Under 30 and On The Cutting Edge

conq writes "BusinessWeek has an interesting piece on cutting edge technology entrepreneurs under 30. From the article: 'Don't look at what the industry is doing,' Erchak says. 'Look at what they're not doing and focus on that. That's where the real disruptive technology comes from.'"

Comments

Heh, exactly

[suso]

;-)

Get out there and do interesting things people. Stop making window managers, CMS systems and text editors and start making new things. Things that are useful.

Re:Heh, exactly

[Serapth]

I would but I just turned 30, so im no longer allowed.

Re:Heh, exactly

[Bull999999]

It looks like 30 year olds are still allowed so you still have a year to create something cool and build a business around it. I'm pretty sure cure for cancer or AIDS counts.

Re:Heh, exactly

[TedCheshireAcad]

But whatever it is, make sure it runs in the web browser with plenty of AJAX.

How exactly is meebo a disruptive technology?

Re:Heh, exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

'Don't look at what the industry is doing,' Erchak says. 'Look at what they're not doing and focus on that. That's where the real disruptive technology comes from.'

That's deep, man. That's far out.

Re:Heh, exactly

[Lumpy]

To MANAGEMENT you go.

we must put you old folk where nothing get's done.

Re:Heh, exactly

[Golias]

'Don't look at what the industry is doing,' Erchak says. 'Look at what they're not doing and focus on that. That's where the real disruptive technology comes from.'

Actually, that's incredibly stupid advice.

The industry is not making a Linux enterprise server which is powered by an exercise bike.
The industry is not making a faraday-shielded mobile phone antenna (safe for use in hospitals!)
The industry is not making a toilet with remote login.
The industry is not making an accessory for the two-player console fighter which castrates the loser with a piano wire.
The industry is not making caskets with built-in LCD monitors.

Which of those ideas will make me a millionaire the fastest?

Re:Heh, exactly

[enjerth]

The toilet.

Does the toilet have an open port? I'll just try to log on remotely and dump a file.

Saves time. This is a paperless transaction.

Re:Heh, exactly

[WhiplashII]

Which of those ideas will make me a millionaire the fastest?

That depends on which marketing channels are available to you, of course!

Re:Heh, exactly

[AuMatar]

The industry is not making a toilet with remote login.

I'm working on that right now. We download the data with the Post Office Orifice Protocol (POOP for short). Its all part of our Sewer Hydraulics Information Technology platform.

Re:Heh, exactly

[wysiwia]

Get out there and do interesting things ...

I did, see http://wyoguide.sf.net/. Unfortuately up to now not everybody thinks it's as interesting. Or haven't everybody heard of?

O. Wyss

Re:Heh, exactly

[KIondike]

I'll stop making CMS systems when you stop using ATM machines and always forgetting your PIN number!

Re:Heh, exactly

[Intron]

A TV or mp3 player powered by exercise bikes could catch on in gyms.

A detector for defective mobile phones operating outside of the allowed frequency bands might be of interest in hospitals and other sites with sensitive electronic equipment.

Being too specific might be bad, but throwing out off-the-wall ideas can lead to something useful.

Sorry, can't help with your other interests.

Re:Heh, exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

a faraday-shielded mobile phone antenna (safe for use in hospitals!)

A detector for defective mobile phones operating outside of the allowed frequency bands might be of interest in hospitals and other sites with sensitive electronic equipment.

Holy crap did you ever NOT get the joke!

Re:Heh, exactly

[mjt AG]

The industry is not making caskets with built-in LCD monitors. This has got to be the best idea. Think of it now, "Pimp My Casket" on MTV. Old folks get to pimp out their caskets b4 they die (think of them in wheelchairs towing along respirators and choosing bling to pimp out their casket). They can also put neon lights underneath the casket for that slick JDM look.

Re:Heh, exactly

[Woy]

Dude, the toilet with remote login is not even new... unless you mean without, ehem, camera...

Re:Heh, exactly

[raoul666]

Which of those ideas will make me a millionaire the fastest?

Well, clearly the caskets with built-in LCD monitors. Vampires have money, and they like to watch the news before bed too.

Re:Heh, exactly

[MP3Chuck]

Nevermind "how" ... what is "disruptive technology?" I've seen that term thrown around in place of what seems should be "creative" or such ... but that just doesn't make much sense to me.

Re:Heh, exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that you should mention it, but a while back a gentleman with a strong Romanian accent and a fondness for capes ordered some caskets with built-in LCD monitors....

Re:Heh, exactly

[MyMistake]

Thanks. I needed that.

Re:Heh, exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

A toilet with remote log in, you say? That would require quite a keen aim, if I do say so myself.

Re:Heh, exactly

[14erCleaner]

The industry is not making a toilet with remote login.

You obviously haven't seen Web goes down the toilet. Sample quote:

Design graduate Andrew Cubitt has taken the humble toilet roll and turned it into a hi-tech news and information service.

Re:Heh, exactly

[Peaker]

The problem is, the computing world is so hopelessly fragmented that every feature, every useful idea ever created, needs to be reimplemented in the context of every platform and often in the case of every program.

Sometimes it is just stupid, but often it is required because of the nature of the crappy computing world we live in.

For example, since the registry is just like the file system, but is just a little bit different and uses different interfaces, we need to duplicate all of the tools and features that we have to work with filesystems on the registry.

Since every application has a persistent large space it accesses via open/close/unlink/read/write interfaces, and a non-persistent small space it accesses via malloc/free/memory-access, every application must reimplement the dumping/loading between these two memories for all of its data. Every processing function must be implemented on memory for in-application use, and a special GUI or command line interface must be written just for it, to wrap its functionality for the user, accessing files. Worse, a specific wrapper that attaches the library to input/output from some network connection.

Since every application has to manage its own GUI window (amazing that this stupid model survives still..), every feature written which due to the above concerns gets reimplemented in the context of every application needs to get some GUI code to be implemented for it in the context of each and every application.

We live in a super-fragmented computing world, where the exact same features are reimplemented over and over and over, each time in the scope of a new "environment" which is just like the other one, but with a slight difference.

The unfortunate inevitable consequence is that 99.9% of our effort in the computing world is concentrated at duplicating existing ideas to new environments. This is, as you say, very uninteresting and even frustrating!

What the computing world desperately needs is some unification and generalization that would get rid of almost all of the duplicated effort now seen:

• Unification of all spaces: No more silly separation of persistent file space and non-persistent memory space! Just have one orthogonally persistent space that is fast. This is very possible to implement, even on ordinary x86 hardware.
  This also results in another simplification: A program is either installed and "running" or it is not there. A lot of wasted effort writing "installers" that worry about the persistent representation of the program would become unnecessary!
• As an extension of the previous bullet: Databases, the Windows "Registry" and File Systems all serve the same purpose, and all do it poorly. There is no reason why they cannot be unified to a single object lookup engine (Database?) which is a superset of the functionalities of each
• Generalization of the GUI. Who ever thought that an "application" should manage a window? This is a bad idea, that results in tons and tons of useless uninteresting code that connects GUI widgets to library logic.
  Instead, software should be written as simple functions or "components" (much like Unix commands in a command line pipe) which are easily and even automatically attached to the correct GUI widgets by the GUI. The GUI then becomes completely disconnected from the software logic, which makes it more customizable by the user, and lets the user build his own interesting "windows" that interface him to multiple components. "winamp" and other music players would become mere configurations of widgets that any user can build up. I would guess 90% of the code in the world being written is all about this and would become unnecessary.

Some interesting consequences of the above unifications:

• Excel and other spreadsheets, and build systems become one! Excel applies functions to input data nodes when those are modified and connects their output to various GUI elements (specifi

Re:Heh, exactly

[Guey_X]

Maybe people are doing window managers, CMS systems and text editors because they are useful

Re:Heh, exactly

[Doctor Memory]

No more silly separation of persistent file space and non-persistent memory space!

Oh, you mean like the System/38's had since, oh, the late 70's?

Honestly, why don't you kids come up with something NEW?

Re:Heh, exactly

[Mr. Underbridge]

His advice, I expect, is to look for the things industry isn't doing *but should be.* At that point, of course, his advice becomes the domain of Captain Obvious. I think, sometimes, that people consider what they say to be insightful by simply mentioning words like "disruptive technology."

Re:Heh, exactly

[bzipitidoo]

Are you over 30, and desperate to show you can still be a worthwhile disruptive thinker?? What you're saying sounds similar to the proposals for the next ReiserFS.

But yeah, I've been feeling for a long time now that programming and system work is needlessly tedious, boring, anal retentive, and that it's the fault of the languages and systems. We hope and strive for but don't yet expect intelligence from our computers, just very very fast computation. Intelligence is a fine goal, yet we haven't gotten computers entirely set up to relieve us of what they can do well. Somehow it's people who often end up having to do a lot of mindless tedious repetitive tasks for the computer. Shouldn't installing an OS be a nearly brainless task? Shouldn't configuring the Linux kernel be automatic? Why, if I want to "roll" my own kernel, do I have to dig through hardware detection messages from system boot, from ls utilities like lspci, and so on to figure out how to configure the kernel? "Cobolization", that's one of the problems. Ever see source code for "hello world" in Xlib? Over 100 lines of code just to put up a lousy little message window. (Of course that's why we have Motif, GNOME, KDE, etc.) XML isn't much more "human readable" than assembler. Why do we have a separate language for makefiles? I don't know a single general purpose language that isn't universal, but somehow none of them are suitable for instructing the computer in the details of compilation. As if makefile language isn't bad enough, C has 2 syntaxes for the same concepts: preprocessor syntax such as "#ifdef #endif" for code that should be compiled into a program if a condition is satisfied, and "if () { }" for the exact same thing except executed during run time instead of compiled during compile time. More fundamental than file/memory access, we have dozens of incompatible and arbitrary syntaxes for calling functions and passing parameters. Shells do it one way, most apps parse command line options in 1 of 2 ways, but many mix it up, and C does it at least 2 ways in syntax: "main(argc, argv) int argc; char **argv; {" or "main(int argc, char **argv) {", and 2 ways internally-- who remembers that C has a keyword "Pascal" and what it does? Thanks to so much of most OSes being written in C, most other languages have their own special conventions for calling C library functions. As to arguments that each of these languages is a tool, that tools are not universally suitable for every application, and one should use the best tool for the particular purpose of the moment, note that this is not true of the typical natural language. I do not need to switch from English to another language to express ideas. Any universal language can express what any other can with some constant multiple of the number of statements used in either one. For natural languages, that constant is a lot closer to 1 than for programming languages. Not one of these programming languages approaches or intends to approach the power and expressiveness of a typical natural language. Well, that would take machine intelligence, but there is much that can be done to streamline and simplify what we do have now.

Re:Heh, exactly

[Hosiah]

But what if you flush and you get a buffer overflow?

