The biggest problem with innovation right now
It’s not lack of venture capital.
The real problem.
The biggest problem is that so many new products and services coming out of innovation hubs like Silicon Valley, NYC, London, etc., have near-zero or even negative societal value.
Yes. You’re reading it right.
We need to look at innovation with a sharp critical mindset.
Many innovations have no material positive effect on moving economies and societies forward on the things that actually matter for providing people with a decent future and better future prospects.
In fact, sometimes they even make things worse, as when massively redistributing money from labor (eg, gig workers, service providers) to owners (ie, investors); or when pushing prices down while massively externalizing costs to the environment or to consumers.
America wanted Uber rides. It got that. But not much more.
We need to evaluate it for what innovation actually does to solve the problems that actually matter.
Innovation is not about flashy user interface or more convenience for the rich world.
These don’t solve real problems.
Consider taxi apps, food delivery apps, and others of their ilk.
These categories absorbed billions of dollars in investment capital globally over the last decade.
But what’s the real value of these “innovations”?
What was done with all the money?
What sociental returns did it generate? Any?
But that’s not all.
The ever bigger problem is that the collective wisdom that gets reinforced and “celebrated” time and again is that we’re doing great on innovating and solving real problems.
Well, we’re definitely not.
Securing a decent future for people and societies worldwide depends crucially on our ability to innovate and solve a broad range of critical problems: from water and health to food, education, pollution, climate, and livelihoods.
We believe there’s no better time or more pressing need than to closely re-examine the various institutions that enable and fund these “innovations”, their models and incentives, and how that skewes our global innovation pipeline and throughput — and to start changing what innovations get funded and what ideas get incubated.
After all, it’s about our shared future.
And right now the future doesn’t look all too promising.
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So true - this is one of the best articles on this in a long-time. Only when you are far removed from much of the worlds real life issues, is it easy to be focused and continue to come up with solutions & innovations that are more consumer or convenience based. Innovation should be for the greater need. Needs & Thinking should be more closely aligned.