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Ask HN: Any well funded tech companies tackling big, meaningful problems?
97 points by digitalmaster on Sept 8, 2020 | hide | past | favorite | 98 comments
Are there any well funded tech startups / companies tackling major societal problems? Any of these fair game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_global_issues

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I don't see or hear of any and want to know if this is just my bias or if there really is a shortage of resources in tech being allocated to solving the worlds most important problems. I'm sure I'm not the only engineer that's looking out for companies like this.

Ran into this previous Ask HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24168902) that asked a similar question. However, here I wanna focus on the better funded efforts (not side projects, philanthropy etc).

One example I've heard so far is Tesla. Any others?




If you’re interested in having an impact I highly recommend visiting https://80000hours.org/

The biggest impacts can often be made in areas that are most neglected and have high negative or positive outcomes. At the very least it will help you form a mental model of how to spend your time and the types of problems to focus on.


Thanks for sharing. Their emphasis on the neglectedness of an issue and focusing on the margins is great.


This is fantastic! Thanks for sharing!


At CIONIC, we're tackling how to overcome disability through precision bionics. Whether a diagnosis at birth (Cerebral Palsy, Spina Bifida) or an acquired disease or impairment (Parkinson's, issues resulting from a stroke), we're engineering sleek, wearable solutions that will provide comprehensive analysis and precise augmentation to enhance human performance, restore physical function and increase independence. Check out more information here: https://cionic.com/


This looks cool. Why do you think this hasn’t been done before?


Good question. I think it's the right time for the confluence of technology and human need. It's not an easy problem, but it's an important one


Loon from Google/Alphabet [1]. They are attempting to connect remote and rural areas of the world. They are currently providing commercial service in a difficult to reach/low ARPU area in Kenya [2].

Loon uses standard 3GPP (LTE) protocols, so devices are available at low cost and even lower in used markets.

I don't work for Loon or Google, just interested in HAPS (High Altitude Pseudo Satellites) to provide low cost connectivity.

[1] https://loon.com/

[2] https://medium.com/loon-for-all/loon-is-live-in-kenya-259d81...

Edit: fixed references


Wow, Project Loon. It’s been a while since I’ve thought about it. It seems kind of pointless now, doesn’t it? StarLink will displace it in a couple of years.


One disadvantage with Starlink is the need for external antenna. With HAPS, project Loon and HAPS Mobile [1], you can use regular mobile phones and modems making it cost effective for most people. The idea would be for an operator to have terrestrial network in urban/sub urban areas and high altitude cell towers in less dense areas. This way you can use the same subscription and device.

Starlink could also be used to provide backhaul to cell towers which work with standard 3GPP protocol and provide the same service as terrestrial networks.

HAPS Mobile has got a good video (< 5 min) on what it is and their vision [2]

[1] https://www.hapsmobile.com/en/

[2] https://youtu.be/zxWODb6Uqgs

Edit: I've no affiliation with HAPS Mobile, Softbank, Google :)


Would be nice to see a benchmark on large scale deployment overall and individual cost, reliability, etc.

I also think that fast(er) internet without relying on governments could be interesting for many people in presumably developed countries like France and Germany and make living outside of large cities much more attractive to many.


Check out the startups working at incubators like Greentown Labs: https://greentownlabs.com/.

Not all these companies will make it. There's a risk associated with working on these problems that is not always countered by the rapid revenue growth associated with a well-funded tech company. Having worked at a company that was briefly situated at Greentown, I will say there is an energy associated with working there. It made my optimistic that people are actually working hard on these problems, and we have a chance at solving some of them within my lifetime.


I spent 18 months working as a SWE at a company within Greentown Labs. I can confirm the companies there are all committed to making a meaningful impact around the domains of clean energy / green technology.


I spent about six months a few years back working at a company at Greentown too. Not only are the people and companies there working on some meaningful (and frankly, really cool) technology, but the incubator itself always seemed really well run and was a great space to work in.

I'm sure things are a bit more difficult with the current pandemic considering their buildings' layouts (like most open workplaces), but I'd wholeheartedly recommend people interested to taking a serious look.


Stuff that Saul Griffith works on: https://www.saulgriffith.com/

In particular, Otherlab companies: https://www.otherlab.com/


What it means for a well-funded company to tackle big, meaningful problems?

