SpaceX, Self driving cars, Craig venter's synthesis of an entire genome, growing organs, willow garage,3d printing, udacity, coursera, edX... the list goes on... things are not too bad. But only the bold will choose the hard paths. The rest will clone successful startups.
I agree.. the problem is that "meaningful" technology often takes much longer to come up with, create, and is often harder to monetize even once created. Government (e.g. DARPA) is a big supporter of this kind of development, but there's just not as much fast money there are there is in Silicon Valley's VCs.
You're right, but the incentives just aren't there to support another mode of behavior. How can we fix that?
I honestly don't know, personally I want to be part of that new behaviour.
I just don't see the benefit at the minute.
With guys like Elon Musk really changing the world hopefully we are on that path of change.
While Elon Musk's work is great, I don't see how that's changing the incentive structure for young, unmoneyed entrepreneurs.