[Xcelerate]

I wish we'd get back to science-tech instead of social-tech. Science requires a longer investment period (decades instead of a couple of years), but the paybacks are tremendous, particularly to society as a whole. I really like what Google is doing — essentially funding research that may not pan out, but that has the potential to be revolutionary if it succeeds (e.g. quantum computing).

[Zelphyr]

This reminds me of a blog post (that I can't seem to find now) where he complains we've gotten so far away fro solving the hard problems that nobody is really doing it because it's too lucrative to make stupid apps that distract people. I have to agree with him and you. Facebook was a nice diversion but there are honest-to-God problems in this world that I think our industry could make a dent in. We need to get back to solving the hard problems.

[niftich]

Are you possibly thinking of this BusinessWeek article [1] about Jeff Hammerbacher and his famous quote: "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads"

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-04-14/this-tech-...

You might also find this other article interesting, posted to HN today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12064083

[Zelphyr]

Neither of those. But thanks anyway!

I seem to recall the blog post being by a guy who moved to Tupelo or some place like that. This was about 5-6 years ago.