
Poverty-Fighting Startups - rmason
https://www.fastcompany.com/40513626/these-poverty-fighting-startups-are-slaying-silicon-valleys-sacred-cows
======
aphextron
Fighting poverty is a social and political problem. It is simply a question of
will. We have enough wealth on earth to provide food, clothing, and housing to
every single human being. Why don't we do it? That's a political question. The
technology is trivial.

>“One of my ambitions is to help our users put more food on the table,” says
Jimmy Chen, the founder of Propel. His company makes a mobile app called
FreshEBT that helps people among the U.S.’s 43 million recipients of the
electronic benefit transfer (EBT) service to stretch their food-stamp benefits
as far as possible.

I read "we're here to somehow insert fees between you and your food stamp
money". The self delusion of these people is incredible.

~~~
john_moscow
>Fighting poverty is a social and political problem. It is simply a question
of will. We have enough wealth on earth to provide food, clothing, and housing
to every single human being. Why don't we do it? That's a political question.
The technology is trivial.

Because there is a huge and complex domain of human motivation, appreciation
for hard-earned things vs. taking them for granted and so on. USSR tried doing
exactly that with the planned economy and trying to distribute the wealth more
or less evenly and failed miserably. Mostly because people lost motivation for
achievement and started blatantly faking numbers and statistics since the
connection between the results of their work and their life quality was
completely lost. As someone who survived that crash, I would really hope that
SV can learn from others' mistakes rather than repeating them.

~~~
gumby
> USSR tried doing exactly that with the planned economy and trying to
> distribute the wealth more or less evenly and failed miserably.

Actually if you look at where they started and where they got, they did a
pretty good job in raising the very poorest our of poverty, electrifying the
country, and really eliminating a lot of the abject poverty that was most of
the country at the time of the revolution. Changes that the former (imperial)
regime seemed uninterested in making.

Even into the 1950s and even 1960s quite a lot of people, including a
surprisingly large amount of US government officials, thought that there was a
chance the USSR could surpass the USA. I think such people were delusional,
since the signs were pretty clear at the time (I was a child at that time, but
I did study the USSR in the 1980s when it was very obviously not a threat to
the west).

Don't get me wrong: the USSR was founded by a bunch of bloodthirsty assholes
(Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky et al) and, for various reasons developed into a, yes,
evil system. I don't blame it entirely on the people involved -- I think
anyone who tries to follow that model, even with good intensions (and it's not
clear the Bolsheviks _had_ good intentions) is going to end up with a shitty
result.

But dispassionately one thing they did accomplish was the thing you said they
failed miserably at. And it's unlikely the Menshevik republicans would have
pulled that off.

~~~
aaron-lebo
They were successful by the late 30s (after lots of misery), but the Russian
economy had been growing for a long time. I'm not sure the imperials or
republicans couldn't have pulled it off, Russia had lots of natural
advantages, especially after winning WW2.

GNP:

    
    
        Country 	1890 	1900 	1913 	1925 	1938
        Russia/USSR 21 180 	32 000 	52 420 	32 600 	75 964
        Germany 	26 454 	35 800 	49 760 	45 002 	77 178
        Britain 	29 441 	36 273 	44 074 	43 700 	56 103
        France 	19 758 	23 500 	27 401 	36 262 	39 284
    

They went from the second smallest economy in 1890 to the biggest in 1913
(imperials). The economy crashed after the revolution and bad economic
experiments and then rebounded. Russia was late to the industrial revolution
so a lot of that growth was just it kicking in, along with the Soviets
removing anyone that got in the way. Hard to say how much can be attributed to
either.

They were holding their own late into WWI and actually had an agreement to
obtain Istanbul, which the Bolsheviks revoked (hard to fault them) along with
all that they gave up in the separate treaty with the Germans. Imagine them
sticking it out to 1918 with gains from being on the allies and the revolution
averted. They would have been as well positioned as anyone in Europe.

~~~
masonic

      The economy crashed after the revolution 
    

The loss of the war with Japan didn't help, either.

~~~
sologoub
Source?

I can’t find any evidence that there was any economic significance to that war
aside from loss of the fleet and human life. Bruised imperial egos for sure
and likely contributing to an image of a week government, but I’m hard pressed
to see how it could have had any impact on the industrial output of the
country.

~~~
ptaipale
You could surely say that the war with Japan didn't help.

