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What should you build?

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Re: What should you build?

#21

Post by spacephysics »

smcleod wrote: post #20
Veen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you doing that contributes to those ends (aside from sermonizing on forums)? I had a quick look at the website linked in your bio, and it seems you're a working stiff toiling for a for-profit company, building shit for other for-profit companies, just like the rest of us.

I’m definitely no angel - I just think the normalisation of chasing profits and the culture it’s created is broken. Years back I took a (big) pay cut to work with a non-profit. We brought affordable internet to low income and refugee status apartment buildings, developed tools to help those that are homeless or at risk of becoming, wrote at-cost software for the non-profit and community health sector. I was there for…

The reality is people put them and their family first. Those that have they luxury to pursue such endeavors, should if they want to. Others, after a 9-5 and spending time with their loved ones, want to just decompress. And that’s okay.

Others, with the little time they have left, want to work towards not working for someone. That should be what’s encouraged. Because that is more likely to produce jobs, give freedom to those that profit, and has a higher chance of something good happening (versus working for a corporation until retirement - which is perfectly fine, but a path none the less)

I also have a gripe with individual citizens being responsible and taking the burden of climate change. Why should the working class, whose taxes have gone up, wages stagnated, be continually punished with higher costs due to proposed carbon taxes, or initiatives that drive the price of staples up purely due to climate change. That just foments resentment and contributes to the opposite of such activists goals.

Policies are too one sided. We should be pushing for reasonable policies, that acknowledge the enormous progress oil and gas has given the world, and understand changing it rapidly will cause more harm to people than good, and in all likelihood will delay projects. We should look at proven solutions, like nuclear technology. Invest in renewables, in research fusion research and the likes.

But the vast majority of social platforms represents a very very small percentage of people, and those that actually tweet/post/etc represent an even smaller percentage.

The hard truth is when things like gas and food increases, Americans notice that pain far more than what may happen 30 years from now. They care about how their family will do in the next week, month, and few years.

Punishing them to try and understand the problems via monetary taxes, or guilting them to participate in activists activities, or pushing education material that puts shame to what real education should stand for, won’t work. It will backfire.

Re: What should you build?

#22

Post by tomxor »

tikkun wrote: post #3

Related: Paul Graham: "Almost all founders learn brutal lessons during the first year, but some learn them much more quickly. Obviously those founders are more likely to succeed. So it could be a useful heuristic to ask, say 6 to 12 months in, "Have we learned our brutal lesson yet?"" "The most common lesson is that customers don't want what you're making. The next most common is that it isn't possible to make it, or…

> The most common lesson is that customers don't want what you're making.

It might be tempting to think this will always be obvious, which is dangerous because other scenarios can appear to be very similar on the surface. e.g the classic, your customers are asking for "a faster horse".

You don't have to be making something as world changing as a car, but if you are trying to get people to switch from a niche horse to a niche car, it simply takes time for people to adjust to your solutions different perspective, to realise that many of the things they are asking for are not fundamental to the problem but artificial, ancillary parts of the old solution.

You can end up second guessing yourself a lot while waiting for the turning point that validates your idea - speaking from experience. To make things more complicated I think there are also going to be scenarios where you are making a car which is only marginally better than a horse, and the fundamental change to approach is just not worth it to people - differentiating all these subtly different things from customers simply not wanting it is not easy, I think people just need to think very deeply about their products and customers to reach the right answers.

Re: What should you build?

#23

Post by guiriduro »

pessimizer wrote: post #19
smcleod wrote: post #14

How about building something that’s good for the planet? Or something that significantly reduces people’s living costs? Or something to increase equality and equity? There is far too much priority placed on making profits in tech and not nearly enough doing what’s actually good for people.

Those aren't ideas for software. They're not even platitudes. It's just vague discontented murmuring. More ideas, less pretending to be superior.

Software absolutely can be good for the planet, e.g. if it disintermediates wasteful supply chains by finding alternatives, or optimises planning for a lower carbon footprint, or surfaces better measurement and tracking data. Or any of a hundred other use cases we haven't even thought of yet.

Re: What should you build?

