I run what would likely be classed as a lifestyle business (though I prefer to think of it as a large business in the process of bootstrapping). The more people there are running lifestyle businesses, the bigger the 'lillypad'.
With a sufficiently large lifestyle-driven economy, we could move away from the VC model where very few people have the majority of the capital necessary to fund big ideas.
We're already moving to a world where industrial costs continue to decrease, small businesses specialize in providing specific services (such as manufacturing), and computers and machines provide enormous leverage. Examples range from Amazon EC2 to affordable, low-scale manufacturing of injection molded plastics and cheap, on-demand PCB manufacturing.
In comparison to pg's example of a router, it is a small thing, but it's a great demonstration of how the bar is being lowered, and what was only accessible to large, capital-rich entities is now available to two guys with limited initial capital.
With a sufficiently large lifestyle-driven economy, we could move away from the VC model where very few people have the majority of the capital necessary to fund big ideas.
We're already moving to a world where industrial costs continue to decrease, small businesses specialize in providing specific services (such as manufacturing), and computers and machines provide enormous leverage. Examples range from Amazon EC2 to affordable, low-scale manufacturing of injection molded plastics and cheap, on-demand PCB manufacturing.
On the subject of building "big things", it's worth reading this blog post on how the Glif (http://www.theglif.com/) was created by a small team of two, funded by Kickstarter, from design to manufacturing: http://www.therussiansusedapencil.com/post/2794775825/idea-t...
In comparison to pg's example of a router, it is a small thing, but it's a great demonstration of how the bar is being lowered, and what was only accessible to large, capital-rich entities is now available to two guys with limited initial capital.