"Make something people want." - is on Y-combinator t-shirts. It is not about class, it is about solving a want or a need in a sustainable way.
"Make something people with money want." /FTFY
The Unexotic Underclass
31–40 of 309 posts
Re: The Unexotic Underclass
#32Here is the basic problem. When you build a product for savvy people, your interests are aligned. Savvy people will only pay you money when you build a good product. Thus, the only way you can make money is by actually doing good, by creating a product useful to other people. This is the happy coincidence that draws so many to entrepreneurship - we get to build things, create value, and get paid $$$. When you build a…
It's not that it's easier to make money scamming poor people. It's just easier to make money scamming people period. Rich people and poor people tend to fall for the exact same scams. The Vast majority of VC's are really running get quick scams to separate people / institutions with money from it. And if you dig into it so is much of the banking sector. EX: Morgage backed security's are really AAA. See savings and lo…
Budweiser is swill that passes for beer in the USA, because it is cheaper than what most of the world recognizes as beer -- until savvy people made microbrews popular in USA, and they are not in grocery stores.
Re: The Unexotic Underclass
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They are mired in red tape and ignorance. So was provision of taxis
That flippancy cuts both ways. The solution to the western diet is right there around the edges of the supermarket, and probably most people by now realize it's there, but they keep buying the flavor-enhanced processed grains because they taste good and are addicting. There is no red tape from people solving this problem for themselves, and that problem (#4 from pi) is about 10000 times greater than whatever problems…
But how do people know to go to the edge of the supermarket when the government has been telling them, and schools have been teaching them go to the middle? This is the food pyramid the government was pushing from 1992-2005. You should have 6-11 servings of bread, rice, pasta, and cereal a day! It was red tape and ignorance that pushed people to the middle of the market.
Re: The Unexotic Underclass
#34Maybe I lack vision - but I don't see how any of the problems of the white collar and working poor can be solved by Silicon Valley. It would be impossible for a startup to work with the government in processing Veterns claims, for example. The regulations barriers are immense and the security and compliance problems are legion. Similarly, how are startups supposed to improve the earning potentials of the working poor…
> It would be impossible for a startup to work with the government in processing Veterns claims, for example.
This is changing" http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/08/11...
> MOOCs? Don't make me laugh. Most of these people wouldn't want to take one, they are not interested in an Education. They can barely fit in their current paycheck to paycheck lifestyle into their current schedule.
That's an obnoxious and senseless statement. A MOOC is (1) lower cost, and (b) more flexible than existing *very popular education programs (ITT, DeVry...), solving the two problems you called out.
Re: The Unexotic Underclass
#35I like parts of this article more than others. For example, while I share a certain sense of frustration that SV seems to spend a disproportionate amount of resources on mobifotosocialgames, smartphones and their downmarket progeny are an enormous quality-of-life improvement for broader America. There's virtually nothing a cash-poor-responsibility-rich person needs to do that having a smartphone does not make them be…
Agreed. VC's fund companies that target markets that can be served by VC-fundable companies. And most young entrepreneurs from top schools hear that it's easiest to Get Rich Quick by founding a VC-funded company.
But those aren't the only kinds of companies worth building, and "young entrepreneurs from top schools" aren't the only people who can build good companies. We shouldn't look to them (err, ourselves) as "humanity's only saviors". Which I think this article makes the mistake of doing.
A similar problem that I have with this piece is an over-reliance on entrepreneurs - that is, the free market - to solve the problems of "the unexotic underclass". The free market will solve the problems of people (and businesses) who have discretionary income. That's how capitalism works. Capitalism also has a lot of inequality baked-in. He shouldn't be surprised that difficult-to-serve, low-income individuals are failed in America.
Keep in mind, too, that the other part of "discretionary income" is "discretionary". Schools, Hospitals, Government Agencies like the VA? They typically have terrible purchase processes (and generally poor management) that make it almost impossible for entrepreneurs to sell to them. I recently folded an Education Technology company because schools are so difficult to sell to and have so little money. Don't blame the entrepreneurs here; blame a government which over-regulates and under-funds schools, the VA, and other services. (And then vote to make a better one!!)
All that being said, I do agree that there are opportunities for entrepreneurs in these markets. They may be hard to find, but we're not going to do it by holing up in Tech/Wealth bubbles like SF and NYC. Spending some time in the heartland may be a great way to find those rare business models that could profitably serve the underserved.
