Innovation

When most people contemplate technology, their minds immediately conjure sci-fi spectacles: humanoid robots, sentient AI, and interplanetary travel. But technology extends far beyond these futuristic tropes. At its essence, technology represents our methodical manipulation of the environment to serve human needs. Through this fundamental lens, cities themselves emerge as perhaps humanity’s most sophisticated and consequential technological achievement.

Tools are often cited as an example of what separates humans from most other animals. And while it’s true that other animals also use tools, humans are a bit unique in that we’ve also developed tools that make tools. My dogs (I have two, Doge and Walter) occasionally utilize tools, but due to their lack of opposable thumbs their tool usage is quite limited. My dogs’ use of tools tends to be limited to acts which involve food or play.

I was reading Hacker News comments and someone was complaining about how they weren’t able to find a job in computers anymore due to ageism in tech. Reading this, something occurred to me which I thought was worth writing about, which is the idea of malleability. First of all, I agree that ageism in tech is a thing and it’s a problem for experienced people trying to find a new job. In a capitalist society you want to hire the cheapest employees who can “get the job done”, and experience is often grossly under weighted. My hypothesis for why it occurs has to do with the fact that some people perceive more experienced technologists as more expensive and less malleable.

Starting any company is hard. Startups are even harder. If you want to start a company but don’t have a business idea, then the first step is figuring out what to build. Is this…a startup idea?

I don’t like making predictions, but one prediction I do have is that many future big companies will be what I call “skin in the game startups” (you heard it here first). Having skin in the game simply refers to sharing risk and rewards with a counterparty. In startupland, angel investors have skin in the game: they give money to founders to help them start a business in exchange for equity with the hope that the business will become more valuable in the future. The investor is sharing the risk of the company (by outlaying their money), and if the company does well the investor will eventually reap grand returns.

Make something people want Y Combinator has a famous motto: make something people want. The first reference I could find to that motto was this blog post from Paul Graham.