites stick around.
calinet6 14y ago
Completely agree, great article. There are a lot of companies working on a lot of very small problems these days. It's natural, since the economic imbalance makes it more worthwhile to solve small problems for a large number of people who have disposable money to pay for small solutions. But there are big problems out there that we should be inspired to solve. Let's solve the meta-problem: what's holding us back from being able to think of solutions to the bigger problems facing humanity? What's the cause of our collective myopia?
- wildgift 14y ago
  It's easier to sell things to people with spending money than to sell things to people without spending money.
D9u 14y ago
"Sequence, selection, & iteration." These are the foundations of software, so how should we not be iterators?
gmu3 14y ago
I feel like the author somewhat contradicts himself when he implies the poor ghetto types will never be innovators but says the rest of us are all blinded from the "very real problems that the rest of humanity faces." If you really felt that way, wouldn't the ghetto types have a big advantage if they can get over their resource problems.
- jzellis 14y ago
  I apologize if I implied that poor people will never be innovators, that wasn't my intention. I meant to suggest that those of us who already have these skills share them with people who don't...including, I probably should have explicitly said, teaching them those skills.
  - parnas 14y ago
    what skills? what skills?
    - jzellis 14y ago
      Technological skills. My target audience (literal audience; this was a speech) were, by and large, people in the tech sector.
rmrfrmrf 14y ago
This is the kind of post that happens when someone gets so wrapped up in startup land that they lose all context of the "real world." These "first world problem"-solving companies he's talking about are really just B2B companies made to help the ACTUAL, real-world problem solving companies do their jobs more easily. No customer cares about MailChimp. No consumer thinks about Twilio. They're not solving first-world problems, they're solving BUSINESS problems. Downplay the importance of those companies all you like, but making one company's business operations better in turn allows that company to reach out and help more people.
- calinet6 14y ago
  This is all well and good, but I think the point is that there is an imbalance, and very few tech startups are going after the big problems these days. There are some notable ones, but it seems to be the road less traveled.
  - lelandbatey 14y ago
    The impression I got was that the author was mostly upset with entrepreneurs patting themselves on the back for changing the world for the better with their "innovation" when they haven't actually done much to make the world better (though they may have innovated).
  - rmrfrmrf 14y ago
    > This is all well and good, but I think the point is that there is an imbalance, and very few tech startups are going after the big problems these days. But, my point is that these companies are indirectly going after the big problems by taking care of the little things. There are companies of 1 to 2 people who can now outsource almost every physical aspect of their service so that they can focus on their core product. Do I hire a team of sysadmins and technicians to maintain a server farm to 1) pay, 2) train, 3) meet with regularly, or do I simply host my service on AWS? One could argue that AWS is nothing but a first-world solution, but hey, it's responsible for hosting a HUGE number of companies! These "small", "iterative", "derivative" services can have a huge impact on industries. Just because they're not devoted to saving Africa or rescuing animals or ending world hunger doesn't mean they're not important. > There are some notable ones, but it seems to be the road less traveled. It's funny that you mention the 'road less traveled'. People use that phrase in allusion to Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken," where the narrator opines about coming to a fork in the road and wondering about how his life would be different had he taken the other path. The funny part is that Frost was really being sarcastic and basically saying that it makes no difference which road you'll take. So yes, you can "go after the big problems" consciously and take that "road less traveled," but in the end, BOTH paths can result in solving big problems (or not solving anything).
ibudiallo 14y ago
The author may have used the words innovator and iterator, but I think the stronger message is just we need to stop valuing useless but addictive technological feats and go for what actually make a difference.
squozzer 14y ago
>But technologists used to work on big problems. Not First World problems, but whole world problems -- sending humans to the moon, ending poverty, ending disease. Sending humans to the Moon was (and apparently still is) a First World problem, unless you intend to terraform and colonize it with a social cross-section of humanity. Smart people are still working on the other big problems, but they require a lot of time and resources -- heavily concentrated in a relatively small number of organizations I might add -- while the rest of us have to satisfy ourselves with making money and a life relatively free of heroic deeds.
Ixiaus 14y ago
I agree with the sentiment of the article, Steve Blank gave a somewhat more enlightening talk about this topic at SXSW (I can't remember what it was titled, but here's the slides from the talk - it's all I could find: http://www.slideshare.net/500startups/steve-blank-stanford-sxsw-lean-startup-2013 http://www.slideshare.net/500startups/steve-blank-stanford-s...) "Porn" was a terrible example, btw. I imagine Porn is more difficult to get rich at then by copy-pasting and iterating on an idea in a space where VC funding is flying and it's the "popular" thing to do. Porn, I'm sure, is extremely difficult to raise funding for and I'll bet licensing from the actual producers of porn is costly. What about user generated porn sites? I'll bet their revenue models are even more scary and only a few actually make it by pushing camsite adverts on you. [EDIT] To finish what I was saying, I believe as a programmer, not porn but HFT or working for finance/quant firms would be a good parallel for "getting rich".
lubujackson 14y ago
The innovator-iterator argument seems to be a red herring. The real issue here is building bullshit apps vs. helpful apps. I think focusing on making helpful apps is a more important message to developers than trying to "fix poverty in Africa" which is a nice goal but not something any web developer is likely going to impact. The reality is no one is going to come up with an idea like mFarm without REALLY understanding that audience. You won't understand an entire ecosystem just by sitting on the corner. If you want to help Kenyans, instead find some promising Kenyan entrepreneurs and offer to be their code monkey, review their code or host their website. I think humility is crucial if you want to contribute to a market you don't fully understand.
- jzellis 14y ago
  Absolutely agreed. Which is why I'm trying to specifically do that right now. (If it's not obvious, I'm the guy who delivered this speech.) But I absolutely disagree that web developers can't impact poverty in Africa (or, maybe more importantly, in their own town). To be perfectly frank, I merely think most of us in this industry don't give a shit one way or another. Which is fine, but I'm perfectly happy to judge people all day long for thinking that way. ;-)
  - ippisl 14y ago
    I wonder if we could connect more innovators to environments and communities with real problems, in some interesting way , and by this connection enable those innovators to gain perspective, knowledge and connections to work on the problem ? Something that's built in such a way that a community create a lot of knowledge about the problem and context(general situation, current solutions and their limitations) , but maybe not the solution, so people could be more motivated to implement their invented solutions?
- alalonde 14y ago
  Or, even better, GO TO Kenya. Live there for a year. Travel around the country. Learn the language. When you come home you will not only have a handful of disruptive startup ideas, but, most importantly, an open mind about the disparate cultures of the world.
jwoah12 14y ago
> But technologists used to work on big problems. Not First World problems, but whole world problems -- sending humans to the moon, ending poverty, ending disease I see this sentiment a lot these days, and I can't help but wonder if this is a case of looking into the past through rose-tinted glasses. Just like how people always talk about the "good ole' days" while selectively forgetting about everything that was wrong during that time. Could this all be selection bias? Decades ago, the barrier to entry to become a technologist and start a tech company was a lot higher. Writing software was harder, more expensive, and fewer people were trained to do it. Therefore those people had to be especially passionate and skilled at the craft. I think this subset of technologists still exists and is probably even larger than it was "back then," but since there are so many more developers out there today, they make up a smaller percentage.
- pjscott 14y ago
  Of course it's just selection bias. People remember the big, exciting things, like going to the moon, or eradicating polio, or multiplying crop yields several times over. They don't remember the boring, everyday stuff. It would be surprising if this didn't cause selection bias. And so, inevitably, we get articles which bemoan how we've fallen, compared to a past that never existed.
- npsimons 14y ago
  The article might be more of a personal ponderance than anything, even though the author calls out others. Yes, everything that was wrong back then is being ignored, so that we can focus on a simple fact: most of us are probably not living up to our potential. So it's easier to get into business or write code these days? That's even more reason why we shouldn't be squandering our opportunities! Look at what you do for a living and ask yourself: is it meaningful? Will it truly matter after you're dead and gone? Is it helping to make the world a better place? At a bare minimum, does it make you happy?
tjbiddle 14y ago
I know this is the smallest part I could take out of the post.. but Fremont - Ghetto? Maybe OP meant East Palo Alto, or Oakland, but IMO Fremont is one of the safest, homey places to live in the Bay Area. But then again, maybe I'm hanging out on that "One Block" - But I guess that block encompasses 12mi^2 :-). More on topic - I wouldn't agree completely. Some startups are new completely, some are building things a little bit better, some are just using technology to re-invent something for the 21st century. If you're limiting your example startups then you can make any point you want.
- swinnipeg 14y ago
  He means Fremont street in Las Vegas. The area surrounding it is largely populated by places to gamble and find bail bondsmen. Very un-Palo Alto.
  - tjbiddle 14y ago
    Haha. That makes a bit more sense. Thanks for the clarification!
orangethirty 14y ago
Being an iterator is the right thing to do. Real innovation happens over time (innovation follows the same process as evolution). You can't simply invent a car without a wheel. Imagine trying to build a car without every learning the dynamics of a wheel first. Instead of focusing on making new things, go ahead and pick something that exists and improve on it. Don't build the next Facebook, but improve upon it. Don't build the next Google, improve upon it (which is why I'm doing Nuuton). Iterate. Improve. In ten years, you will have a completely new product by working on the same old one.
edw519 14y ago
We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators... That's a fine line. The most significant innovations are often iterations. (Google comes to mind.) Why do we do this? Because we want to get rich, of course. I disagree with "Because we want to get rich". And I definitely disagree with "of course". Real hackers do this because we just have to. It just so happens that currently it's also a great way to make money. Many of us hacked long before it was this way and many of us still hack for little or nothing (side projects, open source, etc.) But technologists used to work on big problems. We still do, probably more than ever. But if you're busy reading Techcrunch and going to conferences and hackathons, you'd probably never know about what the other 99% of us are doing. They did it because technology is about improving the human condition... There are many ways to do this, all with relative importance. Putting a man on the moon was definitely cool, but so is getting fresh produce to your supermarket (which probably benefits more people). Like a football team, we hackers all do our part in the blocking, tackling, running, throwing, catching, and scoring. It all counts. Just a few of the things I've contributed to in the past few years ("sexy" is in the eye of the beholder): - people get the right prescription medication on time - firetrucks and ambulances get to where they're supposed to be - parts that go into cars and planes are properly certified - prisoners are kept in jail - those same prisoners get proper medical care - electronic equipment gets assembled properly and on time - medical supplies get dispatched to where they're supposed to - insurance claims are processed properly - quality data is properly maintained for food items
- orangethirty 14y ago
  Note that its not about getting rich, but about not being broke. A very distinctive difference. Not being broke allows for a good life style. And that's what most of all want.
  - PaulHoule 14y ago
    Unfortunately the economic/political system as we know it isn't good at providing "not being broke" without "being rich".
    - 14y ago
bguthrie 14y ago
From the OP: But technologists used to work on big problems. Many still do. And some technologists used to work on small problems, and some still do. There never was a perfect time in which every technologist ran around working on the Biggest Problem They Could Find.
alxbrun 14y ago
Regarding iteration vs. innovation, I'm so mad each time I hear about Square, Stripe, Balanced, etc. etc. as innovations in the payments space. Find me a way to get rid of the absurd 3% worldwide tax that Visa, Amex, Mastercard take on every payment for almost NO added value (well there was added value 30 years ago, but today ?) and then, OK, let's call this innovation.
michaelwww 14y ago
There's an app for tractor roll-overs. That's innovation by the author's definition: http://www.iowafarmertoday.com/news/livestock/there-s-an-app-for-tractor-rollovers/article_3b450d94-86a0-11e2-bbc3-001a4bcf887a.html http://www.iowafarmertoday.com/news/livestock/there-s-an-app...
jdminhbg 14y ago
> But technologists used to work on big problems. Not First World problems, but whole world problems -- sending humans to the moon, ending poverty, ending disease. Having enough surplus capital that we can take a three day trip to the Moon seems pretty First World to me. Which technologists worked on "ending poverty" as a primary goal? Did we stop working on ending disease? We can't seem to decide whether we are spending way too much on ending disease or way too little. Articles like this keep popping up but they don't really seem to have any point other than being self-congratulatory to the author and likeminded audiences for how much they care about Important Things instead of Uber, which is just for taking a car from SFO to Moscone (oh wait except it's not, it actually turns out to have side effects that are significant benefits to immigrant women who would otherwise be shut out of the cab industry: http://transpoplanner.tumblr.com/post/40777853649/is-uber-empowering-female-drivers http://transpoplanner.tumblr.com/post/40777853649/is-uber-em...).
- kurtko 14y ago
  > Having enough surplus capital that we can take a three day trip to the Moon seems pretty First World to me. Today, perhaps, but in retrospect our first manned moon mission probably bdid more for 20th-Century technology than any other single project.
  - avelis 14y ago
    Going to the moon not only proved that we can leave our planet. Galvanized the nation. Space created a culture and made us think about the future. Thank you NDT.
