
Stupid Apps and Changing the World - jimsojim
http://blog.samaltman.com/stupid-apps-and-changing-the-world
======
nostrademons
I've been thinking a bunch about why it's the trivial projects (Altair, the
WWW, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, AirBnB) that change the world, and the change-
the-world projects (Xanadu, WebTV, Chandler, WebVan) end up becoming trivial.

I think it's because of a quirk of human psychology. The value of a product to
_us_ , as a user, is about how well it fits into our daily lives. "Fits into"
is the operative phrase: to get adopted, a product needs to be nearly
invisible, and fit into what we're already doing so well that it's just a
seamless augmentation of our own capabilities. Such products naturally seem
trivial.

By contrast, we judge the _importance_ of a project by a combination of a.)
how difficult it was to do and b.) how many people it affects. Both of these
are anticorrelated with how likely it is to fit into our lives. Difficult
projects are usually complex; that complexity tends to spill over into the
user interface and make it harder for us to make sense of how we would use the
product. (Indeed, when moonshots like Google or Tesla succeed, it's usually
because they manage to put a complex problem behind a really simple & familiar
interface.) And aiming to please a large audience means handling a lot of
corner cases, which again bloats the user interface and makes it harder for
any one person to adopt it.

Once you've got lots of happy people adopting the product, they can serve as
teachers and evangelists to bring a little more complexity to the wider world.
But if you build something designed to change the world from the start, it
tends to "bounce off" of the world, as it doesn't actually fit into the daily
needs of any one person.

~~~
notahacker
> I've been thinking a bunch about why it's the trivial projects (Altair, the
> WWW, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, AirBnB) that change the world, and the
> change-the-world projects (Xanadu, WebTV, Chandler, WebVan) end up becoming
> trivial.

Selection bias, mostly. I mean, "change the world" projects also includes the
likes of Apple Computer, Amazon, Edison's laboratory at Menlo Park and the
World Health Organization. All of these have changed the world more than
Reddit ever will. And whilst what Tim Berners Lee and Zuckerberg started off
might have _looked_ trivial, I'm pretty sure they were motivated by a belief
that they could change the way people communicated, and not simply _develop X
for Y. scale. profit_.

There's nothing wrong with doing the latter of course, and a business that
_revolutionises the world... of analysis of social media sentiments for
digital marketers_ might well deliver far more radical improvements to the
lives of its employees and early investors than companies with loftier and
less well-defined aims. But the argument that this talent might have actually
improved the world more by doing something as mundane and often-criticized as
helping a fund pick stocks remains.

~~~
nostrademons
Apple Computer was also trivial when it started - it was a circuit board
without a case, that hobbyists had to assemble itself, and needed an external
TV to display any output.

Amazon had big ambitions, but they started selling books via Perl script. I
remember when it first started attracting media attention in 1996, I wondered
why the hell people could get so excited about selling _books_. If a similar
startup launched today - say, call it book.ly - would you consider it a
"change the world" company?

Edison's laboratory isn't a fair comparison: at the time it was established,
Edison had already been inventing things for a decade. It would be like
looking at Google in 2005 instead of 1995. (Google, along with Elon Musk's
companies and Pixar, actually are the exception that the article talks about,
where they seem crazily ambitious from the beginning.) Edison's first patent
was for an electric vote recorder, which a.) sounds a lot less impressive and
b.) didn't exactly change the world.

The WHO is an entirely different beast: it's an arm of an international
organization, established under the umbrella of the United Nations. I would
say it qualifies, though - it's under the "do something crazily ambitious"
clause in Sam Altman's article. Indeed, even then it took 25 years to go from
founding to the eradication of smallpox.

