I had the opportunity to visit the YouTube headquarters near San Francisco. It is a lot like you might imagine in some respects: an ultra-casual atmosphere where most people wear jeans, tee shirts, and sweatshirts. There is the standard bullpen cubicle arrangement of desks and everything seems to be covered in some sort of trinket or poster. And the average age is 15-years-old. Okay, I made that up, but the average age is young.There is a corporate structure and hierarchy, but it is subdued. Everyone seemed quite focused on their particular projects and it was common to see employees walking around with their laptop computers or taking their lunches back to their cubicles.
This is the high-tech vision of future jobs for America. While it is great for YouTube and similar companies, it is wholly unrealistic to believe that this is the model for America. These positions go to the brightest minds... the far right portion of the bell curve. That's the top 5% at best. The other 95% can enjoy the creations of this top 5%, but their futures are elsewhere.
It will be up to the U.S. as a market-driven society to work out what is available to the other 95%. A small portion will be doctors in the growing health care field, but too many will be low-paid caregivers. A small portion will be financial wizards, but too many will be debtors who can't figure out their personal balance sheets.
The biggest challenge facing society is what people who work with their hands instead of with their imaginations will do for a living as we continue to divest ourselves of jobs requiring physical skills or endurance for jobs tapping keys or reading computer analyses. Despite what our politicians in Washington or the state capitols might believe, throwing money at the problem results in only one thing: a country littered with wasted cash.