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Solving All the Wrong Problems

nytimes.com

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Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#61

Post by tijs »

im_down_w_otp wrote: post #5

> "As one colleague in tech explained it to me recently, for most people working on such projects, the goal is basically to provide for themselves everything that their mothers no longer do." Ha! I've used the exact same characterization. Anyway, this seems entirely predictable given a couple different considerations. 1) People are most apt to effectively solve problems for which they have some context. 2) People who…

I think 2 is a common misconception. People who might not have much money to spend on luxury services as described in the article will most likely still pay for something that truly solves a problem. Actually solving a problem will always be worth more than scratching an itch. Taking the 'underserved' seriously as potential customers is worth a strategy meeting at a lot of startups I'd say.

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#63

Post by [deleted] »

gk1 wrote: post #48
jdoliner wrote: post #40

I find articles like this pretty frustrating. There's tons of companies in Silicon Valley that are trying to do audacious things that people's mothers never did for them. They don't get much press coverage and that's fine, media outlets are businesses too so they need to write about companies that their readership wants to read about. But the fact that they then turn around and complain about the fact that all the co…

I fail to see a single original thought in this article. This same article could have been written 10, 20, 100 years ago, about the stupid ideas from those times. There is no shortage of stupid ideas and there never has been. (If you think those periods didn't have as many stupid ideas, it's only because of survivor bias.)

[deleted]

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#64

Post by Apocryphon »

aetherson wrote: post #55
calbear81 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's okay that the marginal successes don't upend the world, the writer simply is asking if those of us in the valley are "disrupting" the right problems for the right populations. A marginal amount of time-savings for a high-income earner in having their car parking woes solved might be economically more viable than working on a problem that is less sexy but potentially has significantly less impact on actual improv…

The "right" problems for the "right" populations is a silly formulation. First of all, the implicit idea that the founders of these companies are all like, "Oh, hey, I have ten really highly functional business plans for bringing an app to profitability, and I'll reject the ones serving population X because I think it's 5% less profitable than the ones serving population Y" is dumb. Second, the idea that that writer…

First of all, the implicit idea that the founders of these companies are all like, "Oh, hey, I have ten really highly functional business plans for bringing an app to profitability, and I'll reject the ones serving population X because I think it's 5% less profitable than the ones serving population Y" is dumb.

Isn't that precisely what VCs do when assessing the viability of a startup?

But we've seen time and time again that top down direction to only focus on what some member of the cultural elite deems important is a recipe for disaster.

NYT writers may be part of the cultural elite, but software engineers in San Francisco, by dint of their economic power and education levels, are arguably part of it as well. The VCs and startup financial and management classes are definitely so.

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#65

Post by ixtli »

sachel1sta wrote: post #45
ixtli wrote: post #13

I believe the salient point that "the goal is basically to provide for themselves everything that their mothers no longer do" is a direct effect of lack of diversity in our field. Homogenous, largely white, largely male, largely safe people are not going to detect the problems the author appears to be implying are going untreated.

Rather than just "believing," can you please provide evidence that "white, male and safe" people do not detect and put their energy into treating the kinds of problems you're alluding to? (In fact I must have missed the specific untreated problems that you and the author mention). I fail to see how skin color, gender and "safeness," whatever the hell that is, implies someone has a "reduced" ability to detect and solv…

Ah, I should have specified software engineering. However as an example, there have been a good amount of studies that show that problem solving (detection and solution generation) are enabled by diversity† Combined with this, many studies of the demographics in software engineering show that it lacks gender and racial diversity†† I certainly should have been more clear about what I was implying. I used white and male because those are the two majorities in America which was also something I should have specified at the outset. Evidence of a personal bias that comes from being American, I suppose.

† https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation

†† http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm (search 'Software developers, applications and systems software')

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#66

Post by yellowstuff »

rev_null wrote: post #34
giglamesh wrote: post #16

I fail to see how "And a new proposal to create an app designed to stop police killings." fits on the list of problems that don't need to be solved. Am I missing something?

I think it's meant to highlight the absurdity of believing that police killings can be fixed by an app.

I think that the spread of phones with video recorders is a huge part of why police killings get more attention in 2016 than they did in 2006. In at least one case a woman live streamed a police killing, defeating later attempts to suppress the video. If the name Rodney King means anything to you it's because someone happened to have a video camera in the right place at the right time when they were rare. So it's hardly absurd to think that an app could help fight police killings.

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#67

Post by throwanem »

Swizec wrote: post #25
im_down_w_otp wrote: post #5

> "As one colleague in tech explained it to me recently, for most people working on such projects, the goal is basically to provide for themselves everything that their mothers no longer do." Ha! I've used the exact same characterization. Anyway, this seems entirely predictable given a couple different considerations. 1) People are most apt to effectively solve problems for which they have some context. 2) People who…

Is this a problem or a good thing? Washing machines, kitchen appliances and similar technological advances, freed up our at home time so much that we can put a whole nother 50% of the population through college. A whole 50% of the population that can get jobs, have careers, and do cool shit, who was stuck wiping men's proverbial bottoms until the 1950's. Making free time free is a good thing. There's no telling what…

Is it possible that most of the low-hanging fruit has already been plucked?

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#69

Post by jdoliner »

dasil003 wrote: post #50

None of this is going to change unless capital miraculously grows a conscience. As an entrepreneur seeking funding you can't afford to solve problems for the poor because there's no way to raise money for that, and there's certainly not a lot of disposable income available to bootstrap from. The problem with this type of article is that it conflates all the struggling little startups with the unicorns who are actuall…

There are plenty of companies who raise money to solve problems for the poor. Although if you want to be cynical you could dismiss it as them just trying to make money off the poor, they are businesses after all. Lendup is a good example of this, their goal is to provide loans to poor people that are better than pay day loans. Pretty impactful stuff if you ask me, but it doesn't seem to count in this article or in your comment. The article would much rather focus on an incredibly narrow band of startups that are easy to poke fun at and prove the point.

Re: Solving All the Wrong Problems

#70

Post by lunula »

SwellJoe wrote: post #54

The interesting thing about technology is that it has proven to be so powerful that when people do mundane things with it, it is viewed as a failure (maybe rightly so, to some degree). But, and this is a big but, the vast majority of people go to work every day and do very little of importance . 99% of people are not changing the world, for the better or otherwise. All the people making coffee, serving food, pushing…

To pick an example, baristas do make a difference in the world. They help in many small ways to build communities. The wave of services that the author rails against do exactly the opposite. They replace people you could have called and talked to with mechanisms controlled by faraway companies that view human labor as a stepping stone to the totally automated future. Is this good? I guess we will have to wait and see.

Rant:

Often those who seem to be making a difference are just those we notice because they are making the biggest mess. Some companies operate like speedboats tearing through no wake zone. Isn't it grand how fast they go? Behind them is a trail of senseless destruction that they care not to see. Just because you make money doesn't mean its good. If we don't relearn to regulate ourselves this way we risk social order. Inequality will rise. Human interaction will be mediated by corporate lords. Then everything will start to smell. People are going to revolt, and nobody is going to have a nice time.

Ahem ahem...

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