I'm interested in knowing about which industries are the best to enter if you're an entrepreneur. From what I vaguely remember from reading The Illusions of Entrepreneurship a few years ago, software and biomed are good, and most industries suck. But for software developers like me, there's the possibility of disrupting an industry by writing software for it (see Why Software is Eating the World). So this might make companies that already exist in the industry part of the wrong reference class.
A good example of this "software eating stuff" idea might be Pinterest. Someone pointed out to me that Pinterest is not too different from scrapbooking, which is a multi-million dollar industry (!!!). Is there a database of industries on some government website that I can run queries on? Industries that cater to people who aren't typically software developers, like scrapbooking, might be especially good for software developer entrepreneurs.
Quite a few 80k members are interested in entrepreneurship. We'd definitely like to investigate these kinds of questions. But haven't found anyone yet.
How can you best use your time to make a difference?
80,000 Hours now has several people working full time on research, and they would like your questions!
We’re happy to consider any questions about how to effectively make a difference, in whatever sphere of your life – volunteering, career or donations. These questions could be at the conceptual or ethical level, or they could concern nitty-gritty practicalities.
We’re particularly interested in questions that are not already well addressed by other groups, and where there's significant opportunity for progress.
The most popular questions will receive the attention of our research team, and their findings will feature in our new careers guide.
Either post your questions below, or send them to careers@80000hours.org