
Instagram? Zynga? There's a lot big minds chasing small ideas - sajid
http://current.com/shows/the-gavin-newsom-show/videos/instagram-zynga-theres-a-lot-of-big-minds-chasing-small-ideas-says-allthingsds-kara-swisher/
======
arihant
For people who agree that Instagram, for example, is a small idea. I am going
to leave you with an excerpt from a Hal Abelson lecture:

"Now, the reason that we think computer science is about computers is pretty
much the same reason that the Egyptians thought geometry was about surveying
instruments. And that is, when some field is just getting started and you
don't really understand it very well, it's very easy to confuse the essence of
what you're doing with the tools that you use. And indeed, on some absolute
scale of things, we probably know less about the essence of computer science
than the ancient Egyptians really knew about geometry.

Well, what do I mean by the essence of computer science? What do I mean by the
essence of geometry? See, it's certainly true that these Egyptians went off
and used surveying instruments, but when we look back on them after a couple
of thousand years, we say, gee, what they were doing, the important stuff they
were doing, was to begin to formalize notions about space and time, to start a
way of talking about mathematical truths formally. hat led to the axiomatic
method. That led to sort of all of modern mathematics, figuring out a way to
talk precisely about so-called declarative knowledge, what is true.

Well, similarly, I think in the future people will look back and say, yes,
those primitives in the 20th century were fiddling around with these gadgets
called computers, but really what they were doing is starting to learn how to
formalize intuitions about process, how to do things, starting to develop a
way to talk precisely about how-to knowledge, as opposed to geometry that
talks about what is true."

Ideas do not have to be earth shaking breakthroughs to push the human race
forward. Things build on each other, effect of which is often missed.

There is wisdom is thinking long term, but not too long. The mental trap smart
people fall into of thinking their idea should make an impact that will last
longer and deeper only makes them vulnerable of being wrong. When you're just
scratching the surface and don't know what's beneath, it's better to keep
scratching than to speculate.

Even in short term, "no wireless, less space than a Nomad" changed the music
industry. "Just a bigger iPod touch" is changing education.

~~~
angersock
Dude, it's _Instagram_. It lets you add faux vintage to your pictures.
Building pyramids we are not.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Wrong. It's a network of tens of millions of people sharing data about their
day-to-day life.

~~~
angersock
My functional description is not inaccurate, nor is yours.

However, the poster I replied to did not substantiate the analogy and
comparison of:

    
    
      nascent computer science::geometry
      Instagram::pyramids
    

There's a bunch of fluff in the post, as well as much poorly-articulated
navel-gazing.

Also, something I begrudge about the comparison: Ancient geometry had nowhere
near the formalism and maturity of study that computer science as a field
does. And even if it did? Computer science doesn't seem to be closer than
arms-reach to most projects.

Hell, your modern operations and engineering in many cases is just throwing
together other people's libraries and fiddling with config files until you
have a liquidity event that lets you buy real talent--themselves pretty far
removed from the greats of the field of computer science.

About the only thing the pyramids and your socialized twitterscapegrams have
in common is the waste of thousands of man-years of productivity and intellect
in the pursuit of ego and fleeting fame.

Seriously, folks, let's not treat our industry with such gravitas.

~~~
arihant
I did not imply that Instagram (or any similar product) is like a pyramid. All
I said that if it is a step towards building one, there is no way to know
this, yet.

Things that ultimately become useful are most of times never conceived in a
straight trajectory. It's a curvy road. Claiming Instagram was a bad turn is
just purely naive conjecture by people who delude themselves into thinking
they have the magic map.

All we know is, more people than most countries' populations are using this
invention to make their lives better. For me at least, Instagram was a massive
shift in Camera interaction. I have never captured random moments on daily
basis like that before. I only took pictures when I thought I visited some
place important, not that great coffee I had in some new city. A good memory
to have captured.

------
lnanek2
If people want games to make their lives a little more fun, or photo sharing
apps to interact with their friends a little more stylishly, then that's a
very good thing to be writing. Saying you should write something more high
brow is kind of selfish and full of yourself, it's like saying no one should
watch TV so I'll never write anything related to TV. That's a fine opinion to
have for yourself, but it's completely out of touch with society and the
market, so not really something you should base a business on or expect a lot
of downloads for.

