Ambitions are mostly defined by external stimuli, that is what does a society value? Value not in terms of the actual praise, but what are the things they keep talking about.
If we look at it from a narrow definition of tech, we realize there aren't many ambitious individual players. The premise becomes hard to justify if we were to include so many teenagers on insta/tiktok/twitch getting a lot of following and making content individually (where in the past it take a full crew to make such stuff) and newer creators wanting to join that club.
I think many people are still ambitious. Just that (for quite a few people) their ambition is no longer to work 10 years to build an everlasting company, or do original research to get themselves a nobel, but just to gain the fame and following that comes with social media. In an abstract sense, for a select set, the end goal of ambition was the adulation and fame you got after doing your thing well. Of course, there is another set where ambition is to build a lasting thing and they continue to work towards that. Just that former set outnumbers the latter easily, and it's never easier for that set to achieve their goal.
If we look at it from a narrow definition of tech, we realize there aren't many ambitious individual players. The premise becomes hard to justify if we were to include so many teenagers on insta/tiktok/twitch getting a lot of following and making content individually (where in the past it take a full crew to make such stuff) and newer creators wanting to join that club.
I think many people are still ambitious. Just that (for quite a few people) their ambition is no longer to work 10 years to build an everlasting company, or do original research to get themselves a nobel, but just to gain the fame and following that comes with social media. In an abstract sense, for a select set, the end goal of ambition was the adulation and fame you got after doing your thing well. Of course, there is another set where ambition is to build a lasting thing and they continue to work towards that. Just that former set outnumbers the latter easily, and it's never easier for that set to achieve their goal.