[yummyfajitas]

From over here in India it looks pretty good.

In spite of the radically different culture, Uber has improved transportation. It turns out putting Indians into a car and charging them money works a lot like doing the same for Americans.

Facebook and Whatsapp have improved communication.

At work, Slack, Salesforce and Jira work the same as any western office.

Why, exactly, do you think other cultures and the global poor can't use SV technologies?

[forgotuser]

All those technologies were first developed in the US, for an American target audience, then exported to other countries. Other things also developed in the West and then exported: electricity, vaccines, et cetera. I agree that that's generally been a good thing.

The parent comment, however, seemed to imply that technologists should focus on "solving global poverty" instead of solving local problems. This represents a fundamental shift, because at that point SV technologists are attempting to solve problems they personally do not have experience with.

All the examples you provide solved problems that SV itself had- transportation, communication, etc.

[yummyfajitas]

I didn't interpret the article as defining things like Uber as solving "local" problems. But if you do, then the article is simply wrong because SV is manifestly solving local problems.