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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

#41

Post by analognoise »

I don't get all the "entrepreneur" founder worship stuff. The disconnected tech set has produced a lot of money - and burned a lot more. They've ruined our ability to connect to each other so that we could connect on Facebook. They've ruined sidewalks with scooters, lost all of our data, participated in tracking us at all times, helped ICE deport children, and made a wage slaves out of people at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder by greasing the "gig" economy wheels with algorithms.

At what point do we, as technical people, wake up and go "hey, maybe all this bullshit lingo, youth fetishism, digital isolation and community destruction is bad as a whole?"

I'd rather see content about a founder who actually helped people somewhere solve some problem, and it made things better for regular people - those outside the tech bubble.

It seems like all everyone wants to do is blast off with like minded people.

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

#43

Post by tensor »

replicatorblog wrote: post #38
akarma wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the first row, I'd just point out that some of these are repeat founders at the ages listed: Elon founded Zip2 right out of undergrad, Garrett Camp founded StumbleUpon while in grad school, and Kalanick left UCLA undergrad to found Scour and then kind of expanded on that with Red Swoosh right after. Most of these are still accurate and it's really cool data, so thank you for posting; just figured it was wo…

This is important. There's a big difference between getting started at 45 and founding your third company at 45. I don't think there is something biological, or even social that makes it hard to be a late-bloomer in tech entrepreneurship. It's just hard to develop an entirely new skillset and network in later-middle age. I think we'd mostly be skeptical of a doctor who started medical school at 45, and while the stak…

Well, we'd be even more skeptical of a doctor who dropped out of undergrad, never got a degree, and was promising world changing results, which is the prevailing narrative Silicon Valley seems to want to believe.

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

#44

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

#45

Post by ekanes »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #26
replicatorblog wrote: post #20

Who is the most famous tech founder who was 45 or older when they founded their first company? There were more in the 70s, 80s, or 90s (E.g. Jim Clark) because the industry was still forming, but even then the wunderkind college dropout drove most of the value creation. In the modern era, Peter Gassner, founder of Veeva was 42. Diane Greene founded VMWare at 43. Brian Acton was 38. You start falling into the 30s fair…

I am 41, startup CEO for ~14 months, and currently having one of the worst days since the company started. (edit: actually, the worst day period). Although you might be right on statistics, I am 100% sure 10 years ago I wouldn't have had the maturity or the experience or the grit to face this day, the way I do right now. Also, don't forget that today's returns are huge, compared to 10-20 years ago, and that today's e…

Sorry to hear about today. Hang in there, you got this!

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

#46

Post by opportune »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #25
adventured wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in my late 30s now, after two decades as an entrepreneur. My brain was quicker at 21, memory was slightly stronger (slightly faster, easier recall), and I had greater endurance at working productively in very long stretches. And despite that, due to learning how to work more effectively, how to be far more productive with my use of time, understanding what mistakes to avoid, I'm a dramatically better entrepreneur…

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

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

#47

Post by wwweston »

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…

> am I too old to be starting my own company or should I chill out because I still have time.

Seems to me youth or age are probably less relevant questions than whether you see an opportunity (and to what degree it's proven), what domain expertise is necessary to address it (and whether you have or can get access to that), and what resources you have available.

And as you noted, there are risks to simply settling into corporate comfort.

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

#48

Post by ashelmire »

tucaz wrote: post #6

Honest and possibly ignorant question here. Wouldn’t the median be more representative of how old the common founder would be? In a very simplistic example with a data set of two people aged 20 and 70 you would get 45 as the average age when in fact that doesn’t reflect the reality. I always struggle when thinking about average vs median.

Without looking at the data, I'd bet that this skews the opposite of that way. In my observation of the world, 70 years olds don't often start up companies (tech or otherwise) - 18 year olds do. Given that, the median will probably be even higher than 45.

I find it interesting that 45 was the average age when starting a top company, and since this was a 5 year mark survey they were all 50 at the time.

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

#50

Post by canadapups »

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…

I learnt to code and started my online business in my 30s because it's fun. Age shouldn't stop anyone from fun.
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