Everything here could be summarized under the headline "solve people's annoying, day-to-day problems (in an original manner)". There are some great perspectives here, but I have a (little) problem with the premise of "solve people's annoying problems". I understand that this probably was a business talk to people interested in entrepreneurship, and, certainly this is great advice for people wanting to build a profitable business. But in the end, this is all it is: "how to make lots of money from software? Answer: solve people's annoying problems".
In a society where engineers are arguably playing an increasingly important role, I think this outlook is too limited. This perspective is what I would expect in a CPA convention. If engineers are so smart, powerful and essential, is this what you want to inspire them to do? Have them make cooler gadgets, easier "content consumption experience", better to-do lists to make people more "productive" and, lastly, possibly provide better health so that they would live longer to buy more gadgets and "consume" more "content"?
If engineers are so smart, powerful and essential, why not inspire them to find ways to alleviate poverty and promote justice, education and equality? Well, you say, this is not a job for engineers. Well, if engineers are expected to think of new ways to book sleeping arrangements or sell clothes, their insight can surely be turned to loftier goals. I don't want to be caught saying anything positive about Facebook, but for better or worse, they have changed the way people around the world communicate with each other, compete with each other, and see themselves as part of society. So, yes, engineers are certainly capable of achieving some great feats.
Many lawyers make lots of money. Lots. And probably many of them became lawyers for that purpose. But It's hard for me to imagine - and maybe I'm wrong about this - but it's hard for me to imagine a well known lawyer delivering a keynote speech at a lawyers convention, where his main points are tips for making lots of money. Lawyers may be hypocritical (and they are), but at least many of them separate their business goals from their sources of inspiration. So why should engineers be inspired only by business tips? Is money the main source of inspiration for us? Doctors and lawyers make money, too, but they aspire for - or, at least, are inspired by - more. Even writers, directors and actors aspire for more than making money, or even "delivering content" or providing entertainment. They dream that, perhaps, some of their work might carry some Truth. Give people a new perspective about life, maybe even change people's lives - but not by making them simply more "productive". Peh, productivity - if there ever was a more overrated and servile word.
Anyway, we should aspire to do the same. Fellow engineers, do whatever makes you feel good about yourselves. Do whatever you need to make lots and lots and lots - piles - of money. By all means, solve people's annoying problems; that's a great advice. But don't aspire to that. You should dream about solving humanity's serious problems. You should dream of making this a truly better world - in every respect.
I think he addressed this - the way to solve big, world-changing problems is to start by solving ordinary, day-to-day problems and then expand from that. If you start by saying "I'm going to solve poverty", about a year in everyone will say "Why haven't you solved it yet?" and you'll find it very hard to find people to help you. You end up accomplishing far less than if you said "I'm going to help a hundred underprivileged but talented high-school kids find colleges that are appropriate for them and give them their best shot of getting in."
I found that one of the worst and hardest mental habits to kick was the notion that I had to do "big, important things". Because big, important things are ill-defined, and your success metrics aren't clear. It's very easy to kid yourself into thinking that you're promoting justice for all, right up until you're 20 years in and the world is still not a just place. And then you have a mid-life crisis, think you're a failure, and give up.
It's much better if you can point to specific and yet often underwhelming-sounding instances of "I made this person's life better" or "I let this person do something he otherwise would not have been able to". A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, and all that.
I agree with everything you said. Yet, I don't think that's where Mr. Graham was taking this (though I haven't heard the actual speech, but, for the purpose of this discussion, let's assume that the summary has, indeed, captured its spirit). I think that his advice focused on how to build a successful business - important, sound, advice for any professional, but hardly a source of inspiration, which, I guess, was his intention.
Anyway, as I said, I don't really have a problem with anything he said in particular. Some of the things actually made me think. My only issue is the premise that engineers should be inspired by business. Case in point: "it would be great if a startup could make a lot of cpus look to the developer like 1 cpu... the expected value of working on it might be really high. why high: web services. programmers like convenience." I would have said that with a compiler like that, scientists would be able to design new drugs more quickly, or that a manned mission to mars could be done more easily, or... I don't know. But his example (at least as it appears in the notes) is web services.
Again, he was talking about how to come up with ideas for a start-up, which is a business, I guess, so the talk was very much to the point. But even if Mr. Graham believes that start-ups are where smart engineers should spend their best years and bright minds because start-ups are what makes the world better - and he does indeed seem to believe that - I think he should have at least discussed why it is that bright young people should strive to build high-risk fast-growing businesses, rather than, I don't know, go work for the government or an NGO. It is as if many engineers just assume that the best path for an accomplished engineers is in the fast-money business. Engineers should be agents of freedom, of equality, of innovation and even social justice. I just don't like it that nowadays engineers in certain fields are automatically associated first with money, as if they were stock brokers or something. This is important because history has shown that smart as they are, scientists and engineers were often very easily manipulated into serving some terrible causes. They are easily manipulated because they are drawn to solving problems rather than thinking about whether they should be solved in the first place.
