31–40 of 47 posts
Great story and a perfect illustration of why old people shouldn't shoot for the stars. Old people do not understand tech trends. They try to, but it is beyond their ability. Friendster was a site created by old people, run by people, and filled with old people users. Anything that starts from the old will never migrate to the young. Old people are not leaders. They do not determine the trends. Facebook got it right…
Great story and a perfect illustration of why old people shouldn't shoot for the stars. Old people do not understand tech trends. They try to, but it is beyond their ability. Friendster was a site created by old people, run by people, and filled with old people users. Anything that starts from the old will never migrate to the young. Old people are not leaders. They do not determine the trends. Facebook got it right…
Here's a few examples of fairly revolutionary achievements post-30, even within the relatively narrow field of tech startups:
* Jimmy Wales was 36 when Wikipedia was founded. Larry Sanger was 34.
* Steve Jobs was 30 when he founded NeXT, 31 when he took over Pixar, 40 when Toy Story, their first major film was released, and 42 when he returned to Apple and led them to a major market turnaround, OS X, the iPod/iTunes, the iPhone/AppStore, etc.
* Jeff Bezos was 30 when he founded Amazon, 37 before it turned a profit.
* John McCarthy was 31 when he first designed LISP.
* Marc Benioff was 35 when he co-founded Salesforce.com (I don't know how old his cofounders were.)
* David Winer was 33 when he founded UserLand, 41 before they started offering web publishing software.
* Larry Ellison was 33 when he founded Oracle, 35 when they made their first sale, 40 when Oracle became an ACID-database.
* PG was 40 when YCombinator first launched.
That's just off the top of my head (I had to look up the dates) and I don't particularly pay attention to the age of tech company founders. I'm sure there are dozens of better examples.
For a more comprehensive survey, see http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1431263
I actually kinda hope you're trolling with this comment, you're way off base.
Great story and a perfect illustration of why old people shouldn't shoot for the stars. Old people do not understand tech trends. They try to, but it is beyond their ability. Friendster was a site created by old people, run by people, and filled with old people users. Anything that starts from the old will never migrate to the young. Old people are not leaders. They do not determine the trends. Facebook got it right…
Spoken with the false confidence of youth. Here's a few examples of fairly revolutionary achievements post-30, even within the relatively narrow field of tech startups: * Jimmy Wales was 36 when Wikipedia was founded. Larry Sanger was 34. * Steve Jobs was 30 when he founded NeXT, 31 when he took over Pixar, 40 when Toy Story, their first major film was released, and 42 when he returned to Apple and led them to a majo…
Jimmy Wales - extremely successful options and futures trader
Steve Jobs - I forget what company he was involved with before NeXT, but I think it was pretty big
Jeff Bezos - one of the top people at D.E. Shaw, right under Shaw himself
John McCarthy - programming languages don't really count as entrepreneurship, but I'm sure you could find many examples of old people creating languages
Marc Benioff - youngest VP in Oracle history
David Winer - I really have no idea what UserLand is
Larry Ellison - ok, fine. I guess if you're trying to make Oracle, it's ok to be old. I don't mean that as a slight to Oracle, but I don't think Oracle's story applies to web startups.
PG - I didn't say anything about old people not being able to become investors
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spoken with the false confidence of youth. Here's a few examples of fairly revolutionary achievements post-30, even within the relatively narrow field of tech startups: * Jimmy Wales was 36 when Wikipedia was founded. Larry Sanger was 34. * Steve Jobs was 30 when he founded NeXT, 31 when he took over Pixar, 40 when Toy Story, their first major film was released, and 42 when he returned to Apple and led them to a majo…
Why don't you actually read my comment? I said that old people with no achievements aren't going to suddenly become great entrepreneurs. Jimmy Wales - extremely successful options and futures trader Steve Jobs - I forget what company he was involved with before NeXT, but I think it was pretty big Jeff Bezos - one of the top people at D.E. Shaw, right under Shaw himself John McCarthy - programming languages don't real…
Great story and a perfect illustration of why old people shouldn't shoot for the stars. Old people do not understand tech trends. They try to, but it is beyond their ability. Friendster was a site created by old people, run by people, and filled with old people users. Anything that starts from the old will never migrate to the young. Old people are not leaders. They do not determine the trends. Facebook got it right…
Spoken with the false confidence of youth. Here's a few examples of fairly revolutionary achievements post-30, even within the relatively narrow field of tech startups: * Jimmy Wales was 36 when Wikipedia was founded. Larry Sanger was 34. * Steve Jobs was 30 when he founded NeXT, 31 when he took over Pixar, 40 when Toy Story, their first major film was released, and 42 when he returned to Apple and led them to a majo…
Great story and a perfect illustration of why old people shouldn't shoot for the stars. Old people do not understand tech trends. They try to, but it is beyond their ability. Friendster was a site created by old people, run by people, and filled with old people users. Anything that starts from the old will never migrate to the young. Old people are not leaders. They do not determine the trends. Facebook got it right…
Thanks for sharing, I wasn't aware of his story.