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> By conventional standards, Jobs and Wozniak were marginal people too. Obviously they were smart, but they can't have looked good on paper. They were at the ti
by pshin45 12y ago
> By conventional standards, Jobs and Wozniak were marginal people too. Obviously they were smart, but they can't have looked good on paper. They were at the time a pair of college dropouts with about three years of school between them, and hippies to boot. [...] Now a startup operating out of a garage in Silicon Valley would feel part of an exalted tradition, like the poet in his garret, or the painter who can't afford to heat his studio and thus has to wear a beret indoors. But in 1976 it didn't seem so cool. The world hadn't yet realized that starting a computer company was in the same category as being a writer or a painter. It hadn't been for long. Only in the preceding couple years had the dramatic fall in the cost of hardware allowed outsiders to compete.
Clearly the people who make up the "insiders" and "outsiders/marginal" has changed and evolved over time - In the 70s and 80s Jobs & Woz were considered marginal, but eventually became the archetype of successful startup founders (the "brilliant marketer" and "genius hacker" tag team). More recently, Zuckerberg has also become a popular archetype as the "technical-founder-and-CEO-in-one".
That being said, I wonder who the outsiders living and working on the margins are today, as it pertains to successful startup founders. Based on the current zeitgeist, my first guesses would probably be (1) women, (2) (EDIT: underrepresented) ethnic minorities, and (3) people age 40 and above.
However, I'd love to hear what you all think...
- nostrademons 12y agoBig company employees, particularly those not employed by AmaGooFaceApp. Right now, everybody writes them off as boring or untalented because the products those companies put out are boring and unremarkable. But I've met a number of folks at Cisco, Yahoo, Lockheed, Motorola, IBM, etc. and there's a lot of hidden talent locked up in big companies that's completely squandered because the organizations are dysfunctional. WhatsApp proved that not all long-time Yahoo employees were idiots. Students, particularly high-school students. When I've gotten on IRC in #haskell or GitHub for major open-source projects, I've always been amazed to find that some star hacker who understands the whole system is under 20. Heck, I remember being that gifted teenager, but the Internet was brand new then and it was hard to find programming communities or places I could exercise my talents until I was in my 20s in college. Public-sector employees. I've learned, since joining Google, that the media is always about 2 years behind in reporting what the hot startup is that all the Xooglers are leaving for. When I joined in 2009 that was Facebook, but when I checked myself most of the high-profile departures were for startups; Facebook had been the popular destination in 2007. In 2011 the media reported on Xoogler startups, but most people leaving then were actually going to the new generation of fast-growers, like DropBox and Square and Pinterest. In 2013 they started making a big deal about all the departures for DropBox. Now what I'm seeing is that most of the folks I actually care about who leave are going to non-profits or public sector work. Things like Code For America, Khan Academy, or academia. Social impact investing. Just bumming around and advising startups.
- leoc 12y agoWozniak may have dropped out, but he was also a happy (and fairly well-regarded) Hewlett-Packard engineer, so he wasn't all that marginal.