Most (not all) of the people (engineers, founders, leaders, etc) I talk to want to work on these problems. Google and Facebook are both driven by missions to do this. They get a lot of things right. They also get a lot of things wrong. So does Microsoft. But take a look at the mission and impact of both the Gates Foundation and the Zuckerberg-Chan foundation and I think you'll see that the founders care deeply about the impact that they are having. Execution on that impact is another matter.

The best companies focus on a specific well defined problem. When looking at companies, ask what problem they are trying to solve. Is this a mission that you can get excited about?

Next, is the company approaching this problem from a direction that resonates with you? Is there approach likely to work? What are the risks and potential side effects?

Facebook has done a lot of amazing and wonderful things. It's also created some problems. You have to balance that tension. All well-intentioned efforts come with risks regardless of whether those efforts originate from government, non-profit or business activities.

I'd encourage you not to slip to far into a cynical view of the world. Yes, there are lots of problems. Fantastic. Focus on what you can change and go find solutions.


If you want to use your technical skills to make a difference in the world, a lot of less glamorous options are out there: working for a non-profit, working for a university, school system, library system, or other government entity of your choosing.

> One example I've heard so far is Tesla. Any others?

Lol, Tesla is not an example. They are a carmaker. Nothing Tesla does will change the world for the better. In fact investing in automobiles in any form is counter-productive when we should be reverting post-war city design mistakes. The best thing for the world would be to live in walkable communities with inter-city trains taking care of long-distance travel.

Tesla is a great example of the flaw in your question: looking toward a highly-funded company out to change the world is an impossibility. Highly funded companies are expected to produce revenue growth. That’s it. There’s no such thing as a for-profit company out to solve world problems unless solving those problems involves increasing profit.

So, like I said, what you’re looking for is probably a non-profit, a government agency, or research institution.

And don’t expect to get highly competitive salary to do work that helps people.


> "Highly funded companies are expected to produce revenue growth."

Yup, this is exactly what I was hoping wasn't true: That it's impossible to be both well funded, high revenue growth AND do so while tackling a meaningful problem. ---

Don't want to make this thread about all the ways in which Tesla is a bad example (just first one that came to mind).


This is such a cynical outlook on the world. Of course there are for-profit companies -- most I would argue -- that have a positive impact on the world, and Tesla is one such example.


How about a tech company using data to accelerate the creation and approval of cancer fighting drugs: flatiron.com (acquired a couple of years ago, but still independently operated)

Interested in improving the state of the art in detecting cancer - paigeai is building automated pathology tools.

A somewhat USA specific one, but goodrx is helping folks afford medications.

Quite a few of those "issues" in your link get you way past traditional Tech company turf, but all will need software engineers! There are a lot of cool biotech companies out there who would need software engineers!


Say you worked in a software development organization that was dysfunctional, shipped updates 3-4 times a year and had lots of infighting/political battles between teams. A vendor came by talking about a new development process with a cool tool touting amazing features - do you think buying into this process plus tool is going to solve your organizational problems?

Is tech the right tool to attempt solving societal problems?

If Tesla's goal was to have an impact on climate change they should allow other car companies to purchase their batteries and motors to build from. Or actually build an economical car, sub $25k, no self-driving or fancy features, no performance mode, etc. Just a working, fully electric car that any working-class person could buy, globally. That would have much more impact than building luxury electric vehicles.


Their goal is absolutely to drive down cost. Right now they're battery-constrained, so it would not make sense to sell them to third parties. If Tesla can only sell a given number of cars, it makes financial sense to sell them at a higher price. The extra revenue serves to build more factories and grow faster. As production keeps scaling, average selling prices will keep going down. If they'd attempted to start with a $25K car, they'd producing no cars today.


I view them as the iPhone of cars right now. And thats by design. Maybe if they take away all the bells and whistles and just ship out a barebones electric car for regular people, it might get mass adoption.


Tech alone CAN be a solution to large social problems, but typically not directly. Instead, it has to make some socially-“good” effect the inevitable consequence of making something else cheaper/more efficient.

Renewable tech (ie solar, wind) is an excellent example of this phenomenon, where we are finally getting to the point where you don’t need to appeal to people’s morals/values to get their energy companies to use renewables - they’re now simply cheaper in a lot of regions! Because tech improved in the right direction, greed and economic efficiency have become much more aligned with reduced environmental impact.

