Do these have to be software ideas to suit the technical skills of the CTO? I can imagine some more constructiony things that could potentially make money and be big:
Become a real estate developer, start an affinity city / intentional community along the lines of Arizona’s car-free ‘culdesac’ neighborhood, but experiment with new social and governing institutions like quadratic public goods funding, or urban design built around remote work, or something something crypto property rights, or liquid democracy for residents to make collective decisions, or an assurance contract to get people to move there initially… basically do a Charter City but as a suburban development within the USA. Get rich by owning the land that will hugely appreciate in value when the neighborhood does well. Hope that the successful institutions in your town will be adopted by larger cities / states / nations and thereby improve civilization’s overall decisionmaking abilities.
Make better ventilation / UV-light sanitation / PPE tech, then sell the ventilation tech to new buildings and sell the PPE to hospitals and national stockpiles.
My thought on reading this is that people should explicitly not constrain idea selection to software. I think this leads in bad directions. There are tons of people who want to make software. The way to improve the world is to get out there and build stuff that most software people don’t think is possible. (I was the tech founder for Wave, but Drew’s non-technical abilities were far more counterfactually important than my tech skills in terms of making huge progress on important problems!) Software skills are super-relevant in all industries.
There will be room for software in almost any project.
And you suggest that their current sense of what they’ll feel excited to do is.. not important? (Sorry, this sounds like I’m strawmanning what you’re saying, but I don’t understand it)
Would you correct my probably wrong understanding?
Make better ventilation / UV-light sanitation / PPE tech, then sell the ventilation tech to new buildings and sell the PPE to hospitals and national stockpiles.
This project might fit one of the people I’m thinking about. Could you tell me more / link somewhere?
Do these have to be software ideas to suit the technical skills of the CTO?
We’re not trying to (only) optimize on skills, we’re trying to optimize on personal fit, and specifically a feeling that I’ll vaguely describe as “waking up in the morning really excited”, which clicks for different people in different ways.
I personally understand the excitement of opening a startup, but I’m not sure how to describe it in text
Do these have to be software ideas to suit the technical skills of the CTO? I can imagine some more constructiony things that could potentially make money and be big:
Become a real estate developer, start an affinity city / intentional community along the lines of Arizona’s car-free ‘culdesac’ neighborhood, but experiment with new social and governing institutions like quadratic public goods funding, or urban design built around remote work, or something something crypto property rights, or liquid democracy for residents to make collective decisions, or an assurance contract to get people to move there initially… basically do a Charter City but as a suburban development within the USA. Get rich by owning the land that will hugely appreciate in value when the neighborhood does well. Hope that the successful institutions in your town will be adopted by larger cities / states / nations and thereby improve civilization’s overall decisionmaking abilities.
Make better ventilation / UV-light sanitation / PPE tech, then sell the ventilation tech to new buildings and sell the PPE to hospitals and national stockpiles.
Get good at building especially deep, airtight, large bunkers that can serve the EA desire for long term civilizational resilience from pandemics, asteroid strikes, nuclear wars, etc. Sell your premium bunkers to governments and eccentric billionaires. (For more on these last two bullet points, see here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/u5JesqQ3jdLENXBtB/concrete-biosecurity-projects-some-of-which-could-be-big-1)
My thought on reading this is that people should explicitly not constrain idea selection to software. I think this leads in bad directions. There are tons of people who want to make software. The way to improve the world is to get out there and build stuff that most software people don’t think is possible. (I was the tech founder for Wave, but Drew’s non-technical abilities were far more counterfactually important than my tech skills in terms of making huge progress on important problems!) Software skills are super-relevant in all industries.
Repeating in my own words to see if I understood:
You’re suggesting that potential CTOs do an idea selection process
And find any useful idea, not just in software, and do that one
Even if it is “create a nuclear shelter for EAs” or “Work on Tobacco Taxation”
Because that’s how one does the most impact.
There will be room for software in almost any project.
And you suggest that their current sense of what they’ll feel excited to do is.. not important? (Sorry, this sounds like I’m strawmanning what you’re saying, but I don’t understand it)
Would you correct my probably wrong understanding?
This project might fit one of the people I’m thinking about. Could you tell me more / link somewhere?
I was also involved in something similar, so we can chat :)
Also, I think that Alex Barnes is working around UV sanitation
Read more at the link to “Concrete Biosecurity Projects” in that comment, and also this one: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Bd7K4XCg4BGEaSetp/biosecurity-needs-engineers-and-materials-scientists Will Bradshaw who wrote this linked post would probably be happy to hop on a zoom call with you (as he did recently with me) and talk in more depth.
We’re not trying to (only) optimize on skills, we’re trying to optimize on personal fit, and specifically a feeling that I’ll vaguely describe as “waking up in the morning really excited”, which clicks for different people in different ways.
I personally understand the excitement of opening a startup, but I’m not sure how to describe it in text