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

97 points by digitalmaster 5 years ago | 98 comments

Are there any well funded tech startups / companies tackling major societal problems? Any of these fair game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_global_issues

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I don't see or hear of any and want to know if this is just my bias or if there really is a shortage of resources in tech being allocated to solving the worlds most important problems. I'm sure I'm not the only engineer that's looking out for companies like this.

Ran into this previous Ask HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24168902) that asked a similar question. However, here I wanna focus on the better funded efforts (not side projects, philanthropy etc).

One example I've heard so far is Tesla. Any others?

doitLP 5 years ago |

If you’re interested in having an impact I highly recommend visiting https://80000hours.org/

The biggest impacts can often be made in areas that are most neglected and have high negative or positive outcomes. At the very least it will help you form a mental model of how to spend your time and the types of problems to focus on.

kuzee 5 years ago | |

Thanks for sharing. Their emphasis on the neglectedness of an issue and focusing on the margins is great.

digitalmaster 5 years ago | |

This is fantastic! Thanks for sharing!

tosmith 5 years ago |

At CIONIC, we're tackling how to overcome disability through precision bionics. Whether a diagnosis at birth (Cerebral Palsy, Spina Bifida) or an acquired disease or impairment (Parkinson's, issues resulting from a stroke), we're engineering sleek, wearable solutions that will provide comprehensive analysis and precise augmentation to enhance human performance, restore physical function and increase independence. Check out more information here: https://cionic.com/

jsin 5 years ago | |

This looks cool. Why do you think this hasn’t been done before?

tosmith 5 years ago | | |

Good question. I think it's the right time for the confluence of technology and human need. It's not an easy problem, but it's an important one

bjacobt 5 years ago |

Loon from Google/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/low ARPU area in Kenya [2].

Loon uses standard 3GPP (LTE) protocols, so devices are available at low cost and even lower in used markets.

I don't work for Loon or Google, just interested in HAPS (High Altitude Pseudo Satellites) to provide low cost connectivity.

[1] https://loon.com/

[2] https://medium.com/loon-for-all/loon-is-live-in-kenya-259d81...

Edit: fixed references

Mayzie 5 years ago | |

Wow, Project Loon. It’s been a while since I’ve thought about it. It seems kind of pointless now, doesn’t it? StarLink will displace it in a couple of years.

bjacobt 5 years ago | | |

One disadvantage with Starlink is the need for external antenna. With HAPS, project Loon and HAPS Mobile [1], you can use regular mobile phones and modems making it cost effective for most people. The idea would be for an operator to have terrestrial network in urban/sub urban areas and high altitude cell towers in less dense areas. This way you can use the same subscription and device.

Starlink could also be used to provide backhaul to cell towers which work with standard 3GPP protocol and provide the same service as terrestrial networks.

HAPS Mobile has got a good video (< 5 min) on what it is and their vision [2]

[1] https://www.hapsmobile.com/en/

[2] https://youtu.be/zxWODb6Uqgs

Edit: I've no affiliation with HAPS Mobile, Softbank, Google :)

harha 5 years ago | | |

Would be nice to see a benchmark on large scale deployment overall and individual cost, reliability, etc.

I also think that fast(er) internet without relying on governments could be interesting for many people in presumably developed countries like France and Germany and make living outside of large cities much more attractive to many.

TYPE_FASTER 5 years ago |

Check out the startups working at incubators like Greentown Labs: https://greentownlabs.com/.

Not all these companies will make it. There'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.

logoman04 5 years ago | |

I spent 18 months working as a SWE at a company within Greentown Labs. I can confirm the companies there are all committed to making a meaningful impact around the domains of clean energy / green technology.

qchris 5 years ago | |

I spent about six months a few years back working at a company at Greentown too. Not only are the people and companies there working on some meaningful (and frankly, really cool) technology, but the incubator itself always seemed really well run and was a great space to work in.

