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Ask HN: Any well funded tech companies tackling big, meaningful problems?

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Re: Ask HN: Any well funded tech companies tackling big, meaningful problems?

#61
You can make an impact by solving important local and global problems by investing your time, career, and savings; by listing and comparing solutions.

As a labor market participant, you can choose to work for places that have an organizational mission that strategically aligns with local, domestic, and international objectives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_alignment ... "Schema.org: Mission, Project, Goal, Objective, Task" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12525141

As an investor, you can choose to invest in organizations that are making the sort of impact you're looking for: you can impact invest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_investing

You mentioned "List of global issues"; which didn't yet have a link to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (the #GlobalGoals). I just added this to the linked article:

> As part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the UN Millenium Development Goals (2000-2015) were superseded by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (2016-2030), which are also known as The Global Goals. There are associated Targets and Indicators for each Global Goal.

There are 17 Global Goals.

Sustainability reporting standards can align with the Sustainable Development Goals. For example, the GRI standards are now aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goals

Investors, fund managers, and potential employees can identify companies which are making an impact by reviewing corporate sustainability and ESG reports.

From https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-develo... :

> SDG Target 12.6: "Encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle"

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21302926 :

> > What are some of the corporate sustainability reporting standards?

> > From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability_reporting#Initi... :

> >> Organizations can improve their sustainability performance by measuring (EthicalQuote (CEQ)), monitoring and reporting on it, helping them have a positive impact on society, the economy, and a sustainable future. The key drivers for the quality of sustainability reports are the guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI),[3] (ACCA) award schemes or rankings. The GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines enable all organizations worldwide to assess their sustainability performance and disclose the results in a similar way to financial reporting.[4] The largest database of corporate sustainability reports can be found on the website of the United Nations Global Compact initiative.

> >The GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) Standards are now aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (#GlobalGoals). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Reporting_Initiative

> >> In 2017, 63 percent of the largest 100 companies (N100), and 75 percent of the Global Fortune 250 (G250) reported applying the GRI reporting framework.[3]

What are some good ways to search for companies who (1) do sustainability reports, (2) engage in strategic alignment in corporate planning sessions, (3) make sustainability a front-and-center issue in their company's internal and external communications?

What are some examples of companies who have a focus on sustainability and/or who have developed a nonprofit organization for philanthropic missions which are sometimes best accounted for as a distinct organization or a business unit (which can accept and offer receipts for donations as a non-profit)?

How can an employee drive change in a small or a large company? Identify opportunities to deliver value and goodwill. Read through the Global Goals, Targets, and Indicators; and get into the habit of writing down problems and solutions.

3 pillars of [Corporate] Sustainability: (Environment (Society (Economy))). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability#Three_dimension...

Re: Ask HN: Any well funded tech companies tackling big, meaningful problems?

#62

You can make an impact by solving important local and global problems by investing your time, career, and savings; by listing and comparing solutions. As a labor market participant, you can choose to work for places that have an organizational mission that strategically aligns with local, domestic, and international objectives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_alignment ... "Schema.org: Mission, Project, Goal,…

"Launch HN: Charityvest (YC S20) – Employee charitable funds and gift matching" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23907902 :

> We created a modern, simple, and affordable way for companies to include charitable giving in their suite of employee benefits.

> We give employees their own tax-deductible charitable giving fund, like an “HSA for Charity.” They can make contributions into their fund and, from their fund, support any of the 1.4M charities in the US, all on one tax receipt.

> Using the funds, we enable companies to operate gift matching programs that run on autopilot. Each donation to a charity from an employee is matched automatically by the company in our system.

> A company can set up a matching gift program and launch giving funds to employees in about 10 minutes of work.

Re: Ask HN: Any well funded tech companies tackling big, meaningful problems?

#63

You can make an impact by solving important local and global problems by investing your time, career, and savings; by listing and comparing solutions. As a labor market participant, you can choose to work for places that have an organizational mission that strategically aligns with local, domestic, and international objectives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_alignment ... "Schema.org: Mission, Project, Goal,…

"Salesforce Sustainability Cloud Becomes Generally Available" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22068522 :

> Are there similar services for Sustainability Reporting and accountability?