Re:Heh, exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

We have this for a long time already. Do you want a language that is really high level (not just a wrapper for assembly); runs (nearly) on the metal (none of this virtual machine or what not, though you can still have it); fully integrated parser+compiler+debugger+runtime, not to mention the editor (code, data, time, they are one); mathematically consistent/elegant (not arbitrarily designed by dictators, unless you count Nature herself); and infinitely malleable (by you, not the same language dictator)?

It is right in front of you. You just have to look, and to be open minded. I will admit that this timeless language (or family of languages), worn smooth by countless generations of truly brilliant hackers, show signs of corruption by politics, greed and other human frailties, but these are insignificant compared to its core advantages. I'm truly enjoying hacking in this language -- and that's the truth!

Forget about all the other languages (unless forced to at work), and tap into the computational universe with the universal language. Alright that's enough, my eyes are flaming, hair bursting into fire...

Re:Heh, exactly

[somersault]

I think disruptive technology means stuff like guns and bombs

Re:Heh, exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

*biased because I work there*

Today you IM in your web browser, in a few years you'll spreadsheet in your web browser. Is it really difficult to see how such technology is disruptive?

Re:Heh, exactly

[JCMay]

in a few years you'll spreadsheet in your web browser. /

Like this?

Re:Heh, exactly

[enjerth]

That's usually caused by a large piece of data choking up the output stream, causing the buffer to be filled (with nulls) faster than it's being sent to it's destination. A poor connection can also cause problems with backflow, where your own output is being looped back, possibly in combination with the other end of the connection sending data to your output stream rather than being open to receive on that line.

The question is, does your overflow continue to happen after you have stopped filling the buffer with nulls? If so, the problem may be solved by simply compressing your data to clear the pipes.

Plung3r is a cross-platform utility designed to handle this kind of operation. But it's not inteded for use on personal input streams. It may carry viruses or other harmful trojans/malware/general crap after it's been installed and used.

Re:Heh, exactly

[Peaker]

Are you over 30, and desperate to show you can still be a worthwhile disruptive thinker?? What you're saying sounds similar to the proposals for the next ReiserFS.

Nope, I am less than 25...
But I do believe people over 30 can make worthwhile contributions.

I am a big fan of this guy's work on Subtext, which happens to address a lot of the issues that plague languages today, including language fragmentation.

I believe that a lot of the issues you raise, regarding multiple ways to express the same things, is mainly a result of the fact languages are still based on simple text. Because they are limited to text as the only medium to communicate with the programmer, they cannot be optimized for all kinds of tasks at the same time. A very very smart text editor aware of the language could ofcourse optimize the work for any given purpose, but even then, the text representation might be unoptimized for this or that purpose. Subtext addresses this by separating the internal representation of the program from the way you edit and view it. This allows creating views/edit-controls of the program which are optimized for certain purposes. The same environment will finally get rid of the silly "right tool for the job" crowd and make that one tool right for almost all jobs, via optimized frontends of the "language" for different tasks.

This will mean that there is just one semantic, and syntax is replaced with a GUI. GUI's can be self-explanatory, and semantics need only be learned once.

Re:Heh, exactly

[Peaker]

Oh, you mean like the System/38's had since, oh, the late 70's?

I never said orthogonal persistency was new, but fast implementations of it are newer than System/38 (KeyKOS had the first, and EROS's implementation is faster).

Anyhow, it is irrelevant how old Orthogonal Persistency is, it is the way to go and the current use of file systems fragments the computing world and makes features that much more expensive.

Re:Heh, exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

Lisp?

hmmm...thinks back to the late 90s

[Anonymous Coward]

All those companies were not making a profit and thus failed. I am going to start a company that DOES make a profit. I'll be rich! What a bunch of idiots those people were back then.

balance..

[sdirrim]

With our nation and our economy in such delicate balance, do we really want to disrupt things?

Re:balance..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

The cutting edge

[hackstraw]

is not that sharp according to Business Week :)

After all, this guy is 31 and this guy is 30. Hell, at 37, I might be able to squeak by :)

Re:The cutting edge

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.myspacegrill.com/ yup.

Re:The cutting edge

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Business Week is using zero based counting and = 30?

Re:The cutting edge

[Anonymous Coward]

From one of the links:

"Build and get to market as fast as possible, says Schachter." (the creator of del.icio.us)

He can say that again. I had a similar idea to del.icio.us (and IMHO something even more useful than del.icio.us), and I even started on it well before del.icio.us was released. But unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough so I missed the oportunity. If I had quit my day job and maybe got other people in on it, I might've had a chance at being the first.

What's the big deal about 30...?

[__aaclcg7560]

So at 36 I'm over the hill and no good? Sheesh... I curse all those Baby Boomers who made being older than 30 a bad thing. They should've made it 64 instead.

Re:What's the big deal about 30...?

[Lummoxx]

I curse all those Baby Boomers

Me too. They ruin everything. They had their fun; free love, relatively safe drugs, protesting, Woodstock...

Now they're all old fuddy-duddys', and making everything they did for fun against the law.

It's no wonder todays youth is resorting to crystal meth and bot-nets. Easy sex, easy marijuana, and good music has been ruined by the grups!

Re:What's the big deal about 30...?

[biocute]

In the 70's, over 16 is considered old and uncool; In 00's, over 32 is considered old and uncool.

So maybe come 2015, only those over 64 will be considered old and uncool.

Re:What's the big deal about 30...?

[Colonel Panic]

I curse all those Baby Boomers who made being older than 30 a bad thing

Actually, no. If you consider that the 'baby boom' generation was born between 1945 and 1960, then the bb's are all well over 40 now. You can thank the baby boomers for phrases like: "40 is the new 30".... now you're even hearing: "50 is the new 30". They don't want to get old, so they keep changing the threshold.

Re:What's the big deal about 30...?

[Heembo]

Yes, in the world of computer programming, 36 is by far way over the hill. Are you looking towards management?

Re:What's the big deal about 30...?

[Richard Steiner]

Yes, in the world of computer programming, 36 is by far way over the hill.

That wasn't the case in any of the four software shops I've worked in. :-) Heck, I was laid off in 2002 because at age 39 and 13+ years of experience I was tied for the bottom spot experience-wise on a team of 14 people.

That's one of the big differences between working in a larger mainframe shop with complex vertical in-house applications and writing shrinkwrapped software, though. The former tends to have a lot of people who have a decade or more of core in certain areas, while the latter doesn't care so much about such things because the software being produced is of a very different nature.

Re:What's the big deal about 30...?

[Heembo]

Thanks for your solid comment. I play in the J2EE web development, Ajax Web 2.0 world of enterprise consulting. Most of the groud-level coders (folks who code full time or more) are very young and work crazy hours. Most of the 40+ folks are management (which includes architects and security leaders, etc..). I'm 33 and am worried coding jobs will dry up as I get older.....

Re:What's the big deal about 30...?

[Richard Steiner]

Who knows what the future will bring? Some organizations will *always* need veteran software developers (who generally do a mix of analysis, design and coding, not just coding), but it's hard to say if those places will become the norm or the exception.

Re:What's the big deal about 30...?

[murdocj]

I worked in a company with lots of programmers in their 40s and 50s. We got bought out by a company with lots of young coders working crazy hours. And you know what? After 6 years of running as fast as they can, they've produced almost nothing. In fact, the core product they were working on was just tossed, along with the programmers that were working on it.

Meanwhile we've been trying to keep moving and developing, but with all the "rush rush rush internet time must code and release right now!!!" it's pretty tough.

So right now it looks kinda bleak, but if companies wise up there will still be interesting programming jobs when you hit the ripe old age of 40 (or 50).

Re:What's the big deal about 30...?

[sharkey]

They should've made it 64 instead.

After all, 64 years ought to be enough for anybody.

Re:What's the big deal about 30...?

[Heembo]

It's funny that even the mainstream non-technical media is acknowledging the power of young blood. Check out this CNN article from today: http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/13/technology/microso ft_employees/index.htm?cnn=yes from today. Not once does it mention that MS is having problems finding "seasoned programmers in their 40's" - I recall my days at WebMD where I wrote rings around senior engineers with 10 years my seniority. It's wasn't skill, it was energy, drive, motivation, lack os sleep, no kids or responsibilities... things that have a tendency to change with age. My favorite scenario is 2-3 senior developers (10+ years coding experience) managing and mentoring a team of "20 somethings" - seems to be a good mix towards success.

Re:What's the big deal about 30...?

[murdocj]

I agree that mixing experience and youth can work. It's true that when I was younger, I was more willing to come in and work weekends, etc. If you mix talented young developers who are willing to listen and learn with experienced people who can guide that energy you're in a good situation.

What I disagree with is the grandparent poster's comment about "Most of the ground-level coders (folks who code full time or more) are very young and work crazy hours" as a model for doing development. The results at the parent company that I worked for were:

. Massive turnover, so they continually had to hire new people and get them up to speed. Often developers were leaving before they were even productive.
. Lack of attention to customer needs.
. Quick generation of untested crap code. As a result, they were always busy fighting fires.
. As a consequence of fire fighting, there was no time for building in code quality that would avoid future fires.
. Burned out programmers who would "rest on their oars" after an intense spurt of work.

In my last job, two of the programmers I worked with were in their 50s, and were two of the most talented, thoughtful, productive developers I've ever worked with. Anyone who thinks that once you hit 40 (or 50) "it's all over" is nuts.

Invent something new that everyone wants!

[Neil Blender]

I'm surprised we made it to 2006 without thinking of this.

Re:Invent something new that everyone wants!

[hey!]

Oh, yes, and don't forget "buy low and sell high".

All these money making paradigms are childishly simple aren't they?

But in all seriousness, I often get the impression that there's more than a little brainwashing in many business publications, which tend to be thin in the useful business information department and fat on the kind of flattering profiles that are the business equivalent of the text that you get with the Playboy centerfold.

Re:Invent something new that everyone wants!

[Overzeetop]

"We" didn't, and I happen to have a patent on "Inventing something new that everyone wants." It was filed in early 2002, but I have inhouse development files which document our research activities quite a bit further back. I anticipate the patent will be granted with the most recent round of inquiries and, needless to say, all of these whippersnapers will be receiving a letter from my lawyers any day now. I'll be suing BusinessWeek as well, for..um...I don't really know yet, but it seems that McGraw-Hill has a market cap of close to 20B, and I feel that I should be entitled to at least half of that.

Re:Invent something new that everyone wants!

[14erCleaner]

"Something that everyone wants!" Why didn't I think of that! *slap* No wonder my Fortran 77 programming tools business is failing!

8 out of 10 are Internet apps.

[Animats]

Eight out of the ten "new ideas" are Internet applications. And every one of those eight is in an area where someone else already has an entry. Web-based instant messaging. Call center outsourcing. Social networking for teenagers. Yawn. Some of them are cool, but none of them are really needed.

The two new ones are a simulator for pharmaceutical development and a new approach to solid state light sources. Those may or may not work, but they're real developments.

Re:8 out of 10 are Internet apps.

[truthsearch]

His point seems to be more about "disruptive" than "new".

