> When I was a kid, you could either become an engineer and make cool things, or make lots of money by becoming an "executive." Now you can make lots of money b

> When I was a kid, you could either become an engineer and make cool things, or make lots of money by becoming an "executive." Now you can make lots of money by making cool things. Software is outrageously accessible. The threshold cost for make-lots-of-money-by-making-cool-things has fallen to a used laptop and a wifi password. The prerequisite talent is mostly the ability to focus relentlessly while illegitimi non carborundum. But since those are rare talents the laptop can only elevate rare people. It's a path to relative wealth for only a pareto distribution of people, like pretty much anything else. But it's a path to absolute wealth for most of the rest of us. Cool things that make money tend to make our lives better. Make-lots-of-money-by-making-cool-things is a recipe for both more absolute and unequal wealth.