I think it's useful advice for people who are just starting up now, though. If you want to be an entrepreneur but don't know what field to start in, playing along the lines of what the new administration is looking for means that you're opening in a field that everybody will be watching.
I don't think so. A better and completely orthogonal compass is to try to see one's position on the pretty much inevitable path of technological development. Woz was much better off thinking "What can I do now that DRAMs have been invented?" than "What can I do now that Carter has been elected?"
I suspect that most people who go for whatever field is apparently "hot" wind up not doing very well. I would imagine those who get into fields because they're just following what they know\have interest in have much better chances. They have a hope of finding and building something so cool it makes the new "hot" field.
Course, that was a huge generalization with tons of assumptions, so YMMV.
Yeah. My thought wasn't so much "go for what's hot without thinking" as it was, "if you have no clue what to do, it might be worth your checking out big topics, just in case something jumps out at you." It's not something that people who've already got a vision do, but I see it the way I'd see writing prompts: sometimes, trying to write in a particular style gives you ideas that you'd never have otherwise.
if you have the choice of what to start in...but how many people have that? Am I going to suddenly start a wind farm company just because Obama will invest money into them? Its not like the small time entrepreneurs have a lot of hope getting government contracts. Most of that money will go to the established players in those industries who can afford to pay lobbyists
