I recently attended the SpaceTech Expo in Anaheim, and it’s certainly one of the cooler trade shows I’ve gone to.

Where else can I nerd out with actual folks from NASA?

But what always strikes me at trade shows like these is how many companies there are producing indeterminate widgets.

There are a few flagship, high-budget booths, and then there is a sea of products and categories I’ve never heard of.

This company makes ball bearings of some kind. This one makes custom fabrics for rockets. This one makes tiny sensors for… ???

More remarkable than my own ignorance is that each one of these companies somehow has enough budget to purchase a booth, to staff it with salespeople, and to fly across the country to sell ball bearings.

In the digital world, we tend to think of career paths along the most obvious and flashiest lines, but for every SpaceX, there are thousands of mid-sized companies, dotting every country on earth, pulling in millions a year in revenue with ugly business cards, poor-looking booths, and products and services no one has ever heard of.

It’s a bigger world than we imagine.

There are more options than we realize.