So the way I like to think about problems is this: what technology, if it existed, would solve this problem even when people/societies act entirely in their own self-interest (given how many world economies typically function)?

Morality is a luxury few feel they can afford, so make the moral choice cheaper.


Well, Tesla has done a bit of work with other automakers, but it's probably not in their shareholders' best interest to give away their huge lead in BEV tech.

So, why doesn't Tesla build that cheaper, smaller, lower-range car? It's probably because the profits in it are much smaller, and they need profits to justify their insane valuation. Every quarterly report on TSLA is sliced apart by thousands of analysts, is it in their best interest to make less profit and do slightly more good by electrifying slightly more miles? What if they went bankrupt or lost on a bunch of funding due to this strategy, and then BEVs would be set back a decade?

I'd buy the modest car myself, yes, but I don't think that it's the most financially sound way to proceed...their strategy of starting at the high-end, low-volume side seems to have worked well, so that's what they're sticking with. FWIW, I think the Model 3 is already even on costs with the plurality of new vehicle purchases in America, which with options often range from 30-50k depending on the make.


> do you think buying into this process plus tool is going to solve your organizational problems?

No, but broad agreement about what people value and visible signs that people are willing to spend resources on that would.

Electric cars are sexy now and people will spend money on them.

If this conversation is about organisational/behavioral change, then Tesla did create inexpensive electric vehicles. The fact that those vehicles are being designed, manufactured, and sold by totally separate companies is an implementation detail -- An inescapable result of the fact that lower cost requires larger scale and greater expertise with larger scale.

https://www.edmunds.com/electric-car/articles/cheapest-elect...

> To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence. Supreme excellence consists in achieving the continuation of our policy with other means -- Sun von Clauzwitz.


I think the answer is that technology absolutely can address social issues, it's just less direct than people might think.

One simple example: new technology can drastically lower the barrier to do things which inevitably democratizes them. Then teams don't have to rely on specialists to accomplish that task and the overhead of internal politics/poor communication/etc goes down. I bet spreadsheets saved a number of otherwise dysfunctional companies when they were introduced by letting small teams do their own analysis and operate independently. Sure, in some sense you're just letting individual teams work around the broader dysfunction of an organization, but sometimes that's exactly what you need to get out of a company-wide stalemate.

For all that people don't like fancy cloud tools and microservices, they play the same role at tech organizations. Having a lot of trouble with teams not integrating their code well and not playing well with your deployment/ops/etc team? Give each team the tools to deploy and manage their own services and they'll figure something out.

Not an expert on this phenomenon, but I think mobile payments and banking in developing countries is playing a similar role. I'm sure there are other examples along the same lines being developed and tested as we speak—not necessarily by startups though.


If I recall correctly, Tesla open sourced their patents in 2014. Couldn't other car companies implement their own version of Tesla's equipment and skip a significant portion of the R&D needed for EV development?

Obviously that would take more work than just buying directly from Tesla, but if they built their manufacturing line to supply their own Tesla-invented tech then they should be able to sell it to other manufacturers, right?


> Is tech the right tool to attempt solving societal problems?

That's not the right question you should be asking. The questions you should be asking are "Where can I contribute the most value?" and "How can I use that to improve society?"

Maybe tech isn't the be all end all, but it's often better to do things that you're good at.


> If Tesla's goal was to have an impact on climate change they should allow other car companies to purchase their batteries and motors to build from.

They have and they did. [1] You have it backwards. The other car companies have chosen not to purchase batteries and motors from Tesla anymore.

Tesla wanted to be a spark. They thought, worst-case scenario: other car companies will come and dominate, and we'll be positioned as a supplier with the best technology. Well, that didn't happen.

So now we have a simple dilemma. Tesla needs $$$. $$$ represents choices, research, development, improvement, etc. (Did I mention that Tesla's constant investment in battery technology has been driving down the cost across the industry?) Let's say they want to shutter their car business and just supply batteries and drivetrains.

We'll put the cost of a battery pack at $10k. Like any supplier, when selling to other car companies, they have to add X% markup to cover their future goals, research, development, etc. Now, other car companies pay $15k for the battery pack, which leaves $10k left over for all the other parts of the car to reach break-even on that $25k economical car. Margins are already thin, that ain't gonna work.

