Fading Coolness

Interesting article about why start-ups are not cool anymore. The reasons are varied but the start-ups ideas are not that cool either. Mostly derivative of ideas that have succeeded before or it is an Uber-for or a Netflix-for something else. Stephen Harrison in the Atlantic article, writes: 

While the Austrian American economist Joseph Schumpeter is best known for his 1942 paper describing his theory of “creative destruction,” the process of disrupting existing industries through business innovation or technological change, few people know about another prediction he made: He believed that innovation would gradually become an embedded process within large corporations. In many ways, Schumpeter predicted the internal innovation hubs of corporate giants like Amazon and SAP. With incumbents making innovation part of their established routines, he theorized, they would gradually squeeze out the traditional entrepreneur.

There may be another factor at play that is working against the traditional entrepreneur. The operating definition of who fits this profile has changed over the years. It used to be the creative, tinkering, curious but bored mid-career person with strong educational and/or industry background would develop nebulous ideas of early youth into something tangible in later years when they had acquired skills and experience to do so. Genius was not dime a dozen and entrepreneurship was not a short-cut to wild success in life.

Today, a kid in college with a concept no more sophisticated than a science fair project wants to become a billionaire promptly. This is the new kind of entrepreneur that is likely to get squeezed out by the innovation hubs of corporate giants the author refers to. 

The old style entrepreneurship that gave us useful things like the intermittent wiper or the sewing machine is too unglamorous for founders of today. There is much to be learned from the post-mortem of these failures. This profile of kid inventors past and present says a lot about the drop off over time.