
Ask HN: What Are Todays Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas - swalsh
In 2012 PG wrote an essay about Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas (http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.paulgraham.com&#x2F;ambitious.html)<p>Many of the items have been tackled (though admitedly perhaps not that successful yet).  What would a new list look like today?
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TheAlchemist
I would say food / nutrition. It's crazy how simple (not easy) it is to eat
right, and how far, as a society, we are from eating right.

When you realize that a LOT of problems originate with food, it's becoming
mind blowing. Probably more than half of deaths and health expenditures could
be fixed with 'eating right'.

I'm thinking more and more about this.

~~~
Spooky23
That’s about education. Teach people to cook and value the experience.

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impendia
> Teach people to cook and value the experience.

I'm not so sure about this.

I very much value healthy eating, but I'm not so sure how effective I am at
doing so, and I've never been a "foodie". Some people deeply care about food
-- about the taste, about the culture behind it, about the social experience
of eating it. They get excited about going to new restaurants, and will talk
about the food while they're ordering and eating it. (I tend to find these
conversations a bit mystifying, and not have anything to contribute.) And,
they tend to enjoy cooking.

Personally, this is not something that has captured my imagination; I regard
cooking as a chore. If I have a lot of energy after work, then I'd rather go
out than stay in cooking.

Perhaps, one day, I will "see the light" and become a devoted foodie. Until
then, I imagine there is room for a startup to sell to me.

~~~
mattwest
Coming from someone who felt the same about cooking for most of my life, I can
say it happened almost overnight for me. Michael Pollan does a good job of
dissecting the history of cooking/food and it's relationship to our health.
Reading some of his work might be a good catalyst if you feel like giving it
another try.

~~~
impendia
I've read some Pollan, _In Defense of Food_ I believe. Certainly enough to
convince me that nutrition matters.

I just don't get all that excited about food. For example, I'm currently
visiting a research collaborator and friend away from home. Last night, even
though he is unable to eat out due to health concerns, he insisted on taking
me out to dinner. I was happy and grateful -- but despite the fact that he
would be eating nothing, he was more excited by the menu than I was!

And more generally, I've been disappointed that eating together is the
"default" social activity. Social life (at least at my age, and where I live)
seems to be centered around getting a meal, drinks, or coffee. I've tried to
expand things by inviting friends to more eclectic activities, but they
usually haven't been interested.

The one exception is when I have a bunch of friends over for a party, then I
_do_ get excited about cooking. But that's an occasional thing.

Were your circumstances at all similar to mine?

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DoreenMichele
Solving our housing supply issues in the US.

1\. We need more small spaces

2\. suitable to families of three or fewer people

3\. that allow for a middle class lifestyle without owning a car because you
can access jobs, shopping and entertainment via walking and public transit

4\. that don't cost a fortune so people in the bottom half economically have
some hope of living well.

~~~
mattwest
I believe the problem is that institutional buyers are out-competing small
families in the market. Large funds are paying cash for these houses to flip
them and the people who actually need to homes can't make the same deal.

~~~
DoreenMichele
It's far more complicated than that.

In the 1950s, the average new home was 1200sqft and held about 3.5 people.
Today, the average new home is more than twice that size and holds one less
person.

Since about the 1960s, we've also torn down about a million SROs. SROs used to
be normal market rate housing. Now, most seem to be part of some transitional
housing program for homeless people.

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

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muzani
There's an up to date list here:
[https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/](https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/)

Personally I'd be interested in seeing more energy related things. Something
that can displace oil. Something that can be more effective and reduce energy
wastage. It has the potential to unlock a lot of cool things like
desalination.

Optical routers would also be a cool thing if it doesn't exist yet.

Quantum computers has been in research for a while, but will do some
interesting things when it happens.

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danrodmell
Automated Freight. Good´s exchange is the fundation of the society a low cost
automated exchange could be extremely helpful or extremely harmful.

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AnimalMuppet
A better Facebook. (Recall that Google started when somebody else (Yahoo?) was
the "default" search engine.)

~~~
muzani
duckduckgo but for social media

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devops_monkey
Artificial General Intelligence --- boom!

~~~
segmondy
This!

