[awt]

"The people that are using digital innovations to solve real world problems like energy, health care, agriculture, and transportation are ahead of the curve."

Those are all capital intensive. Most 20 year olds don't have that much capital. It would be great to see more investment in this space, though.

I'm sure someone straight out of school could write software to improve healthcare records management, but the cost of maneuvering through healthcare regulations would be higher than most could afford.

My point is that people fresh out of school who want to be independent are tackling the biggest problems they can on a budget of $1-2000/month.

[nlawalker]

Maybe that's the real lament then - that so many people fresh out of school have such a strong desire to be independent that they don't contribute to efforts to solve the problems you listed in your quote.

I'm not saying people aren't justified in wanting to not "work for the man". I'm just saying that maybe the fact that working for the man is perceived as such a bad thing (or is such a bad thing) is a bit closer to a root cause of America's problems than the idea that making people click ads is the best way to make a buck today.

[jshen]

true, but why is working for the man perceived as a bad thing? Could it be "the man's" fault?

I happen to work for the man and here are some issues. I can't release code as open source, I get paid the same regardless of whether I work my ass off or just do enough to be ahead of the curve, I have virtually no say in our products because I'm just an engineer (we have product people for product design), I have to get an act of congress passed to setup a server in a non company standard configuration, etc, etc, etc.

There are some up sides, one is that I get to focus and think deeply about my specific problem space which at one time was search relevance, and is now data mining. I don't have to do sys admin work, even though sometimes I'd rather do it, I have access to a very large hadoop grid that non startup would have built prior to success, there are a lot of really smart people with diverse backgrounds to bounce ideas off of, etc, etc.

Oh, but this man I work on is focused on ad clicks :)

[thorwed123]

You're ideal man is a university professor, he gets funding from NSF and NIH, and if you do work your ass off, Yes you do get significant share of the credit.

Go to a CS PhD program if you really want to innovate, forget all the crap that is spread on HN if you do get into top 5 or top 10 school, you will have equal amount of resources and at University even though they do have their own interests, they still want to see you succeed.

This is main difference between working and PhD, at a job you are a replaceable number at university depending on your advisor they are more concerned about your success and theirs as well.

[jshen]

There are a few assumptions I'd like to question in your comment.

First, innovation is not limited to what is of interest to a CS PhD program.

Second, I'm not interested in "innovating" per se, I'm interesting in creating things that add value to peoples lives and not being pigeonholed as either an engineer or a product person. I don't care if the ideas I'm using are new or not, only if what I'm building is enriching someones life and that my product has users.

Third, I've never been a replaceable number at a company, even large companies. If you work on hard problems, and are good at it, you aren't easily replaceable. People realize this, even when you're working for the man.

Finally, at university you often don't have access to real world data to do research. I know some big universities like epfl do partnerships where they work with researchers and engineers at companies in exchange for access to that companies data for research and publication.

[FrojoS]

I really love the idea of getting a Phd form one of those schools. And its true, people like Paul Graham did it and it seems like it served them well.

However, there are just as many counter examples. Elon Musk left Stanford's grad school after one day!

[beza1e1]

What a PhD does is "invention". The term "innovation" refers to bringing already invented things to the market.

[FrojoS]

So, if that "perfect man", the university advisor ask for so much invention that there is no time for innovation you are warmly welcomed to life in the ivory tower.

The best "man" is your free will. Its not the "perfect man" but the best we have.

[forgottenpaswrd]

"working for the man"(in his 60s) is the fastest way to stop innovating fast. They are earth grounded not "pie in the sky" reasonable people.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – George Bernard Shaw

Get a traditional job on your youth and wait to have a family to sustain and not being able to take risks. That is the definition of killing innovation and creativity. Kids are creative, middle age people are not. Kids can think out of the box, adults are "inside the box".

[ippisl]

|Kids are creative, middle age people are not.

In most fields(except the web) , most serious entrepreneurs are around 40.

[thorwed123]

How dare you go against the Cannon of YC/TechCrunch Everyone who is 30+ is an idiot. People are smartest when they are in High school and progressively detoriate as they learn more

[forensic]

People are smartest when they're old, but they're also the most risk-averse when they're old.

60 year olds today are generally uninterested in creating the future. Their main concern is with their own health I find. The more active 60 year olds also seem to love playing with real estate, buying/selling/renovating.

It's very hard to get them to invest in some future technology which will change the world.

[FrojoS]

Exactly! Another very important reason, why the US is THE innovator in the world. Its the only industrial country with lots of young people.

[lupatus]

Baloney

[hvs]

That's assuming that you can even break into the industry. Beyond regulations, most healthcare companies and hospitals have contracts with companies that basically prevent any sort of real competition. Much like the health insurance industry, health technology is in dire need of a revamping.

[JDulin]

"My point is that people fresh out of school who want to be independent are tackling the biggest problems they can on a budget of $1-2000/month."

As a teenager, I agree here. I know that I can build a trendy little web app for relatively nothing if it has the possibility of making me rich. However, any ideas I have for robotics, healthcare, and energy are going to require me working in a job at a large company (which I wouldn't like) or getting an unusually large amount of VC investment (which would be unlikely.)

I think the problem could be experience. For a recent graduate, it's hard to acquire the amount of VC funding you need for a hardware-based, regulated field when you can't say you have any entrepreneurial experience. For conservative VCs, there's a big difference between giving $20,000 to a college-age kid and giving $100,000 to a college-age kid.

[m311ton]

You're exactly right. The barriers to entry are significantly higher when trying to innovate in "real world" problems (vs entertainment based ventures). Hopefully incentives, incubators, and resources will come into play to help navigate those challenges. Some are there already but don't really receive the media coverage to inspire others to follow suit.