It’s a crisis of confidence I have every so often: is what we’re doing here actually worthwhile? Are we, as an industry, solving the right problems?
On the one hand, there’s no denying that the internet industry has changed the world dramatically, in lots of great and profound ways. But looking at the problems likely to be facing the world over the next century, I often feel that a lot of our engineering and tech talent is being wasted designing new social or commerce apps with no practical function when there are much bigger problems we need to address, like:
- Global climate change
- Increasing overpopulation
- Global income inequality and poverty
- Peak oil/unsustainable resource consumption
Obviously there are some tech startups working on these problems, but I think we’re all aware that the vast majority of tech companies out there aren’t doing much to address any of them, despite them being (in my opinion) the real problems that humanity needs to solve over the next century or so.
Granted, most other industries aren’t helping with any of this stuff either. But the tech industry prides itself on being “revolutionary”, “forward-thinking”, and “making the world a better place.” Do you think we’re failing?
Related clip from Silicon Valley to distract you from how depressing this post is with humor:
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