Well, Tesla could just sell the battery packs at cost since they care so much, right? Just so happens Tesla raised $5B. $5B / $10k = 500k battery packs. Great! But there were 17 million vehicles sold in the U.S. alone last year... that's a drop in the bucket. Tesla would need $150B / yr just to sell enough batteries to other car companies at cost. That ain't gonna work.

So where do we end up? Well, Tesla can "supply" the battery pack to their self at $10k because, well, it's their battery pack. Thus bestowing a competitive advantage upon their company.

> Or actually build an economical car, sub $25k

That's the plan. Do you not see their steps towards accomplishing that goal? Tesla literally laid out their plan from the beginning: start at the upper end of the market to capture enough money to throw into R&D such that they can work their way down the curve into the more economical price range. Not sure how this isn't obvious from Tesla Roadster ($150k+), Model S ($75k+), Model X ($80k+), Model 3 ($35k+) ...

By the way, you don't get down to a $25k car unless the parts that go into that car cost less than $25k. Tesla has been working to drive those costs down since the inception of their company. Evidence being the many factories they're building and the working partnership they've maintained for R&D on batteries with Panasonic.

> no self-driving

Self-driving is an add-on. It's not included in the base price of a vehicle.

> no performance mode

Once again, another lineup. Not the base model.

> Just a working, fully electric car that any working-class person could buy, globally

Working-class person with a Model 3 checking in. Similarly the Model 3 price point put it firmly within the grasp of my parents who have subsisted on Toyota Camry's and Honda Accord's their whole lives. Their next car will be a Model 3.

> That would have much more impact than building luxury electric vehicles.

Yeah. Tesla agrees. They're getting there. I'm not sure what they've done in the past two decades hasn't proven that.

[1]: https://evannex.com/blogs/news/when-tesla-partnered-with-the...


The OP asked if there are startups "tackling major societal problems". Tackling to me means that is the number one goal - tackling the actual problem, not a by-product.

Tesla makes luxury cars which is 5% of all car sales (Model 3 included, it starts at $38k). Tesla is 5th in market share for luxury cars in 2019 at 9.78% [0]. That means of all car sales in 2019, Tesla accounted for 0.5%. I'm not bashing Tesla, they make cool products (except that truck concept, that looks like ass), these are just the stats.

I understand their eventual goal is to have previous products help reduce cost for future ones but the impact on reducing CO2 levels by Tesla cars alone is probably not much at this point.

It would be like a new airplane manufacturer starts up and says they want to address the world's transition to sustainable energy and they are going to start with the Learjet/executive flyer market first. I wouldn't say that company is "tackling a major societal problem" I would say they're building a boutique business that as a by-product reduces CO2.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/287620/luxury-vehicles-u...


Brief of Tesla's Master Plan [0]

Part Un: 1) Create a low volume car, which would necessarily be expensive 2) Use that money to develop a medium volume car at a lower price 3) Use that money to create an affordable, high volume car

Part Deux: 1) Create stunning solar roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storage 2) Expand the electric vehicle product line to address all major segments 3) Develop a self-driving capability that is 10X safer than manual via massive fleet learning 4) Enable your car to make money for you when you aren't using it

https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux


I would love a stripped down electric work truck without all the fancy/expensive tech.


Check out https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/06/how-tesla-will-change-your-li....


Plenty (https://plenty.ag) is trying to scale hydroponics using plant science and automation. (I worked here till a few months ago.) Indoor agriculture is going to supplement our nutrition needs in the future. Plenty is focusing on flavor as its selling point, and after eating Plenty produce, everything else seems like eating cardboard.


Why'd you leave--just curious?


I wanted to do more creative work, whereas the work at Plenty was more about problem solving.


Oh interesting, I guess I've always thought about problem solving and creativity as being one and the same. Mind expanding on this a bit?


Ah I should have been more specific. For some context, I learned software development on the job and later studied Human-Computer Interaction. I want to be at the intersection of software and design.

Software Engineering at Plenty involved a lot of creative problem solving. But I wanted to work on visually creative projects. Some of my initial projects at Plenty did involve interactive UIs, but as I gained better understanding of our stack, I was required to do a lot more back-end work which wasn’t very exciting to me.


Ah! Got it! That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing!


Not OP but I feel like I can an example here.