To find examples that actually contradict the point, you need to find
companies that a.) appeared _to outsiders_ , not just their founders, as
crazily ambitious b.) at the time of their founding and c.) actually did
change the world. There are relatively few of these; there are some, but it's
a definite minority. Most of the time, if you think of an invention as having
changed the world from the beginning, it's because your "beginning" was
actually several years into its development, and your perception of its
importance is colored by events & adoption that have already happened.

~~~
notahacker
Frankly "world's biggest bookstore" shortly after launch sounds more like a
potential world changing company _today_ than much of what's coming out of
Silicon Valley. And Bezos was bold enough to build it before many people had
considered buying things online.

Sure, everything looks trivial to some people (bah! not another government-
backed space launch vehicle manufacturer). But there's a big difference
between companies that seem trivial to outsiders because those outsiders are
sceptical about the founder's claims there's a mass market for the service,
and companies that seem trivial because they're throwing VC money at
incrementally improving existing platforms to capture a slice of a maturing
market. Founders taking the Jobs/Bezos-type bet that things like consumer
genetics and 3D printing are on the cusp of being ready for the masses
evidently have world-changing aspirations even if many outsiders think the
products will remain a toy (and even if hindsight proves them right). On the
other hand it's already very well established there's a real and huge market
for products which _improve click through rates on ads_ , but you'll struggle
to convince anyone that doesn't work in marketing that it's actually a world-
changing mission, no matter how gushing the press release is and how close
they are to success. I think the criticism directed at SV for focusing efforts
on "trivial" problems tend to be directed mostly at companies with the latter
type of ambition than the former.

------
Detrus
_Facebook, Twitter, reddit, the Internet itself, the iPhone, and on and on and
on—most people dismissed these things as incremental or trivial when they
first came out._

I would say Twitter and Facebook in particular are still are incremental and
trivial as billion dollar companies and always will be. The web is a dumbed
down version of older hypertext systems and hasn't shaken that legacy in 25
years.

The real problem with the pace of innovation is these things weren't trivial
to build, that's why the best we can do is incrementalism. And that comes from
the foundation systems we use. When something near the bottom of a technology
stack/pyramid offloads complexity to the top, it becomes a nightmare to get
anything done.

For example, we don't have a natural language command line for regular/stupid
users. Instead we have point and grunt GUIs. That means apps have to be
monolithic. Apps can't work seamlessly with one another even if the underlying
tech allows it.

And from that small bit of complexity we get billion dollar walled gardens.

More detailed read [http://pchiusano.github.io/2013-05-22/future-of-
software.htm...](http://pchiusano.github.io/2013-05-22/future-of-
software.html)

Instead of a simple standard interface for users to access various services we
have
[http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4dd4d1cf4bd7c8c90f0...](http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4dd4d1cf4bd7c8c90f000000-1200-924/craigslist%20andrew%20parker.png)
which kills discoverability and creates a constant drag on people to learn a
million UIs. And then we hope to fix all that with another layer of AI
[http://whoo.ps/2015/02/23/futures-of-text](http://whoo.ps/2015/02/23/futures-
of-text)

You can fool yourself about worse is better while making a few bucks. You can
wall yourself off from the naysayers. But the real impact on the economy and
humanity from eBay, AirBB and FaceTwitter is low.

~~~
beambot
Please give us some examples of companies you feel have "real impact on the
economy and humanity"...?

Edit: Also, successful companies that started out with those ambitions?

~~~
eliteraspberrie
To single one out, the Full Belly Project is a great example. Their Universal
Nut Sheller has had a real, measurable impact on economies.

In general terms, several industries have had a real, measurable impact on
economies. The scooter, the diesel truck, the steel hulled boat, the washing
machine, the cell phone... There are many successful companies in these
industries that have a real impact on humanity and make a profit too.

I find it astonishing that you couldn't think of examples of businesses that
have had a bigger impact on humanity than Twitter and Facebook.

~~~
beambot
> I find it astonishing that you couldn't think of examples of businesses that
> have had a bigger impact on humanity than Twitter and Facebook.

I never said I couldn't think of businesses with more (current) impact than
Twitter and Facebook! I think my work history amply illustrates that
(Google[x], Google Life Sciences, etc).

I was simply saying: A lot of really great, impactful businesses started off
with more-modest beginnings; chiding existing upstarts for not being
sufficiently ambitious borders on hubris.

