Ok, this is too emotional, but here are my two graying cents.<p>The truth is that kids, however innovative, create sites for kids. I never really used any one of the startups everybody's talking about, except maybe Flickr, but then Flickr wasn't created by kids.<p>On the other hand, adults, however slow, are capable of creating systems for everyone, if they are capable of anything at all.<p>And most importantly, adults can build infrasrtuctures on top of which kids can play their games. See the difference? Or show me a protocol, a platform, or a decent programming language created by a 15 year old.
I hope this kid works quickly. He needs to finish up by 30 because his mind will go blank by then.<p>This argument is always puppeted by VCs. The younger kids get compelled to compete the adults, and the adults get compelled to show they can compete. The difference is the adults usually have the skills and experience to pull it off. The kid needs all the fuel he can get from naysayers. <p>It actually plays into both age groups irrational desires. Clever.
I guess I picked the right year to turn 30. Never seen so many "us vs. them" ageist articles before. <p>I'm strongly anti-ageist having been too <i>young</i> for everything in college (started early), and now apparently I'm too <i>old</i> for the Internet.<p>The most awesome thing about being a long-lived primate is it's like you can start over, but with experience. Your twenties are like another lifetime, all in the past! It doesn't matter how good or bad things were, they're over, and no matter your age you have to continually make things good in the present.<p>Buying into this "over 30" nonsense is as wrong as buying into the "you can't, you're just a kid" nonsense most of us already learned was bogus. Do yourself a favor and <i>expect</i> yourself to keep coming up with good stuff your <i>entire</i> life.
Where do you draw the line between improving on an existing idea and creating a new idea? Most, if not all, new ideas have their basis in existing ideas.