

How Serial Innovators Find The Best Problems To Solve - sal9000
http://www.fastcompany.com/1838924/how-serial-innovators-find-the-best-problems-to-solve

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nchuhoai
> They [Serial Entrepreneurs] understand that technology is just a means to an
> end, the firm is in business to make money

While I dont doubt that a firm is usually in business to make money, I dont
think we can just degrade technology to a means to and end

~~~
reddickulous
If technology isn't a means to an end then what is it? I don't see how it can
be anything other than that unless you say it's like art for art's sake -
technology for technology's sake.

~~~
oscilloscope
Heidegger's essay "A Question Concerning Techology" addresses exactly this.
There are free translations online of varying quality. My favorite translation
is in this collection:

[http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Writings-Martin-
Heidegger/dp/006...](http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Writings-Martin-
Heidegger/dp/0061627011)

The essence of technology is a process of enframing knowledge, natural
resources and labor into a technological system.

Take a look at financial systems, which are a means to an end (production,
exchange, etc) but have taken on a life of their own. The system is a mix of
various technologies and artifacts: contracts, currencies, presses, credit
cards, databases, cash registers, stock exchanges etc. Money frees and
empowers us, but also confines us.

The ordering of money holds sway over other systems, such as barter systems,
which presents a different mode of enframing economic activity.

What about technologies like open source licenses or programming languages?

The license ensures the work can be redistributed and modified. Is this a
means to an end? Maybe. It seems more open-ended than that. It's not simply
satisfying the need of an existing system.

The language emphasizes logics and techniques. Are formal languages a means to
an end, or a mode of revealing and expressing logical structure?