The workplace I am at solves a very prevalent set of problems For retail industry. But there is nothing creative about it. (Of course, there are some creative workarounds but it wouldn’t be characterized as creative work)


International Justice Mission [1] and Thorn [2] are tackling child trafficking, sex trafficking, and modern-day slavery successfully (IJM internationally, Thorn in the US).

[1] https://www.ijm.org [2] https://www.thorn.org


I don't know that I would use Telsa as an example. Sure, they are replacing fossil fuels with renewables, but I see this as trading one dirty commodity for another. Lithium mining is environmentally damaging and the impact will likely get worse as demand increases. So maybe a step in the right direction, but definitely not a true solution.


Tesla is actually a good example assuming that you believe that lithium mining is better than coal mining or at least an equivalent problem.

Tesla's utility-level batteries (MegaPack) make wind and solar projects more economically feasible since any excess wind can be stored instead of being sold at negative rates when its not being used. These batteries will allow the replacement of many coal-powered generator plants since those are typically used for peak times when we need more energy. They're responsible for pushing the electric car revolution forward (making it fashionable), which is forecasted to lead to less peak energy usage and a more balanced usage during non-peak hours (since people will be charging their cars at home after hours). In theory, this reduces the need to make upgrades to the US electricity distribution network and we should lose less energy transporting it. This also reduces the need for oil, and could prevent more wars in the middle east (since their major resource is less valuable)


It isn't a matter of belief - lithium mining hardly qualifies as mining environmentally compared to other methods including oil wells and ore mining of various methods. There is a lot of misinformation and FUD involving Lithium Mining.

It involves brine pools in salt plains. Water usage is the only real concern. Not to be ignored but it won't leave any superfund sites, cancer hotspots, turn rivers dead but colorful with tailings, or oil spills.


Actually it will kill/impact aquatic life up to 150 miles downstream. That brine you talk of is not just sodium chloride, but many types of salts, acids, and other contaminants or processing agents. The reason they aren't Superfund sites is because they exist in less developed nations that dont have the same laws.

It's probably a step in the right direction, but I'm looking forward to supercapacitors or alternative battery tech.


I can agree that the view of whether something is helping or not could be subjective.

That's not necessarily true about the infrastructure. The estimate I saw said if all the gas cars were replaced with electric ones then the infrastructure would have to double or triple depending on how much off-grid equipment is adopted. I know my house would need an upgraded connection to handle a 50amp charger. I'd probably need a whole extra line and panel if we needed to charge 2 or three cars at once.


I was actually thinking about the long-distance transmission lines, but that's a good point about potentially needing to upgrade local lines. As a non-EV owner, I can't discuss much but I was under the impression that you could just plug in to a normal wall socket for a slow charge. I suspect that you're referring to the Level 2 quick charging station. If that's the case, that would certainly impact you depending on how old your house is and whether you're running your own solar panels

FYI, if you have a source, I'd be interested in reading about it.


I can't find the original article I saw this in (8 or so yrs ago), but here's one that talks about some of the infrastructure sizing issues (45 vs 100 kVA). The second one talks about current grid storage/production and the need for increased capacity.

Good news is that we are nowhere close to the breaking point, but the numbers in the article are way less than if all (or even half of) cars were replaced with EVs. It should take a long time to get to that level of adoption anyways.

At least for me, I would want access to fast charging options, whether in homes or at dedicated stations for trips. The 8 hour charge is great for daily usage though. I wonder how that time can hold up as the range gets longer (increased capacity with same 15 amp wall plug).

https://www.fleetcarma.com/ev-clustered-charging-can-problem...

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-07-influx-electric-vehicles...


Thanks for adding the sources. I'm 80% sure that The Grid [https://www.amazon.com/Grid-Fraying-Between-Americans-Energy...] had discussed electric cars helping solve some of the distribution/transmission problems, but that was from the view of the large power companies, not the smaller local munis (and maybe paired with smart meters? It's been a while since I read it). However, after reading the two articles you cited, it's actually just moving the bottleneck and in the wrong direction to a point where it's harder to manage changes.


Not sure why people are downvoting this.


A gas car dumping CO2 into the atmosphere contributes to climate change all over the world. Is it fair to the rapidly disappearing Maldives that Americans like gas guzzlers? Hell no. They get all the externalities of worldwide CO2 emissions, even though the Maldives is a tiny producer of carbon. That's not fair.

