Ask HN: Any well funded tech companies tackling big, meaningful problems?

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Loon from Google&#x2F;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&#x2F;low ARPU area in Kenya [2].<p>Loon uses standard 3GPP (LTE) protocols, so devices are available at low cost and even lower in used markets.<p>I don&#x27;t work for Loon or Google, just interested in HAPS (High Altitude Pseudo Satellites) to provide low cost connectivity.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;loon.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;loon.com&#x2F;</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;loon-for-all&#x2F;loon-is-live-in-kenya-259d81c75a7a" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;loon-for-all&#x2F;loon-is-live-in-kenya-259d81...</a><p>Edit: fixed references

Check out the startups working at incubators like Greentown Labs: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;greentownlabs.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;greentownlabs.com&#x2F;</a>.<p>Not all these companies will make it. There&#x27;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.

Stuff that Saul Griffith works on: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.saulgriffith.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.saulgriffith.com&#x2F;</a><p>In particular, Otherlab companies: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.otherlab.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.otherlab.com&#x2F;</a>

What it means for a well-funded company to tackle big, meaningful problems?<p>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&#x27;ll see that the founders care deeply about the impact that they are having. Execution on that impact is another matter.<p>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?<p>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?<p>Facebook has done a lot of amazing and wonderful things. It&#x27;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.<p>I&#x27;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.<p>&gt; One example I&#x27;ve heard so far is Tesla. Any others?<p>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.<p>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.<p>So, like I said, what you’re looking for is probably a non-profit, a government agency, or research institution.<p>And don’t expect to get highly competitive salary to do work that helps people.

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)<p>Interested in improving the state of the art in detecting cancer - paigeai is building automated pathology tools.<p>A somewhat USA specific one, but goodrx is helping folks afford medications.<p>Quite a few of those &quot;issues&quot; 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&#x2F;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?<p>Is tech the right tool to attempt solving societal problems?<p>If Tesla&#x27;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.

Plenty (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;plenty.ag" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;plenty.ag</a>) 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.

International Justice Mission [1] and Thorn [2] are tackling child trafficking, sex trafficking, and modern-day slavery successfully (IJM internationally, Thorn in the US).<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ijm.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ijm.org</a> [2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thorn.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thorn.org</a>

I don&#x27;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.

Forward (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;goforward.com&#x2F;technology" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;goforward.com&#x2F;technology</a>) is building an entirely new healthcare system to empower doctors with advanced tools to facilitate early detection, prevention, and personalized care – supported by data – with a nationwide network of primary care clinics in cities across the country.<p>If you’re interested in playing a major part in one of the most ambitious missions of the past decade and want to work with individuals who use their talents for good, then you should check out Forward.<p>See our open roles here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;goforward.com&#x2F;eng" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;goforward.com&#x2F;eng</a>, or reach out to me directly at marissa@goforward.com with your resume.<p>Check out this article written by our CEO, Adrian, about how we plan to rewire the healthcare system here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.goforward.com&#x2F;dont-bail-out-healthcare-rewire-it-fe2d8ad7a5f6" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.goforward.com&#x2F;dont-bail-out-healthcare-rewire-i...</a><p>Watch a video tour of one of our doctor&#x27;s offices here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=dnJEsoGmh-8&amp;feature=youtu.be" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=dnJEsoGmh-8&amp;feature=youtu.be</a>

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

Telsa, Gates Foundation, etc. Ugh. Please stop &#x27;helping&#x27; us.<p>My general guess is that anything actually worthwhile will have little to no private funding behind it.<p>Global heating. Racism. Soil extinction. Fascism. Disenfranchisement. Inequality. Female disempowerment. etc.<p>I guess there is government cheese for global heating. Not sure how much useful work would be done outside of government-run and&#x2F;or -funded laboratories.<p>And anything that could potentially start out as being at least notionally-well-intentioned will come around to being not that.<p>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.

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).<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;puri.sm&#x2F;about&#x2F;manufacturing-and-sourcing&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;puri.sm&#x2F;about&#x2F;manufacturing-and-sourcing&#x2F;</a><p>Not sure if you consider them &quot;well funded&quot; though.

