Paul Graham writes a great essay on why the twenty-somethings are in a great position to start a business, especially a web-based one, given the current state of technology and the low barriers-of-entry. And he should know about this sort of thing–his business, Viaweb, the turn-key e-commerce solution, was acquired by Yahoo back in ‘98 and is now the popular Yahoo Stores.
What’s an especially productive 22 year old to do? One thing you can do is go over the heads of organizations, directly to the users. Any company that hires you is, economically, acting as a proxy for the customer. The rate at which they value you (though they may not consciously realize it) is an attempt to guess your value to the user. But there’s a way to appeal their judgement. If you want, you can opt to be valued directly by users, by starting your own company.
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