The difference between the ancient way of working a lifetime for a salary, perks and a gold watch on retirement and the new one of building a breakout company in tech lies in a wholly changed business environment by which super-talented founders with a business sense can draw on a depth of knowledge/expertise (typically gained from work experience in a demanding tech environment) to conceive of a solid business model to profitably disrupt existing enterprises and thereafter apply grit, good sense, unbelievable perseverance, and basic street smarts to execute on that model via a startup world that affords amazing access to capital, an ultra-connected network of technically savvy persons with whom one can potentially ally, and a huge reservoir of resources by which founders can educate themselves to learn, grow, and develop.

One might sum this up by saying "Silicon Valley" but it really is most anywhere in the modern world where any modicum of freedom prevails, though Silicon Valley still offers unique advantages in my view.

The odds of failing are still stunningly high and those who make it to success are often bloodied by the process but the door is open today in a way it never has been before.

Another way of saying this is that, in the founder/investor partnering that is typically necessary to succeed, no arrangement was even possible for all but a rare few in mom/dad's ancient days, a reasonable arrangement that skewed heavily toward investors was possible just 20 years ago, and an even more reasonable one with founders and investors in near parity (when the founders are strong) is readily achievable today.

I actually don't believe that the story told in this blog post conveys a typical situation but what I have just said does so based on my having worked in depth in this world since the mid-1980s.