Big problems are problems for a reason – they are problems that are hard to solve. If there was an easy solution, one of the thousands of ambitious, smart engineers out there would have solved them by now. So instead of solving big problems, the smartest, most creative brains in Silicon Valley are building apps to help us organize group lunches, share funny photos, or aggregate daily deals. I’m sorry, but these aren’t the big problems. In fact, most of these new startups are creating more problems than they solve.
Anyone who takes a five minute break from Words With Friends knows the world has big problems, and many of the solutions involve organizing information – the techie entrepreneur’s forte. Many of the things we need are pretty basic:
- I need to be able to log into a secure web portal and see my medical records, what immunizations I’ve had, who my doctors have been, my insurance information, and I need to be able to share this if I change doctors. Instead of filling out the same form for 30 minutes every time I enter a doctor’s office, I need to talk to a real person about my health problems and keep track of how I’m solving them.
- I need to be able to see my employment and tax information in much the same way – I need to see my salary payments, deductions, PTO, employment contracts, pension information, and I need to be able to print my W2 when I lose it. And I need this same system to work even if I change jobs.
- I also need a government site where I can pay my taxes, see my parking tickets, deal with jury duty requests, and see a directory of government services. While I’m at it with the government, I need a centralized place where I can store my birth certificate, business registration documents, and my will.
These solutions are straightforward database driven websites – there is no complex technology involved. So why am I still receiving cryptic medical bills in the mail, or spending hours waiting at the DMV for basic government services, or calling five people to figure out information I need to file my taxes? Because startups can’t solve these problems.
Most of these problems are created by poor governance – rules that are supposed to help but end up making things worse. The economy is so bogged down with rules that we end up creating industries to solve them (read: “tax accountants”) – when a simple portal could do a better job. Privacy concerns are overrated; the real reason startups can’t solve these issues is that the government has set up elaborate webs of rules to protect interests that are vested in doing things wrong.
Could a startup really tackle medical payments? Could they deal with the plethora of agents, contracts, rules, and regulations? So far, the answer is no. Payments are ruled by insurers. Insurance is highly regulated – there are no new entrants. Current insurers have no reason to innovate. Consumers don’t even really get to choose the insurance they get. No startup can really shake things up in this type of environment – what customer would take a risk on a sleek, simple web portal when there are so many complex legal and systematic issues involved?
So who can solve the big problems? Ultimately, it has to be big companies and the government. If Anthem / Blue Cross really wanted to make things more transparent, they could do so. The problem is that they don’t have to and probably don’t want to. And these problems are unlikely to be solved anytime soon.
Looks like I have to go pay bills now. I better get some more stamps.
Look, it’s Ayn Rand on Rails! There is literally no big problem that can’t be solved by deregulation plus a “sleek, simple portal”.
“Most of these problems are created by poor governance – rules that are supposed to help but end up just making everything worse.”
[citation needed]
“The economy is so bogged down with rules that we end up creating industries to solve them – when a simple portal would do a much better job.”
[citation needed]
But.. taking pot shots at the DMV! So brave! So original!
Ayn Rand on Rails…. I like that.
You have to admit the DMV is a huge problem. No pot shots intended. I’m simply asking why everyone is building sites to tag funny photos when it takes four hours to turn in basic paperwork that allows me to drive (legally) and be a functioning member of society? Isn’t this a more pressing problem? Why isn’t it solved?
Because the problems aren’t ones of tech. The engineers you are talking about are working on problems solvable by technology. All the problems you mentioned are people, organizational, and government problems. In fact, most of those problems are *caused* by the big organizations and politics.
Like Justin said, the reasons you attribute for the problems (people, organization, government …) are indeed correct.
However, technology can definitely be used to implement solutions. As Justin pointed out, data management can be done simpler using straightforward database applications. It’s difficult to argue differently.
Again, the industries cited are doing everything not to be disrupted. Entrepreneurs don’t even get an opportunity to present a solution. Most VCs will not fund projects that will get bogged down by politics. Sadly, it’s simply less risky and more profitable to design apps to “organize group lunches”!
