Just because you don't see startups tackling these things doesn't mean it's not happening. Maybe you just need to look harder...<p>For your point #1, it's called a PHR (personal health record) and it's been done by many players including many startups, plus Google (who gave up because no one used it) and Microsoft (which still has one).<p>The problem is NOT the government. (In fact, find podcasts or video of the CTO of HHS Todd Park or the CTO of the USA Aneesh Chopra, and then tell me that it's the government that's holding back health entrepreneurs. Seriously, go google these guys.) The problem in healthcare is the lack of engagement from many consumer/patients plus a private industry reluctant to standardize. The Feds are trying to lead the way. If you're a vet, you can get access your medical records from the VA via their Blue Button initiative, and the government is encouraging other systems to follow (and some have).<p>Yesterday 1200 people attended a free Health Care Innovation Summit in DC with the heads of HHS and CMS (including Todd and Aneesh) on stage actively supporting healthcare innovation and entrepreneurship. I know because I was there as the CEO of a small health IT company that's solving some of those "big problems." Check out hcidc.org in the coming days for a video archive of the event.<p>New companies ARE changing healthcare. (That's actually the point of Obamacare!) Check out the many health startups from Blueprint Health, RockHealth, and HealthBox.<p>In other words go look before you assume that none of us are solving big problems. Not all of us make gamified, location-based, social networking buzzword bingo solutions for mobile.<p>Edit: fixed Aneesha's title
Not every startup is a couple of guys working on an iPhone app. Startups have definitely solved big problems. For example:<p>- Amazon.com, when it was a startup, figured out how to allow you to buy just about any book in print and have it delivered to your home. They had to build or lease warehouses, contract with delivery companies, and do all sorts of things that were not just hacking or technology.<p>- Apple, when it was a startup (two guys working in a garage) figured out how to design an easy to use personal computer and get it manufactured at an affordable price.<p>Actually, I'm uncertain about whether I really want the problem of centralized healthcare records to be solved. If it is, it means that my healthcare records could easily fall into the wrong hands (look at how many data breaches there have been at banks, for example).
The examples he gives are not truly big problems; they're medium-sized ones made artificially hard by regulations.<p>Dropbox is probably solving a bigger problem technically than any of the examples he gives.
oddly, I would hardly classify the administrivia you listed as "big problems"... Those are first world middle class problems.<p>Why the downvotes?<p>TRULY Big problems:<p>Every year 15 million children die of hunger.
... 1 in 5 children in Africa die of malaria
... 1 million people die of malaria<p>I would hardly classify "having to fill out the same form every time I go to the Doctor's office" as a "BIG" problem.
I think the point is interesting, and I definitely question the social value of the social-media startup, and I hate to be the guy in the room arguing for what amounts to a modern-day aristocracy, BUT...<p>In a sort of roundabout delayed fashion, startups ARE leading to tackling big problems.<p><a href="http://spacex.com" rel="nofollow">http://spacex.com</a><p><a href="http://teslamotors.com" rel="nofollow">http://teslamotors.com</a><p><a href="http://gatesfoundation.org" rel="nofollow">http://gatesfoundation.org</a><p><a href="http://startupeducation.org" rel="nofollow">http://startupeducation.org</a><p><a href="http://ubuntu.com" rel="nofollow">http://ubuntu.com</a> (maybe stretching it a bit)<p><a href="http://omidyar.com" rel="nofollow">http://omidyar.com</a>
ADP (www.adp.com) is a company which provides pretty much all of the mentioned services. My employer uses them as the corporate portal for W2s, vacation/sick time and etc. The user experience is terrible and the site won't render right in anything but IE. But these guys thrive because there is no competition. This is obviously not your typical trendy and entertaining niche to be in. It doesn't appeal to most people, like a picture of video sharing service. It's hard to break into the market. Most startups these days are after quick money. They'll roll out, get a decent user-base and sell out the moment they can. Creating a startup in this niche would require a lot ass-busting work and PR to get paying clients.
We could look at the OP's point and take it a bit further to ask, What are the biggest problems humanity faces today and how can software contribute and co-operate with other disciplines to tackle these problems?
Most of the problems, that humanity today faces are in some way or other linked to Geo-Politics, unequal distribution of resources/wealth/well-being among the world population, non-optimized consumption of natural resources and we are running out of them and so on and so forth.
