On doing things other people can't
One thing that the author focuses on is trying to predict what will be big in the medium to longer time horizon and preparing oneself to be competent in that while few others realize that "it" even exists.<p>I am a bit older than the author and have had some experience with this strategy. One specific example is creating an approach to latent semantic analysis that worked really well back in 2000. My partner and I couldn't get people with money to pay attention. We ended up putting it on the shelf and moving on. Around 2007 semantic gets really hot with VCs but we are each engaged  elsewhere.<p>My point is that this strategy can suffer from being too early. You may eventually be shown to be right but you were too early or not persuasive enough to gain the benefit from the insight and work.<p>Still, I find myself much more intrigued with creating something new, or exploring the leading edge of some field than just grinding out the next iteration of the same old thing.<p>Maybe one day I will get the timing just right.