However, if a Lithium mine in South America opens, and it wrecks and pollutes the land, the same place that bears the costs (the pollution) also gains the benefits (the jobs/revenue from the Lithium). At the very least, it's more fair.


Sort of, the runoff ends up in the ocean, which would be a global concern too.


Wouldn't that depend on how far inland the mine is? Certainly, mining operations tend to pollute groundwater, but I wouldn't expect that a mine that's more than a few miles inland would significantly pollute the ocean via runoff.


True that it must be relatively close. It's about a 150 mile downstream impact. They also use fossil fuels in the extraction and processing, so it would still impact those islands anyways. It's still a step in the right direction but I can't wait to see economical super capacitors or alternative batteries (love those kinetic/gravity ones for grid storage).


There is no non environmentally damaging solution, really, and there probably never will be.

Steps in the right direction are all we can ever take.

Asteroid mining might be a bit of a solution to this resource extraction problem, but not really.


Fair. But I do think "better = good". It fits my main query of 1. Well funded 2. Trying to solve meaningful problems


Yeah, they are better than some places. I should probably go back to the main thread an see what others suggested. I wasn't able to think of any for-profit organizations whose mission it is to fix a world problem and goes beyond just being a tagline.


Yea, neither could I. Hence the thread. It really does feel like the worlds greatest minds are all just busy trying to find creative ways to sell ads and it's kinda sad.


Seems like half the posts on the thread have devolved into Tesla debate (partially my fault, sorry). I looked through the suggestions and don't really like or agree with many. That 80000hours.org site looks like it has some good info though.


Yea, it's my fault for providing that example.. wish I could edit the main thread to change the examples. Really just care about surfacing the big investments.


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This seems like a good one! Thanks for sharing.


Is start with Gates Foundation. It is addressing some of these problems


Telsa, Gates Foundation, etc. Ugh. Please stop 'helping' us.

My general guess is that anything actually worthwhile will have little to no private funding behind it.

Global heating. Racism. Soil extinction. Fascism. Disenfranchisement. Inequality. Female disempowerment. etc.

I guess there is government cheese for global heating. Not sure how much useful work would be done outside of government-run and/or -funded laboratories.

And anything that could potentially start out as being at least notionally-well-intentioned will come around to being not that.

My general thinking at this point is I have to find or help to create a small, well-organized group of people who start a not-funded social movement that will oppose almost everything most philanthropists and investors and do-gooders actually care about.


This is exactly what I was hoping this thread would disprove. But so far I think you're probably right. Private interest just doesn't seem to be seriously willing or able to tackle the big issues.


One could argue that Purism, Social Purpose Corporation, is trying to fight with pollution (by providing devices with lifetime updates and choosing their sources) and supports human rights (by using exclusively free software, by creating a new market for surveillance-free user-respecting devices, by trying to shift manufacturing from China to USA).

https://puri.sm/about/manufacturing-and-sourcing/

Not sure if you consider them "well funded" though.


From China to US... surveillance-free?


You can inspect all their source code. They also publish schematics and x-ray images of their phone.


I’m so bummed out that they’re basing themselves and manufacturing in the US. It’s such a risk that it’s difficult to make sense of the reasoning with anything else than that they’re already compromised, possibly simply by funding capital that comes with conditions. Not saying I believe that’s the case but how else can you explain it?


I do not understand people who think that trusting a company is all about geography or funding. The real trust should be built when you and everyone else can verify everything and speak up whenever something is wrong. Most companies do not even allow any reasonable verification (by closing their sources and schematics). Purism is the most transparent company I know.


The problem with the US specifically is that the intentions of the current team and founders doesn’t decide in the end. It’s entirely plausible for them to be compromised and gagged, against their will.

It’s also not necessarily something that more than a very small number of people in the company needs to be aware of.

This is due to how legislation and the operations of federal agencies work.

Over the past decade, I feel USA has become pretty damn close China in this regard if you put all countries on some kind of scale.

Anywhere in the EU would have had way less of that risk.

I could also add that I had similar feelings with Keybase for a long time; promising team, solution and openness (though not to the extent of Purism). My main gripe was the US location. And then they were acquired by Zoom. This kind of nihilistic dynamic is also more common with US businesses, even if it’s just a cultural thing.


