It would help to define what "changing the world" means to the author (and whether it's a good thing; not every change is desirable; 9/11 changed the world for the worse).
It could be argued that only two tech companies actually changed the world since 1980: Microsoft and Google. Amazon, maybe.
But for example, I don't think Apple, Sun, Oracle, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter... "changed the world". They are very big, wildly successful companies, they make products and software that people enjoy (me included), but they didn't turn the world into a different place than it was before.
1) We're going to build the next Facebook!
2) We're going to found the next Apple!
3) Our product will create sweeping political change! This will produce a major economic revolution in at least one country! (Seasteading would be change on this level if it worked; creating a new country successfully is around the same level of change as this.)
4) Our product is the next nuclear weapon. You wouldn't want that in the wrong hands, would you?
5) This is going to be the equivalent of the invention of electricity if it works out.
6) We're going to make an IQ-enhancing drug and produce basic change in the human condition.
7) We're going to build serious Drexler-class molecular nanotechnology.
8) We're going to upload a human brain into a computer.
9) We're going to build a recursively self-improving Artificial Intelligence.
10) We think we've figured out how to hack into the computer our universe is running on
Hmm... Not a FB fan at all, but when a billion people in the world open FB for at least a few minutes every single day.. that's gotta count for something right?
Likewise, when a billion people are using the iPhone to call their loved ones, that's changing the world. I mean, that's as good as it's gonna get, short of inventing the cure to cancer, or blowing the Earth up.
Interesting that you suggest the iPhone changed the world because 'a billion people are using the iPhone to all their loved ones'. You realize they would have just used a phone before the iPhone, and therefore, the iPhone hasn't changed that process.
This is the point where I suggest the iPhone didn't REALLY change that much for most of us. Sure, it's easier to get maps and directions now (though old Blackberrys had that too). But the massively world changing innovations of smartphones are really minor conveniences wrapped in nice packaging.
Unless, of course, you live in less-developed countries, where a smart-phone may be your first computer, or even your first phone, and offers a connection to information and the rest of the world that you didn't have before.
> This is the point where I suggest the iPhone didn't REALLY change that much for most of us. Sure, it's easier to get maps and directions now (though old Blackberrys had that too)
For me it was when my parents (without any prompts from myself) got an iPhone and started emailing / Facetiming me from it.
If you had told me 6 years ago that my parents would be able to send me email from their phone, or be sophisticated enough to look up movie times while I'm out having dinner with them I would have laughed.
I think what the iPhone did was make it easy for everyday people to use technology that was only available to a select few. Not just with their technology (which made it easy to use) but also their advertising / marketing which made everyone aware of it.
Watch people out in public sometime. Probably over half of them are absorbed in something on their smartphone. We're constantly processing information now. It's a huge change, and I'm not convinced it's for the better.
When we just had dumb-phones, we were "always available", but now we're "always connected".
It's what technology is leveraged for that determines the value of something. Planes were used by individuals to crash into a building. What lead to that hate existing? Could technology have been used proactively and prevented it- and in a non-violent, kind way?
I would posit that nature is incredibly violent, and humans as a subset of nature are incredibly violent too, yet "technology" (in the loosest sense- rule of law, trade, etc) has allowed us to be remarkably less violent than our ancestors, and we're headed down the right path.
It could be argued that only two tech companies actually changed the world since 1980: Microsoft and Google. Amazon, maybe.
But for example, I don't think Apple, Sun, Oracle, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter... "changed the world". They are very big, wildly successful companies, they make products and software that people enjoy (me included), but they didn't turn the world into a different place than it was before.