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There is a lot to this piece. I do think good coders are worth it, but I also think the current social/mobile bubble will burst (not that there aren't importan

There is a lot to this piece. I do think good coders are worth it, but I also think the current social/mobile bubble will burst (not that there aren't important gains to be had in those spaces but that the gains do not live up to investors' expectations). It seems to me so many businesses are chasing playthings because solving the real problems of the day are hard. To be sure not one of us can solve any of them, but if we build our businesses with the problems in mind (rather than the hype), then we are all doing our part. That isn't a lot to ask but it seems like too much. For my money the businesses I am starting (including the new cloud ERP start-up Efficito (http://www.efficito.com http://www.efficito.com) are intended to continue to chip away at real problems. They may not seem like much but they will hopefully contribute in one way or another to helping support small businesses, the self-employed, and such against the leviathan multinational companies. Some problems (like too much corporate control) are bad matches for venture-capital backing. Other problems though may not be.

nfoz 13y ago
> It seems to me so many businesses are chasing playthings because solving the real problems of the day are hard Not only are they hard, it's that they're not obviously monetizable.
- einhverfr 13y ago
  Monetizable to whom? Too much corporate control over our lives as individuals is a problem a small family business can monetize a small piece of a solution for, but is not a problem a VC can, because the problem goes contrary to any VC exit strategy. Now the second point though is that corporations may end up doing some of that anyway. The movement towards open source/free software and open data is helping establish that in at least some cases this problem is monetizable even on a corporate level if one realizes that the corporation is subject to the same restrictions as an individual. If we look at software or data as potential means of production, then this is a welcome way in which the industry is moving towards spreading around control over means of production. But what I am advocating is not solving the important problems but building business with the important problems in mind, seeing what one can do to help with them in one way or another, either through operations or through product development. They don't need to be the primary focus (and maybe shouldn't be the primary focus) but the idea that we are living in a new world where virtue is not a prerequisite to value suggests two words to me "speculative bubble."
- einhverfr 13y ago
  Monetizable to whom? Too much corporate control over our lives as individuals is a problem a small family business can monetize a small piece of a solution for, but is not a problem a VC can, because the problem goes contrary to any VC exit strategy. Now the second point though is that corporations may end up doing some of that anyway. The movement towards open source/free software and open data is helping establish that in at least some cases this problem is monetizable even on a corporate level if one realizes that the corporation is subject to the same restrictions as an individual. If we look at software or data as potential means of production, then this is a welcome way in which the industry is moving towards spreading around control over means of production. But what I am advocating is not solving the important problems but building business with the important problems in mind, seeing what one can do to help with them in one way or another, either through operations or through product development. They don't need to be the primary focus (and maybe shouldn't be the primary focus) but the idea that we are living in a new world where virtue is not a prerequisite to value suggests two words to me "speculative bubble."

nfoz 13y ago

> It seems to me so many businesses are chasing playthings because solving the real problems of the day are hard Not only are they hard, it's that they're not obviously monetizable.

einhverfr 13y ago
Monetizable to whom? Too much corporate control over our lives as individuals is a problem a small family business can monetize a small piece of a solution for, but is not a problem a VC can, because the problem goes contrary to any VC exit strategy. Now the second point though is that corporations may end up doing some of that anyway. The movement towards open source/free software and open data is helping establish that in at least some cases this problem is monetizable even on a corporate level if one realizes that the corporation is subject to the same restrictions as an individual. If we look at software or data as potential means of production, then this is a welcome way in which the industry is moving towards spreading around control over means of production. But what I am advocating is not solving the important problems but building business with the important problems in mind, seeing what one can do to help with them in one way or another, either through operations or through product development. They don't need to be the primary focus (and maybe shouldn't be the primary focus) but the idea that we are living in a new world where virtue is not a prerequisite to value suggests two words to me "speculative bubble."
einhverfr 13y ago
Monetizable to whom? Too much corporate control over our lives as individuals is a problem a small family business can monetize a small piece of a solution for, but is not a problem a VC can, because the problem goes contrary to any VC exit strategy. Now the second point though is that corporations may end up doing some of that anyway. The movement towards open source/free software and open data is helping establish that in at least some cases this problem is monetizable even on a corporate level if one realizes that the corporation is subject to the same restrictions as an individual. If we look at software or data as potential means of production, then this is a welcome way in which the industry is moving towards spreading around control over means of production. But what I am advocating is not solving the important problems but building business with the important problems in mind, seeing what one can do to help with them in one way or another, either through operations or through product development. They don't need to be the primary focus (and maybe shouldn't be the primary focus) but the idea that we are living in a new world where virtue is not a prerequisite to value suggests two words to me "speculative bubble."