In the 2020s most old generation people are retiring and not only the replacement generations smaller but there is gap in generational knowledge transfer. What do you think is important tech out there in which are we are losing our collective knowledge and hard won wisdom?
Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?
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Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?
#2This may not be the type of answer you're looking for but near me insurance companies (AmFam, Sentry, etc) pay extremely well for the area and pay big money to purchase startups
Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?
#3This may not be the type of answer you're looking for but near me insurance companies (AmFam, Sentry, etc) pay extremely well for the area and pay big money to purchase startups
What kinds of acquisitions? Like what product categories from your knowledge?
Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?
#4This may not be the type of answer you're looking for but near me insurance companies (AmFam, Sentry, etc) pay extremely well for the area and pay big money to purchase startups
The problem I've found in this space is the data.
I and my colleagues have done consulting work for several insurance companies. I'd love to develop some sick claim processing/auditing software or data management solution for insurance, but it's next to impossible to get visibility into the data they're processing and where the improvement opportunities lie without working there or having an in.
Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?
#5This may not be the type of answer you're looking for but near me insurance companies (AmFam, Sentry, etc) pay extremely well for the area and pay big money to purchase startups
The problem I've found in this space is the data. I and my colleagues have done consulting work for several insurance companies. I'd love to develop some sick claim processing/auditing software or data management solution for insurance, but it's next to impossible to get visibility into the data they're processing and where the improvement opportunities lie without working there or having an in.
I'm guessing the cycle is; work at an insurance company, figure out a solution to their problem, ask your boss if you can work on that solution, be told no, quit and start a startup to do it, sell it to that company, get bought by that company.
This sounds complicated but remember that there is little downside risk for the insurance company that buys you. If you don't make a good product, then you or your investors are out the cash, and they are out $0. This is probably 99% of cases. If you do make a good product, then they can just buy it later when the $ is worth less! (There is also a risk that a competitor buys you, I guess.)
Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?
#6My thoughts exactly. Knowledge transfer in manufacturing / industrial environments is something that I'm working on.
- Language models / NLP applications for processing large amount of technical text data (SOP, documentation, technical data, machine text logs, voice to text, video data processing for speeding up corrective action, training, onboarding and highlighting areas of improvement / bottlenecks), digitising documents and extracting failure reasons / equipment names / spare parts / processes involved and making associations between them for pareto analysis, better search or process improvement recommendations
- Recommending the next steps to fix something / remote intervention / do something etc. Lowering the expertise threshold required for technicians, electricians, mechanics or reliability engineers to be effective.
- Enabling operators to become data scientists by enabling to train AI models via their day to day activities / analysis. Building better UX in general and providing simple tools that even a toddler could use.
- Autonomous factory use-cases / supply chain automation.
Would love to discuss with people who find these things exciting
Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?
#7Machining.
No child left without a 5-axis milling machine!
Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?
#8(Civil) Nuclear technology.
Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?
#9Machining. No child left without a 5-axis milling machine!
Titan's of CNC and Haas both have great youtube channels addressing training because of exactly this.
Re: Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?
#10The ability for a single person to create a technology, digital or otherwise.