    - wildgift 14y ago
      It also proved that we could accurately launch a rocket that could also be used to blow the USSR to smithereens.
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mongol 14y ago
YES! That is so true. How many times have you not heard "we should not invent the wheel again". To this I always thought to myself (but seldom said) - but the wheel is invented over and over again. New wheels for new purposes, better working for their purpose, whether F1 cars, Jumbo Jets, trains, trolleys, carts etc etc. However it is so true - the wheel is not reinvented, it is improved, iterated over again. And it is just like it should be
ececconi 14y ago
How is sending a person to the moon a whole world problem? what "problem" did it solve in the world?
- michaelwww 14y ago
  How to make a backup of life on earth in case of a planetary extinction event, assuming that those off planet could start over once things calmed down.
  - pjscott 14y ago
    It also developed a lot of the basic technology we'd need to avert a large asteroid impact. I doubt this was anybody's goal, but it sure happened.
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RougeFemme 14y ago
But technologists used to work on big problems. Not First World problems, but whole world problems -- sending humans to the moon, ending poverty, ending disease. Point taken, but. . .not sure I agree that technologists were that involved with trying to end povery. Well, they were certainly involved, but I don't think they were the drivers. And I think sending humans to the moon was definitely a first world "problem" - not even on the list of priorities for third-word nations.
- pjscott 14y ago
  Remember the green revolution? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution That was huge, and new technology was what made it possible.
gdubs 14y ago
I'm reminded of a book "Old Masters and Young Geniuses"[1]. The author makes a case that experimental iterators make their biggest contributions at an older age, whereas the artists who take bold conceptual leaps often achieve artistic success at a much younger age. Neither approaches are considered more or less innovative; some just arrive there more quickly. 1. http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8019.html http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8019.html
a_p 14y ago
My favorite resource about software innovation is David A. Wheeler's list of the most important software innovations.[1] Most of the items on the list are from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and 90s; just one is from the past ten years (Wheeler was at first ambivalent about even adding it). He also makes the point that it is okay not to be innovative, and quotes Linus Torvalds: "People want to hear about the one big idea that changes the world, but that’s not how the world works. It’s not about visionary ideas; it’s about lots of good ideas which do not seem world-changing at the time, but which turn out to be great after lots of sweat and work have been applied." [1]http://www.dwheeler.com/innovation/innovation.html http://www.dwheeler.com/innovation/innovation.html
- subsystem 14y ago
  I would say various p2p technologies has been properly innovative in the last 10(ish) years, at least in application. Skype, Torrent, BitCoin etc.
- ippisl 14y ago
  >> just one is from the past ten years It takes time for innovations to affect society. I bet that in 10/15 years we'll see that quantum computing and deep learning would be very important.
jacquesm 14y ago
We can call ourselves whatever we want. In the end it does not matter at all, it is what others will call you what matters.
MyNewAccount99 14y ago
what family is he talking about that can buy zuckerberg 10x over?
drcube 14y ago
Even Newton stood on the shoulders of giants. Iteration is innovation. Sometimes you just happen to be lucky enough to stumble on something big and important when you're iterating. But it's the same process, it only looks different in hindsight.
- reportingsjr 14y ago
  I was going to post this comment if it wasn't already here! Pretty much every innovation/invention that has ever occurred has been taking past inventions and adding just a small new thing. Of course, there are plenty of completely new inventions (transistors, lasers, etc), but they are few and far between. Standing on the shoulders of giants!
up_and_up 14y ago
> mFarm isn't hot and sexy. It's not the kind of thing that generally gets a Valley VC to reach for their wallet. My friend and I built TargetMobi, http://www.targetmobi.com http://www.targetmobi.com along a similar vein. In Africa, SMS is everywhere and our goal was to help companies and organizations connect with their users via SMS. Unfortunately, we found zero Angel/VC interest in this and have since pivoted a few times. I think the overall approach still has potential though.
chipsy 14y ago
It really shouldn't matter whether you're doing one or the other. You need availability and quality of other things in your ecosystem to make the big leaps. And when you do make the leap, it tends to look trivial.
mtp0101 14y ago
False dichotomy out of helping the poor/helping the rich. Taking advantage of the neomarxist undercurrent of bay area culture and the information technology industry by framing technology as a method of helping the proletariat escape their unfortunate circumstances. Innovation/iteration binary unclear and implicitly related to the helping the poor/helping the rich binary. It is a bad idea to go sit in a poor area with a forty to come up with startup ideas relative to other things one could do. Other than drinking a 40 and loving the poor, the author offers little specific guidance to entrepreneurs.
fijal 14y ago
I'm sorry, but just stop living in your bubble and you'll be fine. There are great people out there doing great things, using technology, they just don't happen to be prominently featured on the site that takes "what can be delivered in two weeks" to new levels. Look for example at the stuff praekelt foundation is doing - http://www.praekeltfoundation.org/ http://www.praekeltfoundation.org/ (videos are short enough for most attention spans), or actually, wikipedia.
kurtko 14y ago
Iteration != innovation, but the two certainly can overlap in a venn diagram.
lukejduncan 14y ago
A well written iteration on a common theme on HN: where are the big problems and why aren't we working on them.
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mattsfrey 14y ago
An interesting thought developed after reading this and the follow up comments. The ultimate translation of the sentiments in this post is simply to focus your efforts on underexploited markets, not some push for greatness in innovation. Most people end up solving problems they see in their daily lives, which do indeed end up being trifles aka first worlds problems etc given the demographic of start up founders. Focusing on serving third world nations or less developed regions can work to enhance their lives, but its simple a shift in market focus, not a real push to further science or be on the cutting edge of innovation. IMO there is nothing particularly innovating about making a sms based service for Kenyan farmers, it's just a clever use-case of existing technology to serve an underexploited market. The reason we have a lull in true innovation is because we have hit a saturation point in the larger realm of technology. There is only so much you can do with computers, the internet, and lastly, smart phones. We're waiting on the next big thing.
acabal 14y ago
That quote from Jeff Hammerbacher comes to mind: "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks." There's lots of genuine good to be done in the world outside of the US. A year or two ago I did a short presentation to students in an entrepreneur class in Monterrey, Mexico. Now Monterrey is rich even by US standards (in fact it's just across the border), but even then there's still a lot of genuine people problems to be solved by entrepreneurs in that country. Think of the problems one could solve in a poorer country like the ones in Central America or poor areas of wealthier countries in South America like Colombia, Chile, Brazil. The example I gave the students in Mexico was the need to accept payments online in Central/South American countries. Paypal doesn't work in many of them and online bill pay is almost unheard of. Even in relatively wealthy countries like Mexico and Colombia people can spend an entire afternoon in a massive queue outside their bank to pay their cable bills in person and in cash. Internet startups can't grow because there's no easy way to accept payment online. Building an online payment/mobile infrastructure is a fundamental problem that could make a lot of lives better and pave the road for entrepreneurs in the future. It's not an easy problem and it's not really a tech problem either, but it's not impossible!
- dcalacci 14y ago
  This is an excellent example of a concrete problem with a foreseeable solution that will have tangible real-world effects. I find your comments and the original submission inspiring. I think that the reason why so many of these recognizable problems remain unsolved has to do with something of a snowball effect. The opportunity to do hard work that can be seen as purely technological innovation is often more appealing than retrofitting some technology to solve an existing problem. To use the example you gave, _forms_ of online payment exist, and are growing. Products like Paypal have been changing the way many companies think about accepting payment from their customers for years; immediate online payment has slowly been adopted by the U.S's largest banks. However, for most of their users, these technologies exist as innovations in luxury: they improve upon existing technologies in order to provide further ease-of-use. This is different, I think, than applying an existing technology to a problem: instead of _improving_ upon something, you are instead _applying_ something to a different set of circumstances. I think many people do not think of that as a hard problem: since the 'hard' technology already exists, applying it should be easy. I also think that for most ambitious people who have 'innovate' stamped at the top of their to-do list and have the freedom of choosing what they would like to work on, it then appears to be a choice between 'improve' and 'apply', and improve likely wins out for most. EDIT: I realize that I essentially re-make the 'iterate vs innovate' point the author makes in my above comment, but I am choosing to keep it there for the sake of coherence.
9999 14y ago
Who is he saying is the third largest corporation on the planet? Privately held? Publicly? Largest in what sense, market capitalization? I'd really like to know who he actually means there. I assume he means a private company since he refers to ("the family that owns it"). In that case is he referring to Mars? Or maybe he means Wal-Mart, who do not appear to be the third largest corp, but the majority shareholders are a single family. They're also renowned exploiters of the working class, so they don't seem to be a very positive model to emulate if you wanted to make the world a better place.
- jzellis 14y ago
  Wal-Mart is, according to Wikipedia, the third largest privately-held corporation in the world, after Shell Oil and Exxon. And no, they're not a good model to emulate, that wasn't my point. :-) This was an eight minute speech, and the text you're reading was my notes for it, not the final version, so some of the subtlety gets lost.
  - 9999 14y ago
    Thanks for the clarification. Is there a recording of your full speech? I like your basic premise, although I would certainly say that Costco is a much better corporation when it comes to serving the working class (in employment and in services rendered to consumers) than WalMart.
wildermuthn 14y ago
The solution to poverty is neither wealth nor innovation. The heroic acts required to address poverty are precisely the heroic acts excluded by the OP — the solidarity shown by Mother Theresa. You can't harrow hell while resting in heaven.
kyro 14y ago
The reason very few are truly innovating on a global level is because nobody wants to put in the decades studying to become an expert in any one field -- and I don't blame them. I've been seesawing between two life decisions lately: 1) Do I continue with medicine, become super-specialized and then look for a way to use my expertise to bring innovation to the world and become wealthy, or 2) Do I use whatever knowledge I've acquired now, play my hand at creating something that'll most likely not be deemed innovative and try to get wealthy that way? There are good arguments to be made on both sides. On the one hand I'd love to create something truly groundbreaking, but on the other, I don't want to toil away my life for decades and finally reach success with only a few decades of my life to live. Who says I need to innovate in the first place? I've only got 80 years here to live, why not make as much money as I can, as quickly as possible, and live my life to its absolute fullest. Of course, these arguments are based on the assumption that your goal is to become wealthy and to innovate. It's a time issue for me. I don't for one second look down on people working on the next hot social app because there's a chance they may cash out far earlier than had they labored away in a lab studying the subjects that'll really push humans forward. In the end, there's no great metric by which our accomplishments wil be judged. If you wanna spend your hours on a new email app, fine, and if you wanna spend your years studying photosynthetic biochemical photomicroscopy, then go for it. There's no right or wrong.
- dcalacci 14y ago
  thought experiment: If someone had the skills, ability, and opportunity to tangibly help a large group of people through their work, but instead chose to work on the "next hot social app" in order to gain personal wealth (assume both were "one-time" opportunities, and mutually exclusive), would you hold that person to be ethically unjust?
djbender 14y ago
I consider myself a remixer. Related, I recommend this video series on the topic: http://www.everythingisaremix.info http://www.everythingisaremix.info
mindcrime 14y ago
That's probably one of the best and most insightful articles I've ever read, that used the term "first world problems". In fact, it may be the only article I've ever read that used that term, that wasn't a complete joke. There's so much truth there... we work on "stuff" and some of the "stuff" we work on is truly amazing in many ways, but - and I don't know about you - I sometimes find myself wondering "is this really making the world a better place, in the general sense"? Even the stuff we are doing at Fogbeam Labs, which I am very passionate about, and even though we have very explicit core values[1] that drive us - sometimes leaves me thinking "this isn't going to help a poor starving child in Africa. Should I be doing something else"? On the other hand, part of the reason we do all Open Source software is exactly because we think producing more OSS does make the world generally better, in at least some small regard. And if some would be entrepreneur in Africa or Afghanistan or something uses our software some day, and it helps them succeed, grow a business and create jobs and improve lives, then we have done something very positive. But it's hard to keep that in mind sometimes, when the chain of connections is so long and so speculative. I sometimes want to be doing something with a more obvious and direct impact on helping people. [1]: http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2011/06/blogging-fogbeam-customer-development.html http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2011/06/blogging-fogbeam-custome...
- npsimons 14y ago
