If you're efficient about coming up with interesting ideas, you'll come up with a lot that are just outside the bounds of what's obvious, given your current kno

If you're efficient about coming up with interesting ideas, you'll come up with a lot that are just outside the bounds of what's obvious, given your current knowledgebase. When you're younger, not only is your knowledgebase relatively small, but there have also been a lot of people with very similar knowledgebases before you... the result is that that space is pretty heavily tapped, and most of the "actually interesting" ideas you can have are well known to more knowledgeable folks. Before you learn enough to have an interesting starting point, the odds are against your getting interesting results.