How Old Are Successful Tech Entrepreneurs? (2018)
insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu
insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu
There's a Zen saying for that (I know via Shunryo Suzuki)... Before you start zen, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. But once you learn some zen, mountains are no longer mountains, and rivers are no longer rivers. When you master zen, mountains are just mountains and rivers are just rivers again.
A sometimes often related example is that of a bicycle. To look at a bicycle as a complete object, its integrity as a whole, represents a conceptual recognition of the noun it is known by. It is a mineral, a thing, a bicycle.
To disassemble the bicycle to pieces, strewn across the concrete floor of a garage, is to render it unto its parts, and destroys the recognition of the original object. To scoop up all of those parts in a bag or bin, is to obscure the bicycle as we once knew it.
The process of disassembly is a complex task, and so too, the act of reassembly. But to reassemble the bicycle, is to understand it more completely. To be able to repair one bike (or mountain, or river), or duplicate parts and fabricate many bicycles (mountain ranges, tributaries), from scratch, represents a greater power and command of the recognizable object.
So now we have passed through all three stations. Discovery (learning to recognize a distinct phenomenon), disassembly (rendering the recognizable complex whole as the sum of its atomic pieces by destroying its recognizability), mastery (the ability to utilize an inventory of elements as a part listing, and create distinct recognizable things from them).
My own startup experience over 20 years has taught me that there is a great deal of life and business wisdom to be gained between age 20 and 40. I'm less likely to make a wild-ass bet - one that is highly likely to fail, but might just succeed wildly - and more likely to make a very calculated bet that has a higher likelihood of pretty decent success. And because I'm already "old", the clock is ticking, so I'm going to be more serious about getting results.
When I was young, I didn't care whether my business succeeded, because I had all the time in the world. Now, it matters.
I'd like to see more data comparing the success of a startup with the Nth attempt that it represents for an entrepreneur. For example, is it better for someone to try to start a bunch of little companies and hope one takes off, or to work on one company for a long time? Etc.
A 45 year old has a better idea of how life can be improved in ways that matter, and has the connections and skills to capitalize on it. Sorry kids, the big dogs will eat your lunch.
Of course, some people burn out, or were never focused enough on work to end up knowing much more about work at 45 than they did at 25.
Others at 45 are as sharp and energetic about work as they ever were, and constantly learning, with the added benefit of much more experience than they had at 25.
Some people in early 20s start families, or would prefer to spend all their time traveling and rock climbing.
Some people in 40s live to work, for the craft and/or bigger goals for the world, and, even if they were financially independent already, would be doing much the same work, even without being paid.
Which, lets be honest here, is most 20-somethings in tech. The people who were forced to grow up real fast and go on to start businesses usually wind up starting blue collar businesses .
I never lost the electronics bug, though, and the first computer I ever owned was one that I designed and built myself when I was in high school.
Thinking back on it, although I didn't know it at the time, learning how to work around scarcity really did teach me a lot of skills that were critical to my business and professional successes. That remains true to this day.
If you are a VC who would you rather be negotiating with? Why?
Maybe it also included the perceived possible narrow opportunity window for early dotcom funding, during the initial gold rush (which would be part of the rationale for PG once encouraging interrupting college to do a startup). You had to be there to appreciate how much of a race it was -- anyone who could type the most rudimentary HTML could get funded or get hired by a startup. There was much more "visionary" posturing than technical competence, and a lot of displays of funding wealth (e.g., lavish offices and launch parties). You didn't need to be good; you needed to grind hours, and/or strut confidently. Teens/20yos were perfect for both. PG's version was more merit-oriented and modest, with no Herman Miller furniture, but still with emphasis on grinding huge hours.
Later, other people played up myths about the youngest having all the ideas and insight and vision and brains. IME, these people were usually trying to sell something, or to get cheap labor. It was often not that different from a TV commercial for a canned beverage, coddling and suggesting an attractive lifestyle and identity, to get a targeted demographic to buy what you're selling. And of course we want to believe we're special, we're getting external validation, and we don't know what we don't yet know, so this meme has traction.
The thing about this is that even pointing to someone that was a successful CEO at 26 doesn't tell you much about whether it's better to be a young founder. Someone that's a successful founder at 26 may well have been a successful founder at 56 but they didn't need to be a successful founder at that time. There are lots of reasons to not start a successful company in your youth, and those same people still have 30 or more years to do so.
We also don't hear about the failures that most successful people have had on the way to success. All of the people that I've known who have had success also had a series of failures that preceded it.
It's just that nobody is very interested in talking about the failures -- which is too bad, I think. We learn through failing. As the old saying goes: "I've never learned anything by being right."
Using employment growth as the success metric is biased towards high growth labor-intensive companies (like specialty manufacturing firms), and against high growth labor efficient companies (like tech and biotech).