  I just watched "Repo Men" again, and while it's not a great movie, nor is it directly related, it came back to haunt me while waiting in line at the bank: I'm still really afraid of "not being", specifically not being alive. And I asked myself, not for the first time, what's the purpose? Am I really making the world a better place? Does it matter? Eventually I settled on my old fallback of "well, as long as I'm happy" (which, BTW, questions like these keep me from being happy). But this article hits close to home, as does your comment, and there's not a day that goes by that I wish I was getting paid to work on open source software full time. And then I think even that wouldn't be enough, maybe I'm wasting my potential, and I should have stuck it out and gone to grad school and maybe done something amazing. Maybe not Nash or Knuth amazing, or Norman Borlaug amazing, but something of lasting value and worth that made the world a better place in innumerable ways. Volunteering in other ways can help; while the effects aren't as long lasting or deep (but subtle), the instant gratification of helping to save a life can be surprisingly uplifting :)
jacoblyles 14y ago
This is why I joined Coursera instead of starting another startup when I left the one I founded. There are few things more exciting that a web developer could be working on today than access for education for everyone. Big movements are happening in online ed. Tectonic shifts are happening.
jaxn 14y ago
Completely off-topic, but relevant to HN... That is the first time I have ever seen evernote used this way. What a neat way to publish! Seems like it would be a great fit for something like PG's papers.
fudged71 14y ago
It's great to think that the technology that we are consuming in the third world is going to trickle down, but I'm starting to wonder whether or not that's true. Phones are sold until they have minor issues, then trashed. Software products are discontinued instead of being made open source. We need to tackle these issues.
BoredAstronaut 14y ago
I'm not sure how long the OP has been an arm-chair social scientist, but I've been one for twenty-five years, and I feel like I might be able to share some insights. Firstly, his thesis could be boiled down to a very simple question: "Why do people do what they do (instead of what I want them to do)?" You suggest that they are insufficiently self-reflective, not very world-wise, and perhaps just a bit self-centred. These are reasonable inferences, but they don't go very deeply into understand the psychology, beliefs and motivations of your stereotypical spoiled white kid. A deeper question we might ask in response to your thesis is, "What's wrong with the world (and why is nobody fixing it)?" The sub-question might alternately be: "Why aren't enough people fixing it?" or "Why aren't the right people fixing it?" Neé spoiled rich kids. The problem with both questions is that they are primarily underscored by the implicit question, "Why aren't more people like me (and why don't they believe and feel like I do)?" But the answer to that is simple: evolution. Biological evolution ensures that there is a wide variety of people, physiologically, and social evolution (not Social Darwinism, thank you -- no ranking is being proposed) ensures that there are a wide variety of belief systems and mental models of how the world works and why. But let's, for the moment, make the (unfounded and highly unlikely) assumption that the OP's point of view is somehow more informed, insightful, rational, or just generally "better" than those of all the people whom he is criticizing. I mean, he wouldn't have made the argument if he didn't think it had more merit than other arguments in favour of "iterating" or whatever other less noble activity they are pursuing instead. And he may be right (it's only unlikely based on probability, and the apparent level of effort pursued in constructing said argument). People do what they do because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that it is in their interests. Either directly, in terms of immediate material rewards, through indirect rewards (material, social or even spiritual), or future rewards to their offspring. That is a basic economic tenet that is difficult to ignore. (It is hard to disprove, partly because "rewards" are variable and ill-defined). Stated another way, people do things because they think (or feel) that it is right (or reasonable) to do, or just because they want to do them. It may be for riches, or that may merely be a subordinate goal towards pleasure, happiness, fulfillment or meaning. My suspicion is that people are primarily motivated by status (a measure of what is meaningful) when they behave in ways that affect their social surroundings, but otherwise they like pleasure, whether sensual, aesthetic or moral (and the pride or satisfaction from doing good is definitely a pleasure, as is that of winning, which could be called a moral activity, if you believe you are better than other people and deserve to win). But not only do people do what they believe is good for their interests, they also don't do things that they think are bad for their interests, which is the true meaning of "wasting time": actions without real consequence (as estimated by the agent). This isn't bad or evil. Most people simply do not know how to "change the world" in a manner which will satisfy the OP, or at best have a very vague notion, and very little reason to be confident that they could do it. In other words, people engage in activities which they consider to have a reasonable chance of success. Exactly how they arrived at their estimate of risk/reward is another question. But in fact it is the ultimate question, since that is where the rubber meets the road. The extent to which someone is misinformed, delusional or outright insane is something that has to be determined for each individual. But we can generalize that the vast majority of people do not have the necessary knowledge, skills, insights and experience to go about saving the world. Nor do they have the right social connections, or affiliations with groups which are changing the world (and have no interest in becoming fund-raisers hanging out on malls and street corners), and are generally discouraged from participating in such marginal activities by their elders and role models, for many reasons (some or all of which may be ill-reasoned, based on false premises, and riddled with superstitions, false authority and bias, and yet are nevertheless core to the world view which these people have at their disposal). So, for the OP's sake, maybe it's time that he revised his viewpoint on what is wrong with the world, and how to change it. Not by writing blog posts accusing others of failing to live up to his standards (yes, this could be ironic, but in fact I am not judging the OP's career or life goals, merely his argument), but instead by either a) trying to understand better why people don't, in fact, share his beliefs and values, and/or b) by learning how to impart his own wisdom in such a way that he has some modicum of hope in actually affecting the views of other people, rather than just appealing to a crowd of like-minded people with whom he can share his sense of superiority. On the other hand, maybe that was his goal, and maybe he achieved it, so good for him!
liuliu 14y ago
I don't like the negativity associated with "first world" problem. The "first world" problems are very much real. If you believe that the rest of the world will catch up eventually with the "first world", they will have these "first world" problems too. We need to solve these "first world" problems. The only argument against it suggests a darker future where there is, and will always be, a huge gap between the rich and the poor, and the poor will stagnate forever. I don't choose to believe that.
- BoredAstronaut 14y ago
  There are first world problems, and then there are "white whines". Solving the problems of wealthy people might be rewarding and enriching (for the solver), but the actual impact on the world is generally much less than if you solved more pressing problems. It's a law of diminishing returns. After a while, people should be able to solve their own problems. What they do instead is to redefine "problem" from "life-threatening risk" to "banal annoyance". If you save a child from dying from cholera, they might grow up and change the world themselves. If you make it more convenient for spoiled white people to buy more shit to fill up their meaningless lives, not so much.
seanmcdirmid 14y ago
We call ourselves inventors, but many of us are really just innovators. FRFY, Jeesh.
jzellis 14y ago
OP here. (Well, not "original poster", but "guy who wrote this".) If anybody's interested: this is not an essay, it's my notes for a speech I delivered at Inspire, a monthly talk series put on by Tony Hsieh's Delivering Happiness project here in Las Vegas. The talk itself was filmed and you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moO2EfWQOTE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moO2EfWQOTE It looks like an essay because I'm a writer, and I write my talks like essays and then kind of wing it when I'm on stage. I am aware that bits of this aren't especially subtle, but I had eight minutes to do the talk in. And I apparently need to clarify what I mean by "innovation" versus "iteration". What I meant, basically, is that the Valley right now reminds me of Hollywood in the late 80s, where everybody was trying to pitch their new movie as "Die Hard in/on/with an [X]". Die Hard on a train, Die Hard on a submarine...taking some existing idea and trying to just twist it slightly enough to capitalize on it. So we do "It's like [X] for [Y]". Instagram for animated GIFs. Facebook for payroll managers. (I've actually heard that one.) Evernote for illiterates. These are jokes, but I hope you take my point. That's what I meant by "iteration" versus "innovation". Imagine if Jobs had said "The Apple is like the IBM 1620, except beiger and smaller." Or if that's how he thought of it. Personally, I think a lot of the most-hyped stuff we make in this industry is just silly, useless bullshit that doesn't solve any real problems, or problems that are worth solving unless you're a lazy, pampered, entitled asshole who genuinely has a hard time with the notion of picking up one's own dry cleaning. (That example in my speech was something featured on HN, by the way.) I guess if those are the problems you want to solve, go ahead, but I just feel as though there are more pressing issues in the world...provided you can see outside of your own circumstance. I'm fortunate enough to have lived rich and lived poor, and while rich is better, poor is far more prevalent in the world. I feel like poor people's problems are more useful to solve. But hey, I could be wrong. And I won't deny I'm being judgmental, but who really gives a shit what I think? :-)
- EvilTerran 14y ago
  Just an aside, but I gotta say: the line "it's hard to tell if madness drove them into the drains or if it found them down there in the dark" gave me goosebumps. That's a beautiful turn of phrase.
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guylhem 14y ago
> So why didn’t I? Why didn’t you? Why didn’t we? Because I don't care about such problems. I care about doing stuff I a) understand or might get more understanding from b) believe I can do c) find fun in solving d) get paid too. Your argument is that people don't because of a lack of information - it's not fully so. I know some problems I could work on, which would help other people. I chose not to, because it's an endless tunnel, and it's no fun. How exactly do you propose to force me - or anyone else - to work on the problems you believe are the most important? Were are your guns ? To put that in simpler words, if I don't believe your problems fit by abcd criteria, I will not work on them. You may find "public shaming" a useful tool for your deeds, but you will find that it only works a limited amount of times. Now please excuse me if I don't engage in your guilt trip and instead spend time do stuff I want, which may be in your list of important things, or might not. [The only real argument there is in the conclusion: we could be concerned if we, as the human race, were collectively not doing stuff we wanted to do because of a lack of ambition, or to follow the 'large base' pyramid example, didn't sell stuff to poor people. I must say I'm sometimes worried about people lacking ambition, and like in this post engaging in empty rhetorics instead of actually doing stuff - whatever "stuff" might me, even an hello world...]
hawkharris 14y ago
Here's the issue: the people who are solving so-called "whole-world" problems generally don't describe themselves as technologists. In other words, they use technology as a tool in broader campaigns aimed at solving societal problems. To name just one example of many, take a look at how the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is using apps to combat childhood obesity. For people who are really affecting change, technology is a tool rather than a shiny new toy or a means to an end.
aortega 14y ago
What kind of wanker call himself an innovator?
sauron21 14y ago
Wow, the discussions on this thread are very civil and polite. (I'm new to HN) Faith in the human race=restored.
sauron21 14y ago
Wow, the discussions on this thread are very civil and polite. (I'm new to HN) Faith in the human race=restored.
mustefaj 14y ago
I love the title...it makes me want to just keep the rhyme going... "Others are just nay sayers, but on HN we just rhyme sayers, but I'll just get down voted by a bunch of HN-taking-things-too seriously player haters.
wildgift 14y ago
It was going OK until he said to get a 40 and drink it on the curb. Fuck you, whatever the fuck your name was.
- jzellis 14y ago
  Why fuck me? I mean, I'm just curious. If you're going to tell a stranger on the Internet "fuck you", it might be illuminating to find out why. And it's Josh. Josh Ellis. Since you sort-of asked.
  - wildgift 14y ago
    You're deploying a really fucked up stereotype of poor people being heavy drinkers and alcoholics. It's like saying let's go to the ghetto and participate in the culture by doing something self-destructive and negative. That kind of slumming is offensive. You might as well have said go to a Mexican neighborhood and buy some weed and smoke out on the corner, or say go to a Black neighborhood and buy some crack and smoke it in the car, and then check out how fucked up the situation is. Or how about go to the trailer park, buy some speed, snort it and check out how jacked up the hillbillies are. I read the whole article, and even share some of your sentiments, but that one part really upset me. It kind of killed the article for me.
    - jzellis 14y ago
      You didn't have context. It's not an article, it's notes for a talk I gave. The audience were a bunch of Las Vegas hacker kids and entrepreneur types, who tend to be forty drinkers anyway. It was shorthand for "sit and chill outside". Which I think they understood. On the other hand, I've spent a lot of time being poor and being around poor people -- in the ghetto, in rural trailer parks, etc -- and actually, in my extensive experience, poor people do tend to be heavy drinkers. Are you seriously suggesting that sitting around in the hood getting your beer on isn't a staple of working class life? If so, we've been experiencing completely different parts of America.
      - 14y ago
PixelPusher 14y ago
I'm a 'ghetto' kid. Grew up in LA and El Salvador. The reason I haven't done a startup is because i simply don't have the monetary support. I have to pay for my mom and family, pay rent, etc. We don't have the privilege of a circle of people with money. Our parents couldn't afford to send us to college, in fact it's better for them that we start working as early as possible. Our past generations weren't scientists, lawyers, etc. They were immigrants, mostly farm and home workers. So, we're one of the first generations to even have the opportunity to be lawyers, doctors, engineers, etc. The author is right, and a lot of people can't relate or even think about those types of problems. But, the problems he listed are still pretty dear in our hearts and perhaps the next few generations will tackle it.
MicahWedemeyer 14y ago
From what I can find, this is the author's company: http://openfi.re/ http://openfi.re/ "A crowdfunding platform for long-term, socially valuable projects." Perhaps the author does not mean iterator in a derogatory way? Obviously, his own company is an iteration on the existing crowdfunding wave.
iagomr 14y ago
Great post, finally someone that you'll read about has finally said it. Isn't it demeaning to name every helpless or copycat project as a "startup" ? Next step, show this to Techcrunch.