1. Purism have the warrant canary.

2. You can check the source code and schematics. Can you do this for any other company in any other country?

3. At least there are courts in the US, not so in China. Practically all electronics is produced in China.

> My main gripe was the US location. And then they were acquired by Zoom.

So the actual problem turned out to be NOT the location, right? Purism is a Social Purpose Corporation, so it's hard (impossible?) to buy them.


1. Can’t be trusted

2. I’m not saying I can recommend you a better company with a comparable product. But with the way they’re positioning themselves, they have extremely high standards to live up to.

3. Fair point. Let’s see how the Assange trials go.

Yes, China is a concern but if you’re going to provide a better alternative, why make your base and operations in one of the top 3 remaining global concern countries?

I’ve been keeping checking in on Purism for years and have been close to ordering early several times but this uneasiness is what has been preventing me from pulling the trigger.

You are totally free to make a different judgement call and I respect supporting a good cause where you believe in the team. I also do still hope that Purism does become successful and grow and the team is showing promising progress.

Sadly the US is just too corrupt to have this be trustable and sustainable as things look now. I hope they realize this and move. And that we see more actors in this space.


Do a web search for the term "impact investment". You will find some information on what you are looking for.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_investing


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Sahara Forest Project https://www.saharaforestproject.com/

Desalination + desert greening + solar + farming. Awesome


Lexria (https://www.lexria.com) is focused on helping solve student loan debt issues through bankruptcy.


I've been working at Zipline for over four years now. We're building a scalable and reliable UAV based delivery system with a focus on making medical supplies accessible to all humans that need them. We're operating distribution centers in Rwanda, Ghana, and North Carolina, and I believe we're still the only such system operating in production.

I'm an embedded software engineer, and I work on a lot on the firmware running in the vehicles, as well as in all the various ground equipment we've developed to make our system easier to operate. I also touch a lot of "high level" python to build out developer tools and when interfacing to the company's broader software stacks. It's important for our system to be as automated as possible so that we can hire and train local flight operators to serve their communities with minimal engineering support. I think that's something really cool about Zipline. Our flight operators are the most awesome, dedicated employees, and they're in the trenches launching hundreds of flights per day through extreme rain, heat and cold. I want to say that something like 1/3 of flights are for medical emergencies, too.

I've been very happy working here, also. It's a really good group of people. Everyone's dedicated and self motivated to move quickly, without compromising family or work life balance. We try to keep communication within the company as flat and direct as possible, too. There's no corporate politics or egos to maneuver around. Our CEO's car is one of the crappier cars in the parking lot. For surprise medical reasons I had to take quite a bit of time off at a really quite terrible time in the schedule earlier this year, and my coworkers happily picked up the slack and sent me an embarrassing amount of very luxurious chocolate.

Since I joined, my team has grown from just me to about a dozen people, and all the growth has done is made us busier with all the cool projects we're taking on. We're generally always hiring across the company, and especially on the embedded engineering team. Since I've been around a while, I tend to focus on broad architectural work while helping out on whatever project is the most on fire, and try to give newer team members a chance to focus on projects that they can own long term.

https://flyzipline.com/careers/

This is what I've been working on improving this past week. If you sign an NDA, I can tell what relevance it has to 1980s rap music... https://youtu.be/FeSCEalMOL8?t=85


https://fairphone.com


Cruise Automation. Startup that pays as well as FAANG.


You can make an impact by solving important local and global problems by investing your time, career, and savings; by listing and comparing solutions.

As a labor market participant, you can choose to work for places that have an organizational mission that strategically aligns with local, domestic, and international objectives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_alignment ... "Schema.org: Mission, Project, Goal, Objective, Task" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12525141

As an investor, you can choose to invest in organizations that are making the sort of impact you're looking for: you can impact invest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_investing

You mentioned "List of global issues"; which didn't yet have a link to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (the #GlobalGoals). I just added this to the linked article:

> As part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the UN Millenium Development Goals (2000-2015) were superseded by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (2016-2030), which are also known as The Global Goals. There are associated Targets and Indicators for each Global Goal.

There are 17 Global Goals.

Sustainability reporting standards can align with the Sustainable Development Goals. For example, the GRI standards are now aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goals

Investors, fund managers, and potential employees can identify companies which are making an impact by reviewing corporate sustainability and ESG reports.

From https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-develo... :

> SDG Target 12.6: "Encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle"

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21302926 :

> > What are some of the corporate sustainability reporting standards?

