This article's conclusion is kind of a let-down, but I think the thrust of it touches on part of what bothers me about the Bay Area entrepreneur scene: the strangely myopic focus on "business" as the primary mechanism for "creating."
If we can accept that there are profitable companies which aren't socially productive or inspiring, shouldn't it follow that there are potentially a myriad of possible projects which might be amazing and worthwhile things to build, even if they obviously won't turn a profit?
I can understand needing to sustain your own existence, but I'm always curious why "entrepreneurs" who've made enough to live comfortably (and even to endow their children) continue focus their productive energy on building companies measured by financial success, rather than exploring other creative possibilities.
I understand your wonder. I think this is why Elon Musk is such a role model. After achieving independence, he is working on making the world a better place. At the same time, I can see that this subject is going to become more important as more of the work that society depends on is automated.
Shuttleworth is trying to make money but revenues are still below costs. Redhat got a lot of the obvious market first though. I don't see it is any worse than any other startup trying to pivot to make revenue.
Elon Musk doesn't really have the money to run them any other way, to run projects of that magnitude at a possible permanent loss you would need to be right up the top of the worlds richest people.
One straightforward answer: If I'm good at making systems which make systems which make money and you're good at teaching philosophy at a Catholic university, we should trade to maximize wealth creation.
At any rate, he made a related point, that the Valley seems to see every problem as being essentially a flavor of boredom and every problem's solution as being an endless rush of attention-sapping communication (i.e. a social network). The article was really well written; it's a shame it's gone.
I think one reason the conclusion doesn't satisfy is because the question of "What do we do in a post-work world?" is horribly open ended. I believe the question is relevant as technology and automation increasingly penetrate manufacturing, business administration, and (soon to be) transportation to name a few.
To put it bluntly, for most programmers, it's our job to put others out of a job. The things we build make it easier to automate, streamline, and other buzzwords, which generally means that a company doesn't have to keep as many workers on the payroll. The business administration side is fairly decimated, and I believe the falling prices of 3D printers and robotized factories will lead to automated on-demand manufacturing. This means more people won't be able to find work, which will depress the demand for products. It's an interesting problem.
> shouldn't it follow that there are potentially a myriad of possible projects which might be amazing and worthwhile things to build, even if they obviously won't turn a profit?
Yes. I would argue that the artifacts of human culture (portraits, frescoes, symphonies, statues, etc), in many cases, have no obvious financial benefit at the time. They exist because they appeal to our aesthetic side and the creators lived at the pleasure of rich sponsors.
Many programs of the Open Source universe started as an annoyance or a fling without any thought of profitability. Several tech companies started as research projects or "the itch" with no money in sight. Much of our software is still built pro-bono by an army of volunteers.
In this way programming starts to mirror the art world. The mindset to adopt is to create for the sake of creating, and letting others critique the work. Think about a programmer version of art hostels in Paris of early 20th century. In fact, go watch Midnight in Paris and see if you can picture (hah!) programmers drinking and talking instead of artists and writers. There are programmers out there like that, like Mr. Bellard and his DIY cell phone base station [1] or John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace [2]. They build for the sake of building something cool.
For your second question, I can only assume that many entrepreneurs enjoy the challenge of building successful companies. Being wildly successful means they have additional capital and can chase larger and more complex problems. SpaceX comes to mind. Granted I can't think of a founder that was very successful start something trivial (I'm sure they're out there).
A post work world exists for the majority of humans on earth. That's why we are growing much too fast; China and a lot of Asia will be unemployed in the future (Foxconn firing their employees in favor of robots will become common with robot prices falling) (not to mention the move back to to west for several branches/markets, but even without that); most people in country X (not only China) can simply do nothing more than repetitive labor and those will be done in the future. I wouldn't give that 100 years.
What 'we' (of the HN crowd) will do post-work is easy; we will make new work. That's not an option for most (I'm not sure if it's 99+% but I guess it is). Happiness in a Federation (Start Trek) utopia is not very hard to imagine for people who have hobbies and passions. With real holodecks it's probably not hard to imagine for people with less ambitions or passions, but that's so incredibly 'not here' yet...
I would think so; as we see there is not much else this kind of employee can do, so unless they have a skill which is harder to replace by robots, I fear the worst.
Something with 'voice' would be good for instance, because voice recognition sucks still. Call centers and such are not completely replaceable by 'Watsons' yet because the recognition still really stinks.
> To put it bluntly, for most programmers, it's our job to put others out of a job.
Maybe, but a cheaper production process means that a business can also scale up production for the same amount of input due to the efficiency we added. Now, granted, in most cases they choose not to..
If we can accept that there are profitable companies which aren't socially productive or inspiring, shouldn't it follow that there are potentially a myriad of possible projects which might be amazing and worthwhile things to build, even if they obviously won't turn a profit?
I can understand needing to sustain your own existence, but I'm always curious why "entrepreneurs" who've made enough to live comfortably (and even to endow their children) continue focus their productive energy on building companies measured by financial success, rather than exploring other creative possibilities.