We who work in technology have nurtured an especially rare gift: the opportunity to effect change at an unprecedented scale and rate. Technology, community, and capitalism combine to make Silicon Valley the potential epicenter of vast positive change.

People spend an enormous amount of time in their inboxes, compulsively checking, and it's slow, distracting, and inefficient. It's almost a counterproductivity tool.

Meetings get a bad rap, and deservedly so - most are disorganized and distracted. But they can be a critical tool for getting your team on the same page.

We who work in technology have nurtured an especially rare gift: the opportunity to effect change at an unprecedented scale and rate. Technology, community, and capitalism combine to make Silicon Valley the potential epicenter of vast positive change.

If you look at the history of communication, new technologies like the phone and e-mail didnt just let people do things faster; it fundamentally changed the scope of the kinds of projects people dared to take on.

I do not doubt that services like social games and coupons bring delight to peoples lives, and I mean no disrespect to the hard work that has made them possible. But in the face of threats to humanitys future on the one hand and the extraordinary potential of mankind on the other, at some point we must ask: are we capable of more?

In a knowledge economy, natural selection favors organizations that can most effectively harness and coordinate collective intellectual energy and creative capacity.