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Solving All the Wrong Problems

nytimes.com

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Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#71

Post by ixtli »

mzw_mzw wrote: post #39
ixtli wrote: post #13

I believe the salient point that "the goal is basically to provide for themselves everything that their mothers no longer do" is a direct effect of lack of diversity in our field. Homogenous, largely white, largely male, largely safe people are not going to detect the problems the author appears to be implying are going untreated.

Please don't use racist language on HN.

Sorry, I'm unclear how what I said was racist :/

Edit: To be clear I used those examples because they are the majority in America (which I should have been more clear about) in an effort to point out that the majority often does not pay as close attention to the problems that arise from being in a minority.

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#72

Post by davidivadavid »

This old saw gets trotted out every other day without fail.

Look, it's simple.

The "right" problems tend to be hard problems, otherwise they wouldn't be problems anymore.

Hard problems are hard to solve not because they require a lot of focus, otherwise spending more money on solving cancer would have solved the problem a long time ago.

Hard problems are hard to solve because the solutions are not obvious, and they require serendipity. Quote from Matt Ridley:

"Gutenberg made printed books cheap, which triggered a rise in literacy, which created a market for spectacles, which led to the invention of microscopes and telescopes, which led to the discovery that the earth went round the sun."

If the path to the solution to those problems was obvious, yeah, it would make sense to criticize "superfluous" stuff.

Until then, find more interesting subjects for your op-eds.

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#73

Post by nickpsecurity »

dasil003 wrote: post #50

None of this is going to change unless capital miraculously grows a conscience. As an entrepreneur seeking funding you can't afford to solve problems for the poor because there's no way to raise money for that, and there's certainly not a lot of disposable income available to bootstrap from. The problem with this type of article is that it conflates all the struggling little startups with the unicorns who are actuall…

" As an entrepreneur seeking funding you can't afford to solve problems for the poor because there's no way to raise money for that, and there's certainly not a lot of disposable income available to bootstrap from."

You could and there is. The poor still have disposable income they spend on same kinds of things as the middle class. They just collectively buy less of it. Gadgets, apps (esp mobile but also desktop), tax preparation, car work, house-hold appliances... quite a lot of startup potentials. The thing is the product/service has to have marketing or options for that demographic, it has to be good (esp convenient), and has to be affordable. Affordable, not cheap, as they buy both. ;)

That there's products that form in these spaces for the poor show me people are willing to do it and they make money. There's just rarely Silicon Valley startups targeting it. Also rarely best and brightest in general targeting it. Often average bootstrappers or startups putting together whatever they can once they know a problem exists. Sometimes it's an existing company doing a profitable side-project like one, tax service that cost about $25 a year but was owned by a solar company (?!). In that case, software worked like what H&R block people use but simpler with many, local users. SV could've easily made that.

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#74

Post by unlearn_login »

muzster wrote: post #27

In case there is just one person in this world who desperately needs any one of the said apps.. you can thank me later. A service that sends someone to fill your car with gas. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-02/gas-delive... A service that sends a valet on a scooter to you, wherever you are, to park your car. http://luxe.com/ A service that will film anything you desire with a drone. http://thenextweb.…

> An app that guides mindful meditation.

Maybe https://www.headspace.com/

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#75

Post by nickpsecurity »

jdoliner wrote: post #69
dasil003 wrote: post #50

None of this is going to change unless capital miraculously grows a conscience. As an entrepreneur seeking funding you can't afford to solve problems for the poor because there's no way to raise money for that, and there's certainly not a lot of disposable income available to bootstrap from. The problem with this type of article is that it conflates all the struggling little startups with the unicorns who are actuall…

There are plenty of companies who raise money to solve problems for the poor. Although if you want to be cynical you could dismiss it as them just trying to make money off the poor, they are businesses after all. Lendup is a good example of this, their goal is to provide loans to poor people that are better than pay day loans. Pretty impactful stuff if you ask me, but it doesn't seem to count in this article or in yo…

I counterpointed this comment, too, but you might be going too far here:

"The article would much rather focus on an incredibly narrow band of startups that are easy to poke fun at and prove the point."