So can software or software startups think about finding the problems they are trying to solve by taking into mind the global perspective? Or are they even willing to? I am not a startup guy and I don’t even have many friends in the community, so I am not in a position to answer this question, but I am sure others here can.<p>But problems alone can’t take up whole of the domain of human interest. So, the second part of the question, would be, what are the most interesting problems/technologies software could solve teaming up with other disciplines? I guess, many people are already working on such things, but the tech is still not mature enough or marketable enough, to be presented to the world, e.g. Google Xlab.
I for one am quite happy that my health, working history and government database profiles are not (yet) interlinked. Sure, it would make things a lot easier... BUT
There's actually a fairly decent chance that you do have a secure way to access your medical records online. About 38% of patients in the US have a record in an Epic (disclaimer: my employer) EMR system. If you're part of that population, chances are good that you have access to Epic's MyChart web portal [1]. Each organization brands this portal as their own so I recommend asking your doctor's front desk staff about it.<p>And more directly to the OP's point, Epic certainly was once a startup (3 employees 30 years ago, 5000 today) that has tackled some very big problems.<p>I don't refute that there are many more startups working on products that won't quite save the world, but is that such a bad thing? P.T Barnum was organizing circus acts while his contemporaries Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan were shifting the very foundation of our society (literally and figuratively). Doesn't mean Barnum doesn't have a legacy of his own though.<p>[1] - Here's an example: <a href="https://mychart.clevelandclinic.org/" rel="nofollow">https://mychart.clevelandclinic.org/</a>
Sure they can. You just have to devote a lot of effort to do the additional analysis necessary. Most entrepreneurs simply aren't willing.<p>There are such things as intractable problems, but payments, health care recordkeeping and government are not among them.<p>I do like the fundamental point of the post, though. There should be more attention paid by startups to serious problems.
Please excuse me when I point out that the mentioned big problems are big first world problems. The true big problems are how we as humanity cope with growing world population in the face of dwindling ressources. Desertification and water scarcity, climate change. Having shelter and food, water. Reducing the toxification and killing of mother earth. Global justice.
Our standard of living feeds off of the uncounted lives of other humans (and animals). Simple examples: the poor people mining Coltrane for our newest gadgets under inhumane conditions and the children in Ghana burning our electronic waste in the open, inhaling the toxic fumes, to get a little metal to pay for food.
These are challenges on massive scale.<p>So. A place to store my birth certificate? Srsly?
Not really a problem.
These issues are structural.<p>Its as if our institutions are just now upgrading to Dungeons and & Dragons Pathfinder edition while leading-edge companies are running the Skyrim engine.<p>We need common semantic data formats and automated systems based on them for processing data and enforcing regulations where necessary.<p>We also need these data formats and systems to be designed to ensure a certain level of distribution and guard against over-centralization, both on a corporate (antitrust) and personal (income inequality) level. Another key requirement is for the data formats and systems development to be continuous and agile.<p>Part of the problem is the belief in, and acceptance of, not only deadly force but a monopoly on force, in the form of centralized government. Common data formats are a critical missing component which should be agreed upon, but governments currently bear too much resemblance to large criminal organizations to expect them to really facilitate innovation.<p>I believe we need to iterate on the core of our social institutions, starting by reexamining basic premises. For example, if nearly every group is simply competing against all of the other groups for profit, how can an individual group come to the conclusion that completely revising their data systems to handle a new common format is a priority?<p>I'm not saying that we can't have competition, but I am saying that we need to look very closely at the fundamentals of the way the system works and try out some different frameworks.
Every company that has ever tackled a big problem was once a startup. Startups can't solve big problems <i>right away</i>, but some (mine included) intend to get there some day.<p>Right now, my company is a tiny star in the oligopolistic slow-moving galaxy of the US healthcare system. We grew 10x in 2008-2009, and grew 10x again in 2010-2011. We're still gathering steam, but we (and healthcare companies like us) are crafting the building blocks that will one day grow into the solution to this big hairy problem.
Interestingly enough, i was thinking along the very same lines just yesterday, and most of this week. I have spent the last week going back and forth to the bank to open up a new bank account and failed multiple times. Simply because they dont accept certain types of proof of address, nor printed copies. Unfortunately i moved into the house with my then fiance so all bills are in her name except the ISP bill but it is emailed to me electronically. I had no choice but to print out, but the bank did not accept it citing "its a copy".<p>These kind of problems in 2012 should be easy to solve, and yet here we are. Why is there not a decent banking service out there that is well aligned with how we do business in 2012? Why im a stuck with the big powerhouse that are like big ships when it comes to steering direction. i.e pathetically slow.<p>I also thought similar things with Car Repair and servicing. I think that market is utterly ripe for disruption and hasnt had any real innovation (from an organisational point of view), in a seriously long time.<p>These are just two problems that come to mind since they're very fresh on my mind recently, but im sure there are many others just like they were pointed out in the blog post.
