I found this read refreshing (and reassuring). As an "older" hacker/entrepreneur, I have never figured out what's stopping me from doing what so many 20-somethings are doing. (The answer is "nothing".)
Sure, I don't know many people with whom I can talk about my work. (Probably why I'm here.) But I make up for that with lots of hands on experience. Almost every day I run into some technical or business problem that I've encountered somewhere before, making it a little easier to solve this time.
For a software startup, lots of things are important, but most important is what you can build, which is poorly correlated to age, education, or location. So no surprises here. Just nice to read about the other 90% once in a while.
"Sure, I don't know many people with whom I can talk about my work."
You're in the wrong town. Even in Austin, which is a startup hub and the second home for many of the world's biggest tech companies (Sun, IBM, Motorola, Intel, and the list goes on and on, even Google has a small office there), I felt the way you feel. In the valley...it's a different world altogether. You never feel like the odd bird out here, and if you ever get to feeling that way, search the web...there's an even happening within the next week where you'll be able to rub elbows with people even more caught up in it than you are.
Sure, I don't know many people with whom I can talk about my work. (Probably why I'm here.) But I make up for that with lots of hands on experience. Almost every day I run into some technical or business problem that I've encountered somewhere before, making it a little easier to solve this time.
For a software startup, lots of things are important, but most important is what you can build, which is poorly correlated to age, education, or location. So no surprises here. Just nice to read about the other 90% once in a while.