Ask Hackers/Entrepreneurs: How are/will you change(ing) the world?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=323164

by rokhayakebe • 18 years ago

14 41 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Most entrepreneurs will tell you that they want to "improve the design". Changing the world. Such a noble cause. So if you do not mind (and do not be humble and/or shy) can you please tell how you are or will change the world (or part of it)?

qhoxie• 18 years ago

Not much to do with entrepreneurship, but I have been part of a group for the past 5 years that teaches at-risk youth about college and general success/happiness in life. We volunteer directly with about 500 kids a year and regularly hear success stories about them pursuing their dreams.

westside1506• 18 years ago

I've always wanted to do more to "change the world", but I've found that I am ineffective/unmotivated to do so through direct actions via volunteering. I've tried and I'm not good at it. My wife and I used to have many discussions about this (she's much better at the direct help actions than me).

After I had a nice startup exit in 2001, I found that I could try to change the world (or at least things I can see around me) much better through directed donations and angel investing. That lets me broaden my effect without doing the parts that I am not good at doing. I still like the startup game too. :)

fallentimes• 18 years ago

Kiva.org to start. Need to think about the "will" part.

alizaki• 18 years ago

At TimeSvr, we want to take advantage of the quality/price arbitrage between developed and developing countries to help busy people save time and get things done everyday. Noble? If we can get people to free up 15 - 30 minutes a day, that's almost between 2 and 4 hours per week they can spend doing something/with someone they love.

sgrove• 18 years ago

Cothink.org (in private alpha)

By making tools to encourage service learning, and continuing to pressure universities and colleges focus outward on community projects rather than the current curriculum. Exciting stuff!

DTrejo• 18 years ago

I am VERY interested in your startup. I am a high schooler who has done some things in his community:

-founded tennis team at school

-brought Challenge Day (tolerance, anti-bullying, community building)

-working on bringing solar panels, already have school superintendent, board member, green architect, and a consultant behind the project (not to mention the principal and a group of ~15 students).

Email me, I want to hear more. http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/10047/myemail.PNG

gord• 18 years ago

I truly, honestly believe that as of today many people just cannot get to their data.

For end users that is having good web/UI tools to help them. Another part of it is allowing programmers to express their ideas about data in a better way - It should feel like you are expressing normal program logic concepts that just happen to be backed by reliable, durable, fast, cached storage.

Theres a renaissance going on now, where lots of ideas from functional programming are filtering out and being adopted..thats wonderful for our craft. We spend a lot of energy comparing one language to another, but pretty much accept without question that SQL as the only-one-true-way of handling data. Or we make a big framework to wrap that in objects, and the framework generates SQL.

Databases could have much much better programming facilities out of the box, including an expressive modern extensible language and event callback mechanisms. It should be easy to just write a usable web site without stepping out of that language - optimizing the common usage scenario.

There must be a better way, it is time to make SQL obsolete.

If your interested in hacking on something like this as open source get in touch,

gord quantblog.wordpress.com

einarvollset2• 18 years ago

I'm planning to introduce a new type of financial instrument. Basically, it'll be a contract between two parties, whereby a buyer pays periodic payments to the seller in exchange for the right to a payoff if there is a default relating to some asset (e.g. a mortgage).

In the event of default, the buyer delivers the defaulted asset (e.g. the failing mortgage) to the seller for a payment of the original value of the mortgage. I think I'll call this a "physical settlement".

Alternatively, the seller can pay the buyer the difference between the original value of the mortgage and the market price of mortgage. I think I'll call this a "cash settlement".

I think this will provide a way to distribute risk through the financial system. The benefits are numerous. For example, a lender of mortgages can turn around and sell their mortgages on the open market. This should lead to laxer lending practices.

gills4• 18 years ago

Wow, you really got me laughing there!

einarvollset2• 18 years ago

Thanks man! A little esoteric, but appreciate that some people got it. :-)

thorax• 18 years ago

With bug.gd, we're going to change the way users and software engineers deal with faults and errors in their applications. In our world, by default, people are going to work together a lot more to solve them and developers are going to know when/where/how their applications failed during user interaction.

The goal is to make sure that no one ever has to repeat research to work around problems that have already been solved.

We feel some of our initiatives could single-handedly lower the computer expertise needed to work with open source software, cutting-edge technologies, and things typically reserved only for early adopters.

We're really excited about the potential here.

froo3• 18 years ago

How will I change the world?

  Longterm:

I'm building my startup with a friend (we've applied to YC) which with we can help manage a common problem.

I can't really say what it is just yet, but we've got high expectations of ourselves.