The summary article linked here is pretty intellectually dishonest imo, the tagline being "a definitive new study dispels the myth of the silicon valley wunderkind". If they published data on age and sales growth, exit, or returns, maybe they could say this is "definitive". I dont see how a study measuring startup success based on job growth can be definitive. There are other studies showing young founders do better, though they have their limitations as well. The truth is probably that you can succeed as a founder at any age
I started looking at this study bc I was trying to find data on age bias in biotech, which is the opposite of in tech. In biotech startups, the conventional wisdom is that only experienced founders can succeed. But the data does not support that. More $10B+ biotech companies have been started by under 40 CEOs than over 40 CEOs, but most CEOs who get funded today are over 40 (or even 50). This doesnt mean young foudners are better in biotech, just that a bias towards "experience" is not supported by data [1]
[0] https://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/publications/docs/workingpa...
I've had a couple of successful ventures since then, in my 30s and 40s, and each time it has been easier because I've learned a lot, in both business and life, since then.
And sometimes that’s true. Except when it’s not. But, for the true believers, the stories of the many don’t get in the way of the exotic few.
It reminds me of the trope, Born Sexy Yesterday, where a (typically male) protagonist encounters an alien or displaced being who is highly attractive and yet extremely naive (i.e. born yesterday). The protagonist is uplifted by them and they serve as their introduction to the world. More often than not, it goes even further. The protagonist is the character’s world. Their reference point for the rest of humanity and they view the mundane protagonist as profound as they don’t know any better, transforming them both in the process.
I believe youth plays the same role. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s what we want from the young. To be uplifted, seen as profound and transformed. We want to shape the young so that we can be shaped by them in turn.
Someone old can see through this desire even if they see us profound. They have bitten the forbidden fruit of experience and simply know too much to be awed by our mundane inanities. And so we shun them. Because they have better boundaries and are mirrors that remind us of just how mortal we are.
If the young are foreign strangers visiting our strange land, the old are our neighbors whom we’ve come to despise. We try to get away from them even though we are them. We all grow old. And yet we all despise ourselves for doing it.
Humans are a schizophrenic lot.
The forbidden fruit of experience? I can be pretty slow when it comes to poetic imagery so I'm not sure what you're saying with that.
It seems a stretch to say that people in their advanced years are "shunned" out of self-loathing and fear of our own mortality. Sure, it may be the case for some, but the majority? It's a poetic take on the situation but I suspect ageism is coming from somewhere else.
Finally, how does all of this add up to humans being schizophrenic and what do you even mean by that? Is it so odd that people change as they age?
Maybe it's just because my body hasn't started breaking down yet but I have no idea where this is coming from and seems to be a bit too dramatic and martyrish--almost even self-gratifying--to be based in reality.
As a young person I've encountered older individuals with the motive to
- Shape me into their image (duplicating the ego)
- Threatened by my existence (ego in survival mode)
- Oppress my voice and project what they think I should be (super-ego acting like a child)
- Attempt to take advantage of my 'youthful ignorance' (ego with neutral/evil alignment)
- Interact with me like an individual and genuinely place interest in the mutual growth (self)
I highly value people I run across who fit that last motive.
I'm in my 40s and am managing a team of developers in their 20s. What may sound like oppression many times is a desire to not go down a path to failure that I can see from a mile away, but someone with less experience may not even understand.
My way isn't always correct either. If you can back something up with great supporting evidence, you win. I find that many people now don't feel they need to back anything up with evidence and any sort of criticism is seen as oppression.
"Interact with me like an individual and genuinely place interest in the mutual growth"
I feel like if you don't run into someone who fits this motive, you won't even listen to what they have to say because you feel like you are being oppressed.
"Threatened by my existence (ego in survival mode)"
You can thank companies that fire the people with experience and hire the youthful and cheap for this.
There is _no_ substitute for experience. That said, it's important to have employees of all ages. I just hope people can find a place to work that emphasizes building good teams instead of cost minimization because it's good to have a balance.
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly.
Experience is essential, as you point out. Experience is what lets you know well in advance what is likely to work and what isn't, what the most fruitful and harmful approaches are, and so forth.
Inexperience has its virtues as well. Experience (particularly recognizing and avoiding errors before they're made) is not 100% effective, and can sometimes make you discount an innovative approach that is valuable. Inexperienced people, by virtue of a lack of preconceptions, can sometimes come up with obviously impossible or impractical solutions that, in the end, aren't either of those things.
If a workforce has a diverse set of people, including diversity of experience, that makes the workforce stronger.
There's a cultural difference here. In a culture of collaboration that experience is simulated for the group to grow mutually. In the hierarchical culture it's the objective reasoning that is the focal point. The difference is motivation of growth vs money.
> I feel like if you don't run into someone who fits this motive, you won't even listen to what they have to say because you feel like you are being oppressed.