------
credo
The first piece of advice _" don’t claim you’re changing the world until
you’ve changed it"_ makes sense.

A tiny minority of founders really work on products that change the world.
Many just hope that their company is acquired and that is how most
"successful" startups "exit". The so-called "exit" is a badge of honor (even
if the company had been through a fire-sale or acqui-hire)

There are other good points in the column, but I think Sam is a bit too
defensive when he says _" ignore the haters and work on whatever you find
interesting. The internet commenters and journalists that say you’re working
on something that doesn’t matter are probably not building anything at all
themselves."_

If someone is a "hater", does it really matter if they are building anything
else ?

Tesla has its critics, social-networking-for-cats will also have its critics.
Both companies may assert that they are changing the world. However, I don't
think it makes sense for the latter to use the former as an example of why its
critics are all "haters". Of course, I don't mean to suggest that the latter
deserves its critics. I'm just saying that there is no need to circle the
wagons against these so-called "haters".

If you think your startup is worth it, just work on it. Most startups don't
change the world in a big way, but that shouldn't stop you from trying.

~~~
girvo
> _If you think your startup is worth it, just work on it._

Isn't that exactly what Sam is saying?

------
tajano
If you're accused of working on stupid, trivial things, and Facebook and
Twitter are your best counterexamples, it's a little pathetic. It's very easy
to conflate making a lot of money with doing something that matters. At the
end of the day, they're ad-serving time-sucks that delivers CandyCrush and
advertisements and an endless stream of selfies from our most annoying,
narcissistic acquaintances.

Almost every founder, engineer, Stanford grad, and VC has been chanting "We're
changing the world!" for the last eight years. Stop it. It's trite and
annoying and it pisses people off. It doesn't piss people off because your
current batch of products are half-baked and stupid. It pisses people off
because your _very best_ products of the last decade are, at the end of the
day, stupid and trivial and really _haven 't_ changed the world in a very
positive way. It pisses people off because it doesn't hold water outside the
myopic Silicon Valley bubble, where everyone tells each other "We're changing
the world" often enough that they actually buy into it.

~~~
cgriswald
That's a rather blithe and shallow criticism of Facebook and Twitter. I could
easily complain about email because of spam, but it would totally disregard
its usefulness and impact. (As for Candy Crush invites and annoying selfies,
Facebook actually provides tools to deal with those problems. RTFM?)

Facebook in particular has allowed me to keep in touch with a much larger
social circle. It has made it easier to meet people, establish friendships,
maintain distance relationships, and keep in touch with more of my extended
family. It allows me to plan events quickly and on short notice, and get quick
feed back on who will be attending. It helps me learn about new events or
activities that I otherwise might have missed.

~~~
tajano
> _Facebook in particular has allowed me to keep in touch with a much larger
> social circle_

For me, Facebook offered a false sense of being social. The more I used it,
the more I craved social interaction, leading me to use it even more. It's
possible, maybe even likely, that I was "using it wrong." But after I used
Facebook's tool for dealing with this problem (the _Delete Account_ tool),
I've become a more genuinely social person.

I do miss out on photos posted by my extended family. That is a genuine loss.
I've probably also missed out on some events organized through Facebook. But
then again, I'm making more of an effort to actively maintain relationships
_offline_ , and it's probably been a net positive.

Of course, that's just my experience. There are 1.5B active users who might
disagree.

------
kriro
Warning, the following only relates to small remark from the article...

I really like the remark "noone understands hyperexponential growth". I've
always wondered if it's possible to learn understanding this better. I'd like
to think that most things can be learned and improved on at least to some
degree so it might be worthwhile to investigate this.

I used to play online poker for a living and I feel it improved my intuitive
understanding of limited chance events quite a bit (and taught me to think a
lot more in expected value than in actual results which is very valuable imo).
My hypothesis would be that a pool of (good) poker players understand
something like every day variance better than a comparable sample with no
poker background. There's some counter evidence that may be related (econ
students routinely know very little about basic econ concepts) but these
examples tend to be about theoretical and not practical knowledge. Not sure
what other groups one could include, statisticians or people who use
statistics regularly (data scientists, data centric QM, investment bankers
maybe) Constructing an instrument (questionnaire?) to measure intuitive
understanding of statistics is probably non-trivial.

+I'm already having nightmares of endless Frequentist vs. Bayesian debates.

Afterwards, the interesting thing would be to construct creative (I'm thinking
games due to my background but it could be anything) learning environments
where an improved understanding of (hyper)exponential growth is developed.

------
blizkreeg
I tweeted about this yesterday and I firmly believe the conversation around
this would be a lot more fruitful if startups & founders would evaluate and
focus their companies on _helping the world_ & stop with this "changing the
world" bullshit. The latter is arrogant, presumptuous, and often not true; the
former is a genuine desire and wish.

Few people and companies, in the history of our existence, arguably, truly
change the world (i.e., make history and alter our lives for better). And none
of them claim to be changing the world while they're doing so. Everyone else
and every other company is a footnote but that doesn't mean it cannot help
people and our world at large in some way while alive.