~~~
nickpinkston
"Out of touch with society and the market" is basically reactionary thinking
right? We've all heard the "Ford" quote of "if I asked my customers what they
wanted, it'd be a faster horse".

The people's opinions and the market are not sacrosanct - they are very often
wrong in making human progress. George Bernard Shaw knew the attitude we need
to make change:

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man."

------
jmduke
At risk of speaking to my audience, I think that things like Instagram -- oh,
cool, you put hipster filters on your photos -- are incredibly impressive,
from the amazing backend setup to clever engineering tricks like starting a
photo upload before the user applies a filter/caption.

Every industry has aspects or branches that, at face value, seem small. Some
people want to make it easier to take pretty photos, and I don't think there's
anything wrong with that.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I think the complaint boils down to "these people are smart enough to do these
things (like scale and optimize Instagram), but they aren't putting those
smarts to work on 'good' things."

I think the argument is bunk. It takes tremendous capital to solve problems
like "healthcare reform" (whatever that _really_ is) and self driving cars.
I've seen few investors willing to invest in "big ideas". So, instead, we see
lots of Instagrams and Zyngas.

~~~
jblow
So pick something that requires very little capital, like saving the 16000
children who die every day from starvation-related problems in developing
countries.

"I lack capital" is a very silly excuse given that the HN community are among
the richest people in the world... by definition, if you have the luxury of
even thinking about moving to Mountain View and starting some web site, you
are among the richest people in the world. A lot of people wake up in the
morning and their first task is to figure out how they are going to eat today.

~~~
bksenior
There is a great scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm where someone spills wine at
the table and the lady yells "Somebody Do Something!" and Larry says "Why the
f*$k don'you do something," I never understood these clever articles
explaining why smart people are selfish. Most people writing these articles
are more than capable and often (in Kara's case) rich with access to attention
of the masses.

There are plenty of people with big ideas, feature them, befriend them, help
them get money. If you think something is important build it or help they
people building it leverage it. The solution is never to make the people doing
things you don't consider big feel small themselves.

~~~
jblow
While I agree with much of what you are saying, I disagree strongly with the
last sentence. I think if one feels that a certain career path is petty and
selfish, one must make that clear. The reason is that, aggregate over large
populations and years of time, societal notions of dignity and respect toward
certain professions, and disrespect toward others, have a substantial
influence on whether people enter those professions and what kinds of choices
they make once engaged in them.

Of course this is a mechanism that goes horribly wrong in some societies, but
it's our job to make ours as good as we are able.

------
mcphilip
I've spent my last five years working first at an electronic medical records
place and then a startup working on a relatively untapped market of
aggregating and reporting on enterprise infrastructure related risk management
data across disparate data sources. I wouldn't argue that either is a game
changer that I should feel very noble about being a part of, but I must
confess it is somewhat discouraging to see all the money being thrown at
relatively simple problems that make life 'more fun'. Things like instagram,
foursquare. etc.

It's especially frustrating on the recruiting side to get highly skilled
developers interested in working in the 'boring' world of enterprise software
with no obvious path to a quick liquidity event.

I'd like to think working on big data problems related to aggregating and
reporting on things like vulnerability and security incident management across
fortune 100 global networks would attract some of the best and brightest, but
instead I'm stuck with just hoping a candidate could fumble their way through
fizz buzz without too much difficulty.

------
greghinch
Software, web and mobile apps in particular, offers one of the last truly free
arenas for innovation. There is little to no regulation, small startup costs,
and frankly comparatively little training required to create something
potentially great. You can lament that "big minds" are being wasted, but it's
hard to say whether anyone at Zynga would be curing cancer if FarmVille didn't
exist

~~~
alexanderh
I have to agree. Just because these companies made succesful products does not
mean they are geniuses. Just because you work for facebook doesnt mean you're
the greatest mind of a generation. You just got lucky. People have been
throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks for a long time. Some get lucky,
some dont. I dont think Mark Zuckerburg "engineer'd facebooks success"
mindfully. He was just in the right place and the right time with the right
connections and enough money. Its all about who you know.

