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Boston Dynamics. Their robot overlords may one day replace us thus neatly solving most of our problems.
Footnote: I’m not this critical of the gig economy, just couldn’t resist the opportunity for some gallows humor. :)
> Are there any well funded tech startups / companies tackling major societal problems? Why would you look to tech companies to do this? Isn't this what charities do?
isn't this what governments ought to exist to do? "promote the General Welfare" is within the first 30 words of the Preamble.
Even so - if you can solve these problems and make good money while doing so, why wouldn’t you want to?
I don't know that I would use Telsa as an example. Sure, they are replacing fossil fuels with renewables, but I see this as trading one dirty commodity for another. Lithium mining is environmentally damaging and the impact will likely get worse as demand increases. So maybe a step in the right direction, but definitely not a true solution.
Steps in the right direction are all we can ever take.
Asteroid mining might be a bit of a solution to this resource extraction problem, but not really.
Is tech the right tool to attempt solving societal problems?
If Tesla's goal was to have an impact on climate change they should allow other car companies to purchase their batteries and motors to build from. Or actually build an economical car, sub $25k, no self-driving or fancy features, no performance mode, etc. Just a working, fully electric car that any working-class person could buy, globally. That would have much more impact than building luxury electric vehicles.
> Are there any well funded tech startups / companies tackling major societal problems? Why would you look to tech companies to do this? Isn't this what charities do?
isn't this what governments ought to exist to do? "promote the General Welfare" is within the first 30 words of the Preamble.
In particular, Otherlab companies: https://www.otherlab.com/
https://puri.sm/about/manufacturing-and-sourcing/
Not sure if you consider them "well funded" though.
Say you worked in a software development organization that was dysfunctional, shipped updates 3-4 times a year and had lots of infighting/political battles between teams. A vendor came by talking about a new development process with a cool tool touting amazing features - do you think buying into this process plus tool is going to solve your organizational problems? Is tech the right tool to attempt solving societal p…
So, why doesn't Tesla build that cheaper, smaller, lower-range car? It's probably because the profits in it are much smaller, and they need profits to justify their insane valuation. Every quarterly report on TSLA is sliced apart by thousands of analysts, is it in their best interest to make less profit and do slightly more good by electrifying slightly more miles? What if they went bankrupt or lost on a bunch of funding due to this strategy, and then BEVs would be set back a decade?
I'd buy the modest car myself, yes, but I don't think that it's the most financially sound way to proceed...their strategy of starting at the high-end, low-volume side seems to have worked well, so that's what they're sticking with. FWIW, I think the Model 3 is already even on costs with the plurality of new vehicle purchases in America, which with options often range from 30-50k depending on the make.
Do a web search for the term "impact investment". You will find some information on what you are looking for.