So in short: Start-ups are dynamic while big companies are powerful. Red tape problems need both.<p>I tend to agree though: The minor inconveniences listed by the author aren't "big problems". We've got an endless list of _proper_ big problem. AIDS, global warming etc. You don't fight those problems with the same tools as one would for red tape - you need actual innovation...which I gather start-ups occasionally achieve.
How about solving small, but important problems? There are countless examples of people using tech to improve people's lives in a way that matters.<p>Just look at the winners of this year's Microsoft Imagine Cup: <a href="http://www.imaginecup.com/blogs/imagine_cup_finals/default.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.imaginecup.com/blogs/imagine_cup_finals/default.a...</a> - Apptenders, team from Croatia, built a physical therapy app for Kinect that helps children with cerebral palsy, quote: "KiDnect is a Kinect-based solution for on-premise and remote physical therapy for children, especially those born with Cerebral Palsy. This software has the ability to monitor a child’s exercises to ensure they are being completed correctly, and then provides statistical analysis to the therapist."<p>I would argue that the problems of the world are solved by solving small important problems, one at a time. And there's a world of opportunity for every startup to do just that!
Some other big problems:<p><pre><code> Prisons
Retirement for not-so-rich people
High schools
Government procurement
Shipping (in developing countries)
Customs (in developing countries)
Utilities prices in Northern countries
Digital democracy (removing corporate influence on elections)</code></pre>
Is it possible that we see these as big problems partially <i>because</i> they can't be solved by startups? If these could be solved by startups then they would no longer be big problems and some other problems would pop up which couldn't be solved by startups and would be referred to as the "big problems."
At the civic level, check out some of the projects that the Code for America folks are up to: <a href="http://codeforamerica.org/projects/" rel="nofollow">http://codeforamerica.org/projects/</a>
I don't think it's true. With 5 programmers we were able to accomplish what 50 did at method integration. We created a better interfaced, more thought out integration. We just soft launched and here is a link to our YC post <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3521108" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3521108</a>. Most startups don't have e know how but we are all pretty seasoned in creating businesses. I wouldn't really call it a startup but in a literal sense of course it is.
I agree with the sentiment that too many startups are working to solve problems that don't really exist, but what irks me even more is that so many of today's startups are working not to make the world a better place, but to find better ways to serve advertising.<p>It's quite depressing to see so much energy wasted on this problem, which isn't a problem for consumers, but for advertisers. I'm sorry, but finding a better ways to use mobile photo social geo to target people for ads is not changing the world.
You don't think Apple and Google are solving big problems? They were startups too, once. I think the flaw in your logic is that once a startup <i>successfully</i> solves a big problem, they quickly stop being a startup, and become a big company. It's a mistake to conclude "startups can't solve big problems".
A non-profit for the good of the people company (like Salvation Army, etc.) could tackle these problems.<p>For instance for the government taxes one; a group could build a website that handled it and offer it for free to the government.
The problem with these problems are that they aren't scalable. The problems you listed are quite US centric, but startups aren't happy unless the market is international.
This may not be relevant, but what irks me in 2012 is how pathetic we are at transportation. You know, moving humans around. We fail it.<p>If you want to go from New York to Los Angeles, you have a sub-5% chance of paying a fair price. Most often, you'll find yourself paying a ridiculously high price because you booked your ticket to close to the date, too far away from it, on the wrong day of the week, or in the wrong season. Then you get shitty service the whole way, including 40-minute security lines and $25 baggage-check fees. If you spring for business class (domestic first) you get service that was almost as good as what coach offered 30 years ago, when flying wasn't horrible.<p>Trains aren't even an option for mid-distance travel, due to the infrequent schedules, equally absurd fares, and slow speeds (comparable to cars, except on Acela, a "high speed" service that goes 120 mph).<p>We have good highways in the U.S., and people drive a lot in this country because it's the only mode of transportation that actually works (for a family of four, it's cheaper than air and rail, which is just fucking absurd) but it's just not safe to drive them faster than 80-90 mph average speed, and legally you can't even go that fast.<p>New York is the only city with "decent" (by American standards) public transit, and that's still not enough to slash housing prices to where they'd be with an extensive transit network. (Note to all: if you pay urban rents, you'd benefit from a better public transit system even if you never used it, because it would de-crowd the city.)<p>We're amazingly good at shipping electrons, but we've given up entirely on moving humans.