Well-known events like the Potemkin mutiny may be dismissed as not impacting
industrial output, but there was a large-scale general strike which actually
lead to "1905 revolution" [0]. The loss to Japan was of course only a partial
factor, with bigger contributor being the overall economic downturn of early
1900's.

There were some direct impacts from this revolution. There was large-scale
unrest in Kingdom of Poland (the Russian-held part of partitioned Poland).
Finland (then a Grand Duchy in the Russian empire) abolished Diet of Finland
in favour of a new Parliament of Finland, with universal suffrage for both men
and women. And in mainland Russia, the absolute monarchy was abolished in
favour of a parliamentary monarchy.

However, this was too late for the Russian empire to recover.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905_Russian_Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905_Russian_Revolution)

------
songzme
Its important to know that you don't need millions of dollars to help people
and do good. My salary was 145k with it I started a non profit that pays low-
income earners minimum wage while they learn how to code. These people could
really benefit from learning how to problem solve but they don't have the
luxury to quit and join a bootcamp. With my salary, I was able to help 3
people at first but now (after getting a new job and selling my vested stocks)
we are able to support 13 students.

When I visited CalWorks (local government assistance program) to see if they
could help my project financially, they were really excited and agreed to
refer students (who are on the poverty line) and also pay the students so I
don't have to. Before we joined, the only kinds of job training they were able
to offer were the likes of Amazon warehouse packaging and hotel cleaning. I
hope to empower more low-income earners to have the ability to simplify
complex problems and problem solve.

~~~
maged
Are you accepting/looking for volunteers?

~~~
songzme
Yes! Please send me an email (in my profile)

------
noobermin
I'm not from Silicon Valley, so the only sampling I have of SV culture comes
from this site[0]. From what I see, the article has a refrain that being anti-
libertarian goes against the SV gain, but I see political opinions from across
the political spectrum here, and my leftist opinions are often upvoted. So,
while I can see _investors_ being skeptical, would the tech community as a
whole be anti-welfare? I don't necessarily think so.

Regardless, that's just a nitpick about the article. I'm happy that these
businesses are doing what they are doing.

[0] FWIW, the article cited a comment from here, so this place must be
important enough to cite as an example of SV attitudes

~~~
azernik
I think SV culture tends to be politically extremist, or to be more accurate
fundamentalist, in whatever ideology it pursues. I see more hard-line
libertarians, but also more hard-line socialists, than in other subcultures.

There's a long tradition of political extremism among engineers in cultures
around the world; something to do with seeing society as a system simple
enough that a single human being can understand the solutions to its problems.
Hayek (who I disagree with on many points) even wrote a whole essay on it,
with this very lovely point:

"It is this awareness of being part of a social process, and of the manner in
which individual efforts interact, which the education solely in the sciences
or in technology seems so lamentably to fail to convey. It is not surprising
that many of the more active minds among those so trained sooner or later
react violently against the deficiencies of their education and develop a
passion for imposing on society the order which they are unable to detect by
the means with which they are familiar."

[https://mises.org/library/engineers-and-
planners](https://mises.org/library/engineers-and-planners)

Gambetta and Hertog tried to quantify this, and found that engineers were
over-represented (drastically) in Islamist terrorist networks, and (less
drastically) in Western right-wing extremism; and that Western left-wing
extremists tended more towards a humanities education. I've read lots of
newspaper write-ups of the book, but haven't gotten my hands on a copy, so I
don't know their speculation on the causes of the left-right split they
observed in studies.

[https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10656.html](https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10656.html)

They also have older scholarly write-ups, which I should probably take a look
at, e.g. [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-
of-...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-sociology-
archives-europeennes-de-sociologie/article/why-are-there-so-many-engineers-
among-islamic-radicals/91ED8BEFDE3793834667750B31575422)

EDIT: So, looked at that paper at last, and it seems the right-wing stereotype
of SV people is likely true. They looked at Westerners to try to make
comparisons, and while they found no overrepresentation in violent groups,
they did look at surveys of political views of educated people by degree. The
best data they could find was about faculty members from 1984, so keep the age
and restricted subset in mind.

"The results are startling (Table 7). The proportion of engineers who declare
themselves to be on the right of the political spectrum is greater than in any
other disciplinary group: 57.6 % of them are either conservative or strongly
conservative, as compared to 51.1 of economists, 42.5 of doctors and 33.5 % of
scientists, 21.4 % of those in the humanities, and 18.6 % of the social
scientists, the least right-wing of all disciplinary groups. Only 1.4 % of
engineers are on the left, as opposed to 12.9 % in the social sciences and
16.7 % in law. Perhaps this is an uncanny coincidence, but the four fields at
the top of the conservatism scale – engineering, economics, medicine, and
science – are the same four secular fields we found at the top of our main
jihadist sample."

They also cited a more recent Canadian study (1999) with similar results.

Anyway, there are many other interesting findings in that paper; highly
recommended.

