What to work on
I'm tired of not solving root causes
If you're motivated to work at an impact company – it is so hard to filter out those that actually solve a root cause for an important problem.
I will do this for you – this website will be a massive filter. Apply to those jobs, that solve the most essential problems (that you have yourself)!
I also put together what I know about what Elon Musk works on. And why.
There are also some crypto companies which could do some good for these essential problems.
And because I've worked in healthcare startups over the last years, also some companies that improve health more directly - but not really any root cause.
Also, Angela Merkel's current what work on is: napping. When she was recently asked what she will work on next, she said that she is looking forward to reevaluating what interests her. Because she didn't have much time for that during the past 16 years.
What would you do after nearly 16 years leading a country?
— DW Politics (@dw_politics) July 15, 2021
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was asked that on her last planned visit to the US - and said she might start with a nap. pic.twitter.com/8wg3JdKDg7
What Elon Musk works on
Maybe some of you know that when Elon made millions selling his first startup (PayPal), he cold-called a rocket expert:
As far as I understand it, the most fundamental problem Elon Musk works on, is ensuring humanity survives. How he is going to do this (backwards):
1. Make humanity a multi-planetary species
2. Bring people to Mars
3. Bring people to space
4. Bring stuff to space in a cheaper way
5. Make rockets reusable
6. Hire the best (software-)engineers to do all that
Okay, so to help Elon Musk to make steps 1-5 happen, you have these options:
1. Apply at SpaceX
2. Apply at Tesla, Neuralink etc. and hope that through some random opportunity you can switch to SpaceX
4. Apply at Blue Origin (because same goal aye?)
5. Apply at other random startups in the field that does solve a sub-problem for these big ones
6. Learn to be an engineer at any university in the world
7. Learn to be a (software-)engineer at an online university like the Bloom Institute of Technology. 6-months full-time. For free until you get your first $50K job. With a remote gang to chitchat.
If you don't feel like becoming an engineer yourself (why not if it takes only a year?) - you could help others become engineers. The more engineers there are, the more people compete being hired by SpaceX (and they can select the best). Or they work at a competitor, which challenges SpaceX in the long term.
1. Make becoming an engineer faster, cheaper, more real-life oriented by working on the business side of these online universities like the Bloom Institute of Technology.
2. Make becoming an engineer not only something to impress your parents and tinder chicks, but which sparks joy.
For example by making repair cafés (+library of things) a more common thing. Like teaching kids how to repair their favourite toy and later on they may be keen to understand and repair their favourite rocket. Specifically, work at Thingery and make them ship their containers to more places.
BTW - Elon Musk actually wants to work on one even more fundamental problem. That just plays nice into his first "action item" (making humanity multi-planetary).
According to him, we maybe miss the greatest feeling of meaning, because we are not that good at asking the right questions. We're just apes on a rock. With infinite other rocks around us. Why?
Therefore, he argues, we can only ask the right questions, if we know more about the universe. Becoming a multi-planetery species may help with that. Just a bit.
Companies that directly improve health
ProKidney has developed an autologous cell therapy. Some of a patient's own kidney cells are taken out during a biopsy.
In the labs of ProKidney' they are multiplied. Then they are reinjected into the patient's kidney. At this point the body can begin to naturally repair and restore its damaged kidney tissue - just as it would in a healthy person's kidney.
Promoted and evaluated by Chamath Palihapitiya.
Tepe Single Tuft Toothbrush makes you clean your teeths over years much better than a normal rough toothbrush.
Afilio makes it much easier and cheaper to decide what should be done in a medical emergency. Keep life supporting machines running or not? This can save you from years of misery, if nobody knows for sure what you would prefer.
Main problem: The large majority of the world is not contributing to fight climate change in impactful ways - but we need this majority
Subproblem: 40h/work week and life generally are so exhausting that most people just don't have the energy to do something besides work for the general good
Solution 1: Spend your 40h/week in good companies to build systems that multiplies your effect on reducing emissions. Look at the companies here at What to work on :)
What to work on
Subproblem: 1/3 of food is never eaten and wasted; this creates the most gigatons of CO2 according to Project Drawdown
Solution 1: Buy abnormal food that would be wasted via TooGoodToGo (aka cheap way to eat restaurant food verrry often)
Solution 2: Gorillas, Getir, Flink cdeliver can list SirPlus (saving odd vegetables etc.) to their product palette? And deliver it in 10 minutes
Subproblem: Any new human born has the second biggest impact on emissions behind food waste
Solution 1: Women in Tech Africa enables girls in emerging countries to get remote jobs, so that they're independent from a husband and having kids is not their main or only option
Subproblem: Eating meat and dairy creates a lot of emissions
Solution 1: No really good idea yet, besides get cooked veggie food in front of your face. Or get only veggie ingredients delivered to your home. At HelloFresh for example, you can order only veggie-boxes.
