@Piers

I am 24 and I for the most part disagree with your advice. I completely agree you can learn an incredible amount by working for yourself and by collaborating with others. You learn a lot about yourself and the valuable skill that is being a self-starter. Also, given the low barriers to entry, this in now as easy as ever.

Where I disagree with you, is your statement regarding “not entering big business because you will spend the first 5-8 years taking on the bad habits of your managers.” Now, this assumes your manager is terrible, and not inspirational. While there are tons of worthless, go-with-the-flow managers in the work force, there are tons of managers who want to teach and inspire the people that work for them.

At the same time, I think it is very important for young employees to think and be aware of their environments. DO NOT BE A DRONE. How can they even know what a good manager is without understanding what a bad manager is? This translates to starting your own company, how can someone know how they want to run their company without having something to base it on. I have worked at a major advertising agency and currently work at a major media company and at the same time I want to be an entrepreneur. I know that my experiences will be valuable in shaping the company I want to run and how I want to run it.

I think the solution is both; starting your career at a huge company and having the fortitude to think outside the hours of 9-5. It does not need to be one or the other. Employees should have a Google Reader account with dozens of industry feeds to understand what is taking place in their industry outside of the company walls. They should be constantly be brainstorming ideas and working with peers with similar interests. Finally, when they have a substantial idea or a business with the groundwork laid (during their free time), they can make an educated decision to leave the company to become a full time entrepreneur. Don’t burn bridges, and if it doesn’t pan out, you have a place (MAYBE! And if that place doesn’t exist given everything happening right now, you have made some good contacts) to come back to.

Unless you are an entrepreneurial wunderkind, I think experience is the most important thing. Sorry for the long response but this kinda struck a cord with me.

However, I would add to your statements that the other company that won’t fire you is the one that doesn’t know how to replace you. Since I’ve basically invented my job, my company feels it can’t get along without me… and where, they ask themselves, could they ever find another “Fanthropologist?” (which is what I’ve told them my job title is).

And I don’t know about this “achievement” stuff. I try to treat my job as a place I show up to everyday that lets me do whatever I want (which is conveniently all things that get us new exciting accounts to work on). Its a place where I can plan projects for online or 3D or viral video or guerilla advertising and walk down the hall to see who else wants in.

I suppose, to go back to point a, that you make your own job wherever you are, whether that’s at a big company or your own. It only matters if you’re good at it and that your work is valuable to other people. I’ve never had an entry level job or a job at all where they could stop me from coming up with new ways to make myself valuable. I don’t think it matters where you are if this is your plan.

Except for the fact that big companies give you good health insurance.

My points were that a) careers and work are an ever-changing changing concept, b) the only company that will not fire you is your own, and c) it’s more empowering to treat jobs as achievements and not destinations.