  Short term:

I know this is going to sound like an immature prank, but I'll be helping to get Rick Astley voted as the Best Act Ever at this years MTV EMA in any way I can.

  Why you ask?

Well its sending a message that we don't want to be dictated too on what we should and shouldn't like - kind of like a virtual protest against the media in general.

When you consider some of the other acts up for nomination some of which I'd never heard of until yesterday (tokio hotel?), then you would understand - how can some of these artists (U2 is an exception) be classed as best acts ever when you've got the greats like the stones & beatles weren't even considered?

lacker• 18 years ago

Don't get me wrong, I'm rooting for you, but... I'm not sure if "get Rick Astley voted as the best act ever" and "change the world" belong in the same sentence.

yters2• 18 years ago

How is rick rolling the world not world changing?

froo3• 18 years ago

(please forgive if this post seems incoherant, it's been a long night and I didnt get much sleep)

Well the way I look at it is like this, not everyone can single handedly save the world like Al Gore, there are many different ways you can change the world (for the better) and there are many small skirmishes I think need to be won in many areas.

For example, in this case, the thing that I believe is fundamentally wrong was a large organisation like MTV is dictating to the world what it's tastes should be (rather than asking them) by what they believe constitutes the best musical act ever, with a clear disregard for acts that are widely regarded as the greats (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix).

Tokio Hotel is the obvious example here, I hadn't even heard of them until I saw the campaign to get Rick Astley nominated on reddit.

It's been happening with companies for years, not just related to media organisations (hey guys, buy Windows ME - it's the best thing ever!) and so in this case, a large organisation left themselves open to get egg on their face... in a very public way that goes completely against their standard operating procedure.

It's not just a fight against one company, it's an example to all organisations that people should decide what is good for them, not the other way around.

That being said, you can also look at it in a sarcastic/dark humorous manner.

"If Rick wins over Tokio Hotel, imagine all the emo kids that will suicide in disgust, thus making the world a better place"

Either would be an acceptable outcome.

unalone• 18 years ago

I want to introduce quality control in the field that my start-up's for. It's something that there isn't any system for online, and I want to introduce a level of self-respect beyond offline publication.

wheels4• 18 years ago

Changing the world seems to be a bit of a loaded phrase that begs for delusions of grandeur. I prefer the phrase Guy Kawasaki uses sometimes, "make meaning".

I think ideas are more a product of the times than they are of individuals, generally. Most important new ideas are invented in multiple places simultaneously.

I love music. And film. And I read a lot. And I'm fairly social online. I started Directed Edge because there's too much noise on the web that gets in the way of me finding the content I care about.

trevelyan• 18 years ago

I run a content/community site and can't figure out how to use Directed Edge. The demo page is not very helpful. I'm lazy enough to expect to know how things work before signing up....

wheels4• 18 years ago

Hi -- there's a little info in the second half of the page here:

http://www.directededge.com/getstarted.html

With a link to the API at the bottom:

http://webservices.directededge.com/

Where would you have expected to find that information? If it was unclear for you it probably was for others too. Feel free to email me if you have questions.

mjnaus2• 18 years ago

By building a Twitter for the homeless

gills4• 18 years ago

That sounds interesting, what benefit are you trying to achieve and are you willing to share details about how?

mjnaus2• 18 years ago

Well, one benefit could be: homeless people waiting in line at a local shelter can update each other on how the line is coming along and how many more are going to get a place to sleep that night at that particular shelter.

Another usage could be status updates on comfortable benches, bridges and rooftops.

Of course usage will be free and include a free iPhone (since most homeless are not very well connected to the cloud).

I can not provide any more details at this point since we are about to close a major round of funding, up in the 1* million range. Expect to see us featured on TechCrunch during the next few days.

gills4• 18 years ago

Use words folks, karma is a pretty low-information channel. What's wrong with being interested and supportive?

rjett• 18 years ago

We'll call it hommer (pronounced homer) and get rejected by TC 50 since they're not in the business of serving poor people.

siliconcalley• 18 years ago

I think changing the world is a fairly daunting task, so I'm just trying to focus on solving a specific problem in my world.

I think if we all solve one problem, collectively we can change the world for everyone.

thaumaturgy• 18 years ago

Revolutionize everything.

That's what I'm setting out to do. I've been self-employed now for just a little over 6 months, and already I've built networks and solved I.T. problems for a number of folks locally, at a fraction of what it would have cost them otherwise. People are happy enough that, even though I've yet to do any marketing at all, my business has grown beyond my ability to handle it, on word of mouth alone.