444 points by pgrote 14y ago

News article discussing the event where presented: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2013/mar/27/joe-downtown-downtown-too-insular-its-own-good/ http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2013/mar/27/joe-downtown-...

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Hario 14y ago

This is the best thing I've read on Hacker News in a long time.

scrapcode 14y ago
Very motivating and enlightening. You took the words right from me. It definitely hits home, and should be strongly considered by many.

obviouslygreen 14y ago

This is certainly true for a lot of people who work in startups. However, the author seems to believe that "we" encompasses not just him and his short-sighted friend, but anyone working on a startup. 1. No, not everyone in this position confuses "iteration" with "innovation." 2. No, not all people who are working on startups or startup products consider themselves "innovators." 3. No, all of us certainly do not confuse "poverty" with "lack of startup initiative." Yeah, most of what "we," in the sense the author seems to mean, do is iteration (at best). But suggesting that this is a standard mistake is a confusing assumption and, to me, suggests that beyond the iteration/innovation mistake, the author has made so many generalizations that by making one point he's missed several that are painfully similar.

austenallred 14y ago

I see every innovation as a conglomeration of different things one has experienced. Or in other words, iterations. This goes to the core of creativity: Creativity usually comes from combining things or ideas that are normally compartmentalized in others' minds. Have you ever noticed how most of the startup founders you know have a wide diversity of experiences to draw upon? Most of them have lived in foreign countries and are well acquainted with subcultures most of us are barely even aware of. The reason curiosity is such a positive trait is because it gives you more inputs to operate off of. The article gives a perfect example: "A long time ago, when I was a columnist at the Las Vegas CityLife, my editor called me up one day and asked if me if I ever wanted to find out what was in the storm drains under the city. And because I have notoriously poor self-preservation skills, I grabbed a Mag-Lite and headed on down." That's the kind of crazy, insatiable curiosity that ends in you seeing the world differently. That's why innovators seem so crazy, but what they're doing makes complete sense in their minds. In other words, in my mind it's impossible to draw a line between "innovation" and "iteration," because every innovation is really an iteration of different ideas no one had ever really put together before.

lelandbatey 14y ago
It's true. It is very hard to draw a line through what is "innovation" vs what is "iteration." All the tiny things we build sit on top of the other tiny things built by those before us, and in the grand scheme, everything is quite small. However, this makes me wonder if maybe we shouldn't be focused on "innovating." Maybe it's not the goal (or it shouldn't be the goal). But then, what should? What should we aspire to build or create? Should we aspire to any particular thing? Maybe we should just do what we want and ignore what others have to say? I don't really know, and I'd love to hear what others thoughts are.
- czr80 14y ago
  Aspire to solve problems.

jiggy2011 14y ago

Totally agree. Something that I find worrying is that there is an increasing share of the capital converging at top of society. The result of this is that if you want to build a profitable company, you are best off getting revenue by targeting these people rather than the middle and lower classes. Unless you have a product like tobacco or farmville that happens to be addictive of course. So there are more people worried about solving problems like "I have a house full of massive TVs but I still need to press the remote to change channels!" than problems like "I'm poor and can't get a job". The accepted Wisdom on HN seems to be that if you are targeting average consumers you better make your product free because they don't have money to pay for it. So you still need to build the business model around high net worth people (like advertising companies).