------
fleitz
There are also a lot of literary geniuses writing link bait tech blogs but you
don't see entreprenuers telling journos that their making pulp to sell Adwords
instead of having an impact on culture.

~~~
tgrass
While that may be true (though doesn't necessarily mean the same journos
aren't making that complaint about their own craft) it doesn't answer the
complaint in any meaningful way.

~~~
jcdavis
I disagree. In both cases, people are taking the easy way out, because hard
things are well, hard.

~~~
fleitz
Last time I checked the purpose of a business was to make money, when I see an
easy way to do things I take it.

It's the smart thing to do. I have a feeling that if Instagram pivoted towards
curing cancer that investors would go ape shit.

Likewise if someone put a billion dollars on the table and told me I could
have it either by writing a photosharing iphone app or curing cancer, I'd sure
as hell sign up for option a and not option b.

------
PaulHoule
People are chasing those opportunities because the "real" opportunities have
incredible barriers to entry.

I've got some friends who'd like to build a nuclear reactor powered by thorium
that could produce limitless amounts of clean energy.

To just fill out the paperwork to build a test reactor, they'd need as much
money as Instagram got being acquired.

------
walru
Big ideas can get you burned, just ask Bruno or Galileo.

Of course nobody is going to be so prosecuted today, but I think we as a
society tend to sequester those with radical views from voicing them. So I do
think there are some 'Big Minds' working on 'Big Ideas' (eg. every so often
you hear about someone building a car that runs on alternate fuel resources).
However, if by chance these ideas do make it to a main stage then more times
than not they are summarily ridiculed/discredited. The political arena seems
to be the biggest example of this.

Big ideas are hard for people to get their head around. People are more likely
to attack that which they don't understand, rather than give a new viewpoint
the proper time to be digested and then considered as a valid opinion.

Just because someone says I have a better form of health care, democracy,
capitalism, or any other 'Big Idea' that's needed, and they want to introduce
it to the world. That doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot if those with the
power to implement the change aren't willing to listen (and let's face it,
more times than not they aren't).

Of course the resources of those building said 'Big Idea' also needs to be
considered. I have a whole host of projects I'd love to build -- some of them
bigger than others, but until I have the resources to put into them, and the
people around me to back that up, I can't even begin to get started. That's
why I'm working on the small ideas now. In fact, since she noted them
specifically, I have some educational word games for kids coming in the next
few weeks.

So this is where I embrace the small idea by saying, combined, small ideas
bring about the sea change. Of course not every small idea will contribute,
but in time, due to the demands of the market, things will change.

~~~
alberich
> That doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot if those with the power to implement
> the change aren't willing to listen.

The sad part about this is that in many ocasions we are those with the power
to implement the changes. Though we can rationalize and find an excuse not to
change... after all, why me? why bother with a 'society of idiots' like
someone have pointed here already?

~~~
walru
Of course we're the ones with the power.

However, I think more often than not people lack the ability to see how their
small action can add up to something big. The vote with your wallet analogy
being the greatest of all.

If the hive-mind would focus their energy tidal waves would erupt.

------
grammr
> there could be a greater effort to channel this enthusiasm into technology
> that has more a profound and positive impact

Of course there could be, but what this woman fails to realize is that smart
people are not obligated to donate their time and effort towards the
betterment of a society of idiots.

There is nothing wrong with pursuing "small ideas" for the sake of personal
profit.

~~~
jblow
... and this attitude is exactly the problem with "kids these days".

Society doesn't hold together by magic. It doesn't evolve in a mutually
beneficial direction by magic. People have to make it happen.

