> like the philosophy of going out into the future and bringing it back into the present. I feel like a lot of startups are making an error in failing to do this.
> For example, in the not-to-distant future, we won't need parking spaces. You'll just hail the self-driving car (or similar) using your phone. People won't own their own cars.
You are right about the philosophy. But a thought regarding your specific example: even if self-driving tech were to be available tomorrow, it will take many years for all the cars (the "fleet") to be self-driving. There are about 2B cars on the road, and every year about 100M new ones are made. It would take 20 years to replace the fleet. So the "parking problem" isn't made immediately redundant with the invention of self-driving tech. There is still room (and in my opinion) worthwhile for a startup to solve the parking problem (however they attempt to solve it). Just saying that I wouldn't discourage anyone from attempting this :)
Dr. Kay might also observe that this is an instance of problem solving, which he associates with incrementalism (since the context is already understood), while inventing the future is about problem finding, which requires creating a new context.
That's a good point. I agree with you that, in the short term, there's going to be use for solutions to the parking problem. But how big can it really get?
It's not just self-driving tech. It's the ride-hailing paradigm in general, which the self-driving tech makes incredibly cheap. As soon as it becomes more cost effective to use ride hailing services than to own your own car, those 2 billion cars will all leave the road basically overnight.
We're not going to have to wait for the old cars to die.
You are right about the philosophy. But a thought regarding your specific example: even if self-driving tech were to be available tomorrow, it will take many years for all the cars (the "fleet") to be self-driving. There are about 2B cars on the road, and every year about 100M new ones are made. It would take 20 years to replace the fleet. So the "parking problem" isn't made immediately redundant with the invention of self-driving tech. There is still room (and in my opinion) worthwhile for a startup to solve the parking problem (however they attempt to solve it). Just saying that I wouldn't discourage anyone from attempting this :)