Hamming Questions

Posted byNeil ThanedarPosted inEssaysTags:, ,

My World’s Biggest Problems project is inspired by one of my favorite quotes:

— Richard Hamming, You and Your Research (via Paul Graham)

I paraphrase this idea into two questions:

  1. “What are the world’s biggest problems?”
  2. “Which ones are you solving?

Why don’t more people spend their time solving the hardest problems?

  1. It’s hard!
    • Fighting for The Good Future requires massive amounts of time, energy, and creativity.
  2. It’s scary!
  3. It’s expensive!
    • Most people are too busy solving their money problem to think about anything else.

My personal mission is to convince more people to solve The World’s Biggest Problems.

This idea is a work-in-progress. If you’d like to riff on it, hit me up @neilthanedar on Twitter.

Published by Neil Thanedar

Neil Thanedar is an entrepreneur, investor, scientist, activist, and author. He is currently Executive Director of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, a nonprofit fighting dark money in politics. He is also the author of Positive Politics, a proven playbook on how to get into politics and do good. Since 2012, Neil has been founder & chairman of Labdoor (YC W15), the independent worldwide alternative to the FDA. He is also an angel investor with his fund Utopic, backing pre-seed biotech startups led by scientist CEOs. He was previously co-founder and president of Avomeen, a product development and testing lab acquired for $30M+ in 2016. He has also served as Executive Director of The Detroit Partnership and Senior Advisor to his father Shri Thanedar in his campaigns for Governor, State House, and US Congress in Michigan. Neil earned his BS (Cellular & Molecular Biology) and BBA (Entrepreneurship) from the University of Michigan in 2010. He was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri where he graduated from MICDS.

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