clintjhill 14y ago

Don't forget to look at industries where maybe there already exists large solutions or organizations, but aren't doing as much as can be done to help those that need it most. Education and Healthcare are a few of these. You might not make billions of dollars improving Kindergarten classes in North America, but you could "change" the world.

kayoone 14y ago

Innovation isnt black and white and happens on many levels. Theres your innovative app that lets you hire private taxis for getting around town. Theres your new 3D Game Engine that introduces a few new features and pushes the boundaries of computer graphics. Theres a guy in india building cheap bicycles from cardboard. Theres your electric car company that pushes our understanding of a good all-electric car to new levels. Theres your Space company that makes Space endeavours a lot less expensive and wants to put humans on Mars in 10 years. This is all iteration, standing on the shoulders of giants and all, but its also innovation, just on completely different scales.

cllns 14y ago

> A few months ago, a startup developer friend said to me "I don't understand why poor kids, ghetto kids, don't do startups to get out of poverty." I've got just about zero tolerance left for people who don't acknowledge their privilege.

calinet6 14y ago
Correction: zero tolerance for a system they've spent their entire lives within that never taught them the right way to think about their position in society.
- cllns 14y ago
  Maybe. This is a tough point. The 'system' obviously sucks but I don't want to skirt personal responsibility. It's the upper-middle class straight white cisgendered male's fault if he doesn't take the time to learn about his privilege. He has the resources, but chooses to ignore it. (Note: I'm not saying the person from the article necessarily fits this description; I'm speaking more generally)
  - theorique 14y ago
    It's the upper-middle class straight white cisgendered male's fault if he doesn't take the time to learn about his privilege. He has the resources, but chooses to ignore it. What's in it for him?
    - deleted 14y ago
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    - mdpye 14y ago
      Growth, and positive interaction with the rest of the world?
      - jbooth 14y ago
        Balance that against the positive ego effects of thinking that you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps and built the log cabin you were born in. Parent post was right for a good number of people.

lmm 14y ago

Are porn sites really that easy to make money from? The impression I've had from here is that while there's lots of money to be made, there's also lots of competition and the business relationships you need can be difficult to obtain and keep.

mr_spothawk 14y ago
"business relationships"?
gmu3 14y ago
And obviously most advertisers don't want to be associated with inappropriate content. I remember in moot's TED talk he briefly alluded to the problem.
jiggy2011 14y ago
The business models that seem to work in porn are either: 1) Provide lots of free content, get users to upload it themselves and just be on hand to deal with DMCA takedowns etc. SEO the hell out of your site with every technique you can get your hands on, finance it with aggressive ads and concentrate your efforts on a/b testing to get the maximum number of ad clicks. 2) Produce high quality , unique content and charge for access. You need very regular updates (almost daily) and you need somebody full time issuing DMCA takedown notices in order to beat the pirates. Basically you need to make it easy for your customers to just sit back and fap rather than combing tube sites and closing popups to find the content they want. It also seems to help if you can somehow sell it as "art porn" so that people won't feel embarrassed recommending it to their friends. Also perhaps build a community around the porn in some way. Note: I don't work in porn, so I don't know too much but this seems to be my observations based on which sites stick around.

calinet6 14y ago

Completely agree, great article. There are a lot of companies working on a lot of very small problems these days. It's natural, since the economic imbalance makes it more worthwhile to solve small problems for a large number of people who have disposable money to pay for small solutions. But there are big problems out there that we should be inspired to solve. Let's solve the meta-problem: what's holding us back from being able to think of solutions to the bigger problems facing humanity? What's the cause of our collective myopia?

wildgift 14y ago
It's easier to sell things to people with spending money than to sell things to people without spending money.

D9u 14y ago

"Sequence, selection, & iteration." These are the foundations of software, so how should we not be iterators?

gmu3 14y ago

I feel like the author somewhat contradicts himself when he implies the poor ghetto types will never be innovators but says the rest of us are all blinded from the "very real problems that the rest of humanity faces." If you really felt that way, wouldn't the ghetto types have a big advantage if they can get over their resource problems.

jzellis 14y ago
I apologize if I implied that poor people will never be innovators, that wasn't my intention. I meant to suggest that those of us who already have these skills share them with people who don't...including, I probably should have explicitly said, teaching them those skills.
- parnas 14y ago
  what skills? what skills?
  - jzellis 14y ago
    Technological skills. My target audience (literal audience; this was a speech) were, by and large, people in the tech sector.

rmrfrmrf 14y ago

This is the kind of post that happens when someone gets so wrapped up in startup land that they lose all context of the "real world." These "first world problem"-solving companies he's talking about are really just B2B companies made to help the ACTUAL, real-world problem solving companies do their jobs more easily. No customer cares about MailChimp. No consumer thinks about Twilio. They're not solving first-world problems, they're solving BUSINESS problems. Downplay the importance of those companies all you like, but making one company's business operations better in turn allows that company to reach out and help more people.

calinet6 14y ago
This is all well and good, but I think the point is that there is an imbalance, and very few tech startups are going after the big problems these days. There are some notable ones, but it seems to be the road less traveled.
- lelandbatey 14y ago
  The impression I got was that the author was mostly upset with entrepreneurs patting themselves on the back for changing the world for the better with their "innovation" when they haven't actually done much to make the world better (though they may have innovated).
- rmrfrmrf 14y ago
  > This is all well and good, but I think the point is that there is an imbalance, and very few tech startups are going after the big problems these days. But, my point is that these companies are indirectly going after the big problems by taking care of the little things. There are companies of 1 to 2 people who can now outsource almost every physical aspect of their service so that they can focus on their core product. Do I hire a team of sysadmins and technicians to maintain a server farm to 1) pay, 2) train, 3) meet with regularly, or do I simply host my service on AWS? One could argue that AWS is nothing but a first-world solution, but hey, it's responsible for hosting a HUGE number of companies! These "small", "iterative", "derivative" services can have a huge impact on industries. Just because they're not devoted to saving Africa or rescuing animals or ending world hunger doesn't mean they're not important. > There are some notable ones, but it seems to be the road less traveled. It's funny that you mention the 'road less traveled'. People use that phrase in allusion to Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken," where the narrator opines about coming to a fork in the road and wondering about how his life would be different had he taken the other path. The funny part is that Frost was really being sarcastic and basically saying that it makes no difference which road you'll take. So yes, you can "go after the big problems" consciously and take that "road less traveled," but in the end, BOTH paths can result in solving big problems (or not solving anything).

ibudiallo 14y ago

The author may have used the words innovator and iterator, but I think the stronger message is just we need to stop valuing useless but addictive technological feats and go for what actually make a difference.

squozzer 14y ago

>But technologists used to work on big problems. Not First World problems, but whole world problems -- sending humans to the moon, ending poverty, ending disease. Sending humans to the Moon was (and apparently still is) a First World problem, unless you intend to terraform and colonize it with a social cross-section of humanity. Smart people are still working on the other big problems, but they require a lot of time and resources -- heavily concentrated in a relatively small number of organizations I might add -- while the rest of us have to satisfy ourselves with making money and a life relatively free of heroic deeds.

Ixiaus 14y ago

I agree with the sentiment of the article, Steve Blank gave a somewhat more enlightening talk about this topic at SXSW (I can't remember what it was titled, but here's the slides from the talk - it's all I could find: http://www.slideshare.net/500startups/steve-blank-stanford-sxsw-lean-startup-2013 http://www.slideshare.net/500startups/steve-blank-stanford-s...) "Porn" was a terrible example, btw. I imagine Porn is more difficult to get rich at then by copy-pasting and iterating on an idea in a space where VC funding is flying and it's the "popular" thing to do. Porn, I'm sure, is extremely difficult to raise funding for and I'll bet licensing from the actual producers of porn is costly. What about user generated porn sites? I'll bet their revenue models are even more scary and only a few actually make it by pushing camsite adverts on you. [EDIT] To finish what I was saying, I believe as a programmer, not porn but HFT or working for finance/quant firms would be a good parallel for "getting rich".

lubujackson 14y ago

The innovator-iterator argument seems to be a red herring. The real issue here is building bullshit apps vs. helpful apps. I think focusing on making helpful apps is a more important message to developers than trying to "fix poverty in Africa" which is a nice goal but not something any web developer is likely going to impact. The reality is no one is going to come up with an idea like mFarm without REALLY understanding that audience. You won't understand an entire ecosystem just by sitting on the corner. If you want to help Kenyans, instead find some promising Kenyan entrepreneurs and offer to be their code monkey, review their code or host their website. I think humility is crucial if you want to contribute to a market you don't fully understand.

jzellis 14y ago
Absolutely agreed. Which is why I'm trying to specifically do that right now. (If it's not obvious, I'm the guy who delivered this speech.) But I absolutely disagree that web developers can't impact poverty in Africa (or, maybe more importantly, in their own town). To be perfectly frank, I merely think most of us in this industry don't give a shit one way or another. Which is fine, but I'm perfectly happy to judge people all day long for thinking that way. ;-)
- ippisl 14y ago
  I wonder if we could connect more innovators to environments and communities with real problems, in some interesting way , and by this connection enable those innovators to gain perspective, knowledge and connections to work on the problem ? Something that's built in such a way that a community create a lot of knowledge about the problem and context(general situation, current solutions and their limitations) , but maybe not the solution, so people could be more motivated to implement their invented solutions?
alalonde 14y ago
Or, even better, GO TO Kenya. Live there for a year. Travel around the country. Learn the language. When you come home you will not only have a handful of disruptive startup ideas, but, most importantly, an open mind about the disparate cultures of the world.

jwoah12 14y ago

> But technologists used to work on big problems. Not First World problems, but whole world problems -- sending humans to the moon, ending poverty, ending disease I see this sentiment a lot these days, and I can't help but wonder if this is a case of looking into the past through rose-tinted glasses. Just like how people always talk about the "good ole' days" while selectively forgetting about everything that was wrong during that time. Could this all be selection bias? Decades ago, the barrier to entry to become a technologist and start a tech company was a lot higher. Writing software was harder, more expensive, and fewer people were trained to do it. Therefore those people had to be especially passionate and skilled at the craft. I think this subset of technologists still exists and is probably even larger than it was "back then," but since there are so many more developers out there today, they make up a smaller percentage.

