Max Gladwell

Umair Haque wants to help you and your startup make the world a better place.

When we look around at the Web 2.0 landscape, we see a lot of promise. We’re looking at the glass half-full when it comes to the nexus of social media and green living and their combined potential to change the world. The key term for Umair Haque, though, is “potential”. With all of the recent investment ($1.3 billion in the first quarter on software alone) and celebration and supposed innovation, he’s wondering why it hasn’t happened already.

Today’s crop of investors and startups are perhaps even more economically autistic than megacorporations. Too many are willfully blind to today’s deepest and most essential strategic truth: that the path to radical value creation isn’t cutting more deals (dude, high-five!!) - but in rebuilding a flawed, false global economy: one which actively transfers wealth from the poor to the rich, from the sick to the healthy, from productivity to cronyism.

There are huge shocks rolling across the global economic landscape. Here are just a few. Food prices are skyrocketing. The financial system is melting down. Energy, of course, is more and more toxic, and costly. We are all, make no mistake, dancing on the precipice of economic cataclysm.

From ReadWriteWeb: Umai Haque is a smart guy. He studied neuroscience at McGill, did an MBA and econ/strategy research with Gary Hamel at London Business School, and began working towards a PhD in strategy and innovation at Oxford in 2004. He also founded Bubblegeneration, a consultancy that studies the economics of consumer-facing industries. Haque is now the Director of the Havas Media Lab, which advises entrepreneurs, investors, and firms with ‘craft, and drive radical management, business model, and strategic innovation.’

Haque says he’s been giving the subject a lot of thought lately. He refers to a post by colleague Jeff Nolan, where he says, “Today’s venture capitalists are funneling a lot of money into businesses which are only incremental improvements over what the current market offers. The situation may leave the technology industry in another downward spiral if none of the ‘incremental’ ventures hit it big and no other genuine innovation appears soon.” He also cites Tim O’Rielly’s keynote speech at last week’s Web 2.0 Expo. 

Haque goes so far as to deem this an “abdication of responsibility” and “an act of moral bankruptcy and moral hazard.” He doesn’t point fingers directly, but he’s more than happy to link to a Mashable party to illustrate his point. However, Haque is also willing to help…to help us to help ourselves and, by extension, all of humanity:

So here’s my challenge. If you’re a revolutionary, then be one: put your money where your mouth is, and fix a big problem that changes the world for the better - if you really have the courage, the purpose, and the vision, that is.

In fact, I’ll happily put my money where my mouth is. I think these problems are so important, I’ll take a bit of time away from setting up my new lab, to advise five startups, funds, or companies that I think have the greatest insight into fixing them - you know how to get in touch with me.

I’ll be posting more about how I think these problems can begin to be solved in coming days. For now, fire away in the comments and share your thoughts - it’s a discussion that, perhaps, more of us should be having. 

Let the revolution begin…

Related Posts

• Innovation or Extinction: The New Economic Reality
• Blog Day 2008: Better Know a Blogger…Five Times.
• The Time for Sustainability is Now. Or, Seeing the Glass of the Global Economic Crisis as Half Full
• Facebook, Star Wars, and Greek Tragedy
• Facebook Under Fire: A Chorus of Criticism for the Social Utility

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!