Subproblem: People keep heating their house year after year, although technology can remove the need for heating altogether. Passive houses save energy and your bills
Solution 1: Ecoworks creates scalable systems to renovate buildings and make them net-zero
Subproblem: Buying new things because consumerism and most are not used to repair or buy second-hand
Solution 1: Grow eBay Kleinanziegen and similar second-hand platforms
Subproblem: People who want to make money from money, can make returns investing in bad companies.
Solution 1: Switch to a sustainable bank (all the fees and money in the account help good companies grow aka build new systems). Tomorrow Bank if you're German; otherwise compare "ethical banks" on Google
Solution 2: Inyova leads you to do socially responsible and impact investing
Subproblem: It's so easy to take a plane to Lisbon but massive amounts of CO2 are emmited
Solution 1: Create a simple landing page where all these Portugal fans can register interest in reviving the Sud Express Train from Paris to Portugal
Main problem: It's so difficult to eat healthy
Subproblem: Shop food in supermarkets with 90% unhealthy food
Who doesn’t need willpower in resisting food shopping?
Those that don’t go to supermarketsThose that get food cooked (way more convenient than shopping themselves)
Solution 1: Gorillas, Getir, Flink deliver groceries within 10 minutes; way more convenient to order with them than going to the supermarket. What if they adjust their filter? What if they only offer gluten-, milk- and sugar-free stuff?
Subproblem: Don’t feel like cooking
When do you rather feel like cooking? -> When someone expects that I cook for them
Solution 1: Bumble/Tinder and other match-making apps so that people have an everyday person who and cook for each other
Subproblem: There is enough ready-cooked healthy food from restaurants around me, but it's too expensive
Solution 1: The government subsidizing healthy meals from TooGoodToGo.
Solution 2: The Portuguese government (the one who wants to attract talent), subsidises meals that restaurants cook and only have healthy ingredients
Main problem: It's so exhausting to move just because I should
Subproblem: There is no real purpose to move (get food etc.)
Solution 1: Get a financial purpose/reward for each step you do. With each step you do you grow your digital pet, This is a unique NFT, which you can sell to other players after a while. They already have 142.4K Twitter followers!
Crypto company Genopets converts your real-life movement into XP to progress in-game. Move-to-Play + Play-to-Earn = Move-to-Earn Gaming
Subproblem: There's a car in front of my door - it's much more convenient to use
Steps towards my ideal life:
1. Enable more people to work remotely
2. Get the right people in certain locations to form new tribes
3. Create best examples of locations
4. Actually forming strong connections (meaningful, repeated,random encounters)
5. Make eating healthy the most convenient choice
6. Moving more in everyday life without conscious effort
7. Stop being a slave (employee) asap
1. Understanding the root cause of a problem
2. Imagine ideal steps to change this root cause
3. See if these steps are already implemented by a "functional system " aka a company
The easiest thing to do is to just have a look at the companies, that I filtered out, and apply to one of their current job postings.
The second thing you could do is cold pitching someone in your preferred department, with 1-3 ideas on what you could do for them.
I see a third option, which would be best to actually solve problems:
Improve/boost/grow a specific action step at the company
I find this method much more compelling than e.g. giving money to a charity that calls itself "World food programme", but you don't know what they're actually doing.
1. Get the right people in certain locations to form new tribes
Nomadlist matching on Airbnbs
Remoteok.io incl. matching
old people .. kids
hungry-foreign people
2. Create best examples of locations
Madeira
Tulsa Remote
Re:people Gran Canaria
3. Actually forming strong connections (meaningful, repeated, random encounters)
Meetup
Library of things
ecoworks - retrofitting houses together/teaching locals
5. Moving more without conscious effort
E-Bikes for hilly terrain
Async work
Walking meetings
7. Stop being a slave (employee) asap
Robinhood
Tomorrow Banking - invest every dollar people earn into sustainability
Upwork
7. Enable more people to work remotely
Gitlab
One-line impact: Convince more companies to be remote-first and operate async
What: Connect similarly but yet far apart interest groups
How exactly: Promote via social media content about async, diversify, low-cost contractors to more conservative HR teams
Compounding impact: First only for top talent and after a while for whole team
Side-effects: Less sitting still in meetings equaling better (MSK) health, more equal opportunities in the world
Plain lines of important stuff
There are few things that I hate more than useless e-mails. Maybe I'll drop you a line or two occasionally.