Even if you could solve the hardest problem, you still need to eat while working on it. This means that one of the most important problems to solve is more efficient basics. 500 years ago 95% of the world males were farmers (maybe enslaved, but still farmer). Women had to spend 10 hours per day making clothing. (Historians can give better numbers and details of the sex difference, but for this discussion the above is close enough despite missing many details)

Making the basics more efficient is always helpful. Though this is hard as a lot of smart people are already on the job.