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Who Doesn't Want to be an e-Millionaire?
Got
the blues because you haven't cashed in yet? Let the i-prodigies
have their millions, says Jen King. |
by Jennifer
King | march 21, 2000
Ken was the
first i-prodigy I encountered in the flesh. He was the once removed
ex-friend of a good friend on a tree of ever-growing associations,
and for reasons only i-prodigies would truly understand, his
anonymity was essential. In fact, Ken wasn't even his name, but
that's what I'm calling him for now.
I'd read about his kind,
of course; kids born with a mouse in one hand and a Palm in the other, wired
and ready to launch a startup at 22 and retire in style at
25.
So when he told me over drinks that he'd dropped out of
MIT after his freshman year because he'd had too many job offers to
pass up, I was savvy enough to not drop my drink on the floor in
shock.
Had Ken not been so earnest and charming, I would have
found it difficult to contain my intimidation. What do you say when
a guy barely old enough to drink begins to tell you about how he's
the CTO of a startup he and his buddies work at when they're not
working their day jobs at other startups? Or how he taught
himself programming and began working at startups while in high
school?
Just a few short years ago when I graduated from
college, looks — not management experience — made youth desirable.
Suddenly, society is handing over the keys to the economy to people
who've barely even held jobs, or worse yet, have only viewed the
world through the ivy-encrusted windows of their
dormitories.
Case in point: Check out Paradigm Blue, a
venture capital firm created to "directly address the specific
challenges of dorm-room startups and contribute more deeply to the
development of winning companies." Paradigm Blue's management team,
which apparently has "the skills, experience and ability to build a
successful business and attract excellent people," includes two
upperclassmen from Yale who have yet to even see the world from
outside their collegiate haven.
Dorm-room startups aside, I'm
not knocking the accomplishments of these talented twentysomethings.
There's no denying the impact that upstart youngsters like Netscape
founder Marc Andreessen and Yahoo! founders Jerry
Yang and David Filo have had on the wired world.
What I'm
curious to see is what the next act holds in store for these kids.
If they're anything like their peers in the entertainment industry,
well, I'll be seeking an incubator for my own startup, a tell-all
gossip rag about startup burnouts. Forget Business 2.0 — enter
the National E-quirer.
Of course, this presupposes that
these i-prodigies actually know something about breaking loose and
having fun. But when you're too busy hammering out code and scarfing
down Domino's at 2 a.m. to be bothered with sleeping, let alone sex,
drugs or techo, chances are you're not even in the running for Miss
Congeniality.
Decadence aside, what's in store for someone
whose professional life peaks at 28? Sure, some have the luxury of
simply retiring and playing Unreal all day, but what about the rest of these
suckers who bought into the myth before they could even buy a pack
of cigarettes? Wasn't child labor abolished two centuries ago?
I may not be an e-millionaire, but when I see these kids
jumping straight into the startup world fresh out of college, I
reflect back to the good old days, four, almost five years ago now.
A golden time, when after graduating I ran around the country with a
bunch of hippies, and then moved to Hawaii, determined to drop out
for a bit, meander, not worry about being on the fast
track.
I want to tell the i-prodigies of the world to run,
run far and fast, that this crazy-ass working world isn't going
anywhere, there will always be a new, new thing waiting right around
the corner. If you get there at 35 or even 45 instead of 25, who
cares? Do you really want to remember your twenties as one long blur
of 13-hour workdays?
I admit it — I do envy Ken. It must be
a rush to be in such high demand. But at the same time, I can think
back to any one of the succession of nights I spent swimming under a
full Hawaiian moon, without a single thought of the wired world
occupying my head, and I wouldn't trade places with him for
anything.
Jennifer King is a freelance writer and web
producer living in Oakland, Calif. Her column, i-Jen, appears
monthly on Shewire. Tell her how much you love her: kingjen@hotmail.com.
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