I'm sure things are a bit more difficult with the current pandemic considering their buildings' layouts (like most open workplaces), but I'd wholeheartedly recommend people interested to taking a serious look.

lrobinovitch 5 years ago |

Stuff that Saul Griffith works on: https://www.saulgriffith.com/

In particular, Otherlab companies: https://www.otherlab.com/

audenaert 5 years ago |

What it means for a well-funded company to tackle big, meaningful problems?

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'll see that the founders care deeply about the impact that they are having. Execution on that impact is another matter.

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?

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?

Facebook has done a lot of amazing and wonderful things. It'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.

I'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.

dangus 5 years ago |

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.

> One example I've heard so far is Tesla. Any others?

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.

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.

So, like I said, what you’re looking for is probably a non-profit, a government agency, or research institution.

And don’t expect to get highly competitive salary to do work that helps people.

digitalmaster 5 years ago | |

> "Highly funded companies are expected to produce revenue growth."

Yup, this is exactly what I was hoping wasn't true: That it's impossible to be both well funded, high revenue growth AND do so while tackling a meaningful problem. ---

Don't want to make this thread about all the ways in which Tesla is a bad example (just first one that came to mind).

eadan 5 years ago | |

This is such a cynical outlook on the world. Of course there are for-profit companies -- most I would argue -- that have a positive impact on the world, and Tesla is one such example.

zaphod12 5 years ago |

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)

Interested in improving the state of the art in detecting cancer - paigeai is building automated pathology tools.

A somewhat USA specific one, but goodrx is helping folks afford medications.

Quite a few of those "issues" 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!

mattbrewsbytes 5 years ago |

Say you worked in a software development organization that was dysfunctional, shipped updates 3-4 times a year and had lots of infighting/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?

Is tech the right tool to attempt solving societal problems?

If Tesla'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.

anandpdoshi 5 years ago |

Plenty (https://plenty.ag) 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.

kickout 5 years ago | |

Why'd you leave--just curious?

anandpdoshi 5 years ago | | |

I wanted to do more creative work, whereas the work at Plenty was more about problem solving.

chris_st 5 years ago |

International Justice Mission [1] and Thorn [2] are tackling child trafficking, sex trafficking, and modern-day slavery successfully (IJM internationally, Thorn in the US).

[1] https://www.ijm.org [2] https://www.thorn.org

giantg2 5 years ago |

I don'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.

mstatner 5 years ago |

Forward (https://goforward.com/technology) 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.

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.

See our open roles here: https://goforward.com/eng, or reach out to me directly at marissa@goforward.com with your resume.

Check out this article written by our CEO, Adrian, about how we plan to rewire the healthcare system here: https://blog.goforward.com/dont-bail-out-healthcare-rewire-i...

Watch a video tour of one of our doctor's offices here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnJEsoGmh-8&feature=youtu.be

digitalmaster 5 years ago | |

This seems like a good one! Thanks for sharing.

fiftyacorn 5 years ago |

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

psmithsfhn 5 years ago |

Telsa, Gates Foundation, etc. Ugh. Please stop 'helping' us.

My general guess is that anything actually worthwhile will have little to no private funding behind it.

Global heating. Racism. Soil extinction. Fascism. Disenfranchisement. Inequality. Female disempowerment. etc.

I guess there is government cheese for global heating. Not sure how much useful work would be done outside of government-run and/or -funded laboratories.

And anything that could potentially start out as being at least notionally-well-intentioned will come around to being not that.

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.

digitalmaster 5 years ago | |

This is exactly what I was hoping this thread would disprove. But so far I think you're probably right. Private interest just doesn't seem to be seriously willing or able to tackle the big issues.

fsflover 5 years ago |

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).

https://puri.sm/about/manufacturing-and-sourcing/

Not sure if you consider them "well funded" though.

stann 5 years ago | |

From China to US... surveillance-free?

fsflover 5 years ago | | |

You can inspect all their source code. They also publish schematics and x-ray images of their phone.