pjscott 14y ago
Of course it's just selection bias. People remember the big, exciting things, like going to the moon, or eradicating polio, or multiplying crop yields several times over. They don't remember the boring, everyday stuff. It would be surprising if this didn't cause selection bias. And so, inevitably, we get articles which bemoan how we've fallen, compared to a past that never existed.
npsimons 14y ago
The article might be more of a personal ponderance than anything, even though the author calls out others. Yes, everything that was wrong back then is being ignored, so that we can focus on a simple fact: most of us are probably not living up to our potential. So it's easier to get into business or write code these days? That's even more reason why we shouldn't be squandering our opportunities! Look at what you do for a living and ask yourself: is it meaningful? Will it truly matter after you're dead and gone? Is it helping to make the world a better place? At a bare minimum, does it make you happy?

tjbiddle 14y ago

I know this is the smallest part I could take out of the post.. but Fremont - Ghetto? Maybe OP meant East Palo Alto, or Oakland, but IMO Fremont is one of the safest, homey places to live in the Bay Area. But then again, maybe I'm hanging out on that "One Block" - But I guess that block encompasses 12mi^2 :-). More on topic - I wouldn't agree completely. Some startups are new completely, some are building things a little bit better, some are just using technology to re-invent something for the 21st century. If you're limiting your example startups then you can make any point you want.

swinnipeg 14y ago
He means Fremont street in Las Vegas. The area surrounding it is largely populated by places to gamble and find bail bondsmen. Very un-Palo Alto.
- tjbiddle 14y ago
  Haha. That makes a bit more sense. Thanks for the clarification!

orangethirty 14y ago

Being an iterator is the right thing to do. Real innovation happens over time (innovation follows the same process as evolution). You can't simply invent a car without a wheel. Imagine trying to build a car without every learning the dynamics of a wheel first. Instead of focusing on making new things, go ahead and pick something that exists and improve on it. Don't build the next Facebook, but improve upon it. Don't build the next Google, improve upon it (which is why I'm doing Nuuton). Iterate. Improve. In ten years, you will have a completely new product by working on the same old one.

edw519 14y ago

We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators... That's a fine line. The most significant innovations are often iterations. (Google comes to mind.) Why do we do this? Because we want to get rich, of course. I disagree with "Because we want to get rich". And I definitely disagree with "of course". Real hackers do this because we just have to. It just so happens that currently it's also a great way to make money. Many of us hacked long before it was this way and many of us still hack for little or nothing (side projects, open source, etc.) But technologists used to work on big problems. We still do, probably more than ever. But if you're busy reading Techcrunch and going to conferences and hackathons, you'd probably never know about what the other 99% of us are doing. They did it because technology is about improving the human condition... There are many ways to do this, all with relative importance. Putting a man on the moon was definitely cool, but so is getting fresh produce to your supermarket (which probably benefits more people). Like a football team, we hackers all do our part in the blocking, tackling, running, throwing, catching, and scoring. It all counts. Just a few of the things I've contributed to in the past few years ("sexy" is in the eye of the beholder): - people get the right prescription medication on time - firetrucks and ambulances get to where they're supposed to be - parts that go into cars and planes are properly certified - prisoners are kept in jail - those same prisoners get proper medical care - electronic equipment gets assembled properly and on time - medical supplies get dispatched to where they're supposed to - insurance claims are processed properly - quality data is properly maintained for food items

orangethirty 14y ago
Note that its not about getting rich, but about not being broke. A very distinctive difference. Not being broke allows for a good life style. And that's what most of all want.
- PaulHoule 14y ago
  Unfortunately the economic/political system as we know it isn't good at providing "not being broke" without "being rich".
  - 14y ago

bguthrie 14y ago

From the OP: But technologists used to work on big problems. Many still do. And some technologists used to work on small problems, and some still do. There never was a perfect time in which every technologist ran around working on the Biggest Problem They Could Find.

alxbrun 14y ago

Regarding iteration vs. innovation, I'm so mad each time I hear about Square, Stripe, Balanced, etc. etc. as innovations in the payments space. Find me a way to get rid of the absurd 3% worldwide tax that Visa, Amex, Mastercard take on every payment for almost NO added value (well there was added value 30 years ago, but today ?) and then, OK, let's call this innovation.

michaelwww 14y ago

There's an app for tractor roll-overs. That's innovation by the author's definition: http://www.iowafarmertoday.com/news/livestock/there-s-an-app-for-tractor-rollovers/article_3b450d94-86a0-11e2-bbc3-001a4bcf887a.html http://www.iowafarmertoday.com/news/livestock/there-s-an-app...

jdminhbg 14y ago

> But technologists used to work on big problems. Not First World problems, but whole world problems -- sending humans to the moon, ending poverty, ending disease. Having enough surplus capital that we can take a three day trip to the Moon seems pretty First World to me. Which technologists worked on "ending poverty" as a primary goal? Did we stop working on ending disease? We can't seem to decide whether we are spending way too much on ending disease or way too little. Articles like this keep popping up but they don't really seem to have any point other than being self-congratulatory to the author and likeminded audiences for how much they care about Important Things instead of Uber, which is just for taking a car from SFO to Moscone (oh wait except it's not, it actually turns out to have side effects that are significant benefits to immigrant women who would otherwise be shut out of the cab industry: http://transpoplanner.tumblr.com/post/40777853649/is-uber-empowering-female-drivers http://transpoplanner.tumblr.com/post/40777853649/is-uber-em...).

kurtko 14y ago
> Having enough surplus capital that we can take a three day trip to the Moon seems pretty First World to me. Today, perhaps, but in retrospect our first manned moon mission probably bdid more for 20th-Century technology than any other single project.
- avelis 14y ago
  Going to the moon not only proved that we can leave our planet. Galvanized the nation. Space created a culture and made us think about the future. Thank you NDT.
  - wildgift 14y ago
    It also proved that we could accurately launch a rocket that could also be used to blow the USSR to smithereens.

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mongol 14y ago

YES! That is so true. How many times have you not heard "we should not invent the wheel again". To this I always thought to myself (but seldom said) - but the wheel is invented over and over again. New wheels for new purposes, better working for their purpose, whether F1 cars, Jumbo Jets, trains, trolleys, carts etc etc. However it is so true - the wheel is not reinvented, it is improved, iterated over again. And it is just like it should be

ececconi 14y ago

How is sending a person to the moon a whole world problem? what "problem" did it solve in the world?

michaelwww 14y ago
How to make a backup of life on earth in case of a planetary extinction event, assuming that those off planet could start over once things calmed down.
- pjscott 14y ago
  It also developed a lot of the basic technology we'd need to avert a large asteroid impact. I doubt this was anybody's goal, but it sure happened.

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RougeFemme 14y ago

But technologists used to work on big problems. Not First World problems, but whole world problems -- sending humans to the moon, ending poverty, ending disease. Point taken, but. . .not sure I agree that technologists were that involved with trying to end povery. Well, they were certainly involved, but I don't think they were the drivers. And I think sending humans to the moon was definitely a first world "problem" - not even on the list of priorities for third-word nations.

pjscott 14y ago
Remember the green revolution? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution That was huge, and new technology was what made it possible.

gdubs 14y ago

I'm reminded of a book "Old Masters and Young Geniuses"[1]. The author makes a case that experimental iterators make their biggest contributions at an older age, whereas the artists who take bold conceptual leaps often achieve artistic success at a much younger age. Neither approaches are considered more or less innovative; some just arrive there more quickly. 1. http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8019.html http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8019.html

a_p 14y ago

My favorite resource about software innovation is David A. Wheeler's list of the most important software innovations.[1] Most of the items on the list are from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and 90s; just one is from the past ten years (Wheeler was at first ambivalent about even adding it). He also makes the point that it is okay not to be innovative, and quotes Linus Torvalds: "People want to hear about the one big idea that changes the world, but that’s not how the world works. It’s not about visionary ideas; it’s about lots of good ideas which do not seem world-changing at the time, but which turn out to be great after lots of sweat and work have been applied." [1]http://www.dwheeler.com/innovation/innovation.html http://www.dwheeler.com/innovation/innovation.html

subsystem 14y ago
I would say various p2p technologies has been properly innovative in the last 10(ish) years, at least in application. Skype, Torrent, BitCoin etc.
ippisl 14y ago
>> just one is from the past ten years It takes time for innovations to affect society. I bet that in 10/15 years we'll see that quantum computing and deep learning would be very important.

jacquesm 14y ago

We can call ourselves whatever we want. In the end it does not matter at all, it is what others will call you what matters.

MyNewAccount99 14y ago

what family is he talking about that can buy zuckerberg 10x over?

drcube 14y ago

Even Newton stood on the shoulders of giants. Iteration is innovation. Sometimes you just happen to be lucky enough to stumble on something big and important when you're iterating. But it's the same process, it only looks different in hindsight.

reportingsjr 14y ago
I was going to post this comment if it wasn't already here! Pretty much every innovation/invention that has ever occurred has been taking past inventions and adding just a small new thing. Of course, there are plenty of completely new inventions (transistors, lasers, etc), but they are few and far between. Standing on the shoulders of giants!

up_and_up 14y ago

> mFarm isn't hot and sexy. It's not the kind of thing that generally gets a Valley VC to reach for their wallet. My friend and I built TargetMobi, http://www.targetmobi.com http://www.targetmobi.com along a similar vein. In Africa, SMS is everywhere and our goal was to help companies and organizations connect with their users via SMS. Unfortunately, we found zero Angel/VC interest in this and have since pivoted a few times. I think the overall approach still has potential though.

chipsy 14y ago

It really shouldn't matter whether you're doing one or the other. You need availability and quality of other things in your ecosystem to make the big leaps. And when you do make the leap, it tends to look trivial.

mtp0101 14y ago

False dichotomy out of helping the poor/helping the rich. Taking advantage of the neomarxist undercurrent of bay area culture and the information technology industry by framing technology as a method of helping the proletariat escape their unfortunate circumstances. Innovation/iteration binary unclear and implicitly related to the helping the poor/helping the rich binary. It is a bad idea to go sit in a poor area with a forty to come up with startup ideas relative to other things one could do. Other than drinking a 40 and loving the poor, the author offers little specific guidance to entrepreneurs.

fijal 14y ago

I'm sorry, but just stop living in your bubble and you'll be fine. There are great people out there doing great things, using technology, they just don't happen to be prominently featured on the site that takes "what can be delivered in two weeks" to new levels. Look for example at the stuff praekelt foundation is doing - http://www.praekeltfoundation.org/ http://www.praekeltfoundation.org/ (videos are short enough for most attention spans), or actually, wikipedia.

kurtko 14y ago

Iteration != innovation, but the two certainly can overlap in a venn diagram.

lukejduncan 14y ago

A well written iteration on a common theme on HN: where are the big problems and why aren't we working on them.

