A few general observations: While there are still opportunities, perhaps fewer in developed and more in developing countries, the QUALITY of opportunities were different back in the days. The SOFTWARE field was still relatively wide open. The barrier-to-entry was being nerdy smart, but otherwise the costs (basic computers, telephone line access, some education) were low, at least in parts of the USA. Simultaneously the potential return was high. Because the information age was just beginning, and the world was hungry for software. People who were smart with software at that right time could literally shape the coming world. Think Microsoft and Google. In comparison, while the hardware side (chipsets, telecom equipment, etc) has grown, it hasn't "exploded", maybe except CPU or GPU, which are hugely capital intensive. You cannot train AI in your garage yet in a way that differentiates your "product" from that of the big players. The demand for pure software is no longer that high. On the hardware side, barriers to "physical" innovations, such as semiconductors, medicine, etc are still high now as ever. The "low" hanging "soft" fruits have been picked. This now feels more like the big mainframe computer era. So while there are still opportunities, they aren't comparable to the past. When science and technology fundamentally changed in the past, from manual labor to machinery to electronics etc, they opened up new fields for human innovation and endeavors. Groundbreaking disruptions are much rarer now, and the only one, AI, opens up a new field more for computers than for people.