“Play” being the operative word. Save for a very small minority, blogging and IMming and selling funny T-shirts on a website and downloading music or posting on YouTube is not work, it’s entertaining, a hobby.
True entrepreneurs realize they need to understand the process before they can break the rules. Rupert Murdoch and Richard Branson and Mike Bloomberg set out on their own very early, but they also know how the game is played, and I guarantee you as flexible as Microsoft and Nintendo are as work environments, you *still* start out pouring coffee and working your ass off before you get to “control” “launch” or “develop” your own projects.
It used to be the only fresh-out-of-college types who could claim they were “aspiring” whatevers who wanted to work on their own schedule were actors and painters. Now it appears that the average workaday advertising grad or magazine assistant editor thinks they can call themselves a “consultant” because they blog.
Definitely follow your dreams, definitely break the molds, but don’t expect the world to fall at your feet because you’re so wired and special.
As an aside: to all those who pine for the “pre-corporate” days, the independent start-ups, the work-from-homes or their own businesses, remember: you put in a *whole* lot more time working in these situations (even if it’s from your BlackBerry on the beach) than you do in a typical “corporate” 9 to 5, usually with far fewer benefits (albeit more pay and your own schedule).
The cobbler who owned his own company in the 19th century, the Dot Commer launching (a successful) big business site, or the writer/consultant pounding away at Starbucks (then on her BlackBerry, then at night at home) all work significant hours to make their business a success, often employing family members at below-poverty wages (if any).
Then if you are eventually lucky enough to hire employees, there is no way you’re gonna want them to behave the way you prescribe, spending your company’s time and resources for their lackadaiscal schedules and seeking a way to make your innovations theirs for their own start-up. Good luck with that attitude in life — only a very small percentage of any people, in any age get to live the way you think everyone should, and most of those will have married rich or been born into wealth.