Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 146 posts

Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#51

Post by astrodust »

arcanus wrote: post #32
KirinDave wrote: post #30

One nitpick I have about this: the peninsula tech scene is huge. It leads in all sorts of places outside of what you'll read about on tech crunch. SSF is a massive hub of Biotech (as is the rapidly expanding UCSF-centered campus in Mission Bay). Financial technology is rapidly expanding in the city as well, and only the older players in that space have substantial ties to traditional Uber For _____ startup VC firms.…

Good point, but I'll note that many cities have technology companies that just don't get the press and hype you see for VC backed software companies in SF. There aren't that many articles about biotechnology in Boston, for instance. The software paradigm has captured a great deal of mindshare.

Oh, don't worry, in twenty years we'll all be talking about the Good Old Days when computer tech got respect and money, not like all those biotech firms with their trillions in funding and ridiculously hyped valuations.

Genetic engineers will be the new software engineers and software engineers will be the new plumbers.

Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#52

Post by M_Grey »

Retric wrote: post #43
candiodari wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economic counterargument would be that any solution to a problem that is not a Nash-equilibrium cannot be implemented. Pretending otherwise is popular, expensive, painful, and doomed to failure as consuming all economic resources on the planet (or any finite amount) cannot fix the underlying problem. But a government can grow, grow, grow while pretending to solve the problem, failing, and "correcting" for the pro…

Depends on what problem your solving. If you want the oldest 10% of the population not to die in poverty that's actually fairly easy to solve. In you want ~0.00% deaths from starvation that's also easy to solve. However it's cheaper to provide basic heathcare to everyone than it is to provide top quality heathcare to the elderly. Reducing drug use to some significantly lower level is very possible, ending it is not.…

>Going to Mars is easy, colonizing Mars is a pipe dream.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate hearing this position from someone on this site. I've tried to make that argument here and elsewhere, and it's met with an almost religious fury. I really appreciate that I'm not alone in my intense skepticism of this "colonies on Mars: coming soon!" nonsense. I'll believe it when we've solved, or at least even begun to address the big problems involved.

Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#53

Post by forgetsusername »

pascalxus wrote: post #42
shruubi wrote: post #17

As someone who is outside of SF looking in, to me the whole startup culture there seems utterly insane. To me, it seems as though there is some kind of reality distortion field that convinces us all that no matter what we is being worked on or created, it is in some way world changing or "disruptive", despite how stupid it is, or how viable a market there is for what is being made. The funny thing is, organizations t…

Entrepreneurs and companies that get started are utterly desparate for solvable problems to solve. The ideas may seem "stupid" to you, but that's only because biggest problems have way too many barriers to entry and are typically guarded by rent seeking government lobbying legislation. Take homelessness. I'm sure there's a technical way to build housing for cheap enough to get people back into houses. But, the govern…

The building of cheap houses isn't the problem. Who maintains them? Who enforces the code? Who insures them? Who is liable for them? These are things that "SV" sometimes ignores. That's why these are bigger problems.

Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#54

Post by anindha »

Nearly all big companies started as small companies solving more trivial problems.

Facebook was a way to find people you met at parties at Harvard.

Apple was a company that made computers for hobbyists.

The idea is that you learn to become a good entrepreneur solving the smaller problems.

Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#55

Post by Xcelerate »

An important point that I think is missing is that solving small, "useless" problems is a good way to get enough money to start solving big, "impactful" problems. Elon Musk didn't just start SpaceX out of the blue; he used his profits from Zip2 and PayPal to fund his more grandiose ideas.

Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#57

Post by Manishearth »

> Right now, entrepreneurs are trying to fix things that aren’t broken. And we can all name a lot of things that are broken: healthcare, education, homelessness and poverty, food waste, climate change… need I continue?

I'm kinda apprehensive of what would happen if SV got a hold of these problems and tried to "solve" them.

Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#58

Post by bodmd »

astrodust wrote: post #50
woah wrote: post #4

What about all these corner grocery stores? They could be out saving the world, fighting malaria, going to mars, but what are they doing? Selling groceries. What a bunch of assholes.

Corner grocery stores don't get hundreds of millions in VC funding, hire the brightest of this generation, and make them stock shelves of soup.

Maybe the 'brightest of this generation' should start companies working on 'real problems' instead of stocking soup at companies working on 'trivial problems'. VC money is apparently being thrown at anything and everything, after all.

Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#60

Post by M_Grey »

fjdhcjjenxncnd wrote: post #5
Apreche wrote: post #3

Every one of those entrepreneurs and VCs are working on something they believe in. Making themselves rich(er). That's all there is to it.

If our economic system as we know it is no longer capable of delivering innovation, then something is seriously wrong and we should be reevaluating why we are still using that system.

The people who are in charge are making money hand over fist, they've got it figured out. By the time the rest figure it out, there will be little or nothing left.
Post reply on HN