Why is DMV a huge problem? I live in Washington, DC, historically one of the most dysfunctional local governments. I can do pretty much everything online, e.g. renew registrations, replace a lost drivers license, pay tickets, and so on. I had assumed if we have that here, then most states have it too, since we’re usually behind the curve for tech. If you have to wait in line at DMV on a regular basis I would blame your state government, not the system in general.
Sure, you have to occasionally go in person, but this is increasingly rare. I can’t remember my last visit other than vehicle inspection. And the purpose of these visits is usually to authenticate your identity and the legitimacy of documents when dealing with something new like a title transfer; or actually inspect a vehicle. I feel like they’ve struck a decent balance of convenience when there’s really no need to have a real person there, versus security to prevent fraud, e.g. if doing something such as obtaining temporary tags (which has historically been abused a lot).
And this is the nature of most of these problems: security and fraud prevention. Wouldn’t you love to be able to vote online? Who wouldn’t? But the potential for fraud – meaning a machine that could vote for millions of people, instead of the scope of fraud being a single person voting for one single other person – makes this largely impossible for the forseeable future.
Same with medical records. We all get bothered about the slow whittling of our privacy. But that’s just as it pertains to information that’s really always been public — but difficult to collect easily for large numbers of people, until recently. Today’s privacy concerns aren’t about the availability of information, it’s about how organizations are using it. But medical records aren’t at all public and enjoy great protections.
The difficulty with these areas is not that we don’t have the technology to create web sties where you can log in and look at stuff. We’ve been doing that for almost two decades. It’s that we aren’t comfortable in our ability to navigate the most sensitive things, the areas where the stakes are the highest, where fraud could have the biggest payoff, and a breach of confidentiality could have very serious consequences.
this.
honestly i was gonna post and someone came and stole the post out of my head before i could post it.
there is a huge trade-of between security and convenience
As someone who spends a good bit of time taking potshots at Randroids and libertarians (check the link) I did not detect a bit of that malfunction here. The opposite if anything — he’s saying that capitalism (startups) can’t solve these big problems, they have to be solved by the institutions of government. It’s not anti-government, it’s pro-good-government.
Agree. If I disagree with his assertion that bigger companies are required to solve these problems, it’s hard to say that most start-up products don’t tend towards worthless versus valuable.
Great list of ideas as well. It can easily be called an issue of framing, but optimistically, surely ANY company with enough gumption could attract the money necessary to fight overextended bureaucracy and politically vested interests. These big problems are difficult though. Let’s not lie.
Closer to what I want to say, I think you can achieve very political results with a relatively strong amount of honesty. If the solution to these large and governmental problems are positive in an economic sense, it can only be a matter of time before the concept is adoptable.
There is no such thing as “good government”. Government is not a person, i.e. there is no “ego” in the sense of a person, so without ego, the concepts of good and bad do not apply. The terms good and bad apply only to people. Government of any kind is only a tool so people can have rules for living together without killing each other through deeds of intention or neglect. The good or bad of government is determined by the people running it and how they implement and use those rules. Therefore, the minimalist application of power should always be the guiding principal of government so the “good” or the “bad” won’t intrude too much into any individuals life other than to keep him from damaging others.
A complex society, with millions of people, hundreds of technologies, and huge machines producing goods for consumption will have an exponentially harder time finding the minimal solution set to cover the maximum number of inputs for lawmaking, penalties, taxation, infrastructure creation and maintenance and the myriad of other items and services that the people require to implement their society advantageously. That is why governments have various forms of checks and balances. Properly setup people can advance, become whatever they wish and be productive for themselves and their heirs. Poorly set up or derailed by a certain personality type, a government becomes repressive, divisional, and seeks to destroy others as a demonstration of the power hungry manipulating it.
