Your comment: "All I want to do is solve a real problem for some segment of a large market and make their lives a little easier."

My article: "That drive to make a part of the consumer world better is the mark of the entrepreneur."

I'm not saying everyone needs to cure AIDS. I think our sentences seen side by side align quite nicely.

Here's what I would love to see, on the "make the world better" front.

First, let's be honest about our industry: programming is a lot of fun, but our industry kinda sucks. Most software produced is sloppy and buggy with bad APIs, most decisions are made based on economic factors, and most programmers are seriously underskilled, which wastes the time of the skilled. (I love strong static typing, though. The guy who is always breaking APIs actually has to fix his shit.) Even in startups, most of the code is hastily written by necessity. Moreover, technology is the best industry out there. Software sucks, but everything else sucks more.

I realize I'm hijacking your line of thought, but here's a problem that could be solved with enough thought put into it. Most smart people really want to work and, when they're motivated, will work very hard and very creatively. But less than 10% of people are doing what they want to do or are really motivated to do it well, so we have a shitty world where most people don't give a fuck. Most people, by age 35, are just jaded clock-punchers who just do what they're told because it's the path of least resistance. We're different; we're idealistic and trying to fight that trend, but "the enemy" (the ocean of suckitude outside our borders) is winning.

So, let's solve that problem. Let's not just fix the software industry. Let's fix work. There are millions of creative people out there with amazing ideas not getting implemented, while the very rich get to implement their shitty ideas and impose them on the rest of the world. How do we make a world that harnesses rather than suppresses this enormous amount of creative and industrious energy that is not being utilized?

> How do we make a world that harnesses rather than suppresses this enormous amount of creative and industrious energy that is not being utilized?

I think this is exactly what we're seeing more of. Sites like reddit really allow for people to tap into their inner creativity and make something that makes other people happy (like rage comics).

Of course, no one is making money off rage comics (except reddit). I'd love to see more start-up ideas that empower regular people to make a living doing something they could be happy doing. In fact, I'd love to just hear some ideas along those lines, because my brain fails when brainstorming about this.

I did a blog post on this sort of thing: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/those-who-wor...

Sadly, I think that there are too many people in power who want the current arrangement to persist. Allowing people to work more creatively is great for society, but it's bad for the people who currently hold power (who care more about their relative position in society than the health of society as a whole). I don't see a non-confrontational solution.

I'm half socialist. I actually think the best way out is to provide a substantial basic income. Emphasis on basic, not minimum, income. The difference is that MI means the government makes up the difference for low earners, whereas BI is an amount (of cash and services, such as healthcare and education) that everyone-- rich, poor, or middle-class-- gets. Then there's no "welfare valley" where a person becomes poorer by getting a job; one's income is a monotonically increasing function, as it should be, of what one earns. I think the BI should be about 50% of society's income, financed through flat taxation, a small wealth tax at the upper end, and very high (90+ at top) inheritance taxes. The other 50% is distributed by a free market. This actually makes most middle-class peoples' net tax (remember that they get the BI as well) lower. I would also, if you haven't guessed this, cut the military budget dramatically.

Once BI is in place, you don't need the patchwork of semi-authoritarian and conditional welfare programs that require bureaucracies to prevent abuse and fraud or determine who should get it and who not: everyone gets it. The rest of the wealth is allowed to flow on an essentially free market (so you have a capitalistic engine on top of the socialist infrastructure). It's freer than the one we have. For example, once everyone has basic income, you don't need a minimum wage (which is just a clumsy minimum-income program paid-for by low-end employers, who compensate by hiring less, creating unemployment).

No one has to work, so the least productive people probably use the option not to work, but the most productive people do a lot more: they're more creative, autonomous, and effective. Basic income wouldn't stop most people from working, but it would dramatically change how they work-- for the better. The net gain is positive. The worst thing about basic income is that it might create an underclass of entitled parasites at the bottom of society, but authoritarian corporate capitalism has a class of entitled parasites at the top of it, and that's a lot more unhealthy for society.