I never said I won't listen. I value people who focus on collaboration because I can trust they have a stake in our mutual growth. This is not a feeling rather a thought.
> You can thank companies that fire the people with experience and hire the youthful and cheap for this.
No, I credit the people who create the bias around them in everyday interactions. Bottom line is that present day moments are not made up of stereotypes. People are responsible for their behaviors and attitudes.
So, to 'grow mutually', we need to use ideas that never work or will take the project down a path of failure? This does not foster growth or success.
I want the best ideas to win, if it's mine or from an inexperienced colleague.
"The difference is motivation of growth vs money."
You can try bad ideas on your own time If you are working on a project and being paid for it, I don't really know how it doesn't have some motivation for money.
"I never said I won't listen. I value people who focus on collaboration because I can trust they have a stake in our mutual growth. This is not a feeling rather a thought."
Teaching you the proper way is focusing on mutual growth, so you will be successful in future projects that might involve the same problem.
"No, I credit the people who create the bias around them in everyday interactions. Bottom line is that present day moments are not made up of stereotypes. People are responsible for their behaviors and attitudes."
So you don't want to be told what to do and you have no problem with a company ushering out more experienced developers and replacing them with ones that are cheaper and younger.
While people are responsible for their behaviors and attitudes, I can't imagine if you were in the same situation you wouldn't be resentful. This is because you are young. In 15-20 years, I think your attitude and outlook on life will be much different.
Not sure where you are getting that from... Sounds like you have a negative bias towards inexperience. A collaborative culture sees situations as opportunities to grow.
> I want the best ideas to win, if it's mine or from an inexperienced colleague.
That describes a competitive/market culture in the organizational theory of Robert Quinn and Kim Cameron.
> Teaching you the proper way is focusing on mutual growth, so you will be successful in future projects that might involve the same problem.
I disagree. Teacher -> student relationship is one way. What I want is peer <-> peer focused on exchanging knowledge.
Personally, I've experienced what you are suggesting. It didn't work for me and my sound perspective was often dismissed.
> So you don't want to be told what to do and you have no problem with a company ushering out more experienced developers and replacing them with ones that are cheaper and younger.
Wooahhh, what a strawman argument. 1: I want autonomy in an organization. 2. Never said any of that.
> While people are responsible for their behaviors and attitudes, I can't imagine if you were in the same situation you wouldn't be resentful. This is because you are young. In 15-20 years, I think your attitude and outlook on life will be much different.
Don't project yourself onto me. You don't know me well enough to make that assertion.
Overall, based on your comments I think you have a lot of negative biases from past experiences that you are projecting on an internet stranger. It's ok to have our differences. There is no 'silver bullet' culture. I've participated in a culture similar to what you are suggesting. I grew a lot and enjoyed learning from others. I've grown older and want a different environment that I think is best for my growth and QOL.
> ...twice as likely to have a one-in-1,000 fastest-growing company
Is fastest-growing or an IPO necessarily a good measure of success for a startup? For one, it excludes successful lifestyle businesses.
What is "sucess" in the general sense ?
I'm quite happy and successful, but I'm not an entrepreneur, nor do I want my revenues to rise exponentially. I'm sure for other people "success" is measured in the amount of money they get, but that seems really reductive.
Personally, I define "success" as "achieving your goals". For some, that may be to maximize wealth. For others, it may be to live a certain sort of life, or to have personal satisfaction, and so forth. There are probably as many definitions of "success" as there are people.
I think there are major issues with relying on jobs growth as a success metric for a startup and thus think that while this is a nice addition to the literature on age and startup success it is far from "definitive" as it is described in the tagline on the summary article
As far as I know, YC doesn’t see any significant correlation between age and success, most likely because their criteria for acceptance focuses on real character traits rather than proxies like age. Using age to judge anyone — whether young or old — is just lazy thinking.
Having said that, at the extremes of age, it makes sense to be lazy in a virtuous way. A four-year-old would make a poor CEO. So would a 110-year-old. There is a spectrum where you can make assumptions based on age. Where does one draw the line in making assumptions based on age? 15? 20? 60? 80?
YC has already identified for us what matters when it comes to startup success: a team of insanely determined founders who have the right mix of intelligence and boldness. Age, given those qualities, is irrelevant.
I'm actually not entirely sure what you mean by this, so my comment here may be agreeing with you.
I don't think that "age is just a number". Age inevitably brings experience. The older you are, the more situations you have encountered and the more experience you have gained. I think discounting that is a mistake.
However, it's not like there's a linear or directly comparable relationship here. People are different. One 50 year old can have a very different amount of experience (or, more accurately, has learned more from their experience) than another, and I have met 20-somethings that have learned more from life than most middle-aged people.
That said, if you look at a person in their 20s and compare with the same person in their 50s, the 50-year-old version is most likely wiser and more knowledgeable than the 20-year-old version.
It says "at the time of founding"