Is it okay for some people to make little games, or for some people to want to
selfishly make a little money? Sure; a robust society can tolerate that. It's
when these attitudes become prevalent that the problems start to happen.

~~~
mindcruzer
So? People can work on whatever ideas they please. The conversation ends
there. Unless you're going to start forcing people to work on idea's that you
deem will "better society" your comment is completely irrelevant.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
You seem overly fixated with defending the status quo as if it's somehow the
way things 'should' be.

Where's the imagination? Can you see that this is a deep cultural problem:
namely the fixation on maximizing one's personal profit at the expense of
ignoring bigger needs. Unfortunately, we as a society deify money to the
extent that if anyone even _suggests_ that this isn't a sustainable practice,
everyone gets all pissy. I don't know what a society would look like, but I'd
love to change attitudes towards money such that we stop squandering minds on
the latest social mobile local app.

That would be a true disruption.

------
igorgue
What's wrong with building fun and entertaining products?

Should we all go into building, what she considers, "important" products?

I tried to build an "important" product before, and I was miserable, because
you have to deal with miserable people most of the time, fuck that, now I'm
building fun stuff - not that, some people might find fun in the healthcare
industry.

Maybe she doesn't see any value on Instagram and Zinga. But I think is wrong
to consider them a "small" idea. I think they're huge and they're a big part
of our lives.

The guy who met his new wife on Instagram might disagree with you. Or the
person who avoided extreme boredom at work as a doorman because of Draw
Something that allowed him to keep his job so far this year might disagree
with the journalist too.

In the end, not everyone think like you Kara, and I think it's your job to
respect that.

~~~
elsurudo
Who said she doesn't respect that?

By your logic, nobody should speak their minds.

I think it's naive of you to posit that Instagram, Zynga, etc. are life-
changing ideas.

Not that entertainment doesn't have value, but I think she's spot on in
expressing some concern that some of our generation's brightest minds are
working on "pornified" entertainment.

------
cletus
I agree with Kara on this one. Before I continue let me add that I'm guilty of
this too to some degree: I work on display ads. Now I personally believe that
advertising has done an enormous amount of good for the world by providing
services for free that otherwise couldn't be free, which is actually much more
important for the developing world (GMail being free matters much more to a
user in Africa than it does to a user in the US, generally speaking). But I'm
certainly not working on a big idea.

It's interesting to see some of the responses here. They are in some cases
quite defensive and/or dismissive of this observation. Some of the defenses
raised:

1\. Deferred altruism: "I'm making the easy money now but I'll (work on big
ideas,give back,etc) later."

I question the sincerity of these statements. For one thing, human nature is
funny when it comes to money. How much is enough? Most of us here aren't
independently wealthy so we probably think several million dollars will do,
tens of millions will be plenty. I bet you'll find many people with that kind
of net worth still thinking they're poor and they need to make more. It's
probably an easy trap to fall into.

People think money won't change them. For most people it does.

More to the point, the biggest motivator is the need to succeed. One reason
startups are successful is it's either succeed or die. Necessity is the mother
of invention and all that. I truly believe you're much more motivated and
productive when your (financial) life depends on it. If you're wealthy, most
of the time you're just not going to be as motivated. It's a rare individual
that is the exception.

2\. Big problems are hard/expensive.

No actually they're not. Some are, sure. Thorium reactors would be an
expensive problem.

A lot of other problems in the fields of machine learning, bioinformatics, etc
are largely just software problems. Computing power continues to get
exponentially cheaper. The Khan Academy is a big idea with very little costs
to entry or operational costs.

3\. "This is happening in other areas too!"

Who cares? You're not responsible for anyone's behaviour other than your own.
Plus of course two wrongs don't make a right.

I get the desire to strike it rich. I really do. There's nothing wrong with
that. It seems disingenuous--even dishonest--to suggest there is a deeper
altruistic motive. Most of the time there isn't.

I don't see Kara's comments (or mine for that matter) as a criticism of the
motives of any particular individual or company, merely a lament that society
as a whole places such value on what are really shallow desires and
distractions. I'm sure it'd be harder to get funding for something as unsexy
as, say, protein folding than it would be for creating a social network for
cats and that really is sad.

~~~
maxerickson
Your last statement doesn't line up well with the fact that protein folding
has more funding than cat social networks do.

Sure, it's academic/institutional funding, but whatever.

