[jond2062]

You hit the nail on the head. The problem is, most of my peer network are people who see the allure of money in the finance world and want to work their way up the ladder. And the engineers that I know are not yet ready to break out and do something on their own.

[aggieben]

That's exactly the problem I've had. There's 2-3 people I've worked with in the last 3 years I've approached about getting our nuts out of the corporate lock-box, and none of them have any interest. With two of them, you can tell immediately that the thought of leaving a corporate position for their own enterprise has never even crossed their minds. The other one overestimates the risk involved.

sigh

[jfornear]

You live in Dallas right? Good luck finding anyone here that hasn't been raised to climb the corporate ladder. I'm still in school, but I also find it pretty depressing to be around so many people that don't like thinking big or taking risks.

[aggieben]

Yup. It's just in the water, I think. It's starting to get better, particularly in the East parts, like Plano and Richardson. There's an incubator in Richardson, actually - it's called Star Tech Early Ventures (startechev.com). I've been talking with them, but it's not quite the same model as YC, as best I can tell (i.e., their interests are a little more diverse than those of YC, I think - make what you will of that).