Do VCs have an age bias?
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Do VCs have an age bias?
1–10 of 27 posts
Re: Do VCs have an age bias?
#2This probably just reflects who pitches for investment.
Re: Do VCs have an age bias?
#3Very few do. The difference in age of those receiving capital has to do with pitch ratios. When I was 18 I would have pitched for $100K that seemed like a huge sum of money then. That was a years salary back in 1997.
Now if you want 25% of what ever I think is the next big thing you had better pony up $5M.
Why? Because I could work a 9-5 Make $250k a year and live on $100k paying 2 devs $75k. Find a Partner to do the same, and we could have 4 devs, a CEO and a CTO that both worked 25 hours a week and have a company that did just fine. Until the partner and I were needed 40 hours a week, and we jumped ship knowing we had revenue to support us.
The big thing that youth brings is optimism. The big thing that age brings is experience. When you are 18 you think that if you had $50k you could change the world, so you ask for it. When you are 35 you think if you could have 5 years and $5m you could change the world.
It is harder to get $5m than $50k so fewer do. 35 year olds are also less likely to think that a 6 month old start up is worth $1B so they are less likely to get that kind of offer.
I don't think it is about age it is about Risk vs Reward, and the way people at different stages of their lives will run a company.
Re: Do VCs have an age bias?
#4Very interesting graphic, but without the pitchers age we can't know if VC have an actual age bias.
Re: Do VCs have an age bias?
#5[deleted]
Re: Do VCs have an age bias?
#6Trying to come to a conclusion with half the data is a waste of time.
Re: Do VCs have an age bias?
#7I would have expected to see more bias towards under 30's. Perhaps it's just the way the graphic is laid out though.
Re: Do VCs have an age bias?
#8"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes." --Oscar
Re: Do VCs have an age bias?
#9It would be very interesting to see a scatter plot of average founder age vs. success rate for each VC. Throwing money at very young founders with zero track record and throwing it at very silly/strange ideas are both high-risk strategies, likely to produce more losses than average but also some potentially bigger wins. I'd expect to see the two correlated, but even if I'm wrong it would be interesting to see.
Re: Do VCs have an age bias?
#10The reasons the graph is centered around 30s with a halo in 20s, 40s and 50s is the same reason the graph lacks "under 10" and "over 80".
It's just how humans work. We get born, have a period of growing up, gaining experience, then a productive period with big bold dreams, then settling, retirement and death.
I guess without the finger pointing the data would be so boring that it wouldn't warrant an article, so here we go.