Please give us some examples of companies you feel have "real impact on the economy and humanity"...?
Edit: Also, successful companies that started out with those ambitions?
Edit: Also, successful companies that started out with those ambitions?
In general terms, several industries have had a real, measurable impact on economies. The scooter, the diesel truck, the steel hulled boat, the washing machine, the cell phone... There are many successful companies in these industries that have a real impact on humanity and make a profit too.
I find it astonishing that you couldn't think of examples of businesses that have had a bigger impact on humanity than Twitter and Facebook.
I never said I couldn't think of businesses with more (current) impact than Twitter and Facebook! I think my work history amply illustrates that (Google[x], Google Life Sciences, etc).
I was simply saying: A lot of really great, impactful businesses started off with more-modest beginnings; chiding existing upstarts for not being sufficiently ambitious borders on hubris.
Every other business that doesn't aim to be some small boutique has growth and impact in the back of their minds, or got the idea after a taste of success.
And by far the biggest impact in computing has been from NLS-Mother of All Demos and Xerox PARC Smalltalk, who were aiming for exactly that. Measured in the trillions. Each individual startup's hyped up billion dollar share of this pie is small. As it should be, since they handle narrow subsets of functionality and can't even work seamlessly with each other. And most users can't deal with all the different UIs.