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

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: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.