Beam has raised $9.5M to reinvent the browser
<i>&gt; And yet instead of feeling accomplished, several years ago Leca realised he felt an internal void.</i><p><i>&gt; Has anything he’s built really improved people’s lives?</i><p><i>&gt; To hear Leca describe it, the development of Beam is as much an effort to improve the web browsing experience as it is a spiritual quest for meaning.</i><p><i>&gt; “The only reason I’m doing this is to be working for the greater good,” Leca said. “Is this something I can explain to my kid and be proud of the fact that it’s not just a stupid business to make money?”</i><p>This reads like a parody of SV hubris. It&#x27;s a startup to slap note-taking onto a browser shell. It&#x27;s not curing cancer. I do believe that creating software can be a deeply meaningful experience, and that software can change people&#x27;s lives for the better in real ways. But... this is a VC-funded startup for a browser shell.<p><i>&gt; “What do I have for all these hours I spent on the internet?” he said. “Nothing. I’ve got three bookmarks and a few notes here and everything else is basically lost.”</i><p>It&#x27;s crazy to me that the author thought that and their solution was &quot;I should make it easier to take notes&quot; and not &quot;I should spend less time fucking around on the Internet mindlessly consuming media.&quot;<p>The knowledge base should be primarily in your head. If your mind doesn&#x27;t feel like a knowledge base to you, it&#x27;s because we&#x27;re all so busy jamming new data into it that we never slow down and take the time to reflect and process what we&#x27;ve already consumed.