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mattsfrey 14y ago

An interesting thought developed after reading this and the follow up comments. The ultimate translation of the sentiments in this post is simply to focus your efforts on underexploited markets, not some push for greatness in innovation. Most people end up solving problems they see in their daily lives, which do indeed end up being trifles aka first worlds problems etc given the demographic of start up founders. Focusing on serving third world nations or less developed regions can work to enhance their lives, but its simple a shift in market focus, not a real push to further science or be on the cutting edge of innovation. IMO there is nothing particularly innovating about making a sms based service for Kenyan farmers, it's just a clever use-case of existing technology to serve an underexploited market. The reason we have a lull in true innovation is because we have hit a saturation point in the larger realm of technology. There is only so much you can do with computers, the internet, and lastly, smart phones. We're waiting on the next big thing.

acabal 14y ago

That quote from Jeff Hammerbacher comes to mind: "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks." There's lots of genuine good to be done in the world outside of the US. A year or two ago I did a short presentation to students in an entrepreneur class in Monterrey, Mexico. Now Monterrey is rich even by US standards (in fact it's just across the border), but even then there's still a lot of genuine people problems to be solved by entrepreneurs in that country. Think of the problems one could solve in a poorer country like the ones in Central America or poor areas of wealthier countries in South America like Colombia, Chile, Brazil. The example I gave the students in Mexico was the need to accept payments online in Central/South American countries. Paypal doesn't work in many of them and online bill pay is almost unheard of. Even in relatively wealthy countries like Mexico and Colombia people can spend an entire afternoon in a massive queue outside their bank to pay their cable bills in person and in cash. Internet startups can't grow because there's no easy way to accept payment online. Building an online payment/mobile infrastructure is a fundamental problem that could make a lot of lives better and pave the road for entrepreneurs in the future. It's not an easy problem and it's not really a tech problem either, but it's not impossible!

dcalacci 14y ago
This is an excellent example of a concrete problem with a foreseeable solution that will have tangible real-world effects. I find your comments and the original submission inspiring. I think that the reason why so many of these recognizable problems remain unsolved has to do with something of a snowball effect. The opportunity to do hard work that can be seen as purely technological innovation is often more appealing than retrofitting some technology to solve an existing problem. To use the example you gave, _forms_ of online payment exist, and are growing. Products like Paypal have been changing the way many companies think about accepting payment from their customers for years; immediate online payment has slowly been adopted by the U.S's largest banks. However, for most of their users, these technologies exist as innovations in luxury: they improve upon existing technologies in order to provide further ease-of-use. This is different, I think, than applying an existing technology to a problem: instead of _improving_ upon something, you are instead _applying_ something to a different set of circumstances. I think many people do not think of that as a hard problem: since the 'hard' technology already exists, applying it should be easy. I also think that for most ambitious people who have 'innovate' stamped at the top of their to-do list and have the freedom of choosing what they would like to work on, it then appears to be a choice between 'improve' and 'apply', and improve likely wins out for most. EDIT: I realize that I essentially re-make the 'iterate vs innovate' point the author makes in my above comment, but I am choosing to keep it there for the sake of coherence.

9999 14y ago

Who is he saying is the third largest corporation on the planet? Privately held? Publicly? Largest in what sense, market capitalization? I'd really like to know who he actually means there. I assume he means a private company since he refers to ("the family that owns it"). In that case is he referring to Mars? Or maybe he means Wal-Mart, who do not appear to be the third largest corp, but the majority shareholders are a single family. They're also renowned exploiters of the working class, so they don't seem to be a very positive model to emulate if you wanted to make the world a better place.

jzellis 14y ago
Wal-Mart is, according to Wikipedia, the third largest privately-held corporation in the world, after Shell Oil and Exxon. And no, they're not a good model to emulate, that wasn't my point. :-) This was an eight minute speech, and the text you're reading was my notes for it, not the final version, so some of the subtlety gets lost.
- 9999 14y ago
  Thanks for the clarification. Is there a recording of your full speech? I like your basic premise, although I would certainly say that Costco is a much better corporation when it comes to serving the working class (in employment and in services rendered to consumers) than WalMart.

wildermuthn 14y ago

The solution to poverty is neither wealth nor innovation. The heroic acts required to address poverty are precisely the heroic acts excluded by the OP — the solidarity shown by Mother Theresa. You can't harrow hell while resting in heaven.

kyro 14y ago

The reason very few are truly innovating on a global level is because nobody wants to put in the decades studying to become an expert in any one field -- and I don't blame them. I've been seesawing between two life decisions lately: 1) Do I continue with medicine, become super-specialized and then look for a way to use my expertise to bring innovation to the world and become wealthy, or 2) Do I use whatever knowledge I've acquired now, play my hand at creating something that'll most likely not be deemed innovative and try to get wealthy that way? There are good arguments to be made on both sides. On the one hand I'd love to create something truly groundbreaking, but on the other, I don't want to toil away my life for decades and finally reach success with only a few decades of my life to live. Who says I need to innovate in the first place? I've only got 80 years here to live, why not make as much money as I can, as quickly as possible, and live my life to its absolute fullest. Of course, these arguments are based on the assumption that your goal is to become wealthy and to innovate. It's a time issue for me. I don't for one second look down on people working on the next hot social app because there's a chance they may cash out far earlier than had they labored away in a lab studying the subjects that'll really push humans forward. In the end, there's no great metric by which our accomplishments wil be judged. If you wanna spend your hours on a new email app, fine, and if you wanna spend your years studying photosynthetic biochemical photomicroscopy, then go for it. There's no right or wrong.

dcalacci 14y ago
thought experiment: If someone had the skills, ability, and opportunity to tangibly help a large group of people through their work, but instead chose to work on the "next hot social app" in order to gain personal wealth (assume both were "one-time" opportunities, and mutually exclusive), would you hold that person to be ethically unjust?

djbender 14y ago

I consider myself a remixer. Related, I recommend this video series on the topic: http://www.everythingisaremix.info http://www.everythingisaremix.info

mindcrime 14y ago

That's probably one of the best and most insightful articles I've ever read, that used the term "first world problems". In fact, it may be the only article I've ever read that used that term, that wasn't a complete joke. There's so much truth there... we work on "stuff" and some of the "stuff" we work on is truly amazing in many ways, but - and I don't know about you - I sometimes find myself wondering "is this really making the world a better place, in the general sense"? Even the stuff we are doing at Fogbeam Labs, which I am very passionate about, and even though we have very explicit core values[1] that drive us - sometimes leaves me thinking "this isn't going to help a poor starving child in Africa. Should I be doing something else"? On the other hand, part of the reason we do all Open Source software is exactly because we think producing more OSS does make the world generally better, in at least some small regard. And if some would be entrepreneur in Africa or Afghanistan or something uses our software some day, and it helps them succeed, grow a business and create jobs and improve lives, then we have done something very positive. But it's hard to keep that in mind sometimes, when the chain of connections is so long and so speculative. I sometimes want to be doing something with a more obvious and direct impact on helping people. [1]: http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2011/06/blogging-fogbeam-customer-development.html http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2011/06/blogging-fogbeam-custome...

npsimons 14y ago
I just watched "Repo Men" again, and while it's not a great movie, nor is it directly related, it came back to haunt me while waiting in line at the bank: I'm still really afraid of "not being", specifically not being alive. And I asked myself, not for the first time, what's the purpose? Am I really making the world a better place? Does it matter? Eventually I settled on my old fallback of "well, as long as I'm happy" (which, BTW, questions like these keep me from being happy). But this article hits close to home, as does your comment, and there's not a day that goes by that I wish I was getting paid to work on open source software full time. And then I think even that wouldn't be enough, maybe I'm wasting my potential, and I should have stuck it out and gone to grad school and maybe done something amazing. Maybe not Nash or Knuth amazing, or Norman Borlaug amazing, but something of lasting value and worth that made the world a better place in innumerable ways. Volunteering in other ways can help; while the effects aren't as long lasting or deep (but subtle), the instant gratification of helping to save a life can be surprisingly uplifting :)

jacoblyles 14y ago

This is why I joined Coursera instead of starting another startup when I left the one I founded. There are few things more exciting that a web developer could be working on today than access for education for everyone. Big movements are happening in online ed. Tectonic shifts are happening.

jaxn 14y ago

Completely off-topic, but relevant to HN... That is the first time I have ever seen evernote used this way. What a neat way to publish! Seems like it would be a great fit for something like PG's papers.

fudged71 14y ago

It's great to think that the technology that we are consuming in the third world is going to trickle down, but I'm starting to wonder whether or not that's true. Phones are sold until they have minor issues, then trashed. Software products are discontinued instead of being made open source. We need to tackle these issues.