Re:8 out of 10 are Internet apps.

[anomalous cohort]

This NY Times article speaks to that. For these under 30 somethings in NYC, success is not so much about doing something new as it is about doing something that another company, with deep pockets, wants. The exit strategy is being acquired.

Re:8 out of 10 are Internet apps.

[JakusMinimus]

...success is not so much about doing something new as it is about doing something that another company, with deep pockets, wants. The exit strategy is being acquired.

Thank you Cpt. Obvious. We all learned this in the 90's didn't we?

Re:8 out of 10 are Internet apps.

[__aaclcg7560]

That's the Microsoft strategy. You don't need to be 30 or younger for that. My friend and I are going to do the same thing once we figured out a ground-breaking new idea that would change the market forever and Microsoft will just hand over all the extra cash. Maybe a portable video game player?!

Re:8 out of 10 are Internet apps.

[Samrobb]

And every one of those eight is in an area where someone else already has an entry.

Not neccesarily a bad thing. Guy Kawasaki has commented that there are a lot of smart people in the world... if you come up with an idea, look around, and see abolutely no competition, then you have pull a Scott Adams and ask yourself, "which is more likely?"

• I am incredibly smarter, luckier, and/or more insightful than each and every other person on the planet who might have ever had the chance to come up with this idea. In a sea of six billion faceless drones, I alone am unique.
• There are smarter people in the world - much smarter than me - who have thought of and then discarded this idea as the disgusting piece of trash that it is.

Now, you see, the trick is that if you are somewhat smarter, luckier, or more insightful, you have two choices. You can attempt to come up with something completely original and new, which is really risky, as shown above. Or, you can enter a known, existing, money making market where your somewhat-smarter brain, store of luck and somewhat novel insgihts will allow you to out-maneuver the barely sentient cretins who currently inhabit that market niche. Still somewhat risky, but not anywhere near as risky as trying to create a completely new market.

Re:8 out of 10 are Internet apps.

[Anonymous Coward]

and what do you think about google?

Re:8 out of 10 are Internet apps.

[dusik]

Let's examine your two choices:

• I am incredibly smarter, luckier, and/or more insightful than each and every other person on the planet who might have ever had the chance to come up with this idea. In a sea of six billion faceless drones, I alone am unique.
  
  It's getting worse... closer to seven billion people. In any case, though, you're asking the wrong question. Your actual competition should have not only thought the idea, but actually put a lot of effort into realising it. That's *much* less likely. Most ideas are just that, ideas. Someone thinks, "Hey, there's a great way to do something! Ah, but I wouldn't even know where to start. Maybe there's something I don't know". And moves on.
  
  
• There are smarter people in the world - much smarter than me - who have thought of and then discarded this idea as the disgusting piece of trash that it is.
  
  Or, as per above point, they just didn't pick that idea out of the thousands of other ideas they have as being the one worth a good portion of their lives. People with ideas generally have lots of them, and it's hard for anybody to tell which of them are actually worth realising.
  

It's just not that simple...

Re:8 out of 10 are Internet apps.

[ShakaUVM]

/shrug

A graduate advisor I once had said that if you weren't coming up with one new idea a month, you shouldn't be in academia. That's a pretty fast pace, IMO, but I have come up with ideas nobody else has thought of, am working for a family business (because my mother thought of a business model nobody had done before), and my dad just sits around all day putting things together to try stuff completely new. He was working on free metropolitan WIFI nets years before you started hearing about them going up around the country, for example.

Re:8 out of 10 are Internet apps.

[ShakaUVM]

>>The two new ones are a simulator for pharmaceutical
>>development and a new approach to solid state light sources

In, hmm, 1999 or so I worked for the Bionengineering Department at UCSD for a grant funded by Proctor and Gamble. The BIONOME project sort of went nowhere, really (you can find the hacked apart website still up at bionome.sdsc.edu. Or, wait. I guess it's down now. But there's something of a reference here:
http://cgi.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/General/CC/irg/cl earing/projectAbstract.pl?projid=955

But the point is, as soon as I finished the coding, a manager from P&G flew out, talked with the professor, myself, and the other people working on the project, and flew off with a floppy disk full of source code and a happy smile on his face.

Sure, the UCSD Bioengineering Department was #1 in the nation (maybe still is, I haven't checked recently), but everyone was doing this stuff seven years ago. Maybe he's done something a little different or better (evolutionarily new), but it's not a revolutionary concept at all. Big Pharma is all over computers, databases, and simulations these days. P&G and Johnson and Johnson both wanted to hire me, but P&G is in Ohio, and J&J wanted me to do database stuff, which isn't where my interests lie.

Re:8 out of 10 are Internet apps.

[Senzei]

The problem with estimating things that way is that it assumes other smart people have not discarded it because another smart person probably thought of it. If you think of something for which you find no competition, but it seems relatively reasonable, you should at least be able to win on marketing.

Entering into an existing, money making market is an awesome strategy if you are smarter at the things that will help you make money. Computer science especially is littered with stories of better designs/products that failed. To make money in an existing market you need to convince people your product is better, which to me seems like equal parts good marketing and having just enough features to not make people leave.

Re:8 out of 10 are Internet apps.

[ill dillettante]

This is why you apply some empirical data to the hypothesis. Unless you are very young (or have no ideas at all) you will have had ideas that were latter developed by someone else. If you measure the time between when you had the idea and when the idea was put into practice, and if this is less than the time required to develop the idea, then you could have been first to bring the idea to market. If this happens a lot to your ideas then it is likely that you are having good ideas that nobody else has thought of yet.

Re:8 out of 10 are Internet apps.

[anomalous cohort]

That's the Microsoft strategy.

Only, with this article, it's yahoo and google that are being targeted and not Microsoft. From the article...

The preferred exit strategy has changed in Silicon Alley as well. The first time around, initial public offerings of stock were the holy grail of Internet executives, a mentality that resulted in countless paper millionaires who were never able to cash out their shares.

The more common exit these days is to follow in the footsteps of the photo-sharing service flickr or the social bookmarking company del.icio.us, both of which were bought by Yahoo for undisclosed sums.

Re:8 out of 10 are Internet apps.

[finiteyoda]

Yea, I was also working on drug design tools back in 1999, although more at the quantum level. At one point I took a look at what P&G was doing in their computational chemistry group, and it was pretty small (about 8 guys, with a bunch of SGI machines and a Linux cluster) considering the company's size. And I think that pretty much summed up computational drug design at the turn of the millenium: most big companies weren't interested in radically changing their R&D pipelines for a new fangled technology, and the biotech boom was in a slump, so investors were off hibernating. Practically all my end users were government, military, or edu, and almost entirely for materials design than pharmaceuticals.

Just goes to show, being the first person working on a great idea isn't enough: you need to be able to convince some VC's how you're the greatest thing since butter on sliced bread before anyone seems to take any interest.

Re:8 out of 10 are Internet apps.

[shess]

A graduate advisor I once had said that if you weren't coming up with one new idea a month, you shouldn't be in academia.

Wow, if that had been to going impression of academia way back when, maybe I would have stuck with it instead of taking my degree and going off to write software commercially, and, uh ... no, wait, that wouldn't have been a good idea at all! I work with a bunch of PhDs on a daily basis, and one of the really common themes is that they felt quite stifled in academia.

-scott

Re:8 out of 10 are Internet apps.

[ShakaUVM]

Well, the woman that said that became the head of the San Diego Supercomputer Center. So maybe there's something to it. =)

http://director.sdsc.edu/

My graduate advisor was Dr. Scott Baden, also in parallel computation, and for a year or two Dr. Baden and Berman shared a lab before expanding into two separate labs. I took all the graduate classes she offered. She's a real smart woman, and I think she was on to something.

Maybe not invent the theory of relativity every week, but at least trying to look at a new problem or a new solution to something once a month to keep your academic spirit of inquiry alive sounds like a good idea to me.

Re:8 out of 10 are Internet apps.

[Fnkmaster]

Yes, well, there are many ways to make money out there. I personally prefer finding niches where real demand exists, you can actually generate cash flow, run a profitable business, and create a sustainable competitive advantage. This means you actually create real economic and financial value for yourself and your investors, and don't just hope you can sell out to a potential acquirer before your competitors do. There are a very limited number of buyers for social networking sites, and only a very limited number of social networking sites that can be successful in the long run (I am just using this as an example - applies to many dot-commish businesses that hope for acquisition-based exit).

Not to say you can't make money with an acquisition-only exit strategy business, you obviously can, but for every winner, there are going to be many losers in every internet niche with that sort of strategy. Which is why the average VC firm has a 10-20% success rate in their portfolio companies.

There are tons of fantastic non-internet areas to innovate in. I am a former software industry entrepreneur, and now strictly focus on non-software areas where I think it's easier to out-compete the rest of your space, customers are more brand loyal, and it's easier to establish barriers to entry. Not to mention easier to create revenue generating sales and create a cash flow positive business which can be used to eventually finance growth and expansion internally or at least make it much cheaper to raise additional growth capital.

Too many smart people focus on innovating in the traditional "growth" sectors, i.e. tech or biotech, or waste their effort fighting over the scraps of capitalism (to quote Warren Buffet describing the mainstream finance professions). There are tons of opportunities for entrepreneurs and innovators that are just as challenging and interesting as tech or biotech, in less obvious areas. You just have to look around and be open-minded.

And of course, success in most of these business areas depends on a diverse set of skills, including marketing and finance, not just having a good idea and writing some code. This may turn some people off, but it just makes it more interesting to me.

The Nerdy Blues

[ExE122]

This all makes sense because by age 30, most of us nerds are broken shells of mangled human flesh: Thick glasses, crooked spines, carpal tunnel syndrome, high blood pressure... long term effects of working in the high speed world of information technology.

And lets not forget about the stress-related impotence! How do you expect anyone to be innovative when they're out of libidious mojo?

We hit our mid-life crisis at age-15 when we spend all our allowance on the newest AMD chips, graphics cards, and video games.

I'm half way through my 20s and I'm not looking forward to being a grizzled and worthless dinosaur in the next 5 years... but such is the price we pay.

=P
(sorry to anyone over 30)

Re:The Nerdy Blues

[AlterTick]

We hit our mid-life crisis at age-15 when we spend all our allowance on the newest AMD chips,

Nobody over 30 spent their allowance at age 15 on anything AMD, junior! Try "Commodore", "Apple", or maybe "IBM".

Re:The Nerdy Blues

[Herkum01]

I would write a lengthy reply but my arthritis is bothering me... How it pains me to be 34!

Re:The Nerdy Blues

[Anonymous Coward]

He said he was half way through his twenties. I'm 25 and when I was 15 I was putting AMD chips in my homemade computer. His point is a valid one. This is why I'm trying to get the hell out of IT.

Re:The Nerdy Blues

[rrohbeck]

Agree 100%. By 30 I was getting fat, my back was bothering me and I had no enegry.