~~~
bbgm
There isn't much funding for protein folding and hasn't been for a long time.
In general, there are ways to understand protein structure and impact in other
ways and that's where the money is. Of course, nothing has the sort of funding
that genomics has these days (in the life sciences)

~~~
maxerickson
Right. And there is zero funding for cat social networking.

My comment takes the parent pretty literally, which is mostly a response to
how glib the parent comment is. If only the tech wunderkinds were pursuing
interesting problems, they would solve them (and never mind the thousands of
people and millions of dollars that are actively devoted to those problems).

~~~
bbgm
One could argue that funding for any place that thrives on pictures of cats is
not that far way from funding cat social networks. There are a ton of well
funded hard problems that may or may not have monetary reward at the end. What
they do often require is a lot of patience and perseverance over a period of
time. Those who lean towards tech don't seem to have that kind of patience, at
least in my experience working in both worlds.

------
meddlepal
Small ideas are low risk and have a high chance of payout. Can you blame
people for taking the path of least resistance to success?

Further, if your small idea makes you rich you can always funnel later time
and success-money into altruistic charities and start ups.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
Define "success". Not everyone equates success to getting rich - at least, not
at the expense of putting time and effort on something that matters.

~~~
meddlepal
I agree - it was the wrong word. One can be successful and never be rich,
however, wealth is a property of success, albeit a non-essential one.

That said, I still think most people want money and will take the easiest path
to money - if small ideas can get them there then they will gravitate towards
implementing those ideas.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
_Success - achievement of an objective (goal)_

Wealth has absolutely no relation to success unless you define being wealthy
as your goal. It's not even a consequence of being successful on whatever you
set your life goals to.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
Most people, and especially on HN, accept the cultural defaults of success.

This is not always wise.

------
zerostar07
Why is it assumed that there are big minds behind these companies? (question,
not trolling)

~~~
georgemcbay
big money == big minds. amirite?

~~~
zerostar07
No.

------
mattgreenrocks
This is a huge issue for me presently.

I want to work on big/hard problems that affect people's lives. Things that
require imperfect solutions, or require a lot of research. Is there any way to
find these? I tend toward more of a research bent, personally, but it's hard
to hear about them in the HN bubble. I'm not looking to make a gazillion
dollars, but rather to find something that is intellectually challenging
enough to last me quite awhile. Anyone have any ideas?

~~~
ippisl
If you're interested in research, pick an interesting subject, and look for an
open research question/projects in new published articles.

If you're interested in impact, i think it's easier to build an influential
project(influencing 1000+ or more people in a reasonably important way) than a
meaningful research. There are many useful research papers by academia that
haven't been developed or commercialized and could be the base for useful
projects. For example: [1].

[1]ParkNet: Drive-by Sensing of Road-Side Parking Statistics

------
rokhayakebe
This is very hypocritical if it is coming from journalists who cover the small
ideas of the big minds and shrug the big ideas of small minds because they
don't have funding or 20 million signs up their first week on the app store.I
would urge every writer to watch the first 10 minutes of Adam sorkin's
newsroom episode 3.

------
toddh
This is like saying helping a little old lady across the street isn't a big
enough good, what a waste, ignore the lady and figure out how to save all of
the peoples. Only then have you done something truly good. But the little old
lady might disagree.

------
signalsignal
Wow, current.com really hates Mitt Romney.

------
wilfra
You have to start small to get traction and to get funded.

Facebook is overthrowing governments. Google is making self driving cars and
elevators to the moon. Neither of these companies stated this as their mission
or probably even dreamed of these things in year 1 or 2.

A generation from now we'll see what can happen when you give young,
brilliant, idealistic founders complete control of their multi-billion dollar
companies.

This is just the beginning.

~~~
ballooney
Google and Facebook are the exception to the rule. You are not going to be
them. Also google are not making elevators to the moon, don't be so silly.

Photocopiers used to be banned, with huge punishments for ownership, in east
Germany due to their power to spread ideas quickly. But it's as silly to say
that xerox brought down the berlin wall as it is to say that Facebook is
bringing down governments.

You are full of it.

~~~
wilfra
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator>

