4 ms·

Hack this; disrupt that; look down at your smartphone when the 22 rolls by.

by elag 13y ago

Aloha 13y ago
This to me points at the flaw of the startup model. Most of the problems startups are solving are not real problems, they don't need solving - but there is money to be made in solving them, so they get solved. This is a problem (lack of jobs/affordable housing) that does need solving, but there isn't much money to be made in it.
- derefr 13y ago
  And because there isn't much money to be made in it, you really can't make it scale on the back of its own business-model. So there's really nothing a startup can do to help with these problems. However, I think there's a case to be made that startups can become an important part of solving these problems: they rake in money from wealthy sectors of the population, they're usually quite high-margin, and they are headed by small, smart, effective groups of people, who could make the decision to engage in Effective Altruism with their proceeds. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is doing more for the world's problems than any little start-up aiming to help people track their dogs' sleep-cycles--but it could have been started way earlier, when Microsoft was way smaller, and still be having just as much of an impact--if it had been the whole organization on-board, instead of just a private hobby of the founder. (Really, any company could join in on this at any point, but the more bureaucratic and self-sustaining the business culture has become--which usually happens proportionally to scale--the less likely it is to happen. Far easier to convince a few guys in their garage that this is their end-goal-after-the-end-goal, rather than to convince a company already making big money that they should reorganize their corporate vision to doing good.)
  - qohen 13y ago
    And because there isn't much money to be made in it, you really can't make it scale on the back of its own business-model. So there's really nothing a startup can do to help with these problems. Well, there are outfits like YC's Watsi which, while small, are looking to make a difference. And just yesterday the guy behind this said he'd be sending his profits to Watsi: buy.startupnotes.org So perhaps there are ways of using the startup mindset to create outfits that can help with social problems. Just as a thought experiment, imagine a Watsi-esque startup that was an AirBnB for (rigorously screened) homeless people and/or families, i.e. trying to scale what this LA lawyer did (giving his house to a homeless family for a year): http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/lawyer-house-homeless-family-article-1.1232267 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/lawyer-house-homele...
- iron_ball 13y ago
  Edit: replaced snarky response with this. It's not just startups -- businesses tend to focus on earning money. I don't know if we can realistically expect private industry to take an interest in social or economic problems. At the lowest level, there are founders trying to choose a niche that gets them from debt to break-even as quickly as possible; at the highest level, you get into transnational corporations which act only in their own interest. I would be happy if Apple or Google were to dump their excess billions into social welfare or government reform, but it is vanishingly unlikely.
  - boyaka 13y ago
    Free fiber networks for entire towns isn't social welfare?
    - Aloha 13y ago
      Not one that does any good when you don't have a house, or food in your belly.
  - Aloha 13y ago
    Jobs are something we can focus on. Many companies choose to make marginally more profit by moving production to 'low cost markets' rather than manufacture here. I believe firmly if you make your product overseas it should cost some amount of money in duty to bring your product back to the United States, ideally about (or maybe more than) the difference in cost between what it would cost to make your product here and what it costs to make it there - is it an easy to implement solution? no. But its the right thing to do. That said, I believe that rising transport costs will eventually solve this problem for many types of goods, probably within the next 10-15 years or so.
    - knoepfle 13y ago
      Why do you prioritize giving work to Americans over those in developing nations?
      - 13y ago

Hack this; disrupt that; look down at your smartphone when the 22 rolls by.

by elag 13y ago

Hack this; disrupt that; look down at your smartphone when the 22 rolls by.

Aloha 13y ago

This to me points at the flaw of the startup model. Most of the problems startups are solving are not real problems, they don't need solving - but there is money to be made in solving them, so they get solved. This is a problem (lack of jobs/affordable housing) that does need solving, but there isn't much money to be made in it.

derefr 13y ago
And because there isn't much money to be made in it, you really can't make it scale on the back of its own business-model. So there's really nothing a startup can do to help with these problems. However, I think there's a case to be made that startups can become an important part of solving these problems: they rake in money from wealthy sectors of the population, they're usually quite high-margin, and they are headed by small, smart, effective groups of people, who could make the decision to engage in Effective Altruism with their proceeds. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is doing more for the world's problems than any little start-up aiming to help people track their dogs' sleep-cycles--but it could have been started way earlier, when Microsoft was way smaller, and still be having just as much of an impact--if it had been the whole organization on-board, instead of just a private hobby of the founder. (Really, any company could join in on this at any point, but the more bureaucratic and self-sustaining the business culture has become--which usually happens proportionally to scale--the less likely it is to happen. Far easier to convince a few guys in their garage that this is their end-goal-after-the-end-goal, rather than to convince a company already making big money that they should reorganize their corporate vision to doing good.)
- qohen 13y ago
  And because there isn't much money to be made in it, you really can't make it scale on the back of its own business-model. So there's really nothing a startup can do to help with these problems. Well, there are outfits like YC's Watsi which, while small, are looking to make a difference. And just yesterday the guy behind this said he'd be sending his profits to Watsi: buy.startupnotes.org So perhaps there are ways of using the startup mindset to create outfits that can help with social problems. Just as a thought experiment, imagine a Watsi-esque startup that was an AirBnB for (rigorously screened) homeless people and/or families, i.e. trying to scale what this LA lawyer did (giving his house to a homeless family for a year): http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/lawyer-house-homeless-family-article-1.1232267 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/lawyer-house-homele...
iron_ball 13y ago
Edit: replaced snarky response with this. It's not just startups -- businesses tend to focus on earning money. I don't know if we can realistically expect private industry to take an interest in social or economic problems. At the lowest level, there are founders trying to choose a niche that gets them from debt to break-even as quickly as possible; at the highest level, you get into transnational corporations which act only in their own interest. I would be happy if Apple or Google were to dump their excess billions into social welfare or government reform, but it is vanishingly unlikely.
- boyaka 13y ago
  Free fiber networks for entire towns isn't social welfare?
  - Aloha 13y ago
    Not one that does any good when you don't have a house, or food in your belly.
- Aloha 13y ago
  Jobs are something we can focus on. Many companies choose to make marginally more profit by moving production to 'low cost markets' rather than manufacture here. I believe firmly if you make your product overseas it should cost some amount of money in duty to bring your product back to the United States, ideally about (or maybe more than) the difference in cost between what it would cost to make your product here and what it costs to make it there - is it an easy to implement solution? no. But its the right thing to do. That said, I believe that rising transport costs will eventually solve this problem for many types of goods, probably within the next 10-15 years or so.
  - knoepfle 13y ago
    Why do you prioritize giving work to Americans over those in developing nations?
    - 13y ago