BoredAstronaut 14y ago

I'm not sure how long the OP has been an arm-chair social scientist, but I've been one for twenty-five years, and I feel like I might be able to share some insights. Firstly, his thesis could be boiled down to a very simple question: "Why do people do what they do (instead of what I want them to do)?" You suggest that they are insufficiently self-reflective, not very world-wise, and perhaps just a bit self-centred. These are reasonable inferences, but they don't go very deeply into understand the psychology, beliefs and motivations of your stereotypical spoiled white kid. A deeper question we might ask in response to your thesis is, "What's wrong with the world (and why is nobody fixing it)?" The sub-question might alternately be: "Why aren't enough people fixing it?" or "Why aren't the right people fixing it?" Neé spoiled rich kids. The problem with both questions is that they are primarily underscored by the implicit question, "Why aren't more people like me (and why don't they believe and feel like I do)?" But the answer to that is simple: evolution. Biological evolution ensures that there is a wide variety of people, physiologically, and social evolution (not Social Darwinism, thank you -- no ranking is being proposed) ensures that there are a wide variety of belief systems and mental models of how the world works and why. But let's, for the moment, make the (unfounded and highly unlikely) assumption that the OP's point of view is somehow more informed, insightful, rational, or just generally "better" than those of all the people whom he is criticizing. I mean, he wouldn't have made the argument if he didn't think it had more merit than other arguments in favour of "iterating" or whatever other less noble activity they are pursuing instead. And he may be right (it's only unlikely based on probability, and the apparent level of effort pursued in constructing said argument). People do what they do because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that it is in their interests. Either directly, in terms of immediate material rewards, through indirect rewards (material, social or even spiritual), or future rewards to their offspring. That is a basic economic tenet that is difficult to ignore. (It is hard to disprove, partly because "rewards" are variable and ill-defined). Stated another way, people do things because they think (or feel) that it is right (or reasonable) to do, or just because they want to do them. It may be for riches, or that may merely be a subordinate goal towards pleasure, happiness, fulfillment or meaning. My suspicion is that people are primarily motivated by status (a measure of what is meaningful) when they behave in ways that affect their social surroundings, but otherwise they like pleasure, whether sensual, aesthetic or moral (and the pride or satisfaction from doing good is definitely a pleasure, as is that of winning, which could be called a moral activity, if you believe you are better than other people and deserve to win). But not only do people do what they believe is good for their interests, they also don't do things that they think are bad for their interests, which is the true meaning of "wasting time": actions without real consequence (as estimated by the agent). This isn't bad or evil. Most people simply do not know how to "change the world" in a manner which will satisfy the OP, or at best have a very vague notion, and very little reason to be confident that they could do it. In other words, people engage in activities which they consider to have a reasonable chance of success. Exactly how they arrived at their estimate of risk/reward is another question. But in fact it is the ultimate question, since that is where the rubber meets the road. The extent to which someone is misinformed, delusional or outright insane is something that has to be determined for each individual. But we can generalize that the vast majority of people do not have the necessary knowledge, skills, insights and experience to go about saving the world. Nor do they have the right social connections, or affiliations with groups which are changing the world (and have no interest in becoming fund-raisers hanging out on malls and street corners), and are generally discouraged from participating in such marginal activities by their elders and role models, for many reasons (some or all of which may be ill-reasoned, based on false premises, and riddled with superstitions, false authority and bias, and yet are nevertheless core to the world view which these people have at their disposal). So, for the OP's sake, maybe it's time that he revised his viewpoint on what is wrong with the world, and how to change it. Not by writing blog posts accusing others of failing to live up to his standards (yes, this could be ironic, but in fact I am not judging the OP's career or life goals, merely his argument), but instead by either a) trying to understand better why people don't, in fact, share his beliefs and values, and/or b) by learning how to impart his own wisdom in such a way that he has some modicum of hope in actually affecting the views of other people, rather than just appealing to a crowd of like-minded people with whom he can share his sense of superiority. On the other hand, maybe that was his goal, and maybe he achieved it, so good for him!

liuliu 14y ago

I don't like the negativity associated with "first world" problem. The "first world" problems are very much real. If you believe that the rest of the world will catch up eventually with the "first world", they will have these "first world" problems too. We need to solve these "first world" problems. The only argument against it suggests a darker future where there is, and will always be, a huge gap between the rich and the poor, and the poor will stagnate forever. I don't choose to believe that.

BoredAstronaut 14y ago
There are first world problems, and then there are "white whines". Solving the problems of wealthy people might be rewarding and enriching (for the solver), but the actual impact on the world is generally much less than if you solved more pressing problems. It's a law of diminishing returns. After a while, people should be able to solve their own problems. What they do instead is to redefine "problem" from "life-threatening risk" to "banal annoyance". If you save a child from dying from cholera, they might grow up and change the world themselves. If you make it more convenient for spoiled white people to buy more shit to fill up their meaningless lives, not so much.

seanmcdirmid 14y ago

We call ourselves inventors, but many of us are really just innovators. FRFY, Jeesh.

jzellis 14y ago

OP here. (Well, not "original poster", but "guy who wrote this".) If anybody's interested: this is not an essay, it's my notes for a speech I delivered at Inspire, a monthly talk series put on by Tony Hsieh's Delivering Happiness project here in Las Vegas. The talk itself was filmed and you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moO2EfWQOTE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moO2EfWQOTE It looks like an essay because I'm a writer, and I write my talks like essays and then kind of wing it when I'm on stage. I am aware that bits of this aren't especially subtle, but I had eight minutes to do the talk in. And I apparently need to clarify what I mean by "innovation" versus "iteration". What I meant, basically, is that the Valley right now reminds me of Hollywood in the late 80s, where everybody was trying to pitch their new movie as "Die Hard in/on/with an [X]". Die Hard on a train, Die Hard on a submarine...taking some existing idea and trying to just twist it slightly enough to capitalize on it. So we do "It's like [X] for [Y]". Instagram for animated GIFs. Facebook for payroll managers. (I've actually heard that one.) Evernote for illiterates. These are jokes, but I hope you take my point. That's what I meant by "iteration" versus "innovation". Imagine if Jobs had said "The Apple is like the IBM 1620, except beiger and smaller." Or if that's how he thought of it. Personally, I think a lot of the most-hyped stuff we make in this industry is just silly, useless bullshit that doesn't solve any real problems, or problems that are worth solving unless you're a lazy, pampered, entitled asshole who genuinely has a hard time with the notion of picking up one's own dry cleaning. (That example in my speech was something featured on HN, by the way.) I guess if those are the problems you want to solve, go ahead, but I just feel as though there are more pressing issues in the world...provided you can see outside of your own circumstance. I'm fortunate enough to have lived rich and lived poor, and while rich is better, poor is far more prevalent in the world. I feel like poor people's problems are more useful to solve. But hey, I could be wrong. And I won't deny I'm being judgmental, but who really gives a shit what I think? :-)

EvilTerran 14y ago
Just an aside, but I gotta say: the line "it's hard to tell if madness drove them into the drains or if it found them down there in the dark" gave me goosebumps. That's a beautiful turn of phrase.

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guylhem 14y ago

> So why didn’t I? Why didn’t you? Why didn’t we? Because I don't care about such problems. I care about doing stuff I a) understand or might get more understanding from b) believe I can do c) find fun in solving d) get paid too. Your argument is that people don't because of a lack of information - it's not fully so. I know some problems I could work on, which would help other people. I chose not to, because it's an endless tunnel, and it's no fun. How exactly do you propose to force me - or anyone else - to work on the problems you believe are the most important? Were are your guns ? To put that in simpler words, if I don't believe your problems fit by abcd criteria, I will not work on them. You may find "public shaming" a useful tool for your deeds, but you will find that it only works a limited amount of times. Now please excuse me if I don't engage in your guilt trip and instead spend time do stuff I want, which may be in your list of important things, or might not. [The only real argument there is in the conclusion: we could be concerned if we, as the human race, were collectively not doing stuff we wanted to do because of a lack of ambition, or to follow the 'large base' pyramid example, didn't sell stuff to poor people. I must say I'm sometimes worried about people lacking ambition, and like in this post engaging in empty rhetorics instead of actually doing stuff - whatever "stuff" might me, even an hello world...]

hawkharris 14y ago

Here's the issue: the people who are solving so-called "whole-world" problems generally don't describe themselves as technologists. In other words, they use technology as a tool in broader campaigns aimed at solving societal problems. To name just one example of many, take a look at how the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is using apps to combat childhood obesity. For people who are really affecting change, technology is a tool rather than a shiny new toy or a means to an end.

aortega 14y ago

What kind of wanker call himself an innovator?

sauron21 14y ago

Wow, the discussions on this thread are very civil and polite. (I'm new to HN) Faith in the human race=restored.

sauron21 14y ago

Wow, the discussions on this thread are very civil and polite. (I'm new to HN) Faith in the human race=restored.

mustefaj 14y ago

I love the title...it makes me want to just keep the rhyme going... "Others are just nay sayers, but on HN we just rhyme sayers, but I'll just get down voted by a bunch of HN-taking-things-too seriously player haters.

wildgift 14y ago

It was going OK until he said to get a 40 and drink it on the curb. Fuck you, whatever the fuck your name was.

jzellis 14y ago
Why fuck me? I mean, I'm just curious. If you're going to tell a stranger on the Internet "fuck you", it might be illuminating to find out why. And it's Josh. Josh Ellis. Since you sort-of asked.
- wildgift 14y ago
  You're deploying a really fucked up stereotype of poor people being heavy drinkers and alcoholics. It's like saying let's go to the ghetto and participate in the culture by doing something self-destructive and negative. That kind of slumming is offensive. You might as well have said go to a Mexican neighborhood and buy some weed and smoke out on the corner, or say go to a Black neighborhood and buy some crack and smoke it in the car, and then check out how fucked up the situation is. Or how about go to the trailer park, buy some speed, snort it and check out how jacked up the hillbillies are. I read the whole article, and even share some of your sentiments, but that one part really upset me. It kind of killed the article for me.
  - jzellis 14y ago
    You didn't have context. It's not an article, it's notes for a talk I gave. The audience were a bunch of Las Vegas hacker kids and entrepreneur types, who tend to be forty drinkers anyway. It was shorthand for "sit and chill outside". Which I think they understood. On the other hand, I've spent a lot of time being poor and being around poor people -- in the ghetto, in rural trailer parks, etc -- and actually, in my extensive experience, poor people do tend to be heavy drinkers. Are you seriously suggesting that sitting around in the hood getting your beer on isn't a staple of working class life? If so, we've been experiencing completely different parts of America.
    - 14y ago

PixelPusher 14y ago

I'm a 'ghetto' kid. Grew up in LA and El Salvador. The reason I haven't done a startup is because i simply don't have the monetary support. I have to pay for my mom and family, pay rent, etc. We don't have the privilege of a circle of people with money. Our parents couldn't afford to send us to college, in fact it's better for them that we start working as early as possible. Our past generations weren't scientists, lawyers, etc. They were immigrants, mostly farm and home workers. So, we're one of the first generations to even have the opportunity to be lawyers, doctors, engineers, etc. The author is right, and a lot of people can't relate or even think about those types of problems. But, the problems he listed are still pretty dear in our hearts and perhaps the next few generations will tackle it.

MicahWedemeyer 14y ago

From what I can find, this is the author's company: http://openfi.re/ http://openfi.re/ "A crowdfunding platform for long-term, socially valuable projects." Perhaps the author does not mean iterator in a derogatory way? Obviously, his own company is an iteration on the existing crowdfunding wave.

iagomr 14y ago

Great post, finally someone that you'll read about has finally said it. Isn't it demeaning to name every helpless or copycat project as a "startup" ? Next step, show this to Techcrunch.