~~~
joelrunyon
The main underlying difference between the two is:

Helping the world = focus on customers.

Change the world = focus on the company.

Part of the problem is the innate need of companies in SV to pitch themselves
to VCs and in order to do that - they need to hyperbolize their mission -
hence why you get a lot more "WE'RE GOING TO CHANGE THE WORLD" blathering.

~~~
LoSboccacc
"the uber of x" "trainers hate him" "you wont believe what happened next"

Those are all consequences of the current internet culture where everyhing is
a product.

Some are really pitching to VCs, some are maybe good idea, most are just
following the trends that works to generate interest.

The catch is curiosity doesn't mean conversions and while views generated by
clickbaiting may seem good in a pitch value is mostly in the actual returning
customers.

This had been know from ages, but today it is only the last bullet point of
'growth hackers', known today under minimise churn rate.

As the weight moved to virality and marketing views to revenue plummeted and
at the current advertising cost per click to fuel the gtowth of apps with a
0.1% conversion or less you really need millions.

And here we get back to the main point: those millions to drive views to lure
VCs for more millions to build more views are not actually making the product
any better. Are making for big headlines at most.

And the fun part is, they call whose whom suceed unicorn because in this
system of advertisement fueled growth means they're mostly pumping millions in
ads on whatever, without any confirmation on the actual product sustenaibility
beyond the growth spiral, and having to have a million user before discovering
if the product is actually useful is a plan so retarded that it doesn't faze
me chances of one of this suceeding are as good as winning the lottery.

------
jpeterson
These apps "change the world" only if your "world" is the silicon valley echo
chamber. The real world is only moderately impacted, and only for a limited
time, even by an anomaly like Facebook.

Seriously, to all the silicon valley startups and investors: get over
yourself. You are not changing the world.

*EDIT: There are a lot of interesting and cool things going on in silicon valley, perhaps more than in any other place in the world. To that, I agree. The whole "changing the world" thing is a bit much, though, and I believe anyone who claims this is either overestimating their startup or underestimating the world (or both).

~~~
3pt14159
A third of divorce filings in the United States contain the word Facebook.
People are writing whole books (or incite revolutions) on iPhones while
they're on the bus. I'm not saying that Facebook is as important as
genetically modified rice on a worldwide scale, but it's up there.

~~~
astazangasta
Genetically modified rice (golden rice) is a propaganda tool that can't change
anything (you can't cure malnutrition due to poverty with genetically modified
anything), so bad example.

What offends me about the claims is the difference between what could be done
and what is done. In 1999 we learned via Napster of a fundamentally new type
of entity, the digital good. This was an item with zero marginal cost - it
literally costs nothing to reproduce on margin.

This fact should be fundamentally changing the world. A new type of economy is
possible now, one that goes beyond capitalism, one where wealth can be shared
instantly across the planet and multiplied infinitely the moment it is
created.

This revolution was shot in the face by the DMCA and various other efforts,
and that brilliant energy channeled instead into making a panopticon to allow
better ad targeting.

Facebook did not change anything; Facebook is squatting on the corpse of real
change.

