I am a geek-engineer. I believe that the geeks won.
Geeks were once marginalized. They now seem to run the world. Why? The term geeks has a negative connotation. So, the media is now calling them quants – shorthand for quantitatives. Another best selling book calls them the ‘numerati.’ Regardless of the term, we live in a global technology and quantitative economic world and quants/geeks are on the rise. They develop new products, innovate, and create value.
Commercials, ads, rock bands, books, TV soaps, and TV sit-coms are making techno-geeks cool. Look at the number of TV stories that have a stereotypical geek landing the big-job, working killer hours and making billions on an IPO, or running off into the sunset with the leading lady. Great! The loser, pocket protector image has disappeared. One publisher has a series catchily called Geek Power.
Even in this recession, the dream of many is to be an entrepreneur not toiling in a corporate dungeon. These wanna-be entrepreneurs want to identify a market need and kick a little market ass with the killer product. Phil Knight of Nike, Bill Gates of Microsoft, or Scott Adams of Dilbert are credentialed geek-heroes. They saw a market opportunity, commercialized a killer idea, and then captured market share. In the mean time, they made billions of bucks and had a lot of fun along the way.
Life Lesson Earned: Be nice to geeks. You’ll be working for one much sooner than later.