developing the next algorithm or the next piece of computer science theory—not developing code to spec. That said, it’s probably inevitable that we will at some point begin to create software components for organizations, just because it’s what our customers are asking for.
X: There’s been a definite trend over the last few years toward prize-based competitions in technology and the sciences, including the Ansari X Prize for a reusable space vehicle and the newer Archon X Prize in Genomics. It’s an interesting model that has historically proved very fruitful in certain areas, like transoceanic flight, but I wonder whether it isn’t also a very wasteful approach. For every winning team, there are runners-up who spend lots of time and money developing their solution and then get nothing back for it. What are your feelings about that?
DS: It’s true, the X Prizes are based on a similar notion. But they run very large programmatic challenges over the course of years, and what we’ve done is “form-factored” the idea so that it can be used practically and strategically right inside organizations. So we live on the opposite end of the spectrum, if you will.
You mentioned the Ansari X Prize, which was a $10 million prize. You could argue that there was waste—on the large scale, about $100 million was spent by all of the teams to get a plane into space. But those groups knew full well that they were spending more than they could win. And they would probably tell you that the notoriety around it, the fact that it would get them plugged into a brand-new industry, continues to bring them dividends.
Now, if you move down to our form factor, there are no global announcements or meetings with Congress. But the dividends take different forms. We’ve done research with scholars at Harvard Business School to identify what it is that makes solvers really want to engage in a challenge, and there are three things, in the following order. First, our solvers like to work on tough problems. People want to work on problems that are meaningful and relevant to their backgrounds, and this is a fluid way to get to those. Second is that people like to be part of a peer community. They want to be part of something bigger, and with the Internet that is possible in ways that just weren’t possible 10 years ago.
The third thing is economic remuneration. So, this is for those rare individuals who want a shot at problems, like going up against other people, and who get jazzed by what they do, knowing that they’re going to lose some, but that if they work long enough they are going to win a couple. For an individual, it’s quite possible that they will invest their time and energy and won’t get a payoff and will feel down on their luck. But there are some solvers who have won more on the network than they made in their prior jobs.
X: Is it possible for solvers to make a living doing this?
DS: We’ve got solvers in our network who make easily in excess of $50,000 a year and some considerably more than that. If you’re in India or Russia, that could be two years of wages or more. We believe that we can literally put millions of people to work on their own terms anywhere in the world that they happen to live. A solver might live in Mumbai, but here is an opportunity to plug into the global community on their own terms and find opportunities they never had before.
Also, are solvers aren’t necessarily people who want to go and land their next job. A good portion are happily employed. They want instead to be able to work on their own terms, when and how they want to, whether that means working on engineering problems, or philanthropic problems, or renewable energy problems. The keys are entirely in their hands. And if they don’t want to work on a challenge because they don’t think the dollar amount is high enough, they don’t have to work on it.
