Aspirations of Tech to Save the World

For years I have talked with a small group of coworkers/friend who I feel are some of the smartest people in the industry. That's not to take away form all the other smart ones out there, because there are quite a few. However, I know from working with these people over the years that they have the qualities which I find are the best recipe for solving hard problems, and making things suck less.

As we have talked over the years, we keep coming back to a common aspiration similar to my personal one. We want to help make the hard problems easier for people. or give people easy to use tools they need, regardless of the money. Yes, money makes the world go 'round. I have no illusions about that. I have long felt, however, that a small group could make a big difference to many people, especially in spaces that are generally not considered highly profitable (public schools, services, etc) I know that many of those pain points that thwart or slow progress could be easily fix, there is just "no money in it" to create the solution.

That being said, if I were to have the ideal job, it would likely be a small organization that worked off of a trust or fund that spent all it's time fixing those issues and not worrying about the profit behind it. It could share its solutions publicly (open source).

Of course to do that, it takes money to fill the trust or fund. I did the math on the back of a napkin to figure out what it would take to run a think tank per year, and it came in around $1 million for a 4 person team to cover not only salaries, but benefits, travel, and other things the group might need over the year. So that requires either:

• I win the lottery(I keep hoping, and occasionally playing)
• I find a benefactor or organization willing to fund the project (We would emphatically use their name to announce these great works are because of them, unless they wanted anonymity)

I figure if I can get $5 million, I could run the project for 5 years and prove out it's value (and then some) after that we could extend, adjust or call it a good run and move on to something else, however I expect it would just continue on for another 5 year stint at least. Now, you may say, $5 million???? That's a lot of cash!?!?! Well, not really, especially over 5 years. There are so many things out there that cost more than $5 million. Most good investors can run the market and make between 3-10% a year, which would only require someone to have a 10-30 million nest egg as a trust and it would be self sustaining in perpetuity.

So, in addition to continuing to learn new tech and keep my knowledge fresh, I'm now on the hunt for $5 million dollars that I don't have to "pay back." Should be easy right? ;-)