Fred Wilson has a slightly provocative post this weekend addressing The Age Question, suggesting that it is “harder for anyone older than 30 to get funded in the web services market”. Dave Winer and others vigorously disagree. But I didn’t take offense at Fred’s central premise, even though I’m 35 (the same age as Marc Andreessen), because I agree that growing up on the Web does give you a unique view on media.
However the one thing I did take a little offense at was this statement:
“They grew up in AOL chatrooms, IMing with their friends for hours after dinner, and went to school with a Facebook login.”
That is a very American-centric view of a ‘net native’. People outside the US never used AOL (and still don’t) and most of them probably won’t use Facebook either, even though it opened up to the rest of the world in Sept 06. IMing is definitely part of the DNA of a net native, no matter where you live, but I’d add mobile phones too – especially for kids in Asia.
Mobile Phones in Tokyo’s Subways; Pic by mikeleeorg
