Something he may be aiming to point out is that a lot of what I'll call "pure" hackers just want someone to foot the bill for them to go on hacking on what they love. I'm thinking of guys like Linus Torvalds, Andrew Tridgell and the like: technically brilliant guys who want to focus exclusively on tech, and are famous and good enough to more or less get what they want, and get paid well for it.
Notice that the following people are not American:
- Linus Torvalds
- Andrew Tridgell
- DHH
- Alan Cox
- Rasmus Lerdorf
- Mark Shuttleworth (and most of Canonical)
- Guido von Rossum
They work at various companies by day and continue to work on open source when time permits them to do so.
They're happy to get the paycheck and go home. (Except maybe for DHH for hitting a jackpot of lifestyle business and Mark Shuttleworth for hitting the real jackpot).
Are any of them as ambitious as YCombinator crowds? probably not. But they "learned" to enjoy their life better than most of the younger generation these days.
Linus is 'not ambitious' and 'happy to get the paycheck and go home'? Not in the world I inhabit! Also, most of them do work on open source for their day jobs, with the possible exception of Guido, but even he gets more than 20% time for Python. In terms of impact on the world, most of those guys could very easily go up against the best of YC, just that they're different sorts of impact. My point is merely that, that hackers can find other outlets in this day and age, besides startups. Personally, I'm more interested in the startup route, not being a brilliant Linus type hacker, but I think it's interesting to consider everything out there.
I may be wrong about Linus "ambition". I don't see him as ambitious as these young generations that want to get rich quick.
He may have "hopes" as in "I hope Linux will become better" or whatnot, but certainly he doesn't have the hope of "Linux should run everywhere and anywhere".
I'm not saying anything in regards of Open Source.
My point is that non-Americans seems to be able to live in a "comfort zone" without having to join the startup movement and work like hell + eating cheap.
I think you are far too quick to dismiss the guy behind one of the world's most popular operating systems. My point with the post in this thread was to simply say that there are other kinds of noble ambitions and goals for hackers besides doing a startup. Consider comparative advantage: Linus might make a good startup, but if his comparative advantage is in doing Linux, most likely he and the world are better off for him to keep doing Linux.