The issue of good and bad is highly dependent on culture as well. One country can make a chosen culture supreme, and then if you are an adherent, that country is good, but if your personal culture is different, to the government you will be bad, and to you the government will be bad. Culture includes accepted acts, practices, beliefs, rules of interaction, and other actions one takes in life, not just religion, but all the foundation of your particular “self”, and the accepted normal “self” of the society.
In addition, societies all have disruptions, plagues, earthquakes, tsunami’s, storms, and even technologies that change the accepted norms, causing the entire society to have to adapt. All the on-line societies have evolved rules and rules of conduct that are adhoc, and adapted by those seeking to belong to those communities. Now the communities on-line are overlapping the real world communities. This is a disruption to both societies and the cultures will both change in various ways to adapt and achieve a new norm. As always when people interact there will be conflict, chaos, and eventually some kind of order. The cultures are all just struggling to adapt.
My personal hope is a modicum of restraint on both sides will give us the openness we all crave without destroying each other in the process. I have high hopes for humanity, and belief that regardless the struggle, the ultimate drive for survival and fitness will win and produce something good for all involved. Don’t give up, be heard, and work to make it your best. However, some people will be lost in the conflict. This is inevitable, unavoidable and regrettable, but is all part of the process. The biggest lessons are seldom the successes, but often the failure of some vital person or organization that serves as the wakeup call to get things back on track.
These are obvious problems with obvious (albiet difficult) solutions – taking shots at the author instead of suggesting an alternative or better solution does not really help anyone.
[No citation needed]
The economy is bogged down with rules. The rules are not the problem, the fact that so much is handled by paperwork or in person IS a problem. If everything gets digitized, it can be automated, and computers can figure out how to handle our vast, perhaps bloated, bureaucracy.
[No citation needed]
Also, I should add, it is not necessarily the responsibility of our government to solve these problems – people can enact any type of change (and I mean literally anything). We thought space exploration and enterprises would always be in the hands of NASA, but look what is happening now…
Its only in private hands because the developers of Space Ship One were very careful to design a system that could be launched from anywhere.
Previously, the FAA and NASA blocked any attempts at private space flight, because it is embarrassing to NASA.
Since the Scaled Composites system can be launched from anywhere in the world, they had to cave and let them launch from the USA… rather than be embarrassed to have american innovators go abroad because the American government will not tolerate innovation.
So, actually your example is a very apt one, indeed!
“[citation needed]”
This is code for “I am a leftist idiot with no facts, reason or logic, but you said something that disagrees with my mindless ideology so I’m going to pretend like if you don’t make an argument form authority you have no credibility.”
The reason you’re angry, geometer, is because you’re a fucking idiot. Try thinking.
To speak to your second point, the strong development team at Dayforce( http://www.dayforce.com/Home.aspx ) has built an integrated human capital management system which combines time & attendance, scheduling, human resources, payroll, benefits, and taxes. You can interact and do all of the use cases you mentioned in the system as well as on your mobile device.
Isn’t that what open source allows us to do? Solve bigger and bigger problems?
Just stand on the shoulders of giants, like Google!
Sorry, these aren’t the big problems either. Privacy concerns are not overrated.
Understand the writers argument – but he is very wrong on one point!
Privacy has to trump everything else, without limits on the information that can be collated we are all at risk. We might have a benign government now (although some might beg to differ!) but it could be replaced with say one that is anti-some specific group. Imagine if that if a future government had access to your ethnic/religious origins etc, and wanted to remove a specific group. It could then round you all up, and exterminate on mass.
Couldn’t happened? Well a least one database is already responsible for many deaths – The Dutch had a national register of personal details in the 1930′s, including ethnic origins, the Nazi rolled into the Netherland in the 40′s and had a readymade extermination list.
Privacy is your protection from the state – never give this up without a fight. Your life might depend on it!
They had one in Rwanda too..
