How to: Work on Stuff That Matters
Tim O'Reilly spoke tonight at ETech in San Jose, on a theme he has been talking about for the past 6 months or so: working on things that matter in the web world. In this talk though he went into a lot of actual examples, as well as strategies people can deploy to work on meaningful things.
O'Reilly began by saying that we're in a bubble - but not an investment one, a reality bubble. The financial crisis was top of his list, but he also referred to health, climate and so on. However, he said that working on stuff that matters doesn't necessarily mean working on non-profits or social ventures. He said that the world's great challenges are also the world's greatest opportunities.
As at Web 2.0 Expo last year, he quoted the Rilke poem The Man Watching for inspiration.
As examples of 'big thinking', he spoke about Shai Aggasi's better place - a company that is aiming to build an "electric car network". Another example is 1366 Technologies, which wants to make "Solar at the cost of Coal." Another company, Makani Power (a company started by his son-in-law) wants to create a low cost energy alternative from high-altitude wind energy. All of these companies attract people who want to work on "hard problems", rather than perhaps doing it just to get rich. O'Reilly also pointed at the NASA-Cisco climate project to flash 'Planetary Skin'.
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