The article does narrow it a bit but it's overall claim appears to be true. Most startups seem to target either frivilous stuff, stuff useful for businesses, or stuff appealing to middle class and up. That's almost everything I see here and with other sites. That poor are a smaller, troublesome market might be decent reason for many to focus on another segment. It seems that they do from what sample of startups I've seen.

I don't have hard data on the subject, though. I'm not sure how I'd even measure it outside maybe a survey of various startups' demographics of customers tracking what percent sell significantly to the poor. Success might be that hitting a certain percentage or going up over time.

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#76

Post by canadaduane »

tijs wrote: post #61
im_down_w_otp wrote: post #5

> "As one colleague in tech explained it to me recently, for most people working on such projects, the goal is basically to provide for themselves everything that their mothers no longer do." Ha! I've used the exact same characterization. Anyway, this seems entirely predictable given a couple different considerations. 1) People are most apt to effectively solve problems for which they have some context. 2) People who…

I think 2 is a common misconception. People who might not have much money to spend on luxury services as described in the article will most likely still pay for something that truly solves a problem. Actually solving a problem will always be worth more than scratching an itch. Taking the 'underserved' seriously as potential customers is worth a strategy meeting at a lot of startups I'd say.

At the bottom, where need is greatest, they may be underserved because they have so little money. I'd love to see the entrepreneurship engine better incented to search for solutions in such a space. I see universal basic income as a worthy pursuit for this reason (among others)--universally distributing an incentive to solve the problems of the bottom 20% would work wonders.

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#77

Post by nickpsecurity »

jdoliner wrote: post #40

I find articles like this pretty frustrating. There's tons of companies in Silicon Valley that are trying to do audacious things that people's mothers never did for them. They don't get much press coverage and that's fine, media outlets are businesses too so they need to write about companies that their readership wants to read about. But the fact that they then turn around and complain about the fact that all the co…

One might say Uber and Airbnb, among most hyped, were counter-examples where poor travelers or workers got more benefit than they otherwise would in those sectors. I haven't priced these in a while so these examples might be good or bad. I just know there's supply and demand side opportunities here for lower classes.

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#78

Post by Apocryphon »

enjo wrote: post #58

sighs Another one of these articles. The whole article is a fantastic example of the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. It finds a bunch of ideas that fit the authors thesis and ignores the thousands of companies working on hard problems that impact nearly everybody. Even the examples in the article are sharpshooters. They drew a circle around a set of people and held them out as support for the idea that tech startups are…

Good links. It'd be nice if someone composed a list somewhere of all startups that are working on social problems. It'd make for a good counterpoint to these articles- and a good resource for job applicants.

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#79

Post by [deleted] »

mzw_mzw wrote: post #39
ixtli wrote: post #13

I believe the salient point that "the goal is basically to provide for themselves everything that their mothers no longer do" is a direct effect of lack of diversity in our field. Homogenous, largely white, largely male, largely safe people are not going to detect the problems the author appears to be implying are going untreated.

Please don't use racist language on HN.

[deleted]

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#80

Post by Chinjut »

gk1 wrote: post #48
jdoliner wrote: post #40

I find articles like this pretty frustrating. There's tons of companies in Silicon Valley that are trying to do audacious things that people's mothers never did for them. They don't get much press coverage and that's fine, media outlets are businesses too so they need to write about companies that their readership wants to read about. But the fact that they then turn around and complain about the fact that all the co…

I fail to see a single original thought in this article. This same article could have been written 10, 20, 100 years ago, about the stupid ideas from those times. There is no shortage of stupid ideas and there never has been. (If you think those periods didn't have as many stupid ideas, it's only because of survivor bias.)

Perhaps 10, 20, and 100 years ago, it was also a tragedy that so much effort was directed toward the minor desires of the reasonably well-off and so comparatively little into addressing the needs of those with little disposable income.
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