A+ Problems

At PayPal, Peter Thiel implemented a revolutionary management strategy: assigning each employee just one task. This approach, initially meant to simplify management, yielded unexpected benefits. It reduced internal conflicts by eliminating competition for responsibilities. More importantly, it forced people to tackle A+ problems—high-impact challenges that are often procrastinated due to their difficulty. By limiting focus to one task, employees were compelled to "bang their head against the wall" until breakthrough solutions emerged, rather than settling for easier B+ problems. This single-task approach, though initially met with resistance, ultimately drove PayPal's innovation and success.

Apple’s research and development team was experimenting with state of the art technology for the MacBook. Multi-touch input was going to be the future. At first they were hesitant to show Steve Jobs (for fear he would shoot it down). Jony Ive finally showed him privately. Jobs realized this could solve the problem with their proposed cell phone. They put their tablet development on hold. “If it worked on a phone, I knew we could go back and use it on a tablet,” Jobs said.

World's Hardest Problems

World's Hardest Problems - Google Docs

Sustainability + Human Development

Is the food we eat scalable, sustainable, healthy, nutritious and tasty? Is the air we breathe clean? Is the water we drink pure? Is there a way to produce energy that is relatively abundant, cheap and clean? Is there a way to reverse or mitigate climate change? Can we create a livable habitat on another planet? Can we grow crops effectively by using small amounts of land? Can we build sustainable power solutions that are clean? Can we create biodegradable material for our everyday products? Can we help break down trash and waste into natural safe material? Can we build systems that provide humans with a fair and equitable means of compensation and a sense of purpose?