Now I'm 46 and in better shape than at any point in my life before. Probably in better shape than you kiddo :P

You probably expect some exercise machine or miracle supplement spam now. Sorry to disappoint. :) Hey, you're a nerd, you are capable of learning, right? Buy a few books on nutrition and exercise and get a gym membership. Prepay for 3 years, that'll give you the best rate available. Maybe they'll even throw in a few personal trainer hours.

RP

Re:The Nerdy Blues

[ortholattice]

Nobody over 30 spent their allowance at age 15 on anything AMD, junior! Try "Commodore", "Apple", or maybe "IBM".

Wrong. "Commodore", "Apple", or maybe "IBM" was for the great unwashed masses. A real nerd would have built a custom computer out of AMD2900 bit slices (circa 1975).

Re:The Nerdy Blues

[ortholattice]

Actually, I take that back. IBM certainly had possibilities for the true nerd of that time. In the mid-70's I had the opportunity to buy a used IBM business computer - I think the model number was 700-something, perhaps 702 (if my memory is correct) - that used vacuum tubes! It was offered to me for $600 by a salvage dealer. That is the honest-to-god truth. I was actually seriously considering it for a while, but the thought of the impact it would have had on my electric bill eventually made me decide not to. Instead, I bought from the same dealer 32K of core memory from MIT's 1958 TX-1 computer that used transistors, for around $200, contained in 4 huge racks with 8K each, each with its own voltage meter to monitor the supply voltage. I had complete documentation and everything, and my idea was that I would build my own computer around it. (It was never finished though, and eventually I had to pay a scrap dealer to haul them away.)

Re:The Nerdy Blues

[multiplexo]

Nobody over 30 spent their allowance at age 15 on anything AMD, junior! Try "Commodore", "Apple", or maybe "IBM".

WRONG: AMD started making better and cheaper versions of the 80386 in 1991, which was 15 years ago, before that, in the 1980s, they were making better 286s than Intel did and cheaper 80287s than Intel. I'm sure that there were lots of young geeks back then who were trying to save up money to buy AMD based PCs from their local white-box shops.

Re:The Nerdy Blues

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that most "Intel" labelled processors up to the 80386 were manufactured by AMD, because Intel didn't have the resources to do it themselves.

Re:The Nerdy Blues

[AlterTick]

WRONG: AMD started making better and cheaper versions of the 80386 in 1991, which was 15 years ago, before that, in the 1980s, they were making better 286s than Intel did and cheaper 80287s than Intel.

Blah blah blah, read the original poster's post: "spend all our allowance on the newest AMD chips". This is clearly an allusion to the relatively modern practice of buying the latest and greatest CPU. Not something that was done in 1991. The fact that AMD made some of the chips inside an IBM PC didn't make it not an IBM PC.

meebo peepo

[digitaldc]

Advice: "Surround yourself with really, really smart people and don't be afraid to give them equity, because it's all about the team," says Sternberg.

Translation: Surround yourself with women at your workplace, and you are halfway there to actually getting a date.

Duh

[truthsearch]

Look at what they're not doing and focus on that. That's where the real disruptive technology comes from.

First reaction is... well, duh. Don't do what everyone else does if you want to stand out.

But actually isn't that often not true? The better mouse trap is often disruptive. Portable music players were around for a long time before the iPod. The Apple Newton was out long before the Palm. People were downloading music long before iTunes.

Don't know why I'm focusing on Apple, but those are what came to mind.

Re:Duh

[Alex P Keaton in da]

Look up terms like first mover advantage, second mover advantage etc. This has been studied ad infinitum.
Marketing is complex, as much as we like think of the guys in marketing as the ones who, despite being 40 and white, call each other bro and are really competitive about pick up basketball games.

Security apps

[meteau]

Any idea on if security apps will be big this year?

www.grepgrok.com

Re:Security apps

[sharkey]

Like ones that delete such malicious files as Microsoft Office and Windows operating systems?

Like Logan's Run?

[Colonel Panic]

So does this mean that if you're over 30 you don't have a chance at creating anything innovative?

Re:Like Logan's Run?

[Omaze]

Pretty much. If you haven't been given the privelege of the connections and influence that it takes to do anything really successful by age 30 you can look forward to one of several things: 1) being a corporate grunt making just enough to squeak by with a 3% raise every year and maybe a promotion when you're 45, 2) being homeless, 3) suicide.

Re:Like Logan's Run?

[Anonymous Coward]

Burn out much?

I wonder...

[NitsujTPU]

...if BusinessWeek authors read Slashdot

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=179 921&cid=14898939

claims to success

[sdirrim]

Many people claim to have found the "perfect business strategy", such as 'do what nobody else is doing' or 'sell to unlikely markets' or even 'make a company specifically to steal someone else's money by patenting anything and everything and then suing anyone who makes it'. Overall, it worked for some people, but others might fail completely at this. However, a trend of young entrepeneurs is appearing. If you decide to "go where the market isn't", then you should not be a young entrepeneur. Overall, you should just do what you think will work.

Yup

[MAXOMENOS]

That's why they put us in management positions.

Not just startups-

[Alex P Keaton in da]

From the article...
What's the most common error made by startup entrepreneurs?
Easily the biggest problem is when you have a founder who is sentimentally attached to his company to the point where he won't let go and accept help. Especially with technology firms, the founder tends to be passionate about the product and tends to come out of an educational-engineering environment with very little expertise in the business world.
This is so true- whether in business or on message boards (like this). I got my start in tech, but went on to get a JD and a MBA- and now my true techie friends love to make fun of me. But the truth is, hubris can sink about anything- Knowing a lot about tech does not mean that you know anyting about business (and vice versa)

Re:Not just startups-

[mmkkbb]

You have a dorkier sig than any of your tech friends though.

Re:Not just startups-

[Rac3r5]

Hi,

I'm actually thinking of going the same route. I have a degree in software engineering and another which is a mix of computer and telecomm engineering. I have a bunch of great ideas, but I have no idea on how to implement them, i.e. start of my own company; which if why I'm thinking of getting my MBA.

Anyway I was just wondering how much an MBA from school X is really worth, if you plan on being your own boss for a tech startup? Does an MBA from a more renowned school matter more than a less renowned school?

If I do go about with the tech startup idea, what things should I look out for?

Re:Not just startups-

[nelsonal]

The only programs that might appeal to you more than others would be the highly quantitative/statistical programs (UC/MIT are the best known), although you will be with very similar people. Most of the value of a top teir MBA is in recruiting so if you are just doing it for yourself, pick a good regional program but you might want to inquire about their entreprenurial professors/classes.

Most of the educational value of an MBA will depend on what your professors' experience is you should be able to find their bios somewhere, look for profs who did something remotely similar to the size of business that you plan to start (rather than ones whose real world experience was at GE/PG a big consultant or similar. Those are great management training companies, but the experiences might not translate as well to your needs.

Re:Not just startups-

[TrappedByMyself]

Do a little research before you dive into something like an MBA. You may end up spending more time and money than you really need to, and not really learn the stuff you're looking for.
Look at some of the books at nolo.com, tons of great small business stuff there. Also, look in your area for any free or low cost small business seminars.

The technical parts of starting a small business are easy. Just takes common sense and some research. The hard part is making it work, and bringing in money. Alot of techies have a "If I build it, they will come" mentality which can be fatal to a business. You need to not only build stuff, but market and sell it, and keep income coming in. If you start hiring people, which you will if you go anywhere, you need to manage the personality aspect of things also.

It's alot of work, but definitely a possibility if you're willing to learn and work, and if you keep your head in the land of reality.

Re:Not just startups-

[Danny Rathjens]

Perhaps it is a sentiment leftover from our college experiences wherein the dumb students were the ones that were business majors. :)
(not that there were no dumb kids with other majors, but business seemed the default major for the kids with no brains or talent at anything but drinking with their frat buddies. ;)

Re:Not just startups-

[Anonymous Coward]

Careful about the hubris there. I've known plenty of companies that have also been sunk by suppposedly business savvy VCs and external CEOs who really didn't know what they were talking about. Techies who hang on have killed quite a few, but so have the business guys and gals.

How do they make money...

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad to see /. pick this up, because there are some really interesting messages in the article. Since the authors of the article are praising these young entrepreneurs, here's what I am at a loss for, and something the author has neglected -- how are they making money? There are one or two here that might have a chance at success (From my observations -- Digium has an actual business plan, and interestingly enough... I think is the only one who hasn't taken any VC). Tellme looks like they have some notible customers, but other than the buzzwords...there are a lot of well entrenched companies that do voice navigation systems.

Point is, other than what they are getting from VC... how do these companies hope to make money?

Bad advice

[Reality Master 101]

Inventing something that no one has ever thought of is a lot like winning the lottery... nice if you can do it, but don't bet your future on it.

Having been involved in a number of successful businesses over the years, I can tell you that good ideas are a dime a dozen. There's no huge mystery about what's successful and what isn't... look around you.

The difference between someone who is successful and someone who isn't is execution. The world is full of people who dream big but don't get off their ass and do it.

What people don't get is that you don't have to be the dominant player on the block to make a LOT of money, but what it does require is taking a risk and putting yourself out there. Find your little niche and set up shop. The world is like a raging river of money. You don't have to set up a very big flume to get a pretty good stream coming to you.

And if (or when...) you fail the first couple of times, learn from your mistakes, get back up and try again.

Just a step at a time, folks. Just take a step a time. It's not how fast you're stepping, but the fact that you're stepping at all.

Re:Bad advice

[Bull999999]

The difference between someone who is successful and someone who isn't is execution. The world is full of people who dream big but don't get off their ass and do it.

That reminds me of my brother-in-law. He came up with a lot of good ideas but gets bored quickely and hop on to another get-rich-quick scheme. I guess that's why he'll never be in articles like this.

Re:Bad advice

[Lord_Dweomer]

So I understand what you posted, and wholeheartedly agree with it...but I have somewhat of a different issue...

I have great ideas, not necessarily new...but in-demand enough to be sellable...except I have a marketing/advetising background. I'm a geek, and am definitely familiar with computers and whats going on, but when it comes to programming, or creating a prototype of an electronic device, I'm hosed since I don't have those skills and by the time I was able to teach myself them...it would be obsolete.

Can you suggest any resources for someone in my situation to find people who can fully handle those aspects of it? What about manufacturing? What is a good starting point for that for someone who knows absolutely nothing about it?

Re:Bad advice

[Reality Master 101]

except I have a marketing/advetising background [...] Can you suggest any resources for someone in my situation to find people who can fully handle those aspects of it?

Here's my advice for someone like you: don't try and invent the wheel yourself. By that I mean don't try and find a programming consultant to program something for you. There is a 99% probability that you'll get screwed. Number one, it's EXTREMELY hard to find good people. By the nature of programming, you can't tell easily how well something is done. If you hire a someone to, say, build you a brick wall, even a layman can tell if it's straight or if they did a crappy job. Not so with programming. You can pay and pay and pay and still end with a barely functioning piece of crap that no one can fix. I've seen it time and time again with my more marketing-oriented friends.

