The Innovation Age Bias At Sequoia Capital

It's truly a mysterious paradox that you can only innovate when under 30, but finding and funding innovation can be done at any age as long as you are over 6 feet tall, white, and male.

That's a silly, misleading, and self-serving statement Leone made.

The reason guys like him target 20-somethings is the same reason con artists target the elderly. They are vulnerable.

In the case of 20-somethings, they're vulnerable because they are still green/naive. All they see is some friendly dude with a slick pitch who knows how to throw around a few buzzwords and sound smart to their virgin ears.

They don't yet realize that 99% of VCs are reading from the same used-car salesmen's script, jumping on the same latest-and-greatest bandwagon, and generally trying to position them for an *ss f-ing. You can do that to a 20-something. Not so much to a 30 or 40 year old.

I'm exaggerating and using loaded language for effect and spice, but that's the crux of the biscuit.

Cheers!

Mike Moritz said something similar at a forum with Guy Kawasaki once. His take was a little different. Basically big success are common with the under 30 crowd because they can take more risks, swing for the fences, not worry about feeding mouths, etc.

He put a finer point on it quoting Evelyn Waugh who said something to the effect of "the greatest impediment to creativity is the sight of a pram (baby carriage) in the hallway"

I'm sure there is some age bias, but also a lot of it has to do with risk profile.

"... Leone came right out and said they focus on people under 30 because people over the age of 30 can’t innovate. If you’re over 30, you can still be in management, Leone said, as a kind of consolation."

If true, I wonder how many missed investments and exits that attitude has cost Sequoia? Salesforce and Android were founded and conceived by people in their 30s. Steve Jobs' company released the iPhone, OS X, the iPod, and many other products while he was still in his 40s and 50s.

Fortunately, nobody needs permission to write software, and VCs seem to be losing clout because of it. PG is less enthusiastic about bootstrapping, but other influential voices (like 37Signals) think it's the best way to go.

I used to think that this was a boon for the young, but after reading this blog posting, I suppose it can be helpful to the old as well. It sucks that the VCs at a top firm are openly skeptical about the creativity of people over 30, but fortunately, people over thirty (or under thirty, for that matter) don't need their permission to create.

I seem to remember something (possibly posted here) about most company founders actually being in their 30's and 40's. There's something to be said for the value of years of knowledge and experience.

When I disagree with the best venture capital company in the world about how venture capital should be done, it's probably not because I'm a better VC than they are.

This guy's arguing against Sequoia and he brings up Tim Koogle as a counterexample?

Leone made some other silly remarks. [...] He said that it’s never the grey hairs that come in and figure out how to make money or make an idea work. Actually, that’s exactly what happened at Yahoo when the company hired Tim Koogle to be CEO in 1995

There must be some award for this degree of cluelessness.

Or maybe they are naive enough to accept a bigger (which Sequoia can do) but worse deals?

I am in my 20's.

I don't get it. Looking at Sequoia's internet portfolio the majority of the companies listed have founders > 30. They're involved in other sectors, so maybe Douglas was talking about one of those?

Its typical discrimination - which is common because it works. MOST people are unwilling to give up their notions. People over 40 have more notions. They have a harder time adapting to new notions.

I'm 32. Might as well flip on VH-1 and eat worms.

I'm 26, so apparently the clock is ticking...

any chance at all these direct comments were one of those jokes I've been hearing so much about lately? It's hard to believe that a successful person would have such a bias for round numbers rather than state changes - certainly there is a state change that goes on around that time, with kids blah as another poster has said.