~~~
3pt14159
> Genetically modified rice (golden rice) is a propaganda tool that can't
> change anything...

Vitamin A deficiency is responsible for 1–2 million deaths and hundreds of
thosands of cases of blindness per year. Even just basic Vitamin A fortified
rice could literally change millions of peoples lives per year.

See this paper:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2682994/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2682994/)

And if I'm wrong and this has been refuted, please share your research.

> A new type of economy is possible now, one that goes beyond capitalism...
> Facebook did not change anything; Facebook is squatting on the corpse of
> real change.

Facebook made the internet usable by normal people for things normal people
wanted to do. It is changing their lives right now. DMCA is shitty, but most
people find a way to watch shows just fine.

~~~
astazangasta
Yes, Vitamin A deficiency is a problem, and Golden Rice can treat it. You know
what else can? Pretty much any other food with Vitamin A. Why do we need to
create an entirely new kind of fortified rice? Why not just, say, give these
people carrots?

These people are vitamin deficient in their diets because they are poor.
Making golden rice is solving the wrong problem. What we need to do is end
poverty.

~~~
3pt14159
You are using a logical fallacy in your argument.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma)

Should we work towards ending world wide poverty? Yes.

In the meantime, just like Canada added iodine to salt to prevent a whole host
of diseases at the turn of the 20th century, so to can we add things like
vitamins to very basic foodstuffs for the third world.

> Why not just give these people carrots?

Because that is extremely costly, difficult, and destroys local agriculture
and has a host of other negative externalities. Furthermore many people are
too proud to take a handout, but selling their farmers better grains is
achievable.

~~~
astazangasta
It isn't costly at all. We can feed everyone on earth for a few paltry
billion; food is not expensive. We choose not to. Golden rice has its own
technical hurdles and is only solving a single nutritional problem.

------
netcan
_' Most of the “intermediate” companies, although it would take a separate
long post to explain why, end up not having a big impact'_

This is something I can't quite accept at face value, though I'm open to
convincing. It kind of depends on the terms you're think in, anyway. Sounds
worthy of a long post.

I mean, how do we class twitter or whatsapp? World Changers. On one hand, they
have that hyperexponential growth in users usefulness. They have had
"political scale" implications. On the other hand, we can speculate that had
these specific services not been started, other would have. Do they count as
toys or hyperambitious endeavours at the start? Being network effect apps,
they have that need/implication for lots of users. They are also "toys" in the
sense that they are relatively simple apps.

I'd like to hear about the terms he's thinking in, basically.

Regarding the SV hate, I think this is more about (1) not understanding low
probability, high risk than exponential growth and (2) the arrogance of saying
you are going to change the world while being cashed up. IE, when investors
pay $100k for a 1% of a company that may be worth $10bn at some point, that's
assuming an awful lot of companies that failed to become worth $10bn. People
see hundreds of companies reported on (or in person). Even if they're good at
picking out potential, they see that effectively all of these companies are
ridiculously unlikely to ever reach anything like that. Yet, they are talking
in these grandiose terms. Sounds delusional and arrogant.

------
jwr
The most important sentence in that article is the very last one:

> The internet commenters and journalists that say you’re working on something
> that doesn’t matter are probably not building anything at all themselves.

I live by this approach. If you build something, you will encounter lots of
critics. Most of them do not do anything meaningful and produce no value. Do
not listen to those. Only take to heart what you hear from people that
actually built something.

Actually, the most extreme example are todays "journalists & bloggers" — very
few provide value. So if you get criticized by Ars Technica, you should think
about what they said carefully. But pay no attention to what yet another news-
regurgitating site wrote.