We’re working on a way to address all of these problems you’ve described here at Loggur. You can check it out at http://www.loggur.com. The idea is to allow our users to create exactly the apps they need to integrate pretty much whatever data they have throughout their lives into one seamless centralized place. You can edit any app on the fly and if there’s a feature you need, you can request it. Everything is reusable through tags and search, whether it’s data, widgets, or even a single component.
Perhaps the medical bill problem will be solved by a Seasteader startup
http://www.seasteading.org/
Maybe nobody visits here and shares via Google+, but I’d like to let you know that it’s impossible when the +1 button is behind a dropdown that causes the share box to vanish.
fixed! thanks for letting me know
Utter nonsense … With all the evidence we have how can such foolish things be said
Terrifying. I’m opting out of that right now.
I’m not sure about the US, but here in Poland it is illegal for medical records to be stored in a centralized electronic location, as the risk of fraud and large scale data compromise is so much higher. So all your data has to be stored on paper (which is easier to secure, and large amounts of paper data are much harder to access than electronic).
so true! Justin.
take an example from Foursquare. they r providing nice tool to know where ur friends eat and u get deals. in a ways its helping to quickly find nicer restaurants however at the same time u tend to less depend on your friend and get less chance to speak to him/her. In my opinion it creates a bit of separation.
@AndR
How brilliant is that. Let us make electronic transactions illegal. Indeed, stealing cash is harder than stealing credit card numbers. You have to physically grab the money. While at it, let us make checks illegal too: let us rely just on good old paper money. Wait? Did I say paper money? Let us use lead coins. Much safer. Lots and lots of lead coins. It is a lot more private too: no record of the transactions, impossible to tell where the money comes from.
Come on! Paper data is *not* safe. Yes, it might be more private, but how can you track whether your doctor has received your medical test for cancer and processed it? You can’t if you use paper. It is all a giant mess. With electronic records, you can actually tell whether your cancer test went through.
With electronic records, you can throw in smart AIs to double-check everything (the same way credit card companies check for fraud). Did you get a positive test for cancer, but the doctor hasn’t contacted you in two weeks? Maybe a warning is in order. Wait, you just bought this medication, but the AI knows it is counter-indicated for people with your condition, maybe a warning is in order.
Back to the main point: I beg to differ.
The problems you point out are “big” because they are caused by “big” organizations that are uninterested in fixing them. They are not really “hard problems” (like colonizing Mars or curing cancer).
Start-ups and small initiatives change the world all the time and help big problems. Khan Academy is helping struggling high school worldwide: how much did your state government do in this regard lately? How did we practically cure AIDS? It wasn’t a large corporation that did it, but one brilliant medical researcher who had a hunch that throwing various medications *together* would solve the problem.
I really think we’ve yet to see the golden age of software development. It’s still a field that’s where let’s say film was in the 1910′s, IMHO. Everything, as you critique seems to be on the fly. Additionally, because so much expertise is needed, it’s as if vision people are often left too far out, and technicians are too often in charge of projects. Just my angle.
You keep using the word “need”. It does not mean what I think you think it means.
because they are fake and gay
“I need to be able to log into a secure web portal and see my medical records…”
You must not be a patient at a Sutter Health affiliated clinic or hospital.
http://www.sutterhealth.org/myhealthonline/
http://s831.us/yn1N0e
http://www.epic.com/
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That is in the US. There are places, where such problems have been solved by startups, governments and big contractors alike.
Most of the stuff you listed in your post can managed at a single web site for Norwegian residents. They let you see tax returns and employer tax info, select a doctor, see community-related information and services, apply for a variety of benefits and things. They have something they call a Folkeregister that banks and other qualified institutions have access to so that they can receive updates of your address automatically and thus never have to worry about not being able to contact you. Nor do you have to worry about telling everyone about your change of address. I honestly was quite impressed with how much more streamlined things are here and did not feel that any of this information was used to invade my privacy.
While I agree that complex rules and regulations are definitely one reason that startups can’t solve big problems in certain spaces, I think another big reason is that its just so much easier and more fun to build apps organizing group lunches and sharing photos, and more likely to get support, attention, and investment in the service of making money (through revenue, acquisition, etc.)
