[moltensodium]

I have never met a startup founder that wanted to address a problem or improve the world. Instead they all want to make sure that the Series A investors are happy. Nothing else really matters besides doing whatever the investors think will make number go up.

One time I almost got involved with a person who truly wanted to improve the world, but didn't get the job.

Outside of that one person I almost met 15 years ago, literally every founder in tech I've interacted with is just trying to run the ponzi scheme and get to that exit event, consequences be damned, employees be damned, profit be damned.

Maybe there are some good people in tech, but I still haven't met them after a whole career in this industry. Just a lot of people who make number go up like they're told to.

*edit I think this comment will be very poorly received and downvoted to -100000 karma, but honestly typing it out has made me realize I just fucking hate this industry with every fiber of my being. Every new platform and channel and tool gets completely subverted by ever more intrusive and personalized advertising, and the total data surveillance ecosystem of the big tech giants ensures that they will be able to kill or consume any truly good business idea before it gets off the ground. I think I'm done. Fuck tech. Fuck computers. What a waste of a career.

[shantly]

> Fuck tech. Fuck computers. What a waste of a career.

I'm coming around to a the-medium-is-the-message / technological-determinism perspective on the Internet, that it cannot exist as anything like the way it is now and mostly be a force for good. Just can't.

Always on ubiquitous wireless Internet. Decent battery tech so you don't need a power cable to everything. Low-powered cheap computers and sensors (cameras, microphones, those creepy human-body radars Google's about to start putting in phones). Storage so cheap you can collect everything. Algorithms to sift through it.

I don't see any possible way for all those things to exist and for the results not to be, overall, disastrous.

I also see exactly no way to stop it.

[homonculus1]

I'm "opesstimistic" about it. I think the average person is simply too stupid to foresee the problems. It takes a broader view to see the parallels with history and how these technologies can (likely will) lead to abhorrent abuse. I don't mean to be arrogant but I think the average person lacks the mental depth to look past the immediate convenience or to be skeptical of the glitzy sales pitch.

Stallman, Snowden, the EFF, and the rest of us are Cassandras. People just don't give a shit. Let alone the future, people are still trying to roll back protections we got in the 18th Century. There just isn't going to be a public consciousness of how we need to limit power from using tech that was invented a decade ago, no matter how many articles or blog posts those weird nerds write about their tinfoil paranoia.

I think we're just doomed to suffer the consequences again and learn from the suffering. It will be hell on earth for a lot of people but the light at the end of the tunnel is that tyranny is an objectively inferior mode of organization, and it always has to collapse eventually.

[AndrewKemendo]

An interesting irony here is that almost every founder I know who started a company that failed outright or went bankrupt were primarily ideologically motivated.

Whereas the successful founders were the ones who chased the bottom line, improve the world is a benefit.

I fall into the first camp, though I got lucky with an acquisition. However it tainted me on startups and business in general actually having the ability to be ideological. At the end of the day people need to get paid, otherwise it's a volunteer organization, and volunteer organizations don't scale.

[Aaronstotle]

Although I get your frustration, I think it's too early to say there won't be a shift in the field. More people are becoming aware of the mass surveillance and globs of data collection which means that someone can make money making a startup that "Does X, but doesn't sell your data". Maybe _I'm_ the one who's too optimistic, but projects like Monero show me that there's people who care about privacy to create/maintain a digital cash equivalent.

[Nasrudith]

I think it highlights two issues with it. One of which is a matter of "outsourcing privacy/trust" being inherently a risky concept and much of it is learned instead of sold. Since all of the perfect VPNs and end to end enceyption won't protect against poor opsec.

Second for business there is a question of "where is the money from with the business model"? Skipping that step leads to a VC acquisition which will subvert it once it gets big enough to "harvest" it at best.

Data-gaming SEO style seems like it would be the logical consequence of the surveillance but that may fall into the legally dodgy on its own.

GIGO spam may be what eventually bursts an ad-tech market. Phone systems are already notorious for being overwhelmed with scam and spam callers. Now imagine click and view farming being similarly leveraged as noise overwhelms signal.

[mistrial9]

mobile != all computing; agree about many founders in the mobile space. Just met yesterday with a colleague who is a tech manager now for outsourcing facial recognition systems, unsure if he is allowed to know who the clients are during a build. He kept trying to take pictures of me with his phone and laughing at my disdain.. he said "you are too shy" several times.. ugly

[balt_s]

Hang in there, man.

[dekhn]

Plenty of the startup founders I've worked with want to address a problem and improve the world. They were also working to keep investors happy because otherwise they would not have the opportunity.

[nl]

I have never met a startup founder that wanted to address a problem or improve the world.

I don't know where you live or work, but wow this is the complete opposite to my experience.

[Clubber]

I'm with you on the disheartening of the tech industry I held in such high regard 20 years ago. I have a problem though: what else am I going to do for a living?

[wglb]

I have met three among the small handful that I know. I am pretty sure that there are many more out there.

If you hate this industry, HN is an odd place to hang out.

Also don't complain about downvotes.

[eaandkw]

I agree. In fact I have often said that I think the internet was a mistake. And I mean it. It seems that right now the only point of the internet is to deliver adds and take more and more ownership from people so as to put everything in the cloud. And I am tired of micro payments.

I guess this is surveillance capitalism at it's best.