For example, an easier delivery of entertainment "content" is a problem for an engineer. But is it a problem worth solving? From a business perspective - certainly. From a human perspective - possibly. I don't know. But young engineers eager to learn from an experienced colleague are already trained to think about how to solve problems. They're even trained to find problems to solve. But they should be inspired to think about why it is that a problem requires solving, and to consider whether there are other, more worthy, undertakings. Again - in the end they'll do whatever it is that they're doing now. Only that shouldn't be their inspiration.
Also, big things don't have to be well defined. They should just hang up there as a source of inspiration. Big things, not rich people.
I can relate to where you're coming from. When it comes to the motivations that drive some engineers (vs. the ideals that ought to drive them), you'll probably like the recent talk by Bret Victor, "Inventing on Principle" (vimeo.com/36579366).
You (correctly) point out the places where capitalism comes up empty, if capitalism is our implicit system of determining the worth of goods and services. Apart from the environment (which seems unaddressed by the major economic models of the world) or the other causes you mentioned (unaddressed by capitalism, at least), I suppose it's fine to rely on the adequacy of money as some measure of the wealth we add to the world (http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html).
Even if the world is being eaten by software (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190348090457651...), the transition to using software happens fastest through startups, I'm coming to believe. I used to work in a life-sci research lab, and there's just an exponentially growing divide between data growth and the tech resources to handle it. NGOs and government can be disorganized and unmotivated, so working for them is not necessarily going to be the best use of your engineering talents. But that might be aside your point, i.e., try to work towards noble goals.
Lastly, and most importantly, I find the model of the Aravind Eye Hospital as truly inspiring and business-model bending: a company set up to help the ones who are the _most_ in need. The ones who can least afford it. And yet in the process, generate income that goes back to serving and accelerating the mission. _This_ is what "social enterprises" ought to be:
http://infinitevisionaries.com
Thanks! Interesting stuff. My point is actually broader. I don't want engineers to be inspired by nobler things - I just want them to be inspired by bigger things. They may want to enslave everyone on the planet - that is a big goal indeed - and though I believe most will try to do good rather than bad, first they have to learn to think about the why before they start thinking about the what and the how.
The what will be cooler gadgets and "increased productivity" or "streamlined processes" only if the why is money. Money is perfectly OK as motivation; it's just so... pedestrian.
I believe that engineers should be dreaming on the scale of the Moon missions. Things like transparent cryptography everywhere, automated cars everywhere, eradicating famine from lack of food production, fully renewable efficient energy sources, cheap and quality education materials everywhere...
These are very integrated problems spanning a wide range of disciplines to solve. Pure engineering geekery isn't going to solve them, and engineers need to recognize that we limit ourselves by going deep.
Anyway, at my day job, part of our company's work in the past decade has been to get electricity to villages that never had electricity before. That's pretty awesome. :-)
In a society where engineers are arguably playing an increasingly important role, I think this outlook is too limited. This perspective is what I would expect in a CPA convention. If engineers are so smart, powerful and essential, is this what you want to inspire them to do? Have them make cooler gadgets, easier "content consumption experience", better to-do lists to make people more "productive" and, lastly, possibly provide better health so that they would live longer to buy more gadgets and "consume" more "content"?
If engineers are so smart, powerful and essential, why not inspire them to find ways to alleviate poverty and promote justice, education and equality? Well, you say, this is not a job for engineers. Well, if engineers are expected to think of new ways to book sleeping arrangements or sell clothes, their insight can surely be turned to loftier goals. I don't want to be caught saying anything positive about Facebook, but for better or worse, they have changed the way people around the world communicate with each other, compete with each other, and see themselves as part of society. So, yes, engineers are certainly capable of achieving some great feats.
Many lawyers make lots of money. Lots. And probably many of them became lawyers for that purpose. But It's hard for me to imagine - and maybe I'm wrong about this - but it's hard for me to imagine a well known lawyer delivering a keynote speech at a lawyers convention, where his main points are tips for making lots of money. Lawyers may be hypocritical (and they are), but at least many of them separate their business goals from their sources of inspiration. So why should engineers be inspired only by business tips? Is money the main source of inspiration for us? Doctors and lawyers make money, too, but they aspire for - or, at least, are inspired by - more. Even writers, directors and actors aspire for more than making money, or even "delivering content" or providing entertainment. They dream that, perhaps, some of their work might carry some Truth. Give people a new perspective about life, maybe even change people's lives - but not by making them simply more "productive". Peh, productivity - if there ever was a more overrated and servile word.
Anyway, we should aspire to do the same. Fellow engineers, do whatever makes you feel good about yourselves. Do whatever you need to make lots and lots and lots - piles - of money. By all means, solve people's annoying problems; that's a great advice. But don't aspire to that. You should dream about solving humanity's serious problems. You should dream of making this a truly better world - in every respect.