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

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Sahara Forest Project <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.saharaforestproject.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.saharaforestproject.com&#x2F;</a><p>Desalination + desert greening + solar + farming. Awesome

Lexria (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lexria.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lexria.com</a>) is focused on helping solve student loan debt issues through bankruptcy.

I&#x27;ve been working at Zipline for over four years now. We&#x27;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&#x27;re operating distribution centers in Rwanda, Ghana, and North Carolina, and I believe we&#x27;re still the only such system operating in production.<p>I&#x27;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&#x27;ve developed to make our system easier to operate. I also touch a lot of &quot;high level&quot; python to build out developer tools and when interfacing to the company&#x27;s broader software stacks. It&#x27;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&#x27;s something really cool about Zipline. Our flight operators are the most awesome, dedicated employees, and they&#x27;re in the trenches launching hundreds of flights per day through extreme rain, heat and cold. I want to say that something like 1&#x2F;3 of flights are for medical emergencies, too.<p>I&#x27;ve been very happy working here, also. It&#x27;s a really good group of people. Everyone&#x27;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&#x27;s no corporate politics or egos to maneuver around. Our CEO&#x27;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.<p>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&#x27;re taking on. We&#x27;re generally always hiring across the company, and especially on the embedded engineering team. Since I&#x27;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.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;flyzipline.com&#x2F;careers&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;flyzipline.com&#x2F;careers&#x2F;</a><p>This is what I&#x27;ve been working on improving this past week. If you sign an NDA, I can tell what relevance it has to 1980s rap music... <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;FeSCEalMOL8?t=85" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;FeSCEalMOL8?t=85</a>

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fairphone.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fairphone.com</a>

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.<p>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.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Strategic_alignment" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Strategic_alignment</a> ... &quot;Schema.org: Mission, Project, Goal, Objective, Task&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12525141" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12525141</a><p>As an investor, you can choose to invest in organizations that are making the sort of impact you&#x27;re looking for: you can <i>impact invest</i>.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Impact_investing" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Impact_investing</a><p>You mentioned &quot;List of global issues&quot;; which didn&#x27;t yet have a link to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (the #GlobalGoals). I just added this to the linked article:<p>&gt; <i>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.</i><p>There are 17 Global Goals.<p>Sustainability reporting standards can align with the Sustainable Development Goals. For example, the GRI standards are now aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sustainable_Development_Goals" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sustainable_Development_Goals</a><p>Investors, fund managers, and potential employees can identify companies which are making an impact by reviewing corporate sustainability and ESG reports.<p>From <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.undp.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;undp&#x2F;en&#x2F;home&#x2F;sustainable-development-goals&#x2F;goal-12-responsible-consumption-and-production&#x2F;targets.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.undp.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;undp&#x2F;en&#x2F;home&#x2F;sustainable-develo...</a> :<p>&gt; SDG Target 12.6: <i>&quot;Encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle&quot;</i><p>From <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=21302926" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=21302926</a> :<p>&gt; <i>&gt; What are some of the corporate sustainability reporting standards?<p>&gt; </i>&gt; From <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sustainability_reporting#Initiatives" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sustainability_reporting#Initi...</a> :<p>&gt; <i>&gt;&gt; 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.</i><p>&gt; <i>&gt;The GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) Standards are now aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (#GlobalGoals). <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Global_Reporting_Initiative" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Global_Reporting_Initiative</a> </i><p>&gt; <i>&gt;&gt; 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]</i><p>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&#x27;s internal and external communications?<p>What are some examples of companies who have a focus on sustainability <i>and&#x2F;or</i> 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)?<p>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 <i>solutions</i>.<p>3 pillars of [Corporate] Sustainability: (Environment (Society (Economy))). <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sustainability#Three_dimensions_of_sustainability" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sustainability#Three_dimension...</a>

Tesla

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

&gt; Are there any well funded tech startups &#x2F; companies tackling major societal problems?<p>Why would you look to tech companies to do this?<p>Isn&#x27;t this what charities do?

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