The Real Issue In Silicon Valley: The Iconic People In Technology

Twenty-somethings changing the world and making billions in the process. Think Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg ... In one sentence, that sums up the real issue in the technology industry, because if you try to keep icons of that kind as a role model, you have the following issues:

1. If you have not changed the world by the time you are 30, you somehow consider yourself a failure
2. If you have not made billions or maybe hundreds or millions by the time you are 30, you somehow consider yourself a failure

Unfortunately, both the above statements sit at the heart of our 'impatient' generation. PG summarized it very well:

" It's not a good idea to use famous rich people as examples, because the press only write about the very richest, and these tend to be outliers. Bill Gates is a smart, determined, and hardworking man, but you need more than that to make as much money as he has. You also need to be very lucky."

But not being patient is okay - the real issue is that the hurry to succeed, begins to have an impact on the kind of problems we choose to solve - In an Instagram world, returns are not aligned to how important the problem is, it is aligned to how fast you can grow to millions of users.

Just as a thought exercise, let us think through this: our life expectancy has not gone down significantly compared to the previous generation - if most of them became a success in their 40s or 50s, maybe we can, too - this approach will give us time to ask Why Not? - but for that, we need to slow down first.