Hamming Questions

Posted byNeil ThanedarPosted inEssaysTags:, ,

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

“I started asking, “What are the important problems of your field?” And after a week or so, “What important problems are you working on?” And after some more time I came in one day and said, “If what you are doing is not important, and if you don’t think it is going to lead to something important, why are you at Bell Labs working on it?”

— 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?

The answers to these two questions are in my World’s Biggest Problems project.

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, altruist, and author. He is the founder & CEO of Utopic, his startup studio. He is also the founder & chairman of Air to All, a 501(c)3 nonprofit medical device startup, and Labdoor, a consumer watchdog with $7M+ in funding and 20M+ users. He previously co-founded Avomeen Analytical Services, a product development and testing lab acquired for $30M+ in 2016. He has worked with community organizations since 2007 and political campaigns since 2016 to fight for better education and economic opportunities in Michigan.