Perhaps the real problem is that there is an overabundance of people in software looking for easy money.

It may not be a popular thing to say on HN, but in my experience it seems to fit the data.

There is definitely a get-rich-quick mindset that a lot of people enter the startup world with.

Thankfully, I think that segment is starting to dwindle as they realize they aren't getting rich quick.

That is the definition of the startup world.

No, seriously. The defining characteristic of a startup is that it's designed to grew its revenues many orders of magnitude faster than its expenses in anticipation of a very large exit. That is, quite literally, "get rich quick."

Well said.

FWIW, one of my friends did create a small startup that focuses on sharing cat photos. The app is called "Cat Snaps". It wasn't a waste at all: he spent a few weeks learning the tools, and made a little bit of money from doing so.

Your friend could have gotten the same benefits while working on something that also was of greater (presumable) benefit to others than "Cat Snaps".

(I speak as one who has tremendous respect for the good that cat pictures have done for the world.)

What, exactly? Which current startups/tech companies are doing something meaningful? I know a few that are not marketplace(Uber)/ads(Google)/finance(Goldman) companies, but there are not many.

Read the 3 sentences you just wrote out loud a couple of times.

You just hear the point of the original article.

There's a few that provide interesting and new ways to connect with and donate to charities (I forgot their names, but you must've seen at least a couple pass by the frontpage).

There was one developing a robot spoon with stabilizing anti-vibrations for people with Parkinson's. I remember the look on the faces of elderly people in the video, as they could finally again bring peas to their mouths without spilling everything. That was genuine, they didn't need that "I appear in all the startup videos" guy or hire actors.

There's a bunch of startups working to bring encryption and other privacy-enhancing tools to the masses.

These guys providing mobile laundromat service for the homeless. Though I dunno if they were making any profits with that.

A major contribution by tech industry is how it fundamentally transform the way we live, work and interact, in a mostly positive way towards higher efficiency. The effect is everywhere. I don't think you can find many tech companies which are not contributing something to this landscape. Are some of them possibly "more trivial" than others in a perspective? Might be. But it doesn't change the fact that they are having positive impacts on the world.

Opower - they have saved as much energy/CO2 as Solar has produced.

Like what? If you're learning a new technology, and you also happen to have a great helpful idea that you want to implement, that's fine, but usually you just want to implement something, so you pick up an idea and roll with it even if it doesn't benefit mankind.

I think people overestimate the number of useful project ideas floating around which don't require unusual expertise. Some "starter projects" might benefit mankind, but certainly they can't be expected to do so.

I think the picture sharing social network meme came around after the whole Color fiasco. Which makes it pretty understandable to me as the codeword for "crappy startup".

Actually, I think Color had an interesting idea or two, and might have worked (eventually) on some interesting problems.

But the whole thing was a high-profile disaster and so it indirectly became the poster boy for bad startups.

Maybe you should consider partnering with people who have domain experience. Some of my biggest successes have been approaching people who are older or maybe just don't understand technology well and asking them "What are really irritating, repetitive problems that you wish would go away?"

well, at least this is better than ex-fb or ex-twitter pricks who already made millions lecturing the rest of us about wasting time (because what the world was missing was a better skinner box).