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The Effect of Social Missions On Tech Innovation
The New York Times is running a piece on how some emerging companies in the tech industry are focusing on social missions rather than profits despite having successful business methods. The startups are modeling themselves after organizations like Mozilla and TechSoup, who have both grown to significantly affect their respective markets. The article also discusses some of the non-profit support groups, such as the EFF, who contribute specific services to the field. Quoting:
"'There is a lot of discussion taking place right now about a whole new organization form around social enterprise,' said James Fruchterman, president of Benetech, a social enterprise incubator based in Palo Alto. 'Many of these efforts can make money; they will just never make enough to provide venture capital rates of return.' The new stream of technology-centric and successful nonprofits, however, appears to be driven in part by a set of microelectronics technology trends that have sent shock waves through many industries, from publishing to music and movies. 'Computer technology and the Internet are lowering the cost of doing business,' said John Lilly, the chief executive of Mozilla."
Geeks will not inherit the world anymore than any other group will.
The world has to have different types, asshole types included. Without them and the other groups, the would does not and will never work. You need forward thinkers and you need short sighted thinkers. Without short sighted thinkers, you go bankrupt in the short term and there is no long term and visa versa.
No one group or type of person can do it all.
Gone!
Gee... perhaps thats the problem? Check this out: We need a new path to liquidity
That's what the assholes want you to think.
You think Enron was the only company that fudged numbers so their top brass made their bonuses? This behavior doesn't create wealth, it only redirects it from productive uses. These people are parasites on wealth building processes. The system functions despite these people.
The essence of being an asshole is being a person who habitually lies to get ahead. Many highly successful people are assholes, but for ever such there are a thousand whose lies caught up with them. It isn't that assholes aren't forward thinkers, it's that they don't look any farther into the future than is necessary to keep their deceptions from collapsing. It's not about rational self interest, it's about the inability to control the impulse to grasp and manipulate.
This doesn't mean nice guys finish first. The world isn't divided into assholes and nice guys. Ben Franklin was a bit of a conceited jerk, but he was never an asshole, and he pretty much accomplished anything he ever set his hand to. He was incredibly disciplined; it was always a penny saved with old Ben. He know the line between jerk and asshole, and didn't step over. He wasn't the type to cheat a customer because a repeat customer, after all, is the most profitable in the long term. He might deceive his way into a lady's boudoir, but his aims in those matters were exclusively short term.
And sometimes assholes smarten up. Young George Washington was a nasty piece of work, but the transparent ugliness of his social climbing ruined any prospects he had of advancement, and this changed his thinking.
Thomas Jefferson never stopped being an asshole, and suffered his entire life as a result. No question he was very bright, of course, but what he accomplished was because of his intelligence and despite his unwillingness to face his personal problems squarely.
The world needs many kinds of people: kindly people and stern people, benevolent people and ambitious ones. But saying it needs assholes is just another way of saying that it needs more fools. Saying that many assholes are successful is like saying that many people successfully pursue the lottery to riches. It's only "many" if you don't compare it to the failures.
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