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Cancer and Startups

chris-granger.com

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Re: Cancer and Startups

#11

Post by throwaway838205 »

(Longtime HN participant using a throwaway account.)

I'm half of a two-person startup. I have a wife and child, and my wife is chronically ill, so I end up doing a large share of the child care. And now one of my cofounder's parents has cancer. Given our family obligations and financial constraints, we both work absurdly hard to get everything done.

This is enough adversity to make anyone run the other way and bet on our failure (one reason I'm using a throwaway account). But I don't think it's that clear-cut at all.

I don't like it when people take the "adversity is an asset" argument too far, but in our case it has only steeled my resolve. Having constraints is helpful, up to a point. We deeply believe in our product, we know it materially improves people's lives.

Working more hours is not a scalable competitive advantage. We're going to succeed because we're smarter and have more guts.

Re: Cancer and Startups

#12

Post by rquantz »

guylhem wrote: post #8

> Isn't it my moral duty to do that? No, there is no absolute "moral duty" to anything or anyone. There is a thing called "guilt", that some people try to induce (moral manipulation), when you don't do the things they want you to do. You only duty is to do things that you think are right. > Could I have saved Kristie, or if not her, others like her? Saving her - quite unlikely, unless you manage to find a cure for th…

No, there is no absolute "moral duty" to anything or anyone.

That is a very limited understanding of morality.

There seems to be many people working on that.

Not enough.

I would say this is a battle you have

By this logic no one should ever work on really hard problems.

Re: Cancer and Startups

#13

Post by ef4 »

13b9f227ecf0 wrote: post #10

> my mother's partner was diagnosed What business is this mother in? An accountancy? Perhaps you meant to say spouse?

If you parse the pronouns carefully, you'll see that both the mother and the partner are female.

There are an awful lot of places where they legally cannot become spouses.

Re: Cancer and Startups

#14

Post by aclimatt »

ibdknox wrote: post #7
aclimatt wrote: post #6

I applaud your mission to try and improve lives, and I believe that every start-up should focus on just that. I would also like to give it a little perspective though. There is generally an inverse correlation between the effectiveness of solving a problem and the directness of the approach. If you would like to cure cancer, the most effective way is to cure cancer. The next most direct approach is to help the doctor…

I apologize if my post implies I believe we're out curing cancer - we're not and that was not my intent. If you point out to me where I've somehow stated that, I'll be happy to fix it. That being said, I'm not sure I agree with your argument. Both indirect and direct means are ultimately necessary for any serious change or innovation. By your logic, a microscope is just an item that lets you see things up close. Now…

Both direct and indirect tools are absolutely equally necessary, and my apologies if that sentiment did not come through -- I would never debate the usefulness or effectiveness of these tools, but instead their fitness for achieving a specific goal.

The parallel to curing cancer was mainly drawn from this paragraph:

I could've become a doctor. All signs pointed to me likely being a very good one. In doing so, I would have gone to work and done my best to save lives every day. In that context, how is some programming environment a greater contribution to the world? Truthfully, it wouldn't be if I just set out to build an IDE. But that's not what I did - Light Table is just a vehicle for the real goal. While an IDE probably won't directly save someone's life, the things people are able to build with it could do exactly that.

To your main point:

If a new "text editor" ends up providing us a much more efficient means of creating things like Watson, in what way is that not just as important as curing any one disease?

Absolutely. I'm not arguing its importance, I'm arguing its effectiveness at achieving a mission, which I interpreted as curing cancer / saving lives. If you "increase everything by 1%", that is fantastic! And it has furthered many different missions 1% closer to their goals. This is very much important and necessary to the advancement of society, but its mission specifically should be put into context.

A microscope is a fundamental tool to help scientists do their best work. Thus, a person setting out to build one, in my opinion, has the opportunity to profoundly impact science's understanding of the human body and the world we live in. This understanding, further, can help scientists achieve their missions of curing disease, et cetera. But while the microscope plays a very important role in science, I believe it is unfair to the scientists for the microscope maker to believe that he is accomplishing his mission of curing disease by inventing one. Rather, he should be achieving his mission of helping our understanding of science, and/or furthering the missions of his users.

Re: Cancer and Startups

#16

Post by netnichols »

13b9f227ecf0 wrote: post #10

> my mother's partner was diagnosed What business is this mother in? An accountancy? Perhaps you meant to say spouse?

Your definition of "partner" is very limited. You might want look at some other definitions before making potentially offensive statements like that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partner

In this case, the mother's partner is another woman, implying that the woman is in a lesbian relationship. So your joke about 'meant to say spouse' could be quite hurtful if they would actually like to be married but can't because of current marriage laws.

Not to mention that your comment simply sounds ignorant and/or homophobic. Just thought I'd clue you in to why you're getting downvoted, in case it wasn't obvious.

Re: Cancer and Startups

#17

Post by DanBC »

13b9f227ecf0 wrote: post #10

> my mother's partner was diagnosed What business is this mother in? An accountancy? Perhaps you meant to say spouse?

"Partner" is acceptable english usage for "significant other".

There are plenty of occasions when one parent of a child may be with, but not married to, someone who is not the parent of the child.

Re: Cancer and Startups

#19

Post by ef4 »

Always remember that no amount of specialist skill by itself gets things done. Healthcare, and everything else, depends on the vast capital structure of our global economy.

If you sent a great doctor back in time to the 15th century, she could do somewhat better than the locals (hand-washing helps a lot). But she would come nowhere near her capabilities when backed by a modern economy.

If you can make one little piece of the economy 50% more efficient, you're freeing up capital for the next highest use. In this sense, it doesn't matter that you're not directly contributing to the next cure. You're helping create a wealthier world, and a wealthier world can afford more cures.

Medicine depends on myriad materials and technologies that are affordable precisely because they're widely used in many other applications. If microprocessors were only used in IV pumps and pacemakers, they would be impractically expensive.

Even something as seemingly superficial as consumer mobile electronics is having major impact on medicine right now.

Re: Cancer and Startups

#20

Post by zackmorris »

aclimatt wrote: post #6

I applaud your mission to try and improve lives, and I believe that every start-up should focus on just that. I would also like to give it a little perspective though. There is generally an inverse correlation between the effectiveness of solving a problem and the directness of the approach. If you would like to cure cancer, the most effective way is to cure cancer. The next most direct approach is to help the doctor…

I don't know why the parent comment got down voted (other than being a bit harsh). I agree that too little is being done to cure cancer directly. Unfortunately, I see two main causes for this:

* Too many successful people (especially founders) end up having an "I've got mine" mentality. They take the money and run instead of seeing their wealth as a grant from society, in other words a kind of debt that they should pay back by applying their skills to really helping others.

* Everyone is in denial about aging and illness. So the real causes of cancer - alcohol and tobacco, too little regulation in food, pollution, and the real kicker: the inequality that causes the social ills that amplify these problems - are not being attacked by the population at large. To me, the sense that we are powerless as individuals to do something about disease is an indictment of capitalism at large.

I think the worst sin, as far as the golden rule goes, is to reach a position of privilege and power and do nothing to change the system that got you there. By that measure, the vast majority of people of influence are failing. I never see myself having a net worth of more than perhaps a few hundred thousand dollars (enough for a home and family), because I know in my heart that society has done more for me than I can every hope to pay back. So I plan to be rolling any wealth I acquire into disruptive technologies and giving grants to people who have a shot at really making life better instead of distracting us.

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