Software Invention

As an undergraduate, I had a tentative plan to get a PhD in computer science. I ended up not going to grad school because I decided I wasn't interested in doing research. I instead spent an equivalent amount of time doing entrepreneurship, but I came to a similar conclusion: entrepreneurship isn't primarily what motivates me.

I think of invention as the space between research and entrepreneurship. Researchers create knowledge; entrepreneurs create businesses; inventors create things that are useful. In the realm of software, invention has some overlap with open-source. Unfortunately, neither is an established career path—yet.

If we really want better tools for online speech and other software public goods, we need to enable more people to spend their careers developing them.

• We need a career path for invention (Jason Crawford)
• Funding software innovation
• What if I started a nonprofit?
• Roots and branches: centralization and the role of software startups
• What does success look like for you?
• The trade-offs of being a startup founder
• Reflections on 2020 as an independent researcher (Andy Matuschak)
• Three years of crowdfunded research (Andy Matuschak)
• Shifting the impossible to the inevitable (Ben Reinhardt)
• Design and Research (Paul Graham)