Entrepreneurs, The Clock Is Ticking On Your Career • Hacker News Board

Re: Entrepreneurs, The Clock Is Ticking On Your Career

#61

Post by barry-cotter » Sat, May 12, 2012, 12:03 PM UTC

reason wrote: post #37

chrisyeh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your time is limited. A was talking with a friend (who incidentally is a VC) over breakfast. He noted that he was 46, and was worried about how old he'd be when his future child (his wife is pregnant) went off to college. People also don't like hearing that they need to get married before the age of 30 if they want to have kids at a younger age, but that doesn't make it untrue.

Except that having a child is a readily achievable goal that anyone can reach at any time they choose to. The decision to have a child, whether at a younger or older age, is almost entirely up to the two consenting adults. Hoping to strike it rich before the age of 45 is pretty much the complete opposite.

Female fertility starts declining from about 24 and starts dropping like a rock from about 35. Men have less to worry about but there are still declines.

Re: Entrepreneurs, The Clock Is Ticking On Your Career

#62

Post by srconstantin » Sat, May 12, 2012, 12:47 PM UTC

aortega wrote: post #45

chrisyeh wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the young. Find a couple in their 40s, and ask them if having a child is a readily achievable goal any time they choose.

Men can easily have childrens on their 40s (not recommended though, it's hard work) but women cannot. It's sad to see that most intelligent, talented woman fall in the trap of their careers and die childless. If you are an intelligent entrepeneur woman in their 20's, do yourself a favor, stop to have some childrens and then resume your career.

I think people should seriously consider that not all women want children.

Women aren't idiots. We think about the tradeoffs.

Re: Entrepreneurs, The Clock Is Ticking On Your Career

#63

Post by chrisyeh » Sat, May 12, 2012, 1:53 PM UTC

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #60

chrisyeh wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proper response is to understand the biases that exist and plan for how to succeed regardless. This might involve changing your plans, or it might just be a matter of resetting expectations.

The successful entrepreneurs I know aren't very good at resetting their expectations.

Entrepreneurs tend to be irrationally optimistic...it's good for the world as a whole, but probably maladaptive for the individual.

Re: Entrepreneurs, The Clock Is Ticking On Your Career

#64

Post by chrisyeh » Sat, May 12, 2012, 1:55 PM UTC

gte910h wrote: post #57

That's total crap. "Illusion of Entrepreneurship" sticks the median age at 41.

Remember, this post is just about the Silicon Valley ecosystem. It's a narrow and specialized world where youth is worshipped, and it's very different from the rest of the world.

Re: Entrepreneurs, The Clock Is Ticking On Your Career

#65

Post by sixbrx » Sat, May 12, 2012, 2:02 PM UTC

GuiA wrote: post #9

planetguy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The arbitrary, overly-specific, and gosh-darn unlikeliness of the goals expressed here remind me more of the sort of life plan you'd expect from a ten-year-old girl than from a full-grown man. "OK, I'm going to meet my boyfriend at sixteen so we can be married by nineteen and then I'll have four kids in the next four years so I can be the world's greatest ballerina by the time I'm twenty-four and then I can start tra…

No matter how you spin it, we're all scared monkeys wearing blue jeans, trying to make sense of what's happening around us on this small piece of rock flying through space at ungodly speeds. Full grown men aren't much wiser than 10 year old girls.

I was with you until the last sentence which seemed to be hanging beyond the edge of its support.

Re: Entrepreneurs, The Clock Is Ticking On Your Career

#66

Post by chrisyeh » Sat, May 12, 2012, 11:40 PM UTC

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #58

Correlations tell you about the data selection process, not the data points. A lot of 45 year olds who can successfully run a new business project already are, thanks to their connections and track record. These success stories don't show up at a VCs office begging for money. Valley "ageism" sounds a lot like sour grapes from VCs who are only attractive to young people who haven't built up credibility yet, and old pe…

Many top VCs explicitly prefer younger founders. Vinod Khosla doesn't back older founders, and Paul Graham stated he wouldn't accept any first-time founders older than 35. Both of these gentlemen are legends who are attractive to any entrepreneur.

Re: Entrepreneurs, The Clock Is Ticking On Your Career

#67

Post by chrisyeh » Sat, May 12, 2012, 11:41 PM UTC

moocow01 wrote: post #59

Ah yes, when I buy any product I always do a search beforehand to make sure the founder was of the correct age when the company was founded

The post specifically refers to the ageism of VCs, not consumers. I don't think any of the millions of people who bought Dyson products cared how hold he was when he invented his famous vacuums.

Re: Entrepreneurs, The Clock Is Ticking On Your Career

#68

Post by Daniel_Newby » Sun, May 13, 2012, 12:09 AM UTC

chrisyeh wrote: post #66

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #58

Correlations tell you about the data selection process, not the data points. A lot of 45 year olds who can successfully run a new business project already are, thanks to their connections and track record. These success stories don't show up at a VCs office begging for money. Valley "ageism" sounds a lot like sour grapes from VCs who are only attractive to young people who haven't built up credibility yet, and old pe…

Many top VCs explicitly prefer younger founders. Vinod Khosla doesn't back older founders, and Paul Graham stated he wouldn't accept any first-time founders older than 35. Both of these gentlemen are legends who are attractive to any entrepreneur.

> Both of these gentlemen are legends who are attractive to any entrepreneur.

Really? Suppose a successful 45 year old with a net worth of $750k decides to ditch his chief engineer job for a startup. If he decides YC could help him not lose perspective, is PG going to turn him down cold? If his self-funded proof of concept gets traction, is Khosla going to have a secretary blow him off?

Probably not. The college kids only mentality is public relations, not an actual policy.

Re: Entrepreneurs, The Clock Is Ticking On Your Career

#69

Post by moocow01 » Sun, May 13, 2012, 2:15 AM UTC

chrisyeh wrote: post #67

moocow01 wrote: post #59

Ah yes, when I buy any product I always do a search beforehand to make sure the founder was of the correct age when the company was founded

The post specifically refers to the ageism of VCs, not consumers. I don't think any of the millions of people who bought Dyson products cared how hold he was when he invented his famous vacuums.

Exactly... which also makes the assumption that VCs are the gatekeepers to entrepreneurship which is obviously not true. Any customer is going to care less if the creator of a product they like was 9 or 90.

Re: Entrepreneurs, The Clock Is Ticking On Your Career

#70

Post by gala8y » Mon, May 14, 2012, 7:38 PM UTC

sixbrx wrote: post #65

GuiA wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter how you spin it, we're all scared monkeys wearing blue jeans, trying to make sense of what's happening around us on this small piece of rock flying through space at ungodly speeds. Full grown men aren't much wiser than 10 year old girls.

I was with you until the last sentence which seemed to be hanging beyond the edge of its support.

While at uni, I had a habit of attending classes with my friends, outside of my curriculum. I remember attending a lecture on hermeneutics once, by a law professor, versed in philosophy and such... and this must have been some closing lecture as he was talking a lot about his personal experience of failing to achieve any substantial understanding of what meaning was, how (his) mind worked, etc.

He was putting it as if it was like trying to insert your head into your... in a desperate hope of reaching some 'real' understanding. And after all those years of trying (it looked like he had been trying), he was left with empty hands. Not zen-style empty hands, just what-i-hoped-to-grasp-i-couldnt empty hands.

Its a feeling you can probably get investigating stuff like physics, math, meaning in linguistics, neuroscience or simply thinking things through as the years go by.

Maybe grand parent was relating to something like this.