~~~
hectorlorenzo
This is actually amazing. I always thought that this "seeing in systems" was
also the cause of the lack of empathy that traditionally has been attributed
to engineers (being this an unfair stereotype or not).

There are several computational paradigms that we attribute to minds (and
people) that more often than not backfire, finite state machines being the
most obvious one. Sometimes it works, and we discover a great mental model to
live by. Sometimes it goes really wrong and it all goes the modernist way
(Mies van der Rohe and co).

This leads to another nasty effect: being incapable to commiserate with the
people around us. If the mind is a deterministic black box and I'm not an
alcoholic because I refrain myself from drinking, how come there are
alcoholics. The answer must be: they do not try hard enough. Same with poor
people, obese people. If things have not happened to me, the fact that happen
to other people must mean that they've brought it upon themselves.

------
sax
Propel (and bunch of other ventures) have their genesis at the Blue Ridge
Labs.

Blue Ridge Labs focuses on bringing together people who are interested in
product, design and engineering to go out and apply tools of empathy and
discovery to understand the problems faced by low-income and socially
disadvantaged Americans.

For anyone who is at crossroads in their career, I would highly recommend
reaching out to @BlueRidgeLabs. I vouch for and support the sincerity of their
mission.

Have questions about Blue Ridge Labs? Reach out to @cromulus. Looking to find
an engineering position in NYC reach out to @FreshEBT. I am @rksio

------
ksk
How are these startups planning to pay back the VC money? The poor don't
exactly have a lot of money. Where are they going to get the money from? I am
skeptical anytime a VC invests in "solving poverty".

------
sbierwagen
Is it... a "startup"? Do they make money? Is Propel even a for-profit company?

~~~
IncRnd
> _Is it... a "startup"? Do they make money? Is Propel even a for-profit
> company?_

A startup is a newly established business - that is to say, just starting up.

