Getting old is inevitable but to be shuffled to the end of the technology trash heap because of that pisses me off. Normally I don’t think too much of my age and how that impacts people’s perception of my abilities in our computer world. Until, that is, I read a piece like the one from Dave Winer this morning; and the linked to post by Fred Wilson - the cause of Dave’s ticked off attitude.

First off to Dave - thank you for voicing - although in a more polite and muted fashion that I think your first draft of the post might have been - probably what a lot of us graying computer folk feel every time some young buck with a WiFi connection look at us like we’re an antique that should shuffle off to the old folks home and be quiet.

To Fred - kiss my ass. Just because I have gray hair, fathered a couple of kids, been divorced more than once - you know … that thing call Real Life … doesn’t make me or any of my generation any less of a potential to shift more than an occasional paradigm.

Your assumption that anyone over the age of 30 isn’t a net native is arrogant at best. Who the hell do you think invented the net you duffus - it was us gray haired old farts when you were probably still in pampers.

Hell I was playing with 900baud modems probably before you even got your first Lego set. I still remember the rush when I installed my first 14.4 USR Robotics modem, the thrill when I hacked together my first Maximus BBS and went live on-line. Do you even remember what came before the Internet? Can you even remember when FidoNET echoes had conversations that circle the globe; or when The Well was the place to be?

I still remember when the Internet was a new fangled thing that wasn’t controlled by corporations and people like you. There was a beauty to it then, a freshness and it was a playground for people like Dave Winer, Sir Tim, Kahn and Cerf. You talk about the 20 something’s being the true harbingers of paradigm shifts. Crap. They wouldn’t know a paradigm shift if it slapped them in the face.

Paradigm shifts come from knowledge of the past, the vision of the future and the ability to bring them together. Twenty something’s might be hot to trot and they might be able to JavaScript into the wee hours of the morning but they haven’t produced any paradigm shifts.

It is people like Dave Winer and his RSS that was a paradigm shift on information flow but even that was only a minor one - sorry Dave : ) .. anyone remember ActiveDesktop and Push Technology. Same principal but Dave made it cleaner and more accessible but enough that I still think it stands as a paradigm shift. It wasn’t some 15 year old or 20 something that did that - it was a man of knowledge and experience.

The thing is that VC’s don’t want to deal with experience and knowledge because it is too expensive. It is cheaper to latch onto the 15 year olds, the 20 something’s because they don’t truly understand the value of knowledge. VC’s don’t want paradigm shifts because in the end it might threaten their business models.

Me .. I’m rooting for us gray haired old farts. You want to see the future then look into our eyes because we have the knowledge and the abilities to make it happen because that is our passion.

Conversation Tags: Dave Winer, Fred Wilson, paradigm shifts