At virtually every conference I attend, I come away with a handful of interesting side-comments overheard during the proceedings that, though seemingly irrelevant, tend to stick with me for weeks afterward. One of those comments was made by Guy Kawasaki during Microsoft’s recent MIX08 conference in Las Vegas. Guy’s comment wasn’t made during the widely reported keynote conversation with Steve Ballmer, but at the beginning of the panel Guy moderated immediately following it, titled “Social Networks: Where Are They Taking Us?” and featuring Facebook’s Dave Morin, Plaxo’s Joseph Smarr, People Aggregator’s Marc Cantor, StumbleUpon’s Garret Camp, and Windows Live Platform’s John Richards.
As he introduced the panelists, Guy asked Joseph, “Dude, how old are you?” Joseph answered, “27,” to which Guy responded, “You look like you’re 15.” Without a blink, Joseph answered, “That’s a good thing, right?” Joseph was unruffled and proceeded to deliver a ton of thoughtful, well articulated comments about social networking broadly, the nature of personal information, and his own visions for how information portability could be improved in the future (this of course is no surprise for anyone who has met Joseph—I had the pleasure of grabbing sushi with him and Dave Morin the night before the panel, and he’s wicked smart, highly articulate, and not afraid to voice his opinion). Although Guy’s attempted dig was lighthearted and passed quickly, the exchange stuck with me as an open loop in my brain…until a recent Saturday morning, when I read a profile of Albrecht Dürer’s iconic self-portrait, painted in 1500, when the artist was 28 years old. Let those two numbers sink in for a minute….
The painting is a masterwork: brooding, powerful, irrepressibly confident, Dürer’s stare captures the viewer with a beguiling combination of intensity and detachment. One cannot tell whether Dürer means to challenge you, or whether he is so deep in his own thoughts that he doesn’t even know (or care) that you’re there.
Having just come off the stage after an hour with Steve Ballmer, it was probably easy for Guy to forget that many of the folks driving the most significant changes in technology look like they could be 15. Though exceptions are everywhere, it is the folks in their teens and twenties who tend to possess the enviable combination of intellectual horsepower, high risk tolerance, and the physical stamina to do what it takes to change the world in meaningful ways. Let’s not forget that Bill Gates started Microsoft when he was what—17? Give the 28-year-old Dürer a good shave and a haircut, and Guy would have been asking him the same thing he asked Joseph.
I find Dürer’s self-portrait an incredibly refreshing reminder that young, smart, visionary people have a lot in common—whether today or over 500 years ago. Like Dürer—who appears to have painted his self-portrait for himself (keeping it in his home rather than selling or showcasing it), these individuals are incredibly passionate about the work they do, and most would do it for the sheer challenge and the stimulation it brings, regardless of whether any significant financial upside even existed. Whether in 1500 or 2008, no one should be surprised by the fact that fortune favors the bold…but especially the bold and the young.
