"This notion also plays into Clayton Christensen's framework for disruptive innovation. Many of the most disruptive technologies started out as what Clay calls "toys". The PC is a great example of that. PCs came out of the homebrew computer movement. Geeks were building computers in their garages. And everyone thought they were nuts. But from that came the Apple Computer and the IBM PC and we were off to the races with personal computers."
Precisely. Who would have predicted that Twitter would have been used to organize people in a meaningful way during the Arab Spring?
The overthrow of tyrannical regimes is a noble cause that a startup would almost certainly never been able to focus on as a solution to a big picture problem.
Worth reading the counterpoint: http://avc.com/2013/04/return-and-ridicule/
"This notion also plays into Clayton Christensen's framework for disruptive innovation. Many of the most disruptive technologies started out as what Clay calls "toys". The PC is a great example of that. PCs came out of the homebrew computer movement. Geeks were building computers in their garages. And everyone thought they were nuts. But from that came the Apple Computer and the IBM PC and we were off to the races with personal computers."