Like many people, I have been watching the events unfolding in the Middle East with a jaw hovering somewhere near the floor. And curiously enough, many of the thoughts the revolutionary wave has inspired in me involve 1960s counterculture and the birth of '80s high tech in the United States.
Let me explain. A couple of decades back, I received a bit of notoriety for one widely quoted comment, "Money is the long hair of the '80s." I had intended to show that at least some of the seeds of entrepreneurship in the '80s—the flowering of personal computers, gaming, digital media, and so much more—had been sown in the counterculture of the '60s. I was convinced that much of the '60s experience of living according to social values, creating nontraditional organizations, the power of networks, grassroots organizing, and the general antiestablishment flavor of what I called the "corporate new wave" had been translated into the startups of the '80s. When the young reject the establishment, develop confidence in different ways of doing things, and, most important, find cultural and communications bridges to link them together, the stage is set for large scale social change.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Mideast Uprisings Will Spark an Entrepreneurship Boom - The Daily Beast
Author: John Kao