Some big problems have solutions that are extremely simple. For instance, my startup (shameless self promotion, but in this case i think it applies as an honest example) http://www.momeant.com is trying to build a community of people who voluntarily reward free content, information, and software on the Web.
The problem is that we don’t make money on the Web for creating and sharing things that take work, an unsustainable economic situation. Considering where manufacturing and other jobs that are displaced by automation, digitization, and offshoring are going, and considering we’re spending more and more of our time on the Web, we need to create a sustainable digital economy.
As opposed to some ingrained economic thinking, all that’s necessary to solve this problem is to actively choose to solve it. What we pay for is what we value, and in turn, what creates jobs. Thus, this can be an extremely simple solution.
The larger problem for startups is marketing and attention, and I think some of the tech community is more interested in chasing trends in photo sharing and lunch organizing, which attracts investment and media coverage, than in solving some bigger problems.
Ayn Rand was right. As long as force (on which the government has a rightful monopoly) is being wielded (via regulation, taxation) in places that should be free of it (any sphere of human activity outside of the police, military and courts), these problems are unsolvable. Furthermore, Rand pointed out that without overturning the poisonous ethics of altruism (which is the fundamental force motivating the growth of government), we can’t advance in our return to a free society. And a widespread embrace of rational self-interest requires the overturning of popular, but deeply incorrect views about what constitutes knowledge, and what methods legitimately provide it.
If you really want to solve these problems, pick up a few of her books, study what she said, and think hard about it. And I mean really hard – her ideas deserve to be studied with the same rigor as one might apply to the sciences, such as physics or chemistry.
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I disagree that any of these are actually consumer problems, the kind that can be solved by products. I have never bashed my head against a wall because I couldn’t get my medical history. The only time that affects me is when I go to a new doctor and I need to fill out a form. I can pay my parking tickets online already.
These are all structural problems. They don’t affect any one person but they affect the system, by leading to higher taxes/insurance premiums, etc. Since no one actually has one of these as a pain point, a smart entrepreneur would avoid all of these.
“Because startups can’t solve these problems?” Incorrect. The answer is: because they haven’t tried, and/or because there probably isn’t a lot of sexy [and revenue] to be found from such ideas, at least at first glance. Does that mean it’s not possible? No.
Skimming through the philosophical discussion is pretty amusing, but I guess it’s always easy to throw in Ayn Rand when talking about anything to do with anything on a national level
Anyways, Justin’s post got me thinking in the totally opposite direction: SMALL problems. The connection for me is that I don’t see startups necessarily solving fundamental problems. And that simple apps or websites can’t solve the fundamental problems people may face, even if they’re at a micro level.
I wrote up a bit about it here:
http://narrator.blogspot.com/2012/01/whats-real-problem.html
With the exception of medical records – which can pose some serious threats if they’re missing or incomplete – these are not big problems.
It’s a problem for your employer if they’ve elected to make various parts of your compensation (PTO, retirement, etc.) available through a single portal or a confusing haywire mess of websites and phone numbers. Even in the most hair-brained configuration, I can’t imagine this really has an impact on somebody’s well being. (Trust me, I have worked in some non-profit jobs where this information is extremely scattered and nearly inaccessible.) Sure, it’s confusing, but it’s hardly anything that’s pressing. As companies & their employees get more savvy, some of these wrinkles will iron out over time, but there is no immediate need here.
The problem with local, state & federal government interaction is effectively the same story as your employer. These agencies need to communicate with people who may only have a mailing address. Aside from some marginal improvement in responsiveness, there is no benefit for public agencies to push your personal information to the web.
You’ve identified some areas where government & employers could improve their reputation and perhaps be perceived as more transparent – but I would disagree that these are truly big problems.