~~~
rtpg
I don't think that's the best example of dismissing criticism (basically an ad
hominem). Just like a car critic doesn't need to build cars, the Times doesn't
need to build an Uber clone to comment on the fact that in the long term, Uber
will likely lower taxi driver income.

~~~
jwr
So what is a „car critic”? Why would I value his/her opinion?

In order for me to value someone's opinion, that someone needs to earn my
respect. People who have built something (anything!) get that respect
automatically. And if you want to write about cars, you don't necessarily have
to build cars — you just have to have built _something_.

There is too much criticism from people who built nothing, and provide little
or no value. All they can do is criticize.

------
titzer
The language people use is just a function of the funding environment. With VC
cash in the billions for the taking, the loudest, most arrogant and most self-
deluded have a leg up on those that are quietly building something solid. So
no wonder that environment tends to produce louder, more obnoxious people.

~~~
seiji
Great point. The most important VCs want to fund the most important companies,
so everybody has to ego-inflate themselves into being the best in the world at
_everything_ or else nobody will even look at you.

------
whatwha
I have yet to see a working definition for "change the world." And if there is
one, who creates this definition? VC? Journalists?

Once I see a workable definition, my next question is why "change the world"
is a metric, a goal, or whatever it is. Given your answer, what does that
imply? Maybe the phrase should be more truthful... something like "make a
meaningful contribution".

Maybe this is just an American buzz phrase and I am not getting it? To be
honest, I am getting a little tired of it.

There's that Woodstock generation song from the 60's with the chorus: "I'd
love to change the world, but I don't know what to do..."

I guess software VC and tech journalists have now solved that issue?

Funny, but "changing the world" (in the idelistic sense of the song) today
seems a much more daunting task than it did back then, even with the addition
of cable TV and now another communication medium being offered by the telcos
and cable companies. The world is better entertained and possibly better
informed. The "change" it led to is some ridiculously strong monopolies that
like to maintain status quo.

~~~
effie
In Czech/Slovak Republic, it would sound quite preposterous and pathetic if
someone claimed "and this will change the world" or "this will make the world
a better place", so thankfully we do not usually get this nonsense, although
generally the pathetic PR-speak continues to creep in into public
communications. I recall there is a nice Czech song by the old group
Nedvědi+Brontosauři with a verse going "...I wished to rebuild the world, yeah
that happens, so many of us did and still nothing...".

~~~
prodmerc
And that's why you never will (change the world). Or the people who can will
move elsewhere.

If someone in CZ would invent a new battery and claim it will change the
world, they'd be ridiculed even if they can prove it works. But not in major
tech hubs, most of which are still in the US. They'd get money.

In a world where exaggeration is the norm, it's hard to break through with
understatements and even normal statements (like stating pure facts and
refraining from saying preposterous things like "world changing").

"Aim for the stars and you'll land on the Moon" holds true for most businesses
imo...

------
noobie
I am reading this with a grain of salt given that Ycombinator backed this
"world changing" idea.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10032671](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10032671)

~~~
zamalek
One way to look at it as world-changing is a reduction in STD spread and a
reduction in unwanted conception. Condoms _are_ world-changers and this brings
them closer to people who could make bad decisions because a condom is out-of-
reach.

It's like Uber: taxi in an app. Think about all the lives saved because of the
convenience of Uber when drinking. I was taxying about before Uber and it
wasn't a pleasant experience: you always had to have cash on hand and 2AM
calls were expensive. Now it's super convenient, no cash, no problems, _no_
excuses and it saves lives - it just wasn't obvious at the outset that this is
where it would lead to.

There is definitely some shit that won't make a difference, though. Condoms on
demand is not one of those things that won't make a difference; whether that
startup fails or succeeds comes down to delivery (specifically: how fast).

------
LargeCompanies
So, in 2007 I invented the first social alarm clock(sleep.fm) and wow people
hated it. I always took a lot of flack for it ... even would come to read
Hacker News back in the day and stumble upon others here ripping it apart
randomly.

It hasn't gone mainstream just yet, but since it's invention 100s of
developers, huge pop stars and Fortune 50/500 companies have created social
alarm clocks.

~~~
LargeCompanies
Still getting downvoted years later or was it something else I wrote there?

~~~
mratzloff
What does your comment have to do with the topic at hand?

