Meanwhile, just East of Silicon Valley, in Tupelo Mississippi...
IMO, if you want to affect people's everyday lives in meaningful (but possibly unglamorous) ways, take your wit and your problem solving abilities and your leadership skills to local government. City, county. School board, PTA  coach a youth sports team, or teach a class.<p>The fact is that the startup world is one where extremely rich people give money to already pretty wealthy people (in relative terms: not just money, but education, social standing) to find ways to make them richer. Usually in the form of some kind of mass entertainment experience.<p>I don't meant to diminish the positive and transformative effects many of the inventions of the startup/Internet age have had on society and people as a whole. But if you are really primarily interested in making people's lives better, start with the real social network first. In the hierarchy of needs, a better photo sharing service is way down on the list.