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Thank you. No really. For seeing past the glamour and glitz and getting to the guts of it. We don’t store or manage data effectively now that we have massive amounts of it. I’ve been struggling with the same idea. There has to be a better way. There could be a lucrative fundamental shift for the right people to tackle. My take is here http://objectatrest.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/the-cloud-is-sick/ if you are interested. Thank you again.
I don’t disagree with the premise of this post, but I also don’t see the problems you cite as being very big. Maybe try these:
- Most of the people on earth live in utter squalor
- The people on earth that don’t live in squalor are over-consuming the Earth’s resources and general live unsustainably.
- The vast majority of human effort seems to be spent on ignoring our fundamental collective problems so we individually feel better.
- Legislation in the US is largely generated by corporate fiat.
Compared to the above reducing DMV, tax, and medical paperwork seems like trivial nonsense.
Yours is the best comment of the lot. Come to Africa and you will see that Silicon Valley fiddles while the world burns
Your write: “Privacy concerns are overrated”.
NO.
Consider living under a McCarthy or similar governments bodies running amuck. And don’t say it will never again happen.
(However, living in Germany, I can do all my taxes via the internet – no need for any paper).
And you write: “I also need a government site where I can pay my taxes, see my parking tickets, deal with jury duty requests …”.
NO.
You want all these things nicely separated, with clear rules which organization is allowed to see what, and how you are linked into that information exchange.
I agree with the one of the respondents that the problems you’ve mentioned are not big at all. But granted they are, we have to first convince you that we can deal with your useless pictures in a responsible manner before we can take on your medical records. Humanity hardly makes any big jumps. We usually crawl before we walk. Nevertheless, you’re thinking process is not faulty and when we tackle your “big” problems we got to move on to the real big problems.
An example of the government providing for these services;
http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/
We even managed to figure it out, in our igloos.
My “big problem” that no small or big company has solved so far: why is it that every single web site someday asks you to fill in a form with your basic data (First Name, Last Name, Address, Zip, City and Country, sometimes Birth Data and Phone Number), and you still have to fill that by hand every time. Why is is that noone ever standardized names for this handful of fields so that any browser can spot them and prefill for you ?
Technically trivial, lobbying-wise a prohibitive task ?
I think the problem with startups is that they are often a dozen guys with similar backgrounds and perspectives who can all go out for beers. Solving the big problems needs buy-in from a much larger part of society. I work for a big healthcare organization and often the people skills are more challenging that the coding skills, but when something I’ve worked on actually goes to production I know it’s going to help more people, too.
Just a comment about DMV. Last May, I went to renew my license. The clerk informed me that the system would not let her issue a renewal. She then asked me for all the states I had ever had a license in. I was told that ‘the system must be down for one of those states’ and that I could wait, or come back on anohter day. I elected to wait, finding several others in the same predicament. After an hour, I asked to speak to a supervisor who explained to me that the issue was more likely the fact that my name and birthdate were cross referenced to some state whose system was down. WTF!!! I am being held hostage because ‘the system’ is unable to clear my license information! “Until ‘the system’ can clear your identity, we cannot issue a renewal.” I left enraged, and came back two days later expecting everything to go without a hitch. Wrong! I waited for another two hours to no avail. Luckily, third time was a charm. Guilty until proven innocent by design.
I honestly don’t see how a startup can solve government problem, you post should have been titled “how can we make the government do something more that just collect taxes…”
Very nice article, Justin. I hope people in politics listen and consider ways to make it possible for tech people to address these issues.
I’m with a startup working on your first bullet point right now, fyi, beginning with a small pilot program, working WITH government and healthcare providers. More to come in the next few weeks…
Government is not a problem that can be solved by replacing a complex web of rules with a portal.
Government has become so complex because of all of the conflicts of interest inherent in how we are making our decisions. And those wishing to game the system like complexity because it makes the task of exploiting us infinitely easier.
Things need to be decentralized when it makes sense to do so. And those getting benefits should be the ones paying for them.
Sending all the resources to one place and them doling them out using political criteria costs a lot, especially for those that do not had the time to keep track of what is happening in DC.
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