Re: Ask HN: Any well funded tech companies tackling big, meaningful problems?

#64
post #30

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…

> 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. They have and they did. [1] You have it backwards. The other car companies have chosen not to purchase batteries and motors from Tesla anymore. Tesla wanted to be a spark. They thought, worst-case scenario: other car companies will come and dominate, and we'll be positi…

The OP asked if there are startups "tackling major societal problems". Tackling to me means that is the number one goal - tackling the actual problem, not a by-product.

Tesla makes luxury cars which is 5% of all car sales (Model 3 included, it starts at $38k). Tesla is 5th in market share for luxury cars in 2019 at 9.78% [0]. That means of all car sales in 2019, Tesla accounted for 0.5%. I'm not bashing Tesla, they make cool products (except that truck concept, that looks like ass), these are just the stats.

I understand their eventual goal is to have previous products help reduce cost for future ones but the impact on reducing CO2 levels by Tesla cars alone is probably not much at this point.

It would be like a new airplane manufacturer starts up and says they want to address the world's transition to sustainable energy and they are going to start with the Learjet/executive flyer market first. I wouldn't say that company is "tackling a major societal problem" I would say they're building a boutique business that as a by-product reduces CO2.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/287620/luxury-vehicles-u...

Re: Ask HN: Any well funded tech companies tackling big, meaningful problems?

#65
post #32

At CIONIC, we're tackling how to overcome disability through precision bionics. Whether a diagnosis at birth (Cerebral Palsy, Spina Bifida) or an acquired disease or impairment (Parkinson's, issues resulting from a stroke), we're engineering sleek, wearable solutions that will provide comprehensive analysis and precise augmentation to enhance human performance, restore physical function and increase independence. Che…

This looks cool. Why do you think this hasn’t been done before?

Re: Ask HN: Any well funded tech companies tackling big, meaningful problems?

#67
post #41
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is actually a good example assuming that you believe that lithium mining is better than coal mining or at least an equivalent problem. Tesla's utility-level batteries (MegaPack) make wind and solar projects more economically feasible since any excess wind can be stored instead of being sold at negative rates when its not being used. These batteries will allow the replacement of many coal-powered generator plant…

I can agree that the view of whether something is helping or not could be subjective. That's not necessarily true about the infrastructure. The estimate I saw said if all the gas cars were replaced with electric ones then the infrastructure would have to double or triple depending on how much off-grid equipment is adopted. I know my house would need an upgraded connection to handle a 50amp charger. I'd probably need…

I was actually thinking about the long-distance transmission lines, but that's a good point about potentially needing to upgrade local lines. As a non-EV owner, I can't discuss much but I was under the impression that you could just plug in to a normal wall socket for a slow charge. I suspect that you're referring to the Level 2 quick charging station. If that's the case, that would certainly impact you depending on how old your house is and whether you're running your own solar panels

FYI, if you have a source, I'd be interested in reading about it.

Re: Ask HN: Any well funded tech companies tackling big, meaningful problems?

#69
Lol, most suggested here are garbage. Childish 'solutions' designed to just suck money from people pretending to help.

Elons stuff is all amazing. Starlink looks world changing.

Grab I also think is an amazing one. But it bought out a lot of smaller companies. So you can argue who made the biggest change, I haven't tracked down the evolution. But I think it'll be acknowledged for what it did at some point as world changing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grab_(company)

Re: Ask HN: Any well funded tech companies tackling big, meaningful problems?

#70
post #26
post #4

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.

Tesla is actually a good example assuming that you believe that lithium mining is better than coal mining or at least an equivalent problem. Tesla's utility-level batteries (MegaPack) make wind and solar projects more economically feasible since any excess wind can be stored instead of being sold at negative rates when its not being used. These batteries will allow the replacement of many coal-powered generator plant…

It isn't a matter of belief - lithium mining hardly qualifies as mining environmentally compared to other methods including oil wells and ore mining of various methods. There is a lot of misinformation and FUD involving Lithium Mining.

It involves brine pools in salt plains. Water usage is the only real concern. Not to be ignored but it won't leave any superfund sites, cancer hotspots, turn rivers dead but colorful with tailings, or oil spills.

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