Entrepreneurship | Technology | Innovation | Collaboration

So many people are starting companies these days that I am beginning to feel some sort of global peer pressure about starting up. May be there is too much money floating around through a bunch of crazy billionaires that's fueling these start-ups, and may be this is the right time to get a share of that excess money in the world, and thereby make some fortune by pretending to be building some next-gen super-shit. But still I am not able to clearly figure out (a) whether I should do it, and (b) whether I can do it, and (c) whether it is really what it looks like.

The 3 most abused words of this generation are - Entrepreneurship, Technology and Innovation. This is how they are defined these days:

• Entrepreneurship: Doing any shit that is not a salaried job
• Technology: Anything that has anything to do with smart phones and similar devices
• Innovation: There is so much of it that some people literally innovate every second in whatever crap they do. Perhaps there should be an internationally certified authority appointed by the American President to qualify an activity as innovation. (You cannot trust any other heads of states or organizations you see. The American President is sent by God. Also I cannot mock any Indian leader here, coz in many ways they are Gods themselves, and can torture me if I angry them :P.) In fact the sales and presales teams of most Indian IT services companies have ready-made powerpoint slides on how innovation comes naturally to them and is ingrained in every little thing they do. Doing things without knowing much of what and why they are doing also requires innovation built into each individual in these industries! There are also ideas thrown around on how they generate innovative ideas in large volumes like little products in factories - where the product is in demand and the factory is running.

I hear a lot of these so called technology/eCommerse startups are making huge losses by selling stuff very cheap. They run and survive and compete on funding, so I hear. Therefore, it makes a great sense for me to be diverting all my consumption to be sourced from these, so that I decrease my own spending, by playing a part in increasing their losses and pulling a share of all that money which is getting invested.

This thought often leads me to the conclusion that one is better off as a consumer than someone running a company that all want to consume from. And the present times seem great for a middle-class consumer in India. But then, it doesn't necessarily have to be an either-or situation - i.e., one can be a voracious consumer, and at the same time run a company that everyone wants to consume from. But this makes sense only if the guy is making the kind of money that makes it worth all the effort and also enough to consume like crazy, in spite of the losses the company is making. Perhaps he/she does. I know a lot of people would argue that such things are not always done for money and there are other kinds of achievements - intellectual and other blah - that may be more motivating than the money that may or may not be made. And that the stuff starting-up teaches you is beyond what anything else can ever teach. And I agree with all that. But it still doesn't totally help me make a choice.

On another note - a question - is this life meant for going on learning things? I often hear people say - I hate this job coz I am not learning anything - I am okay with any job as long as I am learning - I want to learn - etc. etc. I think they lie, coz there is always something you will learn. The issue is whether you want to learn it or not. And honestly, I don't think we all want to keep learning all our lives. Too much learning either frustrates or bores or intimidates most people in jobs, and they start looking out for job change or may even quit without one. Learning is a necessity to survive in this ever-changing world, rather than a choice. And we cannot take it beyond a limit. We all have areas where we want to learn more, and areas where we don't enjoy learning anything at all. We lie either to motivate ourselves or to fake looking motivated. What do you think?

Of course, there are exceptions coz the world is full of them. My point of view may be biased by who I am and may apply only to people like me - that's how all points of view are, and are therefore not correct representations of reality. And so, share your views and let the reality be built through collaboration (another highly abused word) :). But then, collaboration here is limited to the number and kind of people who read this post! So, reality, as stated, will always be skewed. Share your thoughts, in any case...