I think the reason is two fold: one, young people are ignorant and thus more likely to re-invent a wheel in a different way that may work in the market. Second, they have less discretionary funds and are thus cheaper to fund. That being said, I would bet on old people building a better business to survive any bubble since they've been around longer.
I think worshiping youth is foolish.
When I was a kid, I actually listened to the adults around me. I actually didn't have a rebellious time in my life as I realized that it would most likely have negative consequences on my future. Every old person is basically a data point mapping a personality and life experiences into a final outcome, and you can learn from every single one of them. Listening to old people gives you a wealth of data if you are willing to listen, archive, and keep an open mind. Aside: I love quora because it brings out so much condensed wisdom on a variety of topics from everyone.
Now, I'm becoming an old fuck. I'll never become an old man as that is a state of mind (reminder, find George Carlin quote here, if you read this, then please help me find it). Now, the difficulty of becoming an old fuck is picking out the desired outcome and then back tracking to solve the right personality and right life experiences given the current life experiences.
The funny thing about life is that it is mostly under your control (except certain diseases and natural disasters) if you are willing to take control. It is very easy to let others take control of your life if you let them, and I would recommend not doing so unless you benefit in a fair exchange.
Optimizing your personality
You have a choice, you can work through your shit with a therapist, become an alcoholic like most of america, or just come to realize that you are 99.999% wrong on everything. I'm serious. The sooner you realize that you are just plain stupid and wrong is the moment you gain the power to change your mind and optimize your life. Now, if you want to be right, then you can be, but you have to learn to determine which battles are worth fighting; this is the trick. Use the battles you are willing to fight to determine your personality.
Optimizing your life experiences
There are a ton of opportunities to have interesting experiences in your life. You just have to put yourself out there to have them. You need to know what is possible, and you need to do things crazy. Problematically, people lack creativity these days and think spending time in Disney land is fun. Try going homeless and then running naked in Cardwell hall using the chemical shower to bath... That's exciting. Listening to old people about the stupid shit they have done is way more interesting than pre-packaged vacations.
Making all this work
Listen to old people. Old people can tell you what is possible and what is survivable. For instance, I'm proof that you can live on campus without housing. Let the old people that succeeded or fucked up serve as beacons on your path of what is possible and what to avoid. If you don't listen to old people, then you risk falling into the traps that they fell into.
Everyone on the planet will tell you they know how to live, but they are lying. They only know how their exact circumstances map into their current state with an uncertain future. Listening to old people give you data to predict what may be next, and that is a whole lot better than trying to reinvent the wheel. As a caveat, it may tune you into things that have been done rather than trying something crazy and innovative. This is the fundamental problem of doing something innovate: it looks crazy stupid to old people. The perception of a crazy stupid idea and a crazy brilliant idea are fundamentally the same until it has been proven one way or another.
Now, I'm writing this because I'm getting older, and I'm starting to the understand more about life. I'm priming the internet with content on old age since we are going to see bloggers get old. I was thinking about this when I realized that George Carlin passed away. George Carlin was my favorite comedian, and he was one of my heroes. It's interesting to watch his HBO specials and see him age and realize that's going to happen to me. That's going to happen to everyone blogging. What is going to happen when this internet thing matures? Holy shit, these bloggers are all going to die! The internet is going to become an odd graveyard of content. Holy shit, I'm going to die. Shit! Well, I might as well get started on the content about that so I get #1 on google in 20 years. *sigh*
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