I heard a couple of founders pitching the other day, and answered a question from a VC with (and I paraphrase) &quot;We&#x27;ll implement this, and then figure out what problem it solves&quot;.<p>To an extent, you <i>can</i> work by simply building a basic technology and, as William Gibson said, &quot;The street finds its own uses for things&quot;. But doing that requires a fundamental new tech.<p>Likewise, you can work by simply getting a bunch of smart, powerful people in a room and seeing what happens. But at best, the street finds its own uses for things. At worst, it&#x27;s a venue for networking and a free catered dinner. If you don&#x27;t bring them a problem to solve in advance, they&#x27;ll just do what they want, which probably won&#x27;t be useful to anyone but themselves.<p>Looking at this, though, the one thing that <i>does</i> stand out from all the mush is the idea of getting different generations to work together. Which is (I say this as an old fart) <i>stupid</i>. A bunch of entitled college kids complaining that the old people who run the world don&#x27;t listen to them or let them &quot;innovate&quot; solutions? Feh. All those old people were young once, too. They <i>remember</i> being young. They <i>remember</i> being absolutely certain that they understood how the world worked, and how to solve all the problems, and they <i>remember</i> knowing that the main impediment to saving the planet was all the old people who were running everything not listening to them. The reason the Boomer masters of the universe don&#x27;t take Millenials seriously is because they&#x27;ve been around long enough to know just how naive kids are, and that there&#x27;s no wisdom in being naive.<p>But I rant. Anyway, this is BS. Nobody is going to solve any problems by getting the stupid old people to listen to the brilliant young people.