Last night I watched a movie called the Pirates of Silicon Valley. The movie starts off with two nobodies  in college and documents their rise to the tech giants of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. The movie portrays Bill as a socially awkward geek and jobs as a rock star visionary.

Now I understand its just a movie with many inaccuracies, but I started thinking about the story and where we are at today. Here are these two guys how actually drop our of school to start following their dreams. They have nothing and nobody knows who they are. The only thing they do have is a little ingenuity, a dream and the will to follow it. They go through struggles and sacrifice everything. They did not rely on government handouts or a tax on the rich to bail them out.  They weren’t looking for a job they were building a dream.  In the end they both create massive organizations that employ thousands if not millions indirectly. They change the world as we know it.

Fast forward to today. I know a very different time with very different issues. Today we are faced with recovering from a financial meltdown. Almost everyone knows someone who has lost a job or can’t get one. Big businesses are sitting on capitol small business are running out or can’t get any. Many people are plain lost and distraught. Waiting. Waiting for something to happen. Waiting for Government to do something. Waiting for big business to start hiring. Meanwhile the economic gap grows. Meanwhile we have protests brewing. Meanwhile the United States looses its footing as both an economic and tech giant.

Government is not going to create jobs…it’s government, the existing business are not going to create jobs they have too much to loose, and small business can’t a ford to create jobs. If we want to create jobs we should stop focusing on the act of creating jobs and focus on the acts that create jobs. Steve and Bill did not start these companies with the dream of being able to employ people. No company does. They get started to follow a dream and do something no one else has done.

With the passing of one of the greatest technical visionaries it begs the question who is next? “The Jobs Irony” is not about the person. The true irony is the jobs will follow the next Steve Jobs. The questions is will the next Steve Jobs come from the United States?

 

 

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