Soup-Like Gender Homogenate ✅Apr 23, 2017

So a tweet I made today on Birdsite blew up. Specifically this:

"When engineering is about “solving interesting problems” and never about why these are problems, you get stuff like Uber.”

I think it touched a nerve. But it’s true. Like the whole Jeff Goldblum line in Jurassic Park, developers all preoccupied about whether they could do a thing and not about whether they should.

And this is a huge. fucking. problem.

Show threadjmz🦀(CARCIFIED)Apr 24, 2017
@sanspoint I think Uber is symptomatic of another, more sinister kind of myopia. The problem Uber solves isn't "how can I solve an interesting problem?" (the tech is a user friendly taxi app, it's...ok?) it's "how can I become the one extracting money from this problem?" People want more taxis, buzz is created around an an app, drivers are underpaid, the business loss leads & investors are sold on pipe dreams, a wave of capital rolls in, repeat until bubble bursts.
Show threadSoup-Like Gender Homogenate ✅

@paralithode That's huge too, but it's partially enabled by a culture of programmers who don't think about why they're doing the things their employers ask them to do.

But yes, the VC bubble is a huge problem, and fed by the lack of returns in more safe investments.

Apr 24, 2017 at 12:16amWeb