But there is reason for optimism in the turmoil. Garry Tan, the CEO of YCombinator, recently said, “Our fear of the future is directly proportional to how small our ambitions are.” I don’t want to minimize the trauma of getting laid off, but the thing that is causing people to be laid off is also the thing that will cause an explosion of new ideas. And those new ideas will lead to new jobs.
For a while now, I’ve been keeping a list of silly, goofy, and maybe brilliant ideas for apps and websites. Some are simple, and some are ambitious, but every one of them required more time to implement than I had when the idea struck. Now? I built one of them this past weekend. Actually, I built it on Sunday afternoon.
Now, I’m not saying I’m ready to quit my day job, but imagine if the barrier to implementing an idea goes from “It will take me six months of evenings and weekends to build this” to “It will be done before I can cook dinner.” Lots of people out there are going to have an idea that will enable them to quit their day job and hire people to make the business a reality. Instead of 10 new digital companies starting up every week, will there be 100, or 1,000? The opportunity seems endless.