One partial fix might be to "fix" job searching, but internet career sites are nothing new and, while they might match talented people more efficiently with jobs, don't fix the underlying problems of corporate capitalism. Startups are great, for people privileged enough to do them and connected enough to have a shot, but in the "real world", bad people are on top and hold the cards.

I'm not convinced that letting everyone do what they want/feel passionate about is a good thing for the economy, and I'm quite sure that it's not the way it is because of a conspiracy of the people in power. Many, many people feel most passionate about things with nearly 0 economic value, and if they all had jobs doing those things, the economies that followed this kind of thinking would probably not be doing so well.

There are many things that need to be done to keep something as complicated as a world economy of specialists running, and many of them are not fun or intellectually stimulating. Maybe when robots have replaced us in all those roles, and programmers can wield the labor of a thousand workers.

I'm advocating basic income, not "everyone does what they feel passionate about". After this one very important socialist reform, we'd still have an essentially free market. In fact, we'd have a freer market because people would be free, not forced by poverty to work. A lot of people don't have much vision or passion and would prefer doing things for money over not doing anything and settling for a lower-middle-class lifestyle. So the toilets would still be scrubbed, because people would pay others to do it.

On the other hand, the people who follow their passions would be merely living on not-very-much, but not at risk of starvation, long-term underemployment, medical bankruptcy, et cetera.

I don't necessarily want to change the world either, but I do want to change my little corner of it. I think that is more than good enough.

And you're right that it was a little absurd for me to wind up in Silicon Valley doing a startup. I'd be glad to write a follow-up post about how that all happened.

Sounds really interesting, I look forward to reading it.

I think making the lives of some segment of a market a little easier is changing the world. Maybe not all at once, but little by little. That's all Facebook has done, really - it has made the part of our lives where we try to keep up with people we care about a little easier. And since it's easier, we do it more often.

I used to be disgusted by materialism and greed, when I was in college, but my first job out of school washed my naivete away. It paid well but it was awful, and not because I had a bad boss (I had two, one good and one bad) but also because we were treated horribly by clients. They didn't respect us or our work at all. Why? Because they had money. No other reason. The fact that my job there was better than what 90% of people have (good pay and shitty conditions, when the norm is low pay and shitty conditions) made it clear that, unfortunately, money matters a fucking lot. If you don't have it, you can end up in jobs like that. So yeah, getting at least comfortable is a high priority for me and pretty much everyone else in this lost generation. Besides, long-term career mentoring is gone in most companies and no one listens to a smart person with good ideas unless he's rich, so what is there to expect from work other than a swing at owning one's life?

Excessive greed is idiotic, like a mental illness. We'd call a guy with 300 cats insane, and not want kids around someone who has a different sexual partner every day, but someone who works 100 hours per week to chase inordinate amounts of money he doesn't need is lauded as a hero. That, I'll agree, is a pathology. On the other hand, moderate greed is (very unfortunately) a survival trait in this morally crippled, creatively desolate, fiercely individualistic world.

That said, though I want to be rich, it's mainly because of the positive things I could do for the world, not what I would take from it. I can't ever see why I would want a private jet. If I had the money, I'd rather invest it in something that can make others' lives better-- maglev transport, green energy-- than fly around in absurdly ridiculous comfort as opposed to the merely ridiculous comfort of international first class. Besides, I'll probably marry my current girlfriend-- she's quite awesome-- so I have no interest in the "party" culture or impressing women, and I'm too abrasive to have a shot in politics, so what exactly would I need to be a billionaire for?

> But questions like "Why is there so much materialism? Why is it so competitive?" strike me as absurd.

Agreed. That kind of question I think only comes from a place where one has not experienced things like having a child or spouse or parent needing $100k+ for a medical problem. (To give just one easy example.) Or at least, not having the foresight to consider such events.