~~~
zachlatta
I'm a fan of PG's view:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html)

~~~
IncRnd
I'll put forward that PG is using his own definition that aligns with his
business. His definition differs from that of the dictionary's definition.

There's nothing wrong with that, as it helps him achieve day-to-day his goals.
But, the definition is otherwise limited in that it is not correct or useful
outside of direct investors who are looking for fast growing companies that
want to be called startups in order to get startup funding.

------
k__
If a poverty fighting startup would work it would be a huge plus for
capitalism, I think.

How to get poor people at least to an average income while making some money
yourself.

I'm from Germany and at least here I have the feeling that the issue is mostly
missing education opportunities for older people.

Sure, the "really" poor without any job have more time on their hands, but
there are probably a huge bunch of people who could work as taxi diver or
waiter, who can make 1000€ a month without the need of too much education.

While you probably can mingle with the "Arbeitsagentur" (part of the public
service for unemployed people) to get the people without income paid by them
while you re-educate them, the much bigger part are the people who work but
simply don't make enough money to have an okay life.

Also, while you have to get the second part of the people like 1000€ a month
so they can do their re-education fulltime, you also have to make money
yourself.

All I found today were some models, where the re-educated had to pay like
10-20% of their first income as payment later. This doesn't sound too bad,
since it forces the education-company to get them ready for jobs, but on the
other hand it maybe prevents people from getting good jobs? I don't really
know.

The other model could be more like Mozilla does it, getting big sponsors, but
then you are working for the sponsors and not for your customers anymore :/

------
nico
Love that this could start becoming a thing. There's a very similar
incubator[1] in Chile with the same hypothesis, poor people also have problems
that can be resolved through tech/startups and there are plenty of good
business opportunities there.

[1]: [http://www.socialab.com](http://www.socialab.com)

------
quadrangle
There's no sacred cows in this case, just groupthink.

Incidentally, Silicon Valley isn't at even typically anti-government. That bit
isn't even in the groupthink even if there's a particular anti-government
dogma that isn't _absent_ from the milieu.

(note: I'm not in SV or it's groupthink, I'm speaking as an observer of it)

------
RickJWag
Does anyone else find it odd to make a smartphone app for EBT users? If I were
broke, one of my first moves would be to go to a cheaper phone, maybe a flip-
phone style.

But maybe that's what the author meant by the trade of time and convenience
for cost.... I really, truly believe that money skills lead to the
accumulation of wealth, and that they are acquirable (teachable) skills.

------
known
Govt should go for
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income)

Citizens can opt for
[https://www.givedirectly.org/efficiency](https://www.givedirectly.org/efficiency)

------
blackrock
The greed of the rich and well-connected, is beyond belief. Capitalism has
failed for a segment of the population. Democracy has failed for them.

You need money to make money. You need education, skills, connections, and
health to get and maintain a job.

Have you seen the pictures of Skid Row in Los Angeles?

[http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-
content/uploads/sites/10/2016/01...](http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-
content/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/HomelessFoodLine-800x518.jpg)

[https://world.wng.org/sites/default/files/styles/three_col_f...](https://world.wng.org/sites/default/files/styles/three_col_full_width/public/carousel-
images/SkidRow82-w.png?itok=W3O9S67-)

This is the reality on the ground in Los Angeles. There are several blocks in
downtown Los Angeles, where when you step into it, it feels like you stepped
into a land that time forgot. The people are destitute. They have failed at
one thing or another in life, and that has brought them to this point.

And what is the result of this? It has created a micro-3rd-world-country,
right in the heart of one of the richest cities in the world. Where people
drive by in expensive Mercedes, BMW, and Tesla cars.

The rich don't care about this, because they will never drive through the poor
parts of town. But for everyone else, it makes life miserable for all.

At some point, you just have to cut your losses with these people. They are
not going to get any corporate job. They pan-handle, beg, and harass people on
the streets. Society, the city, the state, and the federal government, must
step in to provide a baseline for these people.

Give them a damn fake job, give them money, give them food, give them shelter.
Just get them off the streets.

If society cannot do this for them, then take the next step, and go extreme.
Incarcerate them. Make it illegal to be homeless. Throw them into a prison. At
least that way, they will get fed, have a jumpsuit for clothing, and a warm
shelter.

This is a human rights issue. And for the United States to claim that they are
the greatest at human rights, then all you have to do is to look at the
homeless, the underbelly of society, and see the people that has failed in
society. And here, you will see the hypocrisy of a society that has no desire
or inclination to help them.

------
CapacitorSet
Poverty-fighting? They're quite literally poverty-exploiting.

~~~
ptaipale
The road out of poverty is through what is called "exploitation" in Marxist
theory - particularly, international trade.

As British economist Joan Robinson put it :"The misery of being exploited by
capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all."

------
dishwishy
Contrary to how it sounds, you can't eat a double-byte character. This does
seem to feel slightly like rent seeking on behalf of these companies.

------
Top19
>“One of my ambitions is to help our users put more food on the table,” says
Jimmy Chen, the founder of Propel.

This app has some short-term benefits, but it’s hard to see long-term
benefits. What if every government aid program was super easy to sign-up for
and instantly check whatever you need. What would change? Less taxes from all
the gov workers we’d no longer need?

~~~
Anderkent
>This app has some short-term benefits, but it’s hard to see long-term
benefits. What if every government aid program was super easy to sign-up for
and instantly check whatever you need. What would change? Less taxes from all
the gov workers we’d no longer need?

A lot of people who could receive aid but don't have the time / ability /
don't know that they could receive aid would get help? How is that not a good
result?

And yes, it'd also mean that there's less effort required to find people who
need help and verify them, and thus the overhead is reduced.

------
mc32
At first blush it would seem that coordinating or collaborating with
cooperative government agencies might be of benefit as many of these apps seem
to streamline and make processes more effective for the ultimate beneficiary
of the programs. Obviously this is a benefit for both the recipient and the
government organization which wants to serve its pop as well as possible.

As someone mentioned in the thread, efficiency could lead to either better
benefits to the recipients of the government benefits or they could result in
contraction of the government workforce.

To that latter concern we must figure out whether people are employed by the
government (or companies in general) to do a job or they're there also equally
as a part of a social contract to keep the most people possible in gainful
employment --which if the latter is true, SV startups are an anathema by
design. People for the most part aren't building startups in order to require
more people to keep things running --they tend to be in business to save their
customers money.

~~~
lazyasciiart
Wait til you hear about the manufacturing industry using machinery!

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

~~~
lazyasciiart
It's hard to identify what 'unsubstantive' might mean when it apparently
doesn't include the idea that businesses are not created in order to employ
people.