#24

Post by tcfhgj »

spacephysics wrote: post #21
smcleod wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m definitely no angel - I just think the normalisation of chasing profits and the culture it’s created is broken. Years back I took a (big) pay cut to work with a non-profit. We brought affordable internet to low income and refugee status apartment buildings, developed tools to help those that are homeless or at risk of becoming, wrote at-cost software for the non-profit and community health sector. I was there for…

The reality is people put them and their family first. Those that have they luxury to pursue such endeavors, should if they want to. Others, after a 9-5 and spending time with their loved ones, want to just decompress. And that’s okay. Others, with the little time they have left, want to work towards not working for someone. That should be what’s encouraged. Because that is more likely to produce jobs, give freedom t…

God what's wrong with you?

Re: What should you build?

#25

Post by anlaw »

pessimizer wrote: post #19
smcleod wrote: post #14

How about building something that’s good for the planet? Or something that significantly reduces people’s living costs? Or something to increase equality and equity? There is far too much priority placed on making profits in tech and not nearly enough doing what’s actually good for people.

Those aren't ideas for software. They're not even platitudes. It's just vague discontented murmuring. More ideas, less pretending to be superior.

More ideas, less scolding as if you are superior

Re: What should you build?

#26

Post by pedalpete »

smcleod wrote: post #14

How about building something that’s good for the planet? Or something that significantly reduces people’s living costs? Or something to increase equality and equity? There is far too much priority placed on making profits in tech and not nearly enough doing what’s actually good for people.

If you look at the post, you'll notice that there is no reference to profit or money. I think that is the lens you are looking at it through.

You can build something that is good for the planet, but if nobody wants it, can it make an impact?

Re: What should you build?

#27

Post by vonnik »

smcleod wrote: post #14

How about building something that’s good for the planet? Or something that significantly reduces people’s living costs? Or something to increase equality and equity? There is far too much priority placed on making profits in tech and not nearly enough doing what’s actually good for people.

Profit is a very clear feedback loop. You go broke or you don’t. In that sense, it keeps you honest. There are pathologies of profit, such as building something people want, which is bad for them. Hello Big Food and Addictive social media.

But there are pathologies for these abstract ideals you mention too. Namely that they are hard to measure and therefore attract bullshit artists. They make it easy to fool yourself and others.

The best thing is to solve a real problem others have, thereby doing good, and to do so in a self-sustaining way, which is also called profit.

Re: What should you build?

#28

Post by 8note »

spacephysics wrote: post #21
smcleod wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m definitely no angel - I just think the normalisation of chasing profits and the culture it’s created is broken. Years back I took a (big) pay cut to work with a non-profit. We brought affordable internet to low income and refugee status apartment buildings, developed tools to help those that are homeless or at risk of becoming, wrote at-cost software for the non-profit and community health sector. I was there for…

The reality is people put them and their family first. Those that have they luxury to pursue such endeavors, should if they want to. Others, after a 9-5 and spending time with their loved ones, want to just decompress. And that’s okay. Others, with the little time they have left, want to work towards not working for someone. That should be what’s encouraged. Because that is more likely to produce jobs, give freedom t…

> that acknowledge the enormous progress oil and gas has given the world

What's this supposed to mean? Gas has been useful for the world, and gas companies have already gotten tremendous profit as a result.

Who are you expecting to pay for climate change anyways, if it's neither the working class in the form of taxes with rebates, nor the owning class in the form of oil and gas companies. Who's left?

Re: What should you build?

#29

Post by reducesuffering »

vsareto wrote: post #15

I still don’t know a good source for finding business problems to solve. You end up having to talk to people which is slow and won’t give you a large list. Ideally I’d want a huge list to pick from.

Maybe the first thing you should build is a way to source business problems to solve. Then once you've built that, your its ideal customer.

Re: What should you build?

#30

Post by przybytniewski »

vsareto wrote: post #15

I still don’t know a good source for finding business problems to solve. You end up having to talk to people which is slow and won’t give you a large list. Ideally I’d want a huge list to pick from.

You can start with notes of problems you meet daily or ideas you come up with. If you want to pursue someone else ideas, most likely you won't have the determination to build things for years, fail and learn from these mistakes.

It takes time, tears and sweat and a lot of failures to actually build something successful, it won't be a one night sucess from idea taken from someone.

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