> > From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability_reporting#Initi... :

> >> Organizations can improve their sustainability performance by measuring (EthicalQuote (CEQ)), monitoring and reporting on it, helping them have a positive impact on society, the economy, and a sustainable future. The key drivers for the quality of sustainability reports are the guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI),[3] (ACCA) award schemes or rankings. The GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines enable all organizations worldwide to assess their sustainability performance and disclose the results in a similar way to financial reporting.[4] The largest database of corporate sustainability reports can be found on the website of the United Nations Global Compact initiative.

> >The GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) Standards are now aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (#GlobalGoals). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Reporting_Initiative

> >> In 2017, 63 percent of the largest 100 companies (N100), and 75 percent of the Global Fortune 250 (G250) reported applying the GRI reporting framework.[3]

What are some good ways to search for companies who (1) do sustainability reports, (2) engage in strategic alignment in corporate planning sessions, (3) make sustainability a front-and-center issue in their company's internal and external communications?

What are some examples of companies who have a focus on sustainability and/or who have developed a nonprofit organization for philanthropic missions which are sometimes best accounted for as a distinct organization or a business unit (which can accept and offer receipts for donations as a non-profit)?

How can an employee drive change in a small or a large company? Identify opportunities to deliver value and goodwill. Read through the Global Goals, Targets, and Indicators; and get into the habit of writing down problems and solutions.

3 pillars of [Corporate] Sustainability: (Environment (Society (Economy))). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability#Three_dimension...


"Launch HN: Charityvest (YC S20) – Employee charitable funds and gift matching" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23907902 :

> We created a modern, simple, and affordable way for companies to include charitable giving in their suite of employee benefits.

> We give employees their own tax-deductible charitable giving fund, like an “HSA for Charity.” They can make contributions into their fund and, from their fund, support any of the 1.4M charities in the US, all on one tax receipt.

> Using the funds, we enable companies to operate gift matching programs that run on autopilot. Each donation to a charity from an employee is matched automatically by the company in our system.

> A company can set up a matching gift program and launch giving funds to employees in about 10 minutes of work.


"Salesforce Sustainability Cloud Becomes Generally Available" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22068522 :

> Are there similar services for Sustainability Reporting and accountability?


Tesla


[flagged]


> Lol, most suggested here are garbage. Childish 'solutions' designed to just suck money from people pretending to help.

> Grab I also think is an amazing one

Could you elaborate?


This is an amazing quote -

William Gibson - "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed."

Expect it's a lie. It's not cyberpunk. It's boringpunk.

It's teaching midwives how to wash their hands before delivering a birth.

And that is the future. Knowing about incredibly small things you can never see but still exist and how to kill them, which just washing your hands. And a thousands other boring things that are not yet evenly distributed.

This is how you tackle big issues, like Grab which is just a copy of Uber, but for the poor. I think there is a Generic Uber framework that came first that laid the way. But I could never find who created it.


Boston Dynamics. Their robot overlords may one day replace us thus neatly solving most of our problems.


Replace us? Isn’t it enough to just enslave us, feed us scraps and tell us what to do? Lot’s of startups are working on that. (It’s called the gig economy.) :P

Footnote: I’m not this critical of the gig economy, just couldn’t resist the opportunity for some gallows humor. :)


But what would a robot sufficiently smart/powerful to enslave us actually need us to do?

Entertain them?


Sure. Pets. We could perform tricks in exchange for slices of robot made pizza. Sentient robots may get bored too. Weird bipedal monkey creatures with delusions of grandeur should be good for a laugh at least.


Mmmm, pizza!

https://youtu.be/okVM0sSwmNQ


> Are there any well funded tech startups / companies tackling major societal problems?

Why would you look to tech companies to do this?

Isn't this what charities do?


isn't this what governments ought to exist to do? "promote the General Welfare" is within the first 30 words of the Preamble.


Most people believe so, but not all.

Even so - if you can solve these problems and make good money while doing so, why wouldn’t you want to?


Promote - as in cheerlead, facilitate, protect - not as in, well, try to do by forcing participation.


Exactly. It's designed from the perspective of protecting people's rights, and by protecting those rights promotes the common good.


DLT labs. They are providing Blockchain solutions check out Walmart logistics they have built for their transport partners.




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