3np 5 years ago | | |

I’m so bummed out that they’re basing themselves and manufacturing in the US. It’s such a risk that it’s difficult to make sense of the reasoning with anything else than that they’re already compromised, possibly simply by funding capital that comes with conditions. Not saying I believe that’s the case but how else can you explain it?

bsldld 5 years ago |

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

fsflover 5 years ago | |

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_investing

Michael_Sieb 5 years ago |

Type Studio disrupts all the over engineered video editors by developing a text-based editing approach. https://typestudio.co

WMCRUN 5 years ago |

Sahara Forest Project https://www.saharaforestproject.com/

Desalination + desert greening + solar + farming. Awesome

maxmorlocke 5 years ago |

Lexria (https://www.lexria.com) is focused on helping solve student loan debt issues through bankruptcy.

sgtnoodle 5 years ago |

I've been working at Zipline for over four years now. We'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're operating distribution centers in Rwanda, Ghana, and North Carolina, and I believe we're still the only such system operating in production.

I'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've developed to make our system easier to operate. I also touch a lot of "high level" python to build out developer tools and when interfacing to the company's broader software stacks. It'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's something really cool about Zipline. Our flight operators are the most awesome, dedicated employees, and they're in the trenches launching hundreds of flights per day through extreme rain, heat and cold. I want to say that something like 1/3 of flights are for medical emergencies, too.

I've been very happy working here, also. It's a really good group of people. Everyone'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's no corporate politics or egos to maneuver around. Our CEO'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.

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're taking on. We're generally always hiring across the company, and especially on the embedded engineering team. Since I'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.

https://flyzipline.com/careers/

This is what I've been working on improving this past week. If you sign an NDA, I can tell what relevance it has to 1980s rap music... https://youtu.be/FeSCEalMOL8?t=85

fsflover 5 years ago |

https://fairphone.com

person_of_color 5 years ago |

Cruise Automation. Startup that pays as well as FAANG.

westurner 5 years ago |

You can make an impact by solving important local and global problems by investing your time, career, and savings; by listing and comparing solutions.

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_alignment ... "Schema.org: Mission, Project, Goal, Objective, Task" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12525141

As an investor, you can choose to invest in organizations that are making the sort of impact you're looking for: you can impact invest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_investing

You mentioned "List of global issues"; which didn't yet have a link to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (the #GlobalGoals). I just added this to the linked article:

> 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.

There are 17 Global Goals.

Sustainability reporting standards can align with the Sustainable Development Goals. For example, the GRI standards are now aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goals

Investors, fund managers, and potential employees can identify companies which are making an impact by reviewing corporate sustainability and ESG reports.

From https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-develo... :

> SDG Target 12.6: "Encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle"

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21302926 :

> > What are some of the corporate sustainability reporting standards?

> > From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability_reporting#Initi... :

> >> 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.

> >The GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) Standards are now aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (#GlobalGoals). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Reporting_Initiative

> >> 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]

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's internal and external communications?

What are some examples of companies who have a focus on sustainability and/or 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)?

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 solutions.

3 pillars of [Corporate] Sustainability: (Environment (Society (Economy))). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability#Three_dimension...

doopy-loopy2 5 years ago |

Tesla

misanthropian00 5 years ago |

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

bjornsing 5 years ago | |

Replace us? Isn’t it enough to just enslave us, feed us scraps and tell us what to do? Lot’s of startups are working on that. (It’s called the gig economy.) :P

Footnote: I’m not this critical of the gig economy, just couldn’t resist the opportunity for some gallows humor. :)

biztos 5 years ago | | |

But what would a robot sufficiently smart/powerful to enslave us actually need us to do?

Entertain them?

chrisseaton 5 years ago |

> Are there any well funded tech startups / companies tackling major societal problems?

Why would you look to tech companies to do this?

Isn't this what charities do?

hprotagonist 5 years ago | |

isn't this what governments ought to exist to do? "promote the General Welfare" is within the first 30 words of the Preamble.

Ancapistani 5 years ago | | |

Most people believe so, but not all.

Even so - if you can solve these problems and make good money while doing so, why wouldn’t you want to?

thrill 5 years ago | | |

Promote - as in cheerlead, facilitate, protect - not as in, well, try to do by forcing participation.

piuspatel 5 years ago |

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