Re: The Unexotic Underclass
#36I'm not really understanding the author's position. He seems to think the point of business is to solve problems rather than turn a profit. There are no end of problems to solve in the world, but only a very few of them are profitably solved. You can't keep going without profit. If you want to solve a social problem, you need the tools of social policy, which can bring enough resources to bear that you can afford to ignore profit.
Re: The Unexotic Underclass
#37Here is the basic problem. When you build a product for savvy people, your interests are aligned. Savvy people will only pay you money when you build a good product. Thus, the only way you can make money is by actually doing good, by creating a product useful to other people. This is the happy coincidence that draws so many to entrepreneurship - we get to build things, create value, and get paid $$$. When you build a…
Your assume that poor people are poor because they lack the savvy to be born into the upper middle class. That's a common misconception. Poor people are actually poor because they don't have any money. The easiest way to make money is not by tricking the poor, but by tricking the rich (they're the ones who have most of it, after all). Unfortunately, that same money allows even the dumbest rich people to aggressively…
> no one gives fuck all about the poor.
That's blatantly untrue. People care. Ask yourself; how many of your friends "don't give fuck all about the poor"? I find it hard to believe that a majority of people would not wish a better life on poor people.
But solving their problems is intimidating, difficult, and probably unprofitable. If the true problem is that poor people are poor because they don't have any money, the obvious solution is to give them money (eg; EITC, UBI, free healthcare, free education etc). If all people have money -- and if you're correct that savviness doesn't really play into it -- all people will have companies trying to solve their problems.
I think Silicon Valley needs to wake up to the fact that some problems aren't best solved through technology, or through "people caring", but simply through better governance.
Re: The Unexotic Underclass
#38fta: But there’s only so much Washington can do to help out, what with government penniless and gridlocked, and its elected officials occupying a caste of selfishness, cowardice and spite, heretofore unseen in American politics. This is pure both-sides-do-it bullshit. In reality, one side recently passed an amazing transformation of health care to attempt to pull the united states -- still the world's richest large c…
This is good post. I suppose you're prepared for downvotes? ;-)
>Somehow Europe, Canada, Japan, etc, all make health care work but we can't.
The thing is, that's mostly accurate. Those places all have governments that still occasionally get out of bed in the morning and serve the interests of their citizens. America does not. Now, the reason it doesn't in the first place, is mostly due to the actions of the same sort of assholes who would oppose universal healthcare on ideological grounds. So it's rather chicken/egg to be sure, but the fact remains. As P.J. O'Rourke wrote in one of his more self-aware moments (when he was younger, basically), "Republicans insist that government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it".
So on the one hand, universal health care is a good thing and Americans should have it. On the other hand, the US government is, at best, barely capable of pulling it off. You praise the ACA, but surely you realize what a piece of shit program it implements? Compared to, as above, Europe, Canada, Japan, et al? It's better than the regime that came before it, probably, but only just barely. It does little to address spiraling costs, for example, which is an enormous problem.
If it's a first step, great. Time will tell.
Re: The Unexotic Underclass
#39What people fail to realize is that Facebook/Google/Twitter/ are solving the greatest business problem that exists - how to create a customer.
Peter Drucker:
There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.
It is the customer who determines what a business is. For it is the customer, and he alone, who through being willing to pay for a good or for a service, converts economic resources into wealth, things into goods. What the business thinks it produces is not of first importance—especially not to the future of the business and to its success. What the customer thinks he is buying, what he considers “value,” is decisive—it determines what a business is, what it produces and whether it will prosper.
The customer is the foundation of a business and keeps it in existence. He alone gives employment. And it is to supply the consumer that society entrusts wealth-producing resources to the business enterprise.
Because it is its purpose to create a customer, any business enterprise has two—and only these two—basic functions: marketing and innovation. They are the entrepreneurial functions.
Re: The Unexotic Underclass
#40Let's take a look at the real problems facing America and the rest of the developed world: 1. Mismanaged IT in critical infrastructure. 2. Misallocated funds in programs helping the destitute. 3. Cyclical loops of depression-lack of opportunity-lack of skill building. 4. Health disorders on a massive scale, like metabolic disorder, that can be solved with very simple things like diet and exercise. These places are no…
> Show me the path to get people off of sugar diets.
I think we'll start seeing a difference when the economics improve making it a lot cheaper than fast food.