Sometimes students can learn more from a guest lecturer than a tenured professor.

Proving that point is Jeffrey Carter, an investor and independent trader, who shared his experiences with a group of eager college students (hat-tip, Instapundit).

Yesterday I had a lot of fun talking to students at the University of Illinois in Champaign. In the afternoon, I spoke with an entrepreneurial class of business students. In the evening, engineers. I think more alums need to go back to their alma mater’s and interact with kids. It opens their eyes. I wish more alums would have done it when I went to college. Would have helped me learn.

Many had a lot of the same questions.

One thought occurred to me. The time for them is now. If we look at the past, a lot of people have created a lot of neat stuff. They have made a lot of money. Just at Illinois, the graduates have created so much neat stuff it boggles the mind. Illinois doesn’t get the public press that it deserves, but in certain parts of Silicon Valley it has a lot of street cred.

Things are moving so fast these days that new innovation is creating amazing opportunity to create something great, change the world, and make a pile of money in the process.

Payments were done right? Then why did Ebay/Paypal buy Braintree?

The engineering of devices is moving forward at a rapid rate. Big data intersects with microdevices to create potential for software that the world has never seen before.

Five years ago did you think that someday you would be able to page your/a driverless car, get in, tell a computer where to drive you, like McDonald’s, custom order from your mobile device and have automatic payment, and when you get to the McDonald’s have the food ready and waiting for you? By the way, the food was made by a machine assembly line. There are a couple of humans in the store to check sensors and make sure everything runs-and for security to make sure no one breaks in to steal anything.

Imagine the potential of innovation and where we are going….

One student asked if that scares me. Good question. The steam engine created more jobs that it eliminated, and so will coming innovations. We just don’t know what a lot of them will be yet.