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Comment by kstenerud | Hacker News Reader

All of this moralizing and "solve big problems" talk is really getting old. On average, chances are pretty low that a particular individual will ever solve a big problem, so stop worrying about it! It's not for others to say how you "should" spend your energy anyway. The moralistic fluff is unnecessary. Those who aren't motivated will ignore it, those who are motivated don't need to be reminded, and the moralizers will use it to beat the rest of the would-be entrepreneurs into a perpetual state of indecision.

Condense the article down and you're left with this nugget of advice: You'll have a better chance of success if you target unsaturated, boring markets.

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You said: 1. On average you won't solve a big problem, so don't try. 2. Other folks in your society should have no opinion on what you spend time on. 3. Don't try to change people's opinions because you can't. 4. Stop bringing up morality because it makes people think, not act.

"On average you won't solve a big problem, so don't try."

On average you won't solve a big problem, so don't worry about it. At what point did I say don't try?

"Other folks in your society should have no opinion on what you spend time on."

Other folks will have an opinion on what you spend your time on whether you like it or not. They'll talk and talk about how YOU (not they) should do such and such. It's easy to opine when you're not the one actually doing the work. So don't worry too much about what they think.

"Don't try to change people's opinions because you can't."

It's not that you can't per se, but rather that on average they won't. So don't worry if it doesn't work out.

"Stop bringing up morality because it makes people think, not act."

Don't let other peoples' moral platitudes paralyze you with the fear of acting.

On average, chances are pretty low that a particular startup will ever make even a hundred thousand dollars, so stop starting new companies!

It's not for either your investors or your customers to tell you what to build anyway.

And just never talk about morals, which I deem "fluff".

I read it the opposite way - your chances of having a big impact are low, so stop worrying and start a company anyway. This might sound paradoxical, but for a lot of people (myself included) being told "don't waste your time on something trivial" can be paralysing. You end up questioning every idea and never being able to settle on one.

You can (and should) get a sense of which ideas are worthwhile, but you'll never know for sure. Maybe your potential cure for cancer won't work. Maybe your todo list app will help 100 medical non-profits each be 5% more efficient, in effect having 5 non-profit's worth of impact. With that in mind, the best you can do is pick something that you can probably make work, that people probably want, and that will probably have a positive impact on society. Whether or not you change the world is up to the gods.

> Whether or not you change the world is up to the gods.

No. Take some responsibility (and therefore, credit) for your actions.

>>>On average, chances are pretty low that a particular individual will ever solve a big problem, so stop worrying about it!

Oh that Jonas Salk. He was just a big waste of time. /sarcasm

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