{"id":13347,"date":"2014-06-25T05:00:26","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T11:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tested-neuron.flywheelsites.com\/?p=13347"},"modified":"2015-02-17T13:28:36","modified_gmt":"2015-02-17T20:28:36","slug":"come-on-silicon-valley-you-can-do-better-than-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/come-on-silicon-valley-you-can-do-better-than-this\/","title":{"rendered":"Come On, Silicon Valley, You Can Do Better Than This"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new messaging app,\u00a0called Yo<\/a>, has created a sensation<\/strong> in Silicon Valley. It is being hailed as the next big thing.<\/p>\n

The amazing breakthrough?\u00a0Sending the word \u201cYo\u201d to a contact with just one click.<\/p>\n

This app received justifiable\u00a0ridicule<\/a>\u00a0from Comedy Central\u2019s Stephen Colbert and many others.\u00a0But some technology industry moguls are taking it seriously.\u00a0Marc Andreessen\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0on Twitter that people who make light of it are missing the point; that Yo is \u201can instance of \u2018one-bit communication\u2019 \u2014 a message with no content other than the fact that it exists.\u00a0Yes or no.\u00a0Yo or no yo.\u201d He referred to the developing world\u2019s use of \u201cmissed\u201d calls as a communications mechanism and chided the naysayers for being biased. \u00a0He\u00a0wrote<\/a>: \u201cthe hilarity around Yo includes two problematic biases: Bias that one-bit comm isn\u2019t useful, and bias that all markets are like the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think Andreessen or the cohort that invested $1.2 million in this venture really understand what the needs of the developing world are or how and why the poor use technology.\u00a0The \u201cmissed call,\u201d for example, is a way to send a message to someone with whom you have agreed on what the ring means. The poor in South Asia and Africa commonly use it to send messages to one another without having to use cellphone minutes. \u00a0A hang-up after one ring might mean I have reached my destination safely or I want you to pick me up. \u00a0This method of communication comes from necessity rather than from vanity. It is the only means of communication some people can afford.<\/p>\n

My concern is that the adulation and funding that the Yo app has received will send a terribly wrong message to entrepreneurs all over the world, encouraging them to misdirect more investment into building more silly apps and other equally meaningless, mindless projects.<\/p>\n

Entrepreneurs with world-changing ideas usually have a very hard time gaining funding from venture capitalists.\u00a0That\u2019s why they have to resort to crowdfunding Web sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, appealing directly to the public for investment.\u00a0Even there, some of the most promising ideas don\u2019t get funded, either because it is hard to explain their value or because they are too risky.<\/p>\n

The world has many problems to solve.\u00a0Billions live without reliable energy and lack adequate access to water, health care, and education. More people die from lack of clean water than from war. Our food system, the primary source of income for billions, must grow to meet the needs of another two billion people. \u00a0Poverty is endemic on the planet. These are some of humanity\u2019s grand challenges. And it is not just the developing world that endures these ills: many parts of the developed world do too, particularly in relation to health care, education, and poverty.<\/p>\n

The good news is that solutions to these grand challenges are at hand. Several technologies, such as computing, medicine, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, robotics, and sensors are advancing exponentially while their prices drop. These are enabling entrepreneurs to do what only governments and large research labs were previously able to do in solving big problems. Inexpensive sensors can, for example, be used to monitor soil humidity, optimize watering, and build on-farm diagnostic systems that minimize the amount of harmful chemicals used.\u00a0These can revolutionize agriculture.\u00a0Other types of sensors can monitor human health and test for disease. Entrepreneurs can build apps that combine health data with genomic data to understand the correlation between our genome, habits, and disease and to develop holistic treatments.\u00a0They can design robotic assistants to help care for the elderly and build tutors to educate the hundreds of millions of children who don\u2019t have access to schools.<\/p>\n

Yet Silicon Valley, which could be taking the lead in ridding humanity of its ills, is focused on scoring big hits by solving problems so small they can be said to be non-existent. Yo\u2019s roots are in Israel, not Silicon Valley, but the app is typical of Silicon Valley. The venture-capital system, which fuels the technology industry\u2019s growth, is geared towards rolling the dice in the hope of receiving returns of five to 10\u00a0times the invested capital within five or seven years. Such home runs are rare, and this has sent the system into decline, but little has changed. It\u2019s still the silly apps that get the funding and attention.<\/p>\n

Investors believe that the quickest hits come from building apps or games that go viral, or from creating Web sites that automate business processes. This was surely the case in the social-media era, when even children who had not completed their college education could write apps. But we\u2019ve built enough messaging and photo-sharing apps, and have bigger opportunities now. \u00a0It is possible for the young and the old to solve real problems, to great effect.<\/p>\n

It is time for Silicon Valley to step up its game and graduate from the minor league.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forget building silly apps such as Yo. Silicon Valley needs to take on a grand challenge, such as serving the millions who go without clean water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[476,1510,1529],"tags":[2247,1396,450,1417,498,290,17,677,359,245,1404],"class_list":["post-13347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","category-career","category-technology","tag-article","tag-boldness","tag-career","tag-corporation","tag-culture","tag-leadership","tag-money","tag-opin","tag-tech","tag-values","tag-wadhwa"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCome On, Silicon Valley, You Can Do Better Than This - UNREASONABLE<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/come-on-silicon-valley-you-can-do-better-than-this\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Come On, Silicon Valley, You Can Do Better Than This - UNREASONABLE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Forget building silly apps such as Yo. Silicon Valley needs to take on a grand challenge, such as serving the millions who go without clean water.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/come-on-silicon-valley-you-can-do-better-than-this\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Unreasonable\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-06-25T11:00:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-02-17T20:28:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/FB-card-02.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1201\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"631\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Vivek Wadhwa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@http:\/\/twitter.com\/wadhwa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Vivek Wadhwa\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":[\"Article\",\"BlogPosting\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/come-on-silicon-valley-you-can-do-better-than-this\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/come-on-silicon-valley-you-can-do-better-than-this\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Vivek Wadhwa\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/person\/64643f0d9f89cd6047ce8d8703ef8f47\"},\"headline\":\"Come On, Silicon Valley, You Can Do Better Than This\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-06-25T11:00:26+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-02-17T20:28:36+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/come-on-silicon-valley-you-can-do-better-than-this\/\"},\"wordCount\":845,\"commentCount\":12,\"keywords\":[\"Article\",\"boldness\",\"Career\",\"corporation\",\"culture\",\"Leadership\",\"money\",\"opinion\",\"Tech\",\"Values\",\"Vivek Wadhwa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Article\",\"Career\",\"Technology\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/come-on-silicon-valley-you-can-do-better-than-this\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/come-on-silicon-valley-you-can-do-better-than-this\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/come-on-silicon-valley-you-can-do-better-than-this\/\",\"name\":\"Come On, Silicon Valley, You Can Do Better Than This - 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