The only way that sort of thing works out if is if you can find someone with a proven track record that you partner with, who has an incentive to get things done economically and done well. But, of course, partners have their own set of problems, and even if you're sure this tech partner of yours is good, there's a fair chance that he's been faking it all along and he's really bad. :)

I say all this to really put the fear of God into you about trusting tech people. It's REALLY hard to be successful doing something home grown when you're not the one doing the growing. I cannot tell you how many friends I've seen go down in flames this way.

Here's what I suggest: find something already built and selling. If you're good at marketing, then focus on what you're good at. Look for "private label" relationships where you can set up a site, but someone else is running the back-end. There are lots of affiliate relationships where they pay for referrals. That can pay off, though I'm not sure how well. I tend to like better the ones where you set up your own site. It just makes it a bit more of a unique thing than affiliates.

Another play I like are drop-ship companies with various product lines. Take the catalog, feed it into a web commerce hosting site, and start marketing the heck out of it.

The bottom line is to focus on what you're good at, and minimize the risk of what you're not good at. The fact that you have some geeky credentials puts you ahead of the marketing people who try and do things like this.

Re:Bad advice

[ill dillettante]

I disagree that good ideas are a dime a dozen - in fact really good ideas are a rare as hen's teeth to use another cliche. What are common are "bad" good ideas - ideas like "If we had 10 million dollars then ..." or "As long as no big company enters the market then ..." A really good ideas requires no money to start, funds itself, is impossible or near impossible for others to replicate, and is worth billions in three years time. I see very few of these sort of good ideas around!

Where's your head at?

[shummer_mc]

[this] guy triple majors at Harvard, with his buddy from Jr. High, who is double majoring and they start a dating service... He He. Either venture capitalists are retarded, or these guys are too smart for humanity [not having any other information-- I think it's the prior].

Re:Where's your head at?

[Anonymous Coward]

At least they understand the target market's perspective.

The ultimate Spyware/Virus Blocker

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.millionfirefoxconverts.blogspot.com/

Selling at gas stations for $5!

With apologies to T. Lehrer...

[Overzeetop]

...at your age, Mozart was already dead.

Re:With apologies to T. Lehrer...

[Anonymous Coward]

So don't go into music. You'll end up dead.

Watch the other end!

[monopole]

Cringley has pointed out that the retiring boomer hackers will have more impact especially on the open source movement.

The under 30's have the advantage/disadvantage of not knowing what is impossible. On the other hand the old hands know the old tricks.

I was astounded to encounter teen interns who looked astounded at the concept of sub-Gigahertz machines.

Re:Watch the other end!

[__aaclcg7560]

I was astounded to encounter teen interns who looked astounded at the concept of sub-Gigahertz machines.

When I worked at Atari, the kids (18 to 20 years old) were generally astounded that I played Pong when it first came out long before mall arcades became popular and had an Atari 2600 in early 1980's. They were astonished that video games existed before the Sony Playstation. If that didn't throw them for a loop, another co-worker used to work on pen-and-paper games in the 1970's.

Re:Watch the other end!

[this great guy]

I am astounded to to see a /.er that was astounded to encounter teen interns who looked astounded at the concept of sub-Gigahertz machines !

Re:Watch the other end!

[gnuLNX]

no doubt.

From what I've seen

[Quirk]

I've been involved with successful businesses and have seen many more fail. I don't think there's a set of answers to follow laid out like the yellow brick road, and, even if there were, you'd most likely just end up talking to some flim flam artist proclaiming himself to be a wizard while hiding behind a curtain.

There are people who are technically gifted and are chrismatic enough to sell whatever it is they're working on but they're few and far between.

A few simple rules:

(1)know your product and be able to explain it to investors who might not have the technical training to immediately grasp what it is you're proposing. Stay away from the trap too many technical trained people fall into of overwhelming potential investors or customers with unnecessary detail, (I failed this test repeatedly).

(2) Have a business plan and enough money to go 5 years without outside investors. Many government agencies provide templates that will allow you to lay out a business plan that a banker or investor can easily understand. Don't go to a bank or potential investor with a bunch of loose papers and a lot of hand waving. Most businesses I've seen fail went into business looking to turn a profit in the first year. Statistics show the vast majority of businesses need at least five years to break even.

I'm currently about to undertake development of two ideas that I've worked on for the last ~5 years. I'm fairly sure both will succeed. As per the article both of my ideas are innovative and not visible on the web today, but along with the innovation I've spent a few years laying out a plan, both as to actual development and marketing. You must know why your project will succeed, you should know what might cause it to fail.

And then there's luck, just being in the right place at the right time.

Re:From what I've seen

[grassy_knoll]

I'm currently about to undertake development of two ideas that I've worked on for the last ~5 years. I'm fairly sure both will succeed. As per the article both of my ideas are innovative and not visible on the web today

Got a link? 'Cause I'd be like, curious, and stuff...

[badum-ching]

Re:From what I've seen

[Jussi K. Kojootti]

(2) Have a business plan and enough money to go 5 years without outside investors.

Is that a typo? If you've got enough money to burn through five years, what would you need investors for?

Re:From what I've seen

[Quirk]

Is that a typo? If you've got enough money to burn through five years, what would you need investors for?

Valid question, but no, it's not a typo. I'd suggest a stringent budget in line with keeping the business afloat for at least 5 years. Much tech stuff can be done on a limited budget while the product is refined. OTOH if the product calls for heavy investment in plant or high profile office/retail space then I'd suggest having a budget, including a line of credit that would see the principals through 5 years.

Getting a business up and running is a challenging task but no less so than choosing the right investors. Picking investors isn't called 'climbing in bed with someone' for no reason. It requires alot of research and grabbing the first fistfull of dollars offered is potentially a recipe for disaster. Rules of thumb are never take the company lawyer or accountant in as a business partner. And although it requires deft diplomacy I'd try to keep the line of credit apart from the business' bank.

It shouldn't be need to be said... never give up control.

cheers

Paean To The Cult of Youth

[GeekBird]

This tripe from Business Week is just another paean to the cult of youth, a slap in the face of those who've actually been around a while.

People forget that the "under 30" crowd was responsible for some of the stupidest, lamest, and most ridiculous excesses of the dot bomb. The recipe for dot com success was to only hire "young" (under 30, RCG) developers, because you "can't teach an old dog new tricks". It didn't work then, and it's still stupid now.

The best development environment is a mix of young, middle aged, and older developers. The elder developers season the brashness of youth with experience (and pointing out why web businesses to just sell 50# bags of dog food are stupid), and the younger ones inspire creativity where the elders had become complacent.

Would you trust a 25 year old bank president? Would you want to drive a car designed totally by a 22 year old recent college grad without the benefit of verification by a senior engineer? I wouldn't. So why in the hell should our software and computer hardware be only the product of young minds?

Business Week should know better than to shill for the "young is best" nonsense. We've seen where that crap leads - I read lots of articles just like it in 1998 and 1999. For shame.

BTW, I'm 44, and I said it was stupid the last time this "concept" got touted too - seven years ago...

Re:Paean To The Cult of Youth

[Anonymous Coward]

umm, who is the dumb one here? the ones who create the idea and try to start a business, or the ones who dump lots and lots of money at it. More than likely it is the older, more "experienced" people who have the money to invest while typically the young ones attempt a startup since they haven't experienced repeated failures (yet).

Re:Paean To The Cult of Youth

[Lumpy]

Would you want to drive a car designed totally by a 22 year old recent college grad without the benefit of verification by a senior engineer? I wouldn't.

I would and have. most of the innovative things in the world are built by people that never even had any engineering education.

I have been in a 3 wheeled hybrid car that can do a zero to sixty that makes most crotch rockets look silly. Built by a man that did not even graduate high school.

education = you had money. it certianly does not mean anything to skill and capability.

Re:Paean To The Cult of Youth

[XMilkProject]

Would you want to drive a car designed totally by a 22 year old recent college grad without the benefit of verification by a senior engineer?

Except that physical mechanics and safety rarely change. The experienced engineer certainly has the upper hand in your example. Computer science on the other hand is changing daily, and unfortunately "more experienced" in this field is often a very bad thing. If you've been doing it for more than a few years, it is likely obsolete.

There are of course many places that are using older technology, and these are exactly the places you find the older (more experienced) guys. But if you want in on a new technology, you have to realize your experience isn't worth crap, and your ability to adapt to new ideas real-time is the most important.

Re:Paean To The Cult of Youth

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been in a 3 wheeled hybrid car that can do a zero to sixty that makes most crotch rockets look silly. Built by a man that did not even graduate high school.

3 wheelers are more dangerous than 2 or 4 wheel vehicles, due to their tendency to flip easilly.

Re:Paean To The Cult of Youth

[bitt3n]

uh oh, grandpa is getting grumpy! /kidding! kidding!

Re:Paean To The Cult of Youth

[GeekBird]

But if you want in on a new technology, you have to realize your experience isn't worth crap, and your ability to adapt to new ideas real-time is the most important.

The first part is horseshit. Experience tells you how to take ideas from dreaming and handwaving to real, working versions.

Any developer worth his/her salt can "adapt to new ideas", and "real-time" is a piece of noveau fluff. Experience lets you dodge the chronic reinvent the wheel syndrome that companies with all of their dev staff under 30 have. A square wheel isn't a "disruptive" new idea, it's just stupid.

BTW, if my experience isn't worth crap, how come I keep getting hired by smaller companies, rather than big dinosaurs? Maybe they understand that RCG kids aren't the be all and end all of development. Also, why are some of the brightest, most creative developers I know in their 40s? Most of the younger ones just want to play multiplayer online games that just suck money and time out of their lives, not create something worthwhile.

This all sounds so much like the lame dot com shills from the late 90s that it isn't even funny. It was stupid then, it's stupid now. "Under 30, and on the Cutting Edge" is just a code for age discrimination, lower salaries, and the fake IT shortage that it spawned.

Re:Paean To The Cult of Youth

[GeekBird]

::me whacks you with her cane... ;-)

Re:Paean To The Cult of Youth

[Senzei]

Any developer worth his/her salt can "adapt to new ideas"

Given the number of platforms, development environments, toolkits, and programming languages someone in their 30s+ has seen I would argue they might be better at adapting to new ideas. Every new programming whatchamahoozit is touted as a brand new paradigm, much less a new set of ideas, some even are.

My point is that experience is important, even if the tools you used for 3/4 of your career are dust now, all of the logical thinking, ability to adapt to a new environment, soft skills, and a host of other things are still very much applicable.

I wonder if having realised this at 24 is helpful in any way, it really just seems kind of depressing now with a hope for something better in the future.

Re:Paean To The Cult of Youth

[Bucc5062]

I very much agree. At 45 (a young 45) I feel like I am still able to provide insight and creativity to the business world. I work to keep up with the shifting snads of technology, but what experience has shown me is that the more it changes, the more it is still the same....or worse.

