The age question

Saturday, June 16, 2007 by Dave Winer.

Fred Wilson says that kids are net natives, and that people over 30 don't invent new paradigms. To say that ticks me off is an understatement. 

I've been a net native myself since before I was 20. Yes, I read newspapers growing up, but I also blogged before it was called blogging, and created a lot of the technology that the kids are developing now. 

And I've had arrogant kids tell me I don't understand the net. Yeah sure.  

At this point in my career I'm ready to do the really big ideas, and it sucks that attitudes like the one exemplified by Wilson are in my way. Stop thinking about who can't do what, and start paying attention to who actually does it. 

I listened to an interview on public radio with one of the founders of YouTube, a young guy, and the things he says were new 20 years ago. He's a good marketer, and no doubt has attracted the people he needs to build a wonderful system. But he doesn't have all the answers. Sometimes a bit of experience can help, not hinder, progress. 

In every other creative field people are active into their seventies or eighties. For some reason in tech we assume people are washed up just because some of us are. That's fucked up. 

BTW, when I was a kid, the VCs had reasons why I couldn't do it then. I did it anyway.