Nxt Millionaire
JF-Expert Member
- Nov 22, 2010
- 406
- 89
In India,(and may be in Tanzania too) if 18 or 21 year old students or graduates tell their parents, relatives, teachers or anyone around them, that they have a great business idea and would like to start working on it, they would be laughed at and their idea will be dismissed as a joke. They will have more chance at convincing their elders that the earth revolves around the moon; than that they can build a successful company. Mark Zuckerberg was barely 20 when he started facebook; had people around him dismissed his idea as a youngster's stupidity, we would still be sending emails and SMS to our friends. Forget about Facebook, Paul Allen was 22 and Bill Gates 20, when they started Microsoft. Think of all the good things we would have missed if they were stopped. Why are we still producing only employees and not employers?
There are several reasons for this. Our society seems to dawdle with the idea that business is passed on in genes and only a businessman's offspring would possess the ability to start and run a successful business. Our educational structure is more interested in theory than the practical approach; our middle class and upper middle classes mostly stay away from businesses. Our society thinks that youngsters don't have enough real life experience, to make the right choice; and above all, we have failed to accept failure. The truth is that, the society itself is restricting the number of innovators and genius business men it could have produced.
It is said that a child is born agnostic. Our society instills all of its traits and characters into them, and along with these traits, is the idea that business is not for us. Parents and elders seem to have pledged to make their child an engineer or a doctor and show zero interest in what their child really cares about, or wants to be. The bollywood movie '3 ******' brilliantly portrayed this aspect of the Indian society; we seem to have come to the conclusion that the purpose of life, is to take lesser risks and choose a path that offers an assured job and a lot of money. Interest and aptitude seem to have taken a back seat in the society; and in such a society there is no room for a Zuckerberg, or a Gates, or a Jobs.
Just bumped into this article while finding something worth reading on the net and I thought, wait a minute, this is worth sharing to GT Members too, it may spark a constructive debate which may give way forward. Get full article HERE.
There are several reasons for this. Our society seems to dawdle with the idea that business is passed on in genes and only a businessman's offspring would possess the ability to start and run a successful business. Our educational structure is more interested in theory than the practical approach; our middle class and upper middle classes mostly stay away from businesses. Our society thinks that youngsters don't have enough real life experience, to make the right choice; and above all, we have failed to accept failure. The truth is that, the society itself is restricting the number of innovators and genius business men it could have produced.
It is said that a child is born agnostic. Our society instills all of its traits and characters into them, and along with these traits, is the idea that business is not for us. Parents and elders seem to have pledged to make their child an engineer or a doctor and show zero interest in what their child really cares about, or wants to be. The bollywood movie '3 ******' brilliantly portrayed this aspect of the Indian society; we seem to have come to the conclusion that the purpose of life, is to take lesser risks and choose a path that offers an assured job and a lot of money. Interest and aptitude seem to have taken a back seat in the society; and in such a society there is no room for a Zuckerberg, or a Gates, or a Jobs.
Just bumped into this article while finding something worth reading on the net and I thought, wait a minute, this is worth sharing to GT Members too, it may spark a constructive debate which may give way forward. Get full article HERE.
