201–210 of 407 posts
> what comes after programming languages Isn't this like asking what comes after spoken language? Arguably the answer is nothing because language is what structured thought is.
It's a fantastic list; I'd like to comment on how some of the problems are already solved (outside the U.S.) or not cast properly. > Healthcare in the United States is badly broken. We are getting close to spending 20% of our GDP on healthcare; this is unsustainable. That's mostly a policy problem, not a technology problem. Countries with single-payer healthcare spend massively less on it per % of GDP than the United…
I also thought the Financial Services section was rather tame and un-disruptive. The problem is not that it's hard to find good ways to save and invest, although that is a true statement. The problem, at least for most people in the US, is that besides Social Security, "personal saving and investing" is currently the only available way to secure one's future/retirement. An additional, related problem is that the only…
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The bigger question may be why do we even still have "textbooks," at least in their traditional form? Are textbooks the optimal way to learn given all the technology we have today? I'm sure there are quite a few start-ups working on this problem.
Khan Academy comes to mind.
Would somebody please disrupt the textbook publishing industry? http://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Applications-Susa... $264.39, for students that work part time jobs at $7.00 an hour (before taxes). Not only students are angry about this. Professors are angry, and authors are angry too. Bitter fights between professors and publishers are common. Everybody wants to see the big players in this industry fail .…
This only works because there's a captive audience, and the publisher knows that they can get away with charging anything since the students feel they have no other choice but to buy a copy. Far more specialized textbooks with far smaller audiences are routinely available for much cheaper (e.g. http://amzn.to/1ByBDLG ). The right place to target reform would be professors. They should take a stand to write and use on…
Actors are now being hired based on the amount of followers they have on twitter. If you have a lot of worldwide followers you're guaranteed to be casted since that's where all the money is these days.
>Government
The problem with this is dealing with government technocrats who will never deploy your software as is and will demand all sorts of complexity, basically creating the same garbage they were using before. If you can somehow survive this insanity there are gigantic contracts up for bid, for example many post offices are using Microsoft Mobile devices and looking into some kind of wearable scanner that doesn't charge hefty MS licensing fees. Then there's the Integrated Case Management software contract for $182 million that still doesn't work http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/government+million+co...
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IPOs are sales problems, which require high touch interaction and networking. They are also dangerous to get wrong which is why companies pay high fees to do them. Remember too that Google got burnt by trying to avoid the sales process entirely.
No, think beyond how they are now. For a start it is a high risk event because it is a big event, mainly because of the sales, it could be sold gradually. Also more data would mean that valuation was easier.
As for data, it isn't something that has been lacking. Moreover, IPOs aren't priced according to valuation (though sometimes bankers reverse engineer a valuation to satisfy a price).
> We want to fund companies that have the potential to create a million jobs. I still am curious about this one. Is there any startup that has successfully done this in recent history? Keep in mind, there is a big difference (IMO) between creating new jobs and shifting existing ones.
For example, all the rideshare companies are creating jobs, but if they're working longer and longer for less pay like the drivers are claiming, then I don't know if that's a good thing. Homejoy and Handybook etc. take a big cut from what I can tell, to the point that I'm considering just getting a cleaning company/individual directly instead of going through the convenient middleman. Alfred, the latest Disrupt winner, is just like huh? How is that supposed to pay more than minimum wage? Plus everyone loves the contracting workaround, which tends to benefit companies more than the contractor. Even the one company I can think of that doesn't seem to be too bad - Instacart - contracts as far as I can tell.
My side biz is owning a burger shop and I'm trying to pay more than minimum wage and giving out overtime to share what little wealth I have - and it makes me really happy when I see my employees happy and buying new iPhones and MacBook Airs. Would be nice if others followed suit. Not just a startup problem either... it's a potentially huge reason as to why Americans don't have disposable income any more. :/
>Specifically, lightweight, short-distance personal transportation is something we’re interested in. Doesn't this already exist, in the form of the bicycle?
Yes, this one was licked in 1885. The problem is not something amenable to a startup company. It's a huge entrenched cultural preference for terribly inefficient vehicles and development patterns that go with them. Bicycles are not an 80/20 solution, they're a 99% solution, with the appropriate kind of bicycle and accessories. You can haul all kinds of crap - construction equipment, children, appliances, etc. - with…
I really really hate cars, but I can see why people prefer them.
An important trend is the API-ification of everything. As more and more businesses are accessible with a web API, the Internet becomes more and more powerful. I'd like to invite people to try the early release of Empire API, which is one API for every enterprise SaaS: http://empiredata.co Empire is an API for accessing enterprise SaaS services such as Salesforce, Zendesk, Google Apps, etc. It provides a uniform, data…