Today, innovation is more about marketing and getting to market then on solid foundations of incremental improvement. granted that there are times when something can come alongthat truly changes the course of the industry, but when I read these tripe debates on which is the better language of the month (Ruby, No Pearl, No PHP, no C++, no VB, no LISP) I see folks that miss the point. It is not the language stupid, it is what you do with it, how you shape it, how soild is it's structure.

Youth, of which I still eel some, may be great and all nighters, gulping Jolt, and cranking out code, but if the code is crap, what good was the effort. these days, when given a project play my time for a normal work day, I enjoy my life outside work and I get the projects done on time.

the article was, is, and will be crap. It has nothing to do with the physical age of a person, it has to done with the ability of the mind to see the Concepts, the potentials, the ideas and that is ageless.

Re:Paean To The Cult of Youth

[ukpyr]

You're probably to inexperienced to know that programming problems that are being solved now are simlar to problems 5 years ago, which are similar to problems 5 years prior etc. I've been coding for money since I was 18 and now, 10 years later, I've solved similar problems over and over. Technology changes but the underlying problems of human life are pretty slow moving. Call them "cultural patterns", slap an AJAX front-end on and call it a day.

Re:Paean To The Cult of Youth

[OldManAndTheC]

Paean To The Cult of Youth

Yeah, let's all paean the youth!

Yours Truly,

R. Kelly

Re:Paean To The Cult of Youth

[jnkt]

Except that physical mechanics and safety rarely change. The experienced engineer certainly has the upper hand in your example. Computer science on the other hand is changing daily, and unfortunately "more experienced" in this field is often a very bad thing. If you've been doing it for more than a few years, it is likely obsolete.

This must be among the most ridiculous things I've ever read! Nothing trumps experience and knowledge. With time you gain both. Patterns for example are timeless and with age you actually get experience implementing them, finding them and harness the adaptations of them to any given problem you might be facing. As for "computer science" changing rapidly, that statement is complete Bull. The foundations of the computer science taught today is pretty much the same as it was 10 years ago. The "bleeding edge" is what you find in research papers, white papers and the like (nearly all done by people 30+). These papers augment your existing skills helping you keep your skill set updated. Needless to say, the more year you've spent on the treadmill, the wider and deeper your knowledge and more honed your skill sets become.

Developers are using their minds to create which means a person in this field only gets better until the person ceases to be active in the fields. This is in stark contrast to physical labor, where the body's physique imposes constraints with age.

There are of course many places that are using older technology, and these are exactly the places you find the older (more experienced) guys

What's that supposed to mean? Look at the labs of IBM, Intel or any other company producing innovative stuff and see how many 30- researchers you find there who designed any break-through products in the history of those companies.

Son, get some real world experience before you blurt out any more sentences on the subject of experience.

-- It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt

Re:Paean To The Cult of Youth

[Lumpy]

This is a tadpole design that are much more stable than what many think of in a 3 wheel design. also the CG was extremely low.

Think front end of a car with a motorcycle with a really wide tire in the rear and you get the general configuration idea.

I hope so

[suso]

I hope you're right. I just turned 30 a few weeks ago and am close to releasing my own disruptive technology that will hopefully start a new industry.

Re:I hope so

[Anonymous Coward]

Disruptive technology? Were you recently in the news... something about a botnet?

Re:I hope so

[IAmTheDave]

Me too! It's this system, see, that manages large amounts of content in an online fashion that allows the seperation of the system admin and programmer from the "content contributor". But that's just a tease. You'll have to wait for my disruptive "Content Management Solution" - coming sooooooooon!!

Re:I hope so

[obarel]

You should patent this system *before* you publish all the details on /.

Just a tip from someone who almost invented a game with falling blocks.

Re:I hope so

[Serapth]

Well, its a good thing you didnt! I recently acquired patents to both the act of falling, and general block shapes! Now that im too old to innovate, I need to switch tracks and start sueing!

Re:I hope so

[obarel]

As long as you don't give any points for performing "feats of style that are not necessary tasks of the game"...

link

Re:I hope so

[Hercynium]

hehe - I've seen some of your work - and built some systems on top of it. I'm not so sure the moderators know your background; I would have modded as interesting.

(Unless you really are kidding - then the joke's on me :) )

"Disruptive technology"

[jlowery]

What's a "disruptive technology"? One that disrupts, of course. And just how useful a term is that? Sounds like content-free marketroid jingoism to me.

do I have the chops?

[boxlight]

I'm 36, and been programming professionally for 10 years, been part of 2 failed start-ups and 2 corporate layoffs.

After watching other managers' hits and big misses for 10 years, and learning a lot about computer programming and marketing along the way -- only *now* do i seriously feel i have the chops to take a shot at building a successful product. But will I do it?

That's where the youthful enthusiasm comes in. Youthful enthusiasm and being under 30 is great because you don't have a wife and a mortgage payment yet. Like Steve Jobs said, "stay hungry and stay foolish". You have to be pretty "foolish" to leave a great paying programming job to take a shot on the next "digg.com" -- try telling that to you wife -- "but honey, when i get 50,000 visitors a day, *then* i'll figure out how to pay the mortgage".

For every Bill Gates and Steve Jobs who made it big under 30, there's a thousand guys who failed a dozen times.

More power to you, entrepeneurs -- I may join you one day. Just have to get a little more foolish first.

boxlight

Re:do I have the chops?

[EraserMouseMan]

I don't know. I don't think it's really foolishness. It's more of being more able to take bigger risks. Taking an entrepreneurial risk is foolish if you have a house wife and kids. It's really not foolish if you're single living in your mother's basement.

What I'm afraid of about your comment is that calling it "foolish" is a way for you to make yourself feel responsible and justified for not taking calculated risks that would really pay off.

Re:do I have the chops?

[DogDude]

You have to be pretty "foolish" to leave a great paying programming job to take a shot on the next "digg.com" -- try telling that to you wife -- "but honey, when i get 50,000 visitors a day, *then* i'll figure out how to pay the mortgage".

Actually, I did that, but instead of doing yet ANOTHER web site, I did a brick-and-mortar business. It's been 4 years, and I still miss the 6 figure salary. 4 years ago: sports cars, big house, only Banana Republic clothes. today: studio apartment, lots of peanut butter, and computers from the thrift store. I still don't know if this was a good idea.

But you're exactly right about age. If I were to do the same thing today (early 30's), I doubt that I'd even have the physical energy to do it.

Re:do I have the chops?

[doombob]

I'm 24 and have had a wife and mortgage payment for almost two years! But believe it or not, she actually likes my a-ha moments and tries to help me out as best she can. Now, we both work full time, but with all the things that we try to do in our "free time" it may seem to outsiders that we have two full time jobs. It's only that we enjoy the work we do - especially when those interests overlap.

Even Worse: American BIAS!

[Anonymous Coward]

That article is incredibly biased in favor of American entrepreneurs. "Businessweek" should have also included a healthy helping of European entrepreneurs.

Also, "Businessweek" should have considered the quality of the new businesses. Even though the per-capita number of startups in Europe is lower than that in the USA, the quality of those startups is higher than the quality in the USA. Remember all the failed startups in the DotCom boom?

Now, consider 2 stellar European startups that have made a difference. They are Opera Software (builder of the fastest, most compact browsers for Windows machines) and Virtutech (builder of the first commercial full-system computer simulator).

Age Discrimination

[Orion Blastar]

there are cutting edge developers over the age of 30, why are they not being covered as well? Yet again, another discrimination issue.

Note, I am a cutting edge developer over the age of 30, and I know of many others as well.

Re:Age Discrimination

[Bull999999]

Maybe because it's given that older folks have more experience and (hopefully) wisdom and thus it's easier for the older folks to be successful.

Remember the Dotcom failures

[Orion Blastar]

Mostly cutting edge developers under the age of 30 starting companies up to do what nobody else was doing. They formed Dotcom corporations but had an Underpants Gnomes type Business Model:

#1 Develop cutting edge applications that nobody else are doing.

#2 ?

#3 Profit

If you are going to develop cutting edge programs that nobody else is doing, make sure that there is a market for it. You will find a market for it if it is meeting customers' needs. What you need to do is find needs that nobody else is filling, and design cutting edge programs to fill those needs. Only then will you avoid a Dotcom bubble burst.

Re:Remember the Dotcom failures

[Reality Master 101]

What you need to do is find needs that nobody else is filling, and design cutting edge programs to fill those needs.

Actually, my point is that you DON'T need to find something that "nobody else is filling". It's incredibly hard to find totally virgin territory. If you're waiting for that to happen, you'll probably have a very long wait.

The play with a much higher probability of success is to find a niche with a lot of demand. The fact that there are a lot of players making money there means that it's a successful niche! The trick is to find a way to elbow your way into your share of the business (that's also called "marketing"). Of course, you want to choose a niche that you're good at.

Take Internet hosting companies. Tons of 'em, right? Well, that's because the market is big enough to support tons of them. You don't have to reinvent the idea of a hosting company to have a successful little business with recurring income. That's just an example -- there are lots of little businesses like that.

Re:Remember the Dotcom failures

[oliverthered]

Virgin territory : Linux usability.
Possibility to setup a profitable company and actually getting OSS developers to follow standards ~= 0.

Re:Remember the Dotcom failures

[Orion Blastar]

But what distingises your company from the others? Why would a customer choose your Internet Hosting Company over Yahoo Geocities, Pair.net, GoDaddy, and many others? It would only be because you are filling a need that the others are not filling. Who knows maybe you support PHP, ASP.NET (via Novel Mono), JSP, and Perl for scripting languages and the others do not? Maybe you have a different pricing plan? Maybe you designed an easier to use web based HTML creation program?

I wanted to make the better eCommernce store, but lots of luck, too many people doing that. I wanted to make an ERP program, and a logistics inventory control program better than Wal-Mart uses. Yet doing so would infring upon patents and other companies who had the same ideas as me. So I look for something different, or do those things differently than the others and fill different needs.

Where disruptive technology comes from...

[Anonymous Coward]

Harvard's Clayton Christensen (one of the leading innovation gurus) points out that disruptive technology is often developed in the labs of large companies. Large companies don't have idiots for managers, they just have a very very difficult time coping with disruptive technology. So, if you're looking for disruptive technology, don't ignore what the big boys are doing in their labs. You may be able to use it where they can't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_M._Christense n

Re:Where disruptive technology comes from...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, for the last 30+ years I've been working for companies large and small, and there's more idiot managers out there than Scott Adams will EVER be able to catalog. Many of them have the ethics of a pedophile. They all come with a college degree in Underwater Basketweaving and an MBA, but they've never held a leadership position in anything other than the line to piss at a ball game. (no, that's not a cheap shot at jocks.)

