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What they're looking for is people with under-developed bullsh*t detectors. I suspect the reason IT applications are sometimes being pioneered by younger peopl

What they're looking for is people with under-developed bullsh*t detectors. I suspect the reason IT applications are sometimes being pioneered by younger people has more to do with immersion in the technology from an early age that can provide novel insights into how people will use technology. But as the years roll on and the low-hanging fruit (like facebook) is picked clean, the young folks are going to find it increasingly harder to uncover problems to be solved.

Vivtek 15y ago
There will never be a shortage of problems to be solved.
- Czarnian 15y ago
  Never said there would be. Just saying that the problems are going to be increasingly obscure and harder to solve.
  - einhverfr 15y ago
    I am not sure about that. A lot of solutions are to surprisingly obvious problems that nobody ever saw before because we were accustomed to them.
greenyoda 15y ago
I think that picking all of your business ideas out of a group that's immersed in a particular technology and culture also has a downside: lack of diversification. There may still be lots of money to be made, for example, in innovative software for corporate IT departments, but nobody in their 20s is likely to be interested in that. From an investment point of view, an undiversified portfolio is risky -- if all of a VC's investments are in social networking or iPhone apps, then a decline in that market segment could wipe them out. Also, a large amount of the low-hanging fruit is concentrated in narrow areas, like web-based businesses. Social networking web sites are something that you don't need a lot of experience or education or capital to be able to build -- some smart guy who has been programming since his teens can drop out of college and do it. But you're less likely to hear about some guy who just dropped out of college starting a successful bio-tech company or figuring out how to design a more efficient car, since you're not likely to be able to pick up too much experience in those fields on your own. This leads to a further lack of diversification the VC world. Not to mention that if everybody is pushing into the same crowded market, they'll all be competing against each other. All this may help explain why, as the article points out, VCs are underperforming the Russell 2000 (a very broad-based stock market index).

Vivtek 15y ago

There will never be a shortage of problems to be solved.

Czarnian 15y ago
Never said there would be. Just saying that the problems are going to be increasingly obscure and harder to solve.
- einhverfr 15y ago
  I am not sure about that. A lot of solutions are to surprisingly obvious problems that nobody ever saw before because we were accustomed to them.

greenyoda 15y ago

I think that picking all of your business ideas out of a group that's immersed in a particular technology and culture also has a downside: lack of diversification. There may still be lots of money to be made, for example, in innovative software for corporate IT departments, but nobody in their 20s is likely to be interested in that. From an investment point of view, an undiversified portfolio is risky -- if all of a VC's investments are in social networking or iPhone apps, then a decline in that market segment could wipe them out. Also, a large amount of the low-hanging fruit is concentrated in narrow areas, like web-based businesses. Social networking web sites are something that you don't need a lot of experience or education or capital to be able to build -- some smart guy who has been programming since his teens can drop out of college and do it. But you're less likely to hear about some guy who just dropped out of college starting a successful bio-tech company or figuring out how to design a more efficient car, since you're not likely to be able to pick up too much experience in those fields on your own. This leads to a further lack of diversification the VC world. Not to mention that if everybody is pushing into the same crowded market, they'll all be competing against each other. All this may help explain why, as the article points out, VCs are underperforming the Russell 2000 (a very broad-based stock market index).