Ode to the "Older" Entrepreneur
blog.eladgil.com
Ode to the "Older" Entrepreneur
1–10 of 14 posts
Re: Ode to the "Older" Entrepreneur
#2I'm an outlier in a few different ways in life, and in my 40's, I am with startups as well. I didn't discover how satisfying being an entrepreneur could be until I really started trying it in my late 30's and now I can't get enough.
I also think it's a slightly different environment for tech now than it was just 10 years ago. There seem to be more resources available for people who want to get started. But I think a stronger factor may be that these days people my age actually had the internet when they were younger, especially those of us who had technical training and internet connections in college. This isn't some new fad for me. It's life and potentially life-changing and industry disrupting if we do it right.
I guess many my age are content just writing enterprise Java code with one eye on their 401(k), but I'm much more interested in new technologies, languages and see so many possibilities out there.
Re: Ode to the "Older" Entrepreneur
#3Think there is a pretty significant component missing in analysis - more young people start companies. It could be that the success rate for older entrepreneurs is 3x of 4x that of younger - not assuming it is, but if young entrepreneurs are starting companies at 3x or 4x the rate of older, it might explain some of the anecdotal observations.
Re: Ode to the "Older" Entrepreneur
#4Think there is a pretty significant component missing in analysis - more young people start companies. It could be that the success rate for older entrepreneurs is 3x of 4x that of younger - not assuming it is, but if young entrepreneurs are starting companies at 3x or 4x the rate of older, it might explain some of the anecdotal observations.
Oh, good point. BTW, I am not arguing that "older" entrepreneurs can't start huge wins, but rather, the very very big wins are anecdotally started by younger people (for SW, and in particular internet cos).
Another analysis I would love to see (if I have time will do it myself) - take the 20 largest SW or Internet companies started in the last 20 years. Graph age of founders vs. company outcome.
Re: Ode to the "Older" Entrepreneur
#5Think there is a pretty significant component missing in analysis - more young people start companies. It could be that the success rate for older entrepreneurs is 3x of 4x that of younger - not assuming it is, but if young entrepreneurs are starting companies at 3x or 4x the rate of older, it might explain some of the anecdotal observations.
Oh, good point. BTW, I am not arguing that "older" entrepreneurs can't start huge wins, but rather, the very very big wins are anecdotally started by younger people (for SW, and in particular internet cos). Another analysis I would love to see (if I have time will do it myself) - take the 20 largest SW or Internet companies started in the last 20 years. Graph age of founders vs. company outcome.
yes that would be interesting. thanks for article.
Re: Ode to the "Older" Entrepreneur
#6The only reason it's skewed towards young people is because software is a VERY young industry! People who did not grow up with software just have less experience with software and are less likely to start successful companies around it.
In a hundred years the market will normalise to whatever the normal age for business owners is.
We've gone through periods of rapid change recently, and older entrepreneurs are just less familiar with the workings of the new stuff to be able to successfully compete. That will change as the current generations grow.
Re: Ode to the "Older" Entrepreneur
#7[deleted]
Re: Ode to the "Older" Entrepreneur
#8If you look at a variety of fields, you see that people within certain age groups tend to do better. Most productive ages for: Gymnasts: teens, Mathematicians: teens to late-20s, Physicists: early 20s-early 30s, Biologists: late 30s-40s, Literary authors: 40s to 60s.
I prefer a binary distillation:
"Physical" - best from 18 to 40, peaking around 30 (with some exceptions)
"Mental" - best from 13 to 90, peaking almost anytime.
Almost every field is a combination, but I consider programming and business more "mental" than "physical". So as long as you take care of yourself, there's no reason why anyone's best work can't be ahead of them.
I'd be very surprised to find the best basketball player peaking at 40, but not surprised at all to find a programmer who did the same thing.
Re: Ode to the "Older" Entrepreneur
#9The only reason it's skewed towards young people is because software is a VERY young industry! People who did not grow up with software just have less experience with software and are less likely to start successful companies around it. In a hundred years the market will normalise to whatever the normal age for business owners is. We've gone through periods of rapid change recently, and older entrepreneurs are just l…
Also, people become far more risk-averse as their careers progress. This is particularly true in high-paying jobs like software development; its hard to walk away from $100k+ job to start your own project, especially with a wife and kids depending on you. The younger you are the more risks you can take.
Also, as you said, software evolves quickly. So its completely reasonable for a 25 year old to have mastery of a new and exploitable technology... makes for an interesting entrepreneurial dynamic.
Re: Ode to the "Older" Entrepreneur
#10Adobe founders were in their early 40's. (born 1939 and 1940, founded 1982.)
Also, I really do think that people are aging more slowly, 40 is the new 30 etc. Adolescence is extended; old-age is longer and healthier.
But, whether you have an advantage by being older is a question of the value of experience... although each new generation of tech seems to reinvent all the old stuff (so experience helps there), mastery of detailed workarounds is lost. Experience seems to have most enduring value in people and business-related skills, more than in programming. Other things that don't change much are laws and mathematics. Although this doesn't help mathematicians, who need to be creating new mathematics, my guess is that applied mathematicians would get better over time.