But I'm only bootstrapping right now. Eventually I want to make sure that the people with skills in various areas get all the exposure they want, and that the people looking for skills can find them. I want to make all kinds of resources more available to all kinds of people. I want design and produce everything from new software to revolutionary backpacks (not so much school packs, but packs for backpackers, climbers, photographers...).

I've helped launch a local Rotaract club, and I'm the sole founder of a local club for "solopreneurs". At just over a month old, the club managed to form some relationships that are helping us to launch my county's very first inexpensive shared office space for budding entrepreneurs.

So, a long way to go yet, but not too bad so far either.

shafqat• 18 years ago

By restoring media credibility and giving people a platform to voice their opinions about the quality of journalists and news sources.

tdavis2• 18 years ago

Another question I'd like to ask is: Why does everyone want to change the world? What makes you think you can?

I'm not changing the world. I'm building a useful tool that helps people save money when they want to attend a sporting event, concert, etc. That's about it. Not quite as glamorous as saving the world, but at least it's realistic and useful now.

yters2• 18 years ago

Even if changing the whole world is not someone's goal, this is a good sort of question to help people form goals for their life.

tdavis2• 18 years ago

I disagree. Better questions for setting goals in ones life are, "What do you enjoy doing?" "What makes you happy?" "If you had all the money in the world, what would you do with your time and with the cash?" These kinds of questions are more valuable because they are applicable to the individual. The question, "How will you change the world?" isn't very relevant for a couple reasons:

1. What if someone has no interest in changing the world in the grandiose fashion that this question implies? Maybe the thought of saving all the babies in Africa doesn't make everyone feel equally great about their life. Not everyone can be a bleeding-heart humanitarian; society wouldn't function.

2. It's really vague. My personal answer to this question is, "We all change the world every single day simply by living and interacting with others." Therefor, I'm changing the world 24/7 and there's really nothing more I feel I need to do in terms of something that would have a far-reaching global impact.

Life goals should revolve around the core prospect of thoroughly enjoying life. Maybe an immediate goal is "go to the gym 5 days a week" and a long-term goal is "save enough to retire by 45." If changing the world will help you enjoy life more, then by all means, answer the question to help set goals. However, we should not assume that changing the world is universally something that people want to do.

My Dad never wanted to change the world, he just wanted to provide as good a life as possible for his family, make enough money to give his children what they need and (most of) what they want, and that's pretty much it. He didn't "revolutionize" anything. He didn't save any babies in Africa. He's just an awesome father and that's enough for him to be a hero to me. Corny? Perhaps, but a good example nonetheless.

swombat• 18 years ago

Bringing the construction industry into the 21st century, thus helping to eliminate a lot of waste and frustration with the products they're using.

alaskamiller• 18 years ago

Built schools and housing in the military. Now I'm being selfish and hustling to make money to survive so that I can work all day without worry.

TweedHeads• 18 years ago

Politics, we have to change politics if we really want to change the world for good.

We need a new party from the ground up with a million headcounts online.

We need to replace this jurassic congress of crooks and liars for a more accountable direct democracy.

We have the tools and the will, the time is right.

yinyang• 18 years ago

Trying to make *faircompanies (www.faircompanies.com) worth it over the long term. Working on a new version of my site to make it more interesting to people that want to find out about how to change the world.

manmanic• 18 years ago

Energy is the big challenge of our generation, not computer technology. Climate change is part of it, but it's not the main issue. At some time during the next few decades we're going to hit crunch point in terms of oil and gas reserves. Not only because few new resources are being found, but also because their depletion is accelerating, especially due to China and India's stellar economic growth.

Humanity will get through the energy crunch, probably with a 20-year depression and government commandeering of manufacturing resources to build renewable energy capacity. During that time there will be huge unemployment, war, and for many poorer countries, likely starvation. The food chain is deeply dependent on fertilizer, made from oil.

So the key for the next two decades is to do as much as we can to prepare for this period. Ideally we'd completely wean ourselves off oil and gas, like Sweden or Norway, but that seems unlikely to happen. But at least, it means investing in renewable energy capacity and technology, so that things don't completely grind to a halt.

Trouble is, this isn't really a computer problem, so how to help?

blender• 18 years ago

We have built an online donation processing platform that exposes a web services API. We haven't launched yet - but our brochureware site is www.benevity.org

Our mission is to facilitate $1 Billion of online giving through the Benevity Network from individuals, integration partners and corporate sponsors by December 31, 2013.

Cheers

Ask Hackers/Entrepreneurs: How are/will you change(ing) the world?

Related Stories