~~~
LargeCompanies
The author speaks of ideas that look stupid and are ridiculed when they are
first published on the web, as mine was.

Nowadays there isn't any ridicule seen in the headlines, press and comments
from users/prospective users after so many have been created.

It still hasn't hit the big time, but maybe it will. It just needs to be done
properly so it truly makes the sound of your alarm clock ALWAYS wake you up
with a smile or giggle or something informative/more useful then just your
regular lame loud alarm tone.

------
codingdave
I would take Sam's final words of advice one step farther - don't claim you
are changing the world just because you are changing one business industry.
There is more to the world than that.

------
kriro
I like the advice to not claim to change the world but it also seems that by
and large to get VC you kind of have to claim exactly this (at least
implicitly). Hypergrowth potential or go home. While this isn't the official
mantra of VC it's probably a lot harder to get funding for a humble idea that
you also pitch humbly.

Maybe a sub-YC with the explicit idea of "pitch your startup with no
hypergrowth potential" would be an interesting experiment. Ironically I think
YC is probably the best about not looking too much at hypergrowth potential
and focusing more on execution potential but they are also the most likely to
try a sub batch like this (based on the recent "superearlystage pitches only"
and including non-profits etc.)

------
nattaggart
It seems that there is a much higher threshold of "changing the world" applied
to the private sector than to government or non-profits. I routinely hear
people in relatively less influential organizations of the latter make such
claims without coming off as arrogant.

This makes me think that people in Silicon Valley aren't arrogant as much as
they tend to break an unstated social rule: One can't claim to be doing good
while making a profit (even if what you're doing is in fact net-good).

~~~
idlewords
This social rule has been elegantly hacked by no longer bothering to make a
profit.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Or doing any real good.

Part of the problem is that markets don't distinguish between "screw the
little guy (or the clueless VC) and make a quick buck" returns, and "have
customers flocking to you because your product is awesome and it makes them
awesome too" returns.

As far as markets are concerned, there's only money. Accountants and auditors
know nothing about social value, and care less.

How can you measure social value when there are no accepted metrics?

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bambax
The point with changing the world is you should change it for the better.

It's very arguable that Facebook and Uber, for example, are changing the world
for the worse.

~~~
br_smartass
Honestly, I can barely stand HN and the startup world anymore, why not be up
front about it already and say it's all about being rich and escaping the
common folk disgusting lifes? How is Facebook an example of "changing the
world" in any relevant way? How is Apple any different of other big
corporation of yesterday like IBM, GE, Ford? To me this is startup gospel with
zero substance("ohhhhh network effects! It's like special effects!"). This is
mainstream culture, but I guess the "idealist hacker maker underdog" myth is
just too good to let go.

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vas1
I think the key here is that as long as your building something and are
enjoying doing it in the process, who cares if its useful. Tinker long enough
and you might fall onto something revolutionary.

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gs7
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8149162](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8149162)

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alexandercrohde
What's hyper-exponential growth supposed to mean? "User base doubles every
month" (so 2^x) but then "the value is the square of the number nodes" which
yields 2^2x, which still has the same properties as 2^x.

Mix a dash of math, a pinch halo effect from fame, and suddenly something
meaningless sounds meaningful.

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joeyspn
Not a single app that sprouts from intelectual curiosity is "stupid". It's the
use stereotypical marketing wording like "change the world" or "join the
revolution" what makes a product (and its founders) look stupid.

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amandahugnkiss9
"The internet commenters and journalists that say you’re working on something
that doesn’t matter are probably not building anything at all themselves." Mic
dropped... exit stage left.

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CPLX
"One, don’t claim you’re changing the world until you’ve changed it."

Indeed.

I daresay that would solve a good chunk of the perceived arrogance problem in
one fell swoop.

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rajacombinator
Good advice although somewhat contrary to YC's push to take on "world
changing" projects! (Ahem fusion reactors ...)

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curiousjorge
Send me a 'Yo' if you think this article is cool

