[Infowarrior] - O'Reilly to new geeks: "get serious!"

[Richard Forno]

http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-oreilly10-2008oct10,0,85246.story

 From the Los Angeles Times
SILICON VALLEY

Tech guru Tim O'Reilly challenges next generation to get serious

The entrepreneur, investor and book publisher urges young  
entrepreneurs and engineers to stop making silly software and start  
making a real difference in the world.
By Jessica Guynn
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 10, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO — Silicon Valley insiders call it the O'Reilly Radar:  
Tim O'Reilly's uncanny ability to spot a technology revolution before  
it happens. But lately the entrepreneur, investor and book publisher  
has been busier trying to incite the next one.

He is urging young entrepreneurs and engineers to stop making some of  
the sillier software that lets Facebook users throw virtual sheep at  
their friends or download virtual beer on iPhones, and instead start  
making a real difference in the world.

He says it's not just the right thing to do, but also the smart thing  
to do -- especially as the credit crunch spreads to Silicon Valley,  
venture financing becomes scarce and start-ups have to retrench.

When this grizzled, 54-year-old tech-industry veteran talks, Silicon  
Valley tends to listen, if only to argue with him.

After all, this is the guy who understood the power and significance  
of the Internet before most people were aware it existed. In 1992, he  
published "The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog," the first  
popular book about the medium, which was later selected by the New  
York Public Library as one of the most significant books of the 20th  
century.

He now runs O'Reilly Media, an influential book publishing empire in  
Sebastopol, Calif., which has snagged a significant share of the  
computer book market with series such as "The Missing Manual" and  
"Hacks."

Early this decade, O'Reilly helped coin the term "Web 2.0" to refer to  
the current phase of the Internet, which relies on collective  
intelligence and action from the bottom up (think social networks such  
as Facebook and photo-sharing sites such as Flickr).

He is perhaps best known for putting on packed conferences headlined  
by some of the tech industry's brightest. Now he is using those  
conferences as a bully pulpit.

The theme of his Web 2.0 conference here next month is "Web meets  
world." It will showcase activists such as former Vice President Al  
Gore, cyclist-philanthropist Lance Armstrong and Larry Brilliant, who,  
as head of Google.org, has reinvented philanthropy by setting up a  
foundation without tax-exempt status to invest in for-profit and  
nonprofit efforts.

O'Reilly argues that Silicon Valley has strayed from the passion and  
idealism that fuel innovation to instead follow what he calls the "mad  
pursuit of the buck with stupider and stupider ideas."

Flush with money and opportunity following the post-dot-com  
resurgence, he says, some entrepreneurs have cocooned in a "reality  
bubble," insulated from poverty, disease, global warming and other  
problems that are gripping the planet. He argues that they should  
follow the model of some of the world's most successful technology  
companies, including Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., which sprang  
from their founders' efforts to "work on stuff that matters."

Not everyone is convinced that business is the right vehicle to tackle  
social or environmental ills. But Jim Schorr, who lectures on social  
entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, says he  
can't imagine "a higher calling for the next generation of tech  
entrepreneurs."

"The opportunity to focus technology and tech entrepreneurs on the  
unaddressed, underserved segments of society is enormous," Schorr  
said. "Developing and extending technologies with limited profit  
potential, using market-driven approaches, can deliver both social and  
financial impact and sustainability."

Though the Web 2.0 generation has a reputation for indulgence and  
narcissism, O'Reilly can point to a number of ventures using Silicon  
Valley ingenuity to deliver on Schorr's ideal.

The Omidyar Network, created by EBay Inc. founder Pierre Omidyar and  
his wife, Pam, makes grants to and investments in worthy causes.  
Benentech.org, started by former rocket scientist Jim Fruchterman,  
creates software for human rights activists, environmentalists and  
people with disabilities.

The Wildlife Conservation Network -- started by software engineer  
Charles Knowles, conservationist John Lukas and Akiko Yamazaki, wife  
of Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang -- uses technology and a venture  
capital model to help save endangered species.

A growing number of businesses are turning to social networking tools  
to encourage people to get more politically active and drum up  
donations for charities. Causes, started by Sean Parker and Joe Green,  
created the popular Causes application on Facebook and MySpace. Its  
14.5 million users have created 110,000 campaigns.

O'Reilly also singles out two other Web 2.0 stars for providing social  
benefit. Twitter, an instant digital communications service, has  
helped coordinate disaster response. YouTube, the video sharing  
website now owned by Google, has helped activists fight repressive  
regimes in other countries.

"Simply providing technology that can be used for positive causes can  
have an enormous impact," he said.

So how has O'Reilly's message gone over with the Web 2.0 crowd?

"I've had a whole bunch of people tell me they were super-inspired,"  
O'Reilly said. "I've had a few people act like I am raining on their  
parade."

Michael Arrington, founder of the influential technology blog  
TechCrunch, says he appreciates the effort to get entrepreneurs and  
engineers to consider doing more, such as volunteering in schools to  
teach kids how to program computers. But he says O'Reilly's lament  
trivializes the good work done by Silicon Valley.

"It's good to be aware that there are big problems out there that  
could be very profitable for companies to solve," Arrington said.  
"That doesn't mean that entrepreneurs who don't decide to tackle those  
problems aren't valuable to society."

O'Reilly says he respects those contributions -- and makes a nice  
living showcasing them in his books and conferences. But, he says, "we  
have a tech generation that thinks that's all there is."

"The real Web 2.0, the web of collective intelligence applications, is  
going to be stronger as a result of any downturn," he said. "Heck,  
figuring out more transparent financial markets alone will be a hotbed  
of opportunity."

jessica.guynn at latimes.com