> young engineers ignore opportunities in less-sexy areas of tech like semiconductors, data storage and networking, [...] without Nvidia’s graphics processing unit, your BuzzFeed GIF is not going to make anyone laugh
I don't know man. I mean, I'm fairly young (mid-twenties) and if someone told me I could work for nvidia I would take that opportunity. Things like graphics hardware/networking/data storage etc are a lot more interesting than 90% of the crap that most startups are working on, but they are also a lot harder too. The bar to entry is higher.
It seems like a pretty good career move to work for an old-guard company - say Nvidia, or Yahoo, or Lockheed - and then go found a frivolous company. See eg. WhatsApp. You end up competing with all the young folks who don't have that breadth of engineering experience that you can only get by working in a big company with a fair number of greybeards, but playing in a hot market.
How is building a robust SMS alternative frivolous? Is email frivolous? WhatsApp uses the internet to give low income families all over the world a first-class way to stay in touch. Writing communication apps for a Nokia N900 is not a sexy thing all the young kids are rushing to do.
Since IM is just IM, you could have gone to the phone company and made SMS work. All other systems (Skype, LINE, Kik) are just second system effects with better monetization ideas.
...and yet one of their main competitors is SnapChat, which the article specifically calls out as frivolous.
I don't personally believe either one of them is frivolous, but I'm applying the standards of the article to this discussion. You can't have it both ways - if you believe Snapchat or Twitter are frivolous, WhatsApp's playing in the same market.
I don't know man. I mean, I'm fairly young (mid-twenties) and if someone told me I could work for nvidia I would take that opportunity. Things like graphics hardware/networking/data storage etc are a lot more interesting than 90% of the crap that most startups are working on, but they are also a lot harder too. The bar to entry is higher.