Fred Wilson: Am I Bored With Web 2.0?

http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/06/a_manifesto_f...

I'm having a hard time separating the above from revolutionary socialism, and the best I can do is simply admit that he's completely ignorant--doesn't understand economics at all, and is just spewing received wisdom like so much bilge from a cracked hull.

Google wants to organize the world's information.

Information has these qualities:

1. It is good.

2. It is mostly unstructured.

3. It is found in uncountable places.

So-and-so wants to "Organize the world's hunger." Hunger has these qualities:

1. It is bad.

2. It is a biological phenomena, rather than a product--something you can create, and then move around, and store, like information.

3. It is found in places with undeveloped economies.

...point is, there is absolutely no comparison. The two words have no points of connection. Information is subject to organization, hunger is not. In fact "organize hunger" is a meangingless combination of words.

So, as usual, when someone spouts literal nonsense, it becomes the reader's burden to figure out what he means. Fine. He wants rid of the invisible hand which has tricked google into benefiting mankind, and he wants to set up planning committees to eradicate (not "organize") hunger. And he wants startups to do this. Okay, that makes sense. Thanks for the viewpoint, Harvard.

Want to end hunger? No, really? Okay, shoot the latter-day communists in Africa, set up strongmen who will protect property, and let capital flow. Period.

web 2.0 or whatever you want to call it allows us to do two main things: move information a whole lot faster and with people anywhere in the world that we may not have known before. similar to what zuckerberg refers to as information flow. if you could leverage those concepts to help do good in the world, i think that would make a huge impact. some companies that i can think of:

a) causes by sean parker and joe green. helping spread causes youre passionate about with your network

b) terrapass. helping buy carbon offsets and green products.

long story short, but my niece and nephew had a fatal disease. my family was told they had no more than 6 months to live. first thing we did was use the internet and find other families who were afflicted with the disease+ doctors trying to solve it. Theyre now 11 and 10 years old, because we were able to connect with other people who knew otherwise. This was back in 1998. If it were 1988, they would be dead. that right there is power. Think what we could do in 2008. Thinking about this sometimes makes me think that although I love what I do on a daily basis, the world doesnt need a software company. What ive learned could be used to build an application to help connect doctors, families, companies with cures,etc. more easily.

hmm, and my hacker news comment has now turned into a blog post.

second, the barrier to entry for a web 2.0 company relative to a company that will organize the world's health, hunger,thirst, etc. is a few orders of magnitude lower.

I've got a few friends with prototypes for companies that could effect serious change on the scale Umair constantly references, but they'd need several millions of dollars before having something that's even ready for mass production.

(edit: these buddies of mine, will end up working for corporate america in non-innovative companies because they just don't have the resources to be able to take their prototypes and build them into companies. One of the guys would need about 18 months and 6 full-time research technicians/machinists.)

even with PG's "be good" it's debatable how much the majority of YC companies are going to have a positive impact on the world ... but then again, is that their aim?

maybe Fred, Umair, and a few other big players idea/operations/capital wise should start a YC to attack those very problems with young, hungry, entrepreneurs. $250-$500k per entrepreneur should be fairly reasonable to get to marketable prototype/ alpha version.

Scary. I thought 1984 was a popular book in the US, so why is that so much people buy in that "One World, One Government, One Society" distopian future ?

By the way, did he follow the actuality of Europe at all ? When we asked the people directly (by referendum), in France, Netherlands, and very recently Ireland, they said NO to the next step of European construction. A world where the technocratic elites go against the will of the majority (aka people) isn't supposed to be a model to be followed. That's precisely what is slowely happening in Europe, you can bet that Ireland was the last referendum ever organized.

First you have to organize people. What I work on, OfficeZilla.com helps organize people accross hundreds of non-profit organizations.

For example Mercy Ships uses OfficeZilla to upload pictures, video, and documents created out at Sea and the communications department uses that information to raise awareness of what they are doing and raise funds to do more.

Organizing people is much more power then say creating a database of resources. Organizing people creates capacity to act.

I have a child starting 6th grade. Before she starts school they are having a class on how she can get more out of school by being more organized. Using time, etc. This way she gets the most out of her own resources. Non-profits are the same way. You have to organize human resources but it is not easy, that is where OfficeZilla comes in.

OUR? Okay.

maybe better connecting we'll have chance to bust out of our monkeyspheres and denials.. it's powerful potential. then again, in 1990's i remember a John Gage quote: "What stopped the vietnam war was we told the truth about what was happening. Now the truth telling mechanisms are a thousand times more powerful".. sounds great, but look what happened: the trwtf telling mechanisms of today have sold endless war with victims unknown and gross costs, all to control stupid and ugly oil.

yes i'm complaining.. no i can't solve biodiversity and energy.. the best i can do, in my dream, is work toward universal literacy.. so even the final billion can someday read wikipedia, get informed and solve real problems..

That's what I'm working on with my app, ezlearnz