Steve Jobs. Mark Zuckerberg. Joseph Computerman. These names are all synonymous with the technology innovations of the 80's, 90's and 00's. But the fact that we even know their names illustrates a big problem with the way tech companies are approaching todays’ millennial consumer. You see, these men embraced “top down” solutions — some middle-age Gen X boomer dictating “big ideas” as an army of “Microserfs” followed their orders. And at their peak, that was well and good. The American economy hummed along at a rapid pace, with companies like Amazon, Yahoo and BreadBowlLive.biz raking in billions and creating the first generation of dot-com millionaires.

But something funny happened on the way to the (web) forum. A younger generation rose up that wasn’t satisfied with one-size-fits-all solutions to individual problems. A generation that grew up with 100's of TV channels and dozens of downloadable .wmv music files wasn’t going to settle for anything less than total diversity.

“BUT DIVERSITY SCARES ME!”

Previous generations grew up in an America where everyone was exactly the same. You put on your Levi’s jeans, you listened to the “Top 10” songs and there was only one movie in the theaters — it was called “King Ralph.(1)” But to reach today’s millenials, a customizable experience isn’t just preferable, it’s necessary. For example, if you are selling hats, you can’t just have a blue one. You gotta have a blue one, a red one and, yes, an orange one. That’s 3 hats. If you’re selling pants, you gotta do the same thing, except don’t bother with the orange ones, I talked to one of today’s millenials and he said that he wouldn’t wear them. And also, make a bunch of different kinds of bluetooths and log on to the dark web, and let people customize your hats by putting buttons on them, and maybe sell the buttons too.