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Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

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Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#81

Post by vasilipupkin »

jm20 wrote: post #68

~50% of the top 10 companies in the world by market cap (Facebook, Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon) were all started by founders aged 30 or younger. The rest are companies that are over 100 years old (or merged from ones that were) and Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway. I'm by no means saying you can't do it when you're older, but when you're a VC in the business of hitting home runs, it is just hard to ignore th…

there are a ton of companies that reach 150 mln dollar valuation and get sold. You don't hear about those, all you hear is consumer facing giants. Those are probably more likely to be founded by younger people. A 45 year old is probably more likely to sell early, but I am guessing.

Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#82

Post by killjoywashere »

mikekchar wrote: post #77
formalsystem wrote: post #29

I always find it interesting when these sorts of threads are posted. I for one look at them as am I too old to be starting my own company or should I chill out because I still have time. Fundamentally I think there's limited value in drawing lessons from these stories because you're probably your own best judge of whether you should quit your job or not. Your risk tolerance lowers as you get older but your skills wil…

Speaking as someone who is 50, I would say you have 2 choices: take your risks early so you have time to recover from them before you retire, or take a very low risk approach to your early career and save a lot of money so that you can afford to take risks later in your career.

3) work for big corp, have idea that can't be done small, and successfully pitch internally. Move vertically internally. Not as sexy, but much more likely to succeed if your goal is the idea.

Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#83

Post by blihp »

taneq wrote: post #67
bonestamp2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met with a non-technical cofounder a few months ago who is in his early 20s. He had a great idea for a product and was looking for a technical co-founder (he also had an investor who already put up some money and he was already deeply involved in the sales channel and had two customers already sold). I have no doubt this product would very successful. Probably not a unicorn, but could make a few people quite wealth…

> ...non-technical cofounder [...] had a great idea for a product and was looking for a technical co-founder As an aside, maybe I just don't 'get it' or maybe I've just met bad examples but this scenario always reads to me like "guy wants someone to do the work for him so he can be the boss". Good ideas are cheap. Execution is the hard bit.

While there are a ton of snake oil salesmen/women out there, there actually are people who are non-technical bringing other real skills to the table. Sometimes it's general business, sometimes sales, sometimes they really do have a deep domain understanding etc. So it's not always them looking to be the boss, but rather that they recognize a skills/knowledge gap and are trying to fill it.

Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#84

Post by georgewsinger »

These studies often ignore the power law. The vast majority of value generated in tech is powered by a tiny number of companies. Here are the five most valuable tech companies as of 2017 vs. the age of the founders:

1. Apple: $570.7B explained

  - Jobs: 21
  - Woz: 26
2. Alphabet: $560B

  - Larry/Sergey: 25ish
3. Microsoft: $434B

  - Gates: 19
  - Allen: 22
4. Amazon: $365B

  - Bezos: 29
5. Facebook: $354B

  - Zuckerberg: 19

Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#85

Post by [deleted] »

georgewsinger wrote: post #84

These studies often ignore the power law. The vast majority of value generated in tech is powered by a tiny number of companies. Here are the five most valuable tech companies as of 2017 vs. the age of the founders: 1. Apple: $570.7B explained - Jobs: 21 - Woz: 26 2. Alphabet: $560B - Larry/Sergey: 25ish 3. Microsoft: $434B - Gates: 19 - Allen: 22 4. Amazon: $365B - Bezos: 29 5. Facebook: $354B - Zuckerberg: 19

[deleted]

Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#86

Post by brianwawok »

georgewsinger wrote: post #84

These studies often ignore the power law. The vast majority of value generated in tech is powered by a tiny number of companies. Here are the five most valuable tech companies as of 2017 vs. the age of the founders: 1. Apple: $570.7B explained - Jobs: 21 - Woz: 26 2. Alphabet: $560B - Larry/Sergey: 25ish 3. Microsoft: $434B - Gates: 19 - Allen: 22 4. Amazon: $365B - Bezos: 29 5. Facebook: $354B - Zuckerberg: 19

I am not sure it ignores it.

For someone who is 18 and very creative, the facts you posted could be helpful to say that they have a chance to be insane lucky if they have the aprox 1 in a billion set of skills and timing required to make it to market.

On the other hand, the stats in the article point out that for someone in their 30s or 40s, they have 1/(10? 50?) chance to be able to found a successful startup, for some definition of the word startup. This in general seems a much more useful message to push.

A similar story is around education. Some of the richest people in the world did not attend college. However, for 99.9999% of the people - going to to college and getting a science or other hard degree is going to lead to a much nicer life then to go straight from high school to the working world.

Cool to look at the 1 in a billion case, it is not always as useful for a case study.

Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#87

Post by mikekchar »

killjoywashere wrote: post #82
mikekchar wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone who is 50, I would say you have 2 choices: take your risks early so you have time to recover from them before you retire, or take a very low risk approach to your early career and save a lot of money so that you can afford to take risks later in your career.

3) work for big corp, have idea that can't be done small, and successfully pitch internally. Move vertically internally. Not as sexy, but much more likely to succeed if your goal is the idea.

Interesting idea. Having worked in a big company before, though, I definitely could not do this! The politics would kill me before I even got close. I wonder if that means that I couldn't do a startup either...

Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#88

Post by rdlecler1 »

georgewsinger wrote: post #84

These studies often ignore the power law. The vast majority of value generated in tech is powered by a tiny number of companies. Here are the five most valuable tech companies as of 2017 vs. the age of the founders: 1. Apple: $570.7B explained - Jobs: 21 - Woz: 26 2. Alphabet: $560B - Larry/Sergey: 25ish 3. Microsoft: $434B - Gates: 19 - Allen: 22 4. Amazon: $365B - Bezos: 29 5. Facebook: $354B - Zuckerberg: 19

These are all consumer tech companies. The article takes this into account.

Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#89

Post by breck »

georgewsinger wrote: post #84

These studies often ignore the power law. The vast majority of value generated in tech is powered by a tiny number of companies. Here are the five most valuable tech companies as of 2017 vs. the age of the founders: 1. Apple: $570.7B explained - Jobs: 21 - Woz: 26 2. Alphabet: $560B - Larry/Sergey: 25ish 3. Microsoft: $434B - Gates: 19 - Allen: 22 4. Amazon: $365B - Bezos: 29 5. Facebook: $354B - Zuckerberg: 19

At this point these companies are really just an amalgamation of hundreds of companies that all have created value. So the big ones may have younger founders, but they are also composed of many smaller companies that had older founders.

Re: Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45

#90

Post by jowiar »

opportune wrote: post #46
bonestamp2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met with a non-technical cofounder a few months ago who is in his early 20s. He had a great idea for a product and was looking for a technical co-founder (he also had an investor who already put up some money and he was already deeply involved in the sales channel and had two customers already sold). I have no doubt this product would very successful. Probably not a unicorn, but could make a few people quite wealth…

“Non-technical cofounder in early 20s” sounds like a massive red flag to me. Ideas are cheap, execution is what matters

Execution is not just technical. Sales, marketing, fundraising, recruiting, hiring, design/product, media, strategy, etc...
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