From where I’m sitting, it seems like most of the money to be made in the next 10 years won’t come from high tech, but rather from applying bang average tech (Python, React, Go, and standard AWS infra) to industries where the most experienced specialists have no concept of what those words mean (e.g. healthcare, agriculture, finance). There are huge opportunities to make these industries more efficient, and make money along the way.
There are so many industries that aren't going to be 'disrupted' by some fancy new tech. Because they have much more urgent low tech problems to solve first.
I've lost count in the number of startups that want to 'disrupt' agriculture with blockchain, because, you know, who wouldn't want to have their potatoes tracked in a decentralized proof-of-stake ledger? PotatoCoin! But reality is that to store data in a blockchain, you first need data to begin with. Many of the business in agriculture is conducted on a handshake, usually there isn't even paperwork. Also, in many countries agriculture relies on operating in a grey area of tax, just to break a profit. I bet a lot of farmers don't even want a transparent ledger for everyone to see ;-)
Most of us developers don't have the real-life industry experience to remotely understand where the opportunities lie. And we are way to naive to think that we can solve any problem with software.
I've been a farmer for most of my life in conjunction with my day job, and this is correct.
There was an article recently in a modern farming magazine about how restaurants and downstream consumer organizations and businesses want to use blockchain technology to track where a cow was raised, where it was processed and how, and when it became the hamburger or whatever you're eating so that customers can scan it and feel better about themselves and their choices.
Cool. Super cool technology. That I will never use on my farm because it provides me with absolutely 0 incentive at the start of the stream other than increased overhead. After looking into the technology, there are ways to use that data to track cattle, and ways to use that data to track yield and feed ratios and that sort of thing, but it's not the purpose, and therefore almost impossible to get out of the system. It also would be super easy to game by the large 'family owned' farms (sort of like how they do it now anyway).
And I already do what I need with excel, it's just time consuming. So it's another example of 'BUT IT'S TECHNOLOGY' that just doesn't appeal to me.
For other examples see: automated weed control, most automated irrigation systems, most automated weather and climate tracking systems, and definitely any/all automated feed and livestock management systems.
The one thing you said that I want to push back - from a very US centered perspective - very little farming is done via handshake anymore. Any farmer who is actually able to survive does so by playing the markets, by pushing formal contracts, and by being smarter than that. Nothing on the outgoing side is left to chance anymore, because all of our inputs are based on chance already (weather, performance, yield).
Yes, for example in warehouse management. Most companies still use outdates apps on Windows ME.
The problem is that stakes are so high that nobody dares to change.
You cannot turn off a running warehouse for some days.
I believe datamigration is mostly where the opportunities are. Because then you can one day flip the switch and start working with new software while having the same 'state' of the old software.
I work at a company that intersects finance and healthcare.
Our competitors to dominance through smart acquisitions, but this came at a fixed linear or super-linear operating cost per unit of growth. We are growing by identifying abstractions, and incorporating the new markets into existing ones.
Their method was the best way to quickly grow a company to a national scale in the 60s, but it comes at the monotonically-increasing costs of internal coordination and duplicate work. Software allows you to grow gracefully, while avoiding those problems as they appear.
As an example, we analyze inbound calls by volume every quarter to identify how we can anticipate user needs, and solve them ahead of time, without requiring a phone call (thereby improving the client's UX and saving operating cost). Every year, we reduce our call volume while simultaneously increasing our client headcount and improving the tools that are at our team's disposal. That kind of iterative optimization isn't possible at the big conglomerates.
Look for industries that haven't figured this out yet, those are the ones where the money will be made; Stripe is a good example of this playing out in finance.
thank you for your explanation! I would love to hear more about your approach. I am looking what to do next in my professional life, and these kind of concepts sound very exciting!
Would you perhaps be willing to have a short conference call, or perhaps, an email exchange?
I can’t speak for this person but it appears they’re making the case that a lot of value comes from giving some computer love to industries that gets no love but could benefit from a little tlc.
