A brief letter of appreciation to the Elder-preneur.

It’s amazing to see how you still want to actively contribute; how you jumped at the opportunity to exhibit at this startup conference. How have you not become jaded? Share the secrets of this perpetual energy.

It’s astounding how you to take criticism from those decades younger than you. How you stand on stage, after pitching your idea, being told you are not tech enough.

It’s OK, you think. You will learn. You tell me later that you are envious of my 23-year-old’s ability to learn quickly. Still, you aren’t subdued. You go check out the Japanese robotics. You do research.

It’s unbelievable how you stand for hours for a week in a tech start-up conference, trying to make contacts, trying to understand the skills only the entitled Hour of Code generation learnt. At one point, I catch your twin sister resting in a wheelchair. You are both back the next day — earlier than me.

I write this note as a part of a growing concern that the entrepreneurship space is becoming restrictive. The white guy in a hoodie bias is real; simply because technology is one of the few obvious ways forward. But whilst we’re sipping our pumpkin spice lattes, sitting behind our Macbook screens, trying to be the next Apple, let’s look around and realize that Starbucks isn’t an app.