It's a shame that so many people will not attempt to follow on with their "dream job" goals.

At my UK University there is a strong culture of getting a good degree in a quantitative field, perhaps doing a PhD in a similar (but still quantitative) field and then being plucked out by a large investment bank to work as a "quantitative analyst". The salary is good, but I'm sure the work becomes tedious after a while. The process is almost as precise as an automobile assembly line!

I wish the culture of entrepreneurialism was stronger than the desire to go and price financial derivatives. After all, two/three hundred years ago nearly everybody was an entrepreneur (farmers). How things have changed...

False premise. Do Larry & Sergey do less for the world than politicians? Does the median politician even have a net positive effect?

I see the current Iraq war as evidence that more talent and smarts should be applied to politics.

On the other hand, the comparison isn't so useful. How many young people are choosing between politics and hacking? The two skill sets overlap only slightly.

This is pretty hilarious. Is "campaigning for green issues" going to do more for green issues than starting a startup like Craigslist that saves the world more wasted newsprint than all those activists put together?

It might, depending on the talent of the person running the campaign. My talents aren't suited to being effective politically, but I wish more people who did have such talents would use them to change things. Many of the world's biggest and most important problems are political, not technological.