They have no idea of the value of money, and they've never held a job that really produced anything, especially a sweat. They believe that nothing is more important than their pet project, including the survival of the company they've infected. They think nothing of embezzling, inflating expense reports, forging reports to the government, or putting all the VC into dope and whores. They'll lie sincerely to the VC's, the shareholders, the auditors, the media, the FBI, their staff, and to the trophy wife they're cheating on. They'll take potential customers on week long sex parties in the Caribbean, and pay huge bonuses to each other and to sales people who didn't make their quota. They'll bribe customers into buying crap they don't need, but it's ok with them to freeze your pay for a few years at a shot. The fuckers breed like mice, and hire each other over more talented people every time. A rare few will fly into a rage and threaten to kill you in front of senior management, who suddenly go deaf and blind.

This leads to the eventual death of the company under the weight of bad management. You might call this the Solbourne Effect, the SGI Effect, or the Exabyte Effect. Soon you may be able to call it the Sun Microsystems Effect, unless they start whacking managers as fast as they're RIF'ing employees.

They'll shut down a company with adequate sales and nearly unlimited VC in order to get their platinum parachute, swearing that there's nothing more that could be done. You'll see them a few days later in a new BMW or Porsche, already in a new company that needs to be raped while you're still trying to convince unemployment that the company no longer exists. Yes, I mean you Carl, you fat pimple on the ass of humanity. Wharton never produced a better example of scum than you.

For all the rest I haven't bothered to name, rest assured that when you finally die, I'll be shitting into your open coffin at the funeral while your family watches. Once they see my demonstration, there'll be a long line of them waiting to shit in your face also.

And for the record, I'm not bitter, just patiently waiting.

Thinking outside the box

[Confused]

Look at what they're not doing and focus on that.

Has any of those mighty business analyst ever thought, that there might be a good reason why things are the way they are? That perhaps all those people doing business now aren't complete idiots and actually have some idea what they're doing and aren't waiting for a bunch of college kid to tell them how the world works?

Where are all those so-terribly-bright entrepreneurs from the 90s today? Most of them are failures and learned the hard way that the ideas outside the box have been kicked out of the box because they don't work. Very clever to tell people to sift through the intellectual refuse instead of learning from other people's experience.

And before launching into the search of the next disruptive technology, one should first check how many came along in the past 20 years. I guess there were no more than 5 worldwide, the rest were just millions of little evolutionary steps from within the box.

Good business sense would mandate to send your potential competition on a wild goose chase for the next disruption while going on working the established market with proven ideas.

Re:Thinking outside the box

[pavera]

Where are all those so-terribly-bright entrepreneurs from the 90s today?

I'd say most of them cashed out a decent chunk of change, and are living quite happily. Yes the companies they founded may have failed, but I bet most of those 20 something's that actually got companies to the IPO stage made out quite nicely. I actually personally know 2 such people, yeah they still work, but they have > 2 million sitting in the bank against a rainy day, not exactly what I would call failure.

Re:Thinking outside the box

[Anonymous Coward]

One could argue that they were terribly lucky, not necessarily terribly bright.

Re:Thinking outside the box

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, what a complete and total ass kicking you gave them, kudos.. great points

Re:Thinking outside the box

[khallow]

Well, good luck beats brightness any day, but not everyone uses it well.

An omission?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the coolest new companies out there run by twenty-somethings is Etsy -- they've got more cool stuff going on there than most of the businesses listed in this article.

Re:An omission?

[sryx]

Ok this is going to sound like I'm somehow connected to Etsy, but just in case anyone decides to trust me that I'm not, I have to say having just spent the last 30 minutes gawking at some of the coolest Flash UI I have ever seen these guys (or gals, I haven't figured out yet) have one hell of a web site. I really think they are on a strong track to getting bought out by a Yahoo or even Ebay (for just there brilliant way of browsing user contributed content and favorites) I don't think they would be in Google's radar (just considering their aversion to Flash) but who knows. Is anyone else doing this kind of stuff in any other internet space? I don't know what their long term plans are but they are doing everything right in getting noticed. And I'm saying this as the CEO of my own web company (who is thankfully not in their industry, other wise I would be quite intimidated)
-Jason

the unatainable is atainable

[mcguyver]

at zombo.com.

but seriously...intersting list of young, solid businesses. The jury is still out on many of these businesses.

Disruptive or deceptive

[amightywind]

Erchak says. 'Look at what they're not doing and focus on that. That's where the real disruptive technology comes from.'"

I agree with your post. This term 'disruptive' is really tiresome. After the dotcom bust the term seemed to have fallen into disfavor with a lot of other silly expressions, like 'agility', 'service velocity', 'web time'. The only ones who continue to use it seem to be too young know they should be embarrassed. When I hear visionary types prattle on using it I think 'deceptive' instead.

mod the parent! but do it funny

[Anonymous Coward]

"Informative" lol

I hope you were only expecting 100% funny. I guess no moderators over 30 today :-)

Urm, not exactly

[Marce1]

How useful - slagging off CMS system on\.

Yes, because by 30 you have a wife...

[Colin Smith]

House, mortgage, kids, car payments etc etc. Your attention is divided, you've got no chance of coming up with the next big thing because you're laden down with frankly far more important problems to solve.

Hardly...

[Omaze]

Been saddled with too many jobs where I get pushed into a corner, loaded with completely unreasonable goals, been blocked at every angle by the management when trying to meet those goals, and then been pushed out the door. Maybe I'm the only one treated this way. It's been my experience that promotions and advancement are best modelled as a clique. If you weren't selected to be in the clique when you walked in the door then there's no chance.

Hey... feel free to prove me wrong. Show me a job where the management gives me the tools I need to meet the goals they set. Show me a job where I can put in two years of outstanding performance and be able to ask for a raise without getting the usual,"You should be lucky just to have a job!" So far the only experience that I've had is the same that American colonists received when they were employed in the British military: happy to have you here, don't expect any recognition or thanks, if you ask for so much as a glass of water you'll be derided as a malcontent.

I don't burn out but it's been demonstrated to me over and over that burning out is what is expected of me. If I don't acquiesce to burning out then I get chased out the door. "You will submit to failure or else we will make you fail."

Nice.

Who cares about the VC Funding?

[RunFatBoy.net]

I think what is most exciting is that with the right skills, someone can build a cutting edge service from the ground up for a few hundred dollars. * Open Source; web development has come such a long way and a majority of the packages making strides are open source (Ruby on Rails, PHP). You can't much cheaper than that. * Hosting is a commodity; there are some competitive packages out there for next to nothing (Dreamhost, Lunarpages). * Location agnostic; it's not necessary to have offices when your presence is online. No need for costly overhead when your bedroom will suffice. It's nice to see a point where the small-guy has a low enough entry point where they can compete immediately with the big guys.

Re:Who cares about the VC Funding?

[sryx]

On one hand I totally agree with you. I started 4 years ago (while a student at a Community College) to build a student service portal for my school. Knowing that I would need to balance limited funds with high production quality, I selected Java, Tomcat and MySQL (with a "back of my mind" emphasis on someday working on Oracle and SQL Server). Now that was a full production environment with no upfront costs (except the time investment needed to learn how to full utilize the software). Now 4 years later I have my own company, I market elements of my student portal for for as much as $20K.
But there is an obvious limit to how far I can take this code-base. As solid and dependable as it is, the kinds of clients I am talking to now are interested in a greater support network underneath it. They want to see a company with more employees than just me, and they want to be able to know that some technician can assist them within 24 hours (hard to do when I'm on the road presenting, a Blackberry only goes so far). The fact is the number of concurrent clients that I can handle time wise produces less than I need to handle them (resource wise), and to price my software higher only produces fewer sales. The solution, raise money, and build the support base needed to sell my software closer to it's full market value.
Along with my family's financial support and some great mentoring from my business partner, I built a collection of products for around $40,000 (along with a bunch of temp jobs and programming contracts to help pay rent). That would not have been possible if it weren't for the free software movement, and the amazing amount of documentation found on the web, but to market this software as anything other than the "budget solution" we need marketing capitol.
Social Network business models can change this arrangement for some markets, but most traditional businesses still require investment.
-Jason

Re:Who cares about the VC Funding?

[vertinox]

Who cares about the VC Funding?

I dunno... If I start a business like Infinium Labs and get $67 million dollars to produce something that doesn't even get close to market... I think I wouldn't mind it.

Re:Who cares about the VC Funding?

[RunFatBoy.net]

But it's not like you're unaccountable for $67 million. Product doesn't make it to market; do you think you get to buy a jetski now?

Anything that isn't used first and foremost goes back to the investors. And if the investors think you botched the development, they may sue you.

Any VC funding is a *huge* liability and should only be pursued if absolutely necessary. Listen to Jason Fried's opening presentation at South by Southwest for more about this philosophy ( http://server1.sxsw.com/2006/coverage/SXSW06.INT.2 0060311.Opening.Remarks.mp3 ).

--
Jim
http://www.runfatboy.net/

They got it totally wrong!!!

[Flashpot]

Everyone knows that

Old Age and Treachery will always overcome Youth, Enthusiasm and Skill!

Not only that...

[brunes69]

.... but half of them don't have much of a business model.

Take Meebo for example. Sure, it's cool, but what's their model? Ads on the site? What?

Plus they are going to have the problem of competing with the IM networks themselves. I mean, GTalk already has a web client. So do ICQ and Yahoo!, although they are Java based. And if you are , you really think it woul dbe a big deal to whip up an AJAX IM client? I think not.

An MBA is worthless.

[AnonymousPrick]

I have one and it didn't do me any good. An MBA teaches you how to be a corporate drone. You'll notice that all of the great entrepreneurs, regardless of business area, DO NOT HAVE MBAs. They have street smarts, or a degree from the school of hard knocks. For example, in Jim Rogers book, "Investment Biker", he advises someone to take the money that they would spend on an MBA and start a business. In the first 6 months of business, even if they fail, they will learn more than they ever would in an MBA program.

Here's what I suggest to techies: if you really need to go to school to learn somehting, go for a certificate. Many B-Schools offer a certificate program where you just take the subjects that you're interested in without having to spend 2+ years getting a degree. Subjects I recomend: Stats, Economics, Accounting, Business Plan Writing, Finance - everything else is common sense, fluff and a way for a University to get more revenue.

Re:An MBA is worthless.

[AutopsyReport]

Someone mod this up please. Very insightful.

Re:An MBA is worthless.

[Alex P Keaton in da]

Wow- you don't seem to respect an MBA, which is of course, your right. I would disagree with you in a few places. It depends on your background. If you have an undergrad degree in business, and want to start your own company, then you will likely have what you need. But many people I meet, whether on slashdot or in the real world, know nothing about business. Some of these people are geniuses- they may be able to build a time machine- but they have no idea about concepts like the present value of money, ammortization, depreciation, proper marketing etc etc etc, all things that are, well, important to know.
If I may say so, you seem like one of the typical MBA haters- the 22 year old kids who think that they could run the company better than the boss, even though they know nothing about money or business. Are you one of those people, who see a guy in a Ferrari, and get jealous, and say that he must have a small penis?

