Clay Shirky writes in Here Comes Everybody about the social changes effected by the evolving tools of the Internet. Here is one particularly insightful bit from his book:
[T]he future belongs to those who take the present for granted. . . . [Y]oung people are taking better advantage of social tools, extending their capabilities in ways that violate old models not because they know more useful things than we [Generation X and older] do but because they know fewer useless things than we do. (p. 303)
The people who are revolutionizing society with technology are the people who grew up taking it for granted. Changing society on this grand a scale would have taken disruptive, unconventional vision in the corporate world of twenty years ago. Today it happens as the result of many small companies innovating in their own spheres, building on each other and creating interesting platforms and services. Generation Y lives in the perfect environment to revolutionize while requiring only the limited experience, capital, and influence they have.