Re:An MBA is worthless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow- you don't seem to respect an MBA, which is of course, your right. I would disagree with you in a few places. It depends on your background. If you have an undergrad degree in business, and want to start your own company, then you will likely have what you need. But many people I meet, whether on slashdot or in the real world, know nothing about business. Some of these people are geniuses- they may be able to build a time machine- but they have no idea about concepts like the present value of money, ammortization, depreciation, proper marketing etc etc etc, all things that are, well, important to know.
If I may say so, you seem like one of the typical MBA haters- the 22 year old kids who think that they could run the company better than the boss, even though they know nothing about money or business. Are you one of those people, who see a guy in a Ferrari, and get jealous, and say that he must have a small penis?

Signed,
I just spent a ton to get an MBA.

age comments

[Anonymous Coward]

I've read a lot of funny age-related comments here, but let's face it: Articles like these, after they're seen for the 100th time, eventually work their way into the subconscious of executives and HR drones. What follows? Age discrimination, of course.

These kids need to be beaten

[DogDude]

Seriously. These kids need to be beaten. I'm so SICK of reading about weasels that produce *NOTHING*, but because they can wear a suit and make a fucking PowerPoint presentation, they end up swimming in money from investors. I'm pissed off because I've spent the last 4 years beating my brains out to actually CREATE something (several full-time jobs with benefits, and a shitload of tax revenue for my town, thank you), nobody handed me a cent, and I'm still not anywhere near as loaded as these fuckwads are (I'm still in the Ramn Noodles and peanut butter phase). I mean, all they have to do is put together a presentation, put on some monkey suits, and all of a sudden they're in phat San Fran offices, sitting in Herman Miller chairs, sipping on $5 coffees, and talking about "synergy", WHILE PRODUCING NOTHING OF REAL VALUE. These are the kinds of people that I would beat senseless, given the opportunity.

Re:These kids need to be beaten

[LordSnooty]

Damn straight. Out of 11 entries on this list, I've heard of precisely one venture - Skype. Either I don't get out much on the Internet, or this piece is nothing more than PR puff for some bedroom websites. I mean, "Yelp", a review site? "Real people, real reviews". That's what the world needs, another user-created review site. Well excuse me for never encountering it.

Re:These kids need to be beaten

[Bull999999]

I'd be pissed, too, if I worked my ass off for four years and have nothing to show for.

Re:These kids need to be beaten

[DogDude]

I didn't say "nothing", but it's nothing compared to what these leeches can make in one afternoon doing their dance in front of VC's. The sad thing is that I actually could do what they do, but I'd have so little respect for myself that I'd have to commit seppukku.

Re:These kids need to be beaten

[Geminii]

I've tried producing stuff of value, and I'm sick of being devalued because of it. Tell you what - you want the money, but not the suit. I want to turn my brain off and vegetate/recover for a bit. I'll take the hit for you, wear the suit, sit in the plush office and send you half the cash :) Ciao, baby.

Re:These kids need to be beaten

[Bull999999]

Then should't you think that your self-respect is more important than money those guys got from VCs? Not to mention that history shows that businesses with flash ideas but no real product usualy go bust like the dot bombs of late 90's.

No, we don't.

[elucido]

I think disruptive technology ultimately is a stupid idea. It will accomplish nothing, and at best will simply piss people off. Innovation is good, but don;'t be an activist.

I dub thee...

[Anonymous Coward]

Meebo's Law: if you want to be sure the person you're IM'ing is really a girl, the only way to be sure is to have founded an IM company yourself with only girls.

Well, So was Jesus Christ

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyomous Weeper

what are the good ideas?

[PCeye]

I can demonstrate having bad ideas too...

The industry is not making bluetoothed enabled toilet paper roll / pez dispensers. ...what are the good ideas the marketplace wants?

'Look at what they're not doing and focus on that' is not stupid advice if you understand it in terms of a consumer or business need that is currently not being satisfied by anyone the marketplace. Find and implement solutions for these needs and there will be yer$$$

You have to catch it, it doesn't stream to you!

[oliverthered]

I have to work for someone else doing a job I don't really like (or one that's not too inspiring), not because I don't have good ideas and implement them but because if I enjoy doing something I just too much of a commie to want or even like to be given money for doing it.

I've also had paid jobs that I found just too inspiring and spent all day dreaming about helping people out and fixing their problems (as in this product will really make their lives better) and couldn't keep working there.

Good ideas: ten a penny.
Getting off your ass : $10.
Actually wanting to get paid : priceless.

Cutting edge? Try niche.

[Jack9]

I haven't used a single product by any company in that article other than paypal :p There are hundreds of multi-million dollar valued/invested companies. I don't see any of the OTHER mentioned companies going anywhere. I see the article (which is only a preface to these little slide notes) as a fluff piece. Thx /. that was definitely news that mattered....

...hard to find totally virgin territory.

[Anonymous Coward]

This - of course - doesn't apply to Slashdot.org.

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's Logan's Run?

translated for slashdot

[emilng]

'Don't look at what the industry is doing,' Erchak says. 'Look at what they're not doing and focus on that. That's where the real disruptive technology comes from.'

1. The industry is not making a ...
2. ????
3. Profit!

Doubtful.

[Anonymous Coward]

Note, I am a cutting edge developer over the age of 30

You have a Geocities page.

The end.

ahhh Bubble 2.0 has arrived

[defected]

And I thought Harry S. Dent Jr. was full of crap.

My 14 yo son could do better

[WillAffleckUW]

Today he was planning a new recycling business.

Subtext

[Spit]

Young is cheap.

O (Raven) Riley?

[Bushido Hacks]

According to Wikipedia, Ms. Riley was born in 1985, which makes her about 21. What does Raven Riley do for a living? She is putting herself through college through the power of the Internet...one $2.75/mo at a time.
(.)(.) ;-)

ObHeywoodBanks

[sharkey]

I am older than a lot of famous dead guys.
A lot of famous dead guys, didn't live as long as me!

What's needed....

[SonicSpike]

I would say 80% effort/presistance, 10% intelligence, and 10% luck.

Re:Even Worse: American BIAS!

[Breakfast Pants]

If you are the builder of the best product in your market it doesn't make you a "stellar" startup. You also have to figure out how to make money with it.

They are all men

[Anonymous Coward]

Conspicuously no chicks in the list.

With the exception of Janus Friis, he almost made me hot.

Mod Parent Funny, Not Insightful

[Anonymous Coward]

He was joking about Web 2.0, for God's sake!

These stereotypes need to be beaten

[Anonymous Coward]

"Seriously. These kids need to be beaten. I'm so SICK of reading about weasels that produce *NOTHING*, but because they can wear a suit and make a fucking PowerPoint presentation, they end up swimming in money from investors."

Sounds like envy on your part. Or did you not notice Digium on that list?

"I mean, all they have to do is put together a presentation, put on some monkey suits, and all of a sudden they're in phat San Fran offices, sitting in Herman Miller chairs, sipping on $5 coffees, and talking about "synergy", WHILE PRODUCING NOTHING OF REAL VALUE."

Slashdot stereotype #1003. For a bunch of educated people. You all are the most narrow minded group I've ever seen.

54 flavors of disruptive technology from "th dude"

[RabidTrucker]

from: http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/0 3/13/1930259 >

Under 30 and On The Cutting Edge Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday March 13, @03:49PM from the tales-from-the-front dept. conq writes "BusinessWeek has an interesting piece on cutting edge technology entrepreneurs under 30. From the article: 'Don't look at what the industry is doing,' Erchak says. 'Look at what they're not doing and focus on that. That's where the real disruptive technology comes from.'"

I'm not against the under 30 crowd. Looks like me & this Erchak dude are on the same page. I'll have to take a moment to digest that, the very thought someone might be sharing my page is a new thought for me. This page of my dual, back-to-back solenoid waterwheel >
http://www.newpath4.com/millenialdawnpowerandlight secure21.htm

places me squarely opposed to what everyone & every industry is doing. Unless, of course, you insist on calling it perpetual motion even though it is not perp. Never was & isn't now. The energy imparted into the balls is translated into the generator rotation. No motion is left when the balls return back to start.

Then there's the liquid air steam vapor smasher > http://www.newpath4.com/enginewow.htm & http://www.newpath4.com/icyhot7.htm with more links here > http://free.seekon.com/NonNuclearFusionEngines/ . A few people have been trying to put the perpetual motion tag on it also; wrong. Outside energy is involved -indirectly, gravity energy vehicle moving inertia/kinetic energy- that is engaged, ERASING THE PERP TAG. Air compressors replace the springs & shocks {that do nothing with all the road contact energies, stopping/starting/turning energies}... instead using EVERY SCRAP OF ENERGY NOW BEING IGNORED. Real-time energy!, not stored energy. Even the car battery is but a fraction of the present weight & size.

The electrical energy now being used for 50,000 volt spark plugs is used instead to heat small amounts of water into flash steam, much like the flash steam from a steam iron. SMALL AMOUNTS of WATER with a SMALL PUMP runs the water droplets through an electrically heated conduit enroute to the engine cylinder.

I think some people think this must be a mini steam locomotive; wrong. Maybe same-page Erchak would understand how different this system is from the steam locomotive since he recognizes a totally new technology when he sees it. Steam "power" isn't what the steam supplies. Steam supplies a quickening catalyst that helps the SMALL TINY amount of liquid air to E.X.P.L.O.D.E, not just e x p a n d, EXPLODE.

The steam is a catalyst to the compressed air {liquid at Minus 320 Fahrenheit} so it the air explodes into instant expansion {horsepower-time = instant in time = Full afterburners y'all}. At the same time, the cold of the expanding air catalysts the H2O in the steam to INSTANT COLLAPSE. This instant vacuum sucks the piston head toward the expanding air and the expanding air toward the piston head. Bango my brother, and you can throw all the drilling bits into the nearest car shredder or steel foundry. We don't need no stinkin' crude oil any more.

What oil we do use is easily supplied by biofarmdiesel & you've also got ethanol.

Hmm. I guess that solves eveything. Anyone on my page yet? What about THE PLANE, THE PLANES? Oh yeah. Well, just so happens I know a few changes & adjustments I can make to the Millenial Dawn engine that will make a car levitate along. You wanted the Jetsons right? I got better. No poop poop smoke out th' back. No smoke from either engine. No climate change, no New Zealand permafrost melting nor the permafrost i

you forgot Skype

[xmedar]

and on the subject of Businessweek, it's an American cheerleader, nice looking, zero brains, it is what we would call "lightweight", over here in Europe we have more depth with publications like The Economist and what's going on in the rest of the world is quite interesting too, though I havent found much in the way of English speaking publications cataloging it, for example I just discovered that Winny the Japanese p2p program is used by ~600K users and that lots of Japanese government information, some of it classified is ending up on that network.

Worthless interns?

[Anonymous Coward]

If those interns were in any computer related field, I feel sorry for them. Machines were already well into Mhz when I was a young'un, but I still had a concept that a machine with a frequency in the Hz could exist. Oh wait, I'm a freshman in college, I would be one of those interns! How could they have missed the existence of something running at Mhz?