55-to-64 demographic now boasts the highest rate of entrepreneurship in the US | Hacker News Reader

55-to-64 demographic now boasts the highest rate of entrepreneurship in the US

washingtonpost.com

16 pointsbconway7 comments

Their definition of entrepreneurship is purely a function of new business creation. How many of those 60 year olds are attorneys, physicians, accountants, or other independent personal services providers with support staffs of 0-3 people? I wouldn't call an MD an entrepreneur.

The linked Kauffman PDF says (page four) that they can't distinguish between business with high growth potential and others for the purposes of this study.

[EDIT: modified to include definition before I saw klochner's reply]

The numbers are computed based on the number of people who start a business any given month. I find it slightly unlikely that a lot of 60 year old attorneys or physicians are suddenly starting new practices.

More likely they're just unemployed and working odd jobs.

The linked blog post seems really sloppy… I'm still trying to figure out what the blogger meant by "broad social transformation that is shifting power from the younger generation to their parents"—when specifically is he intending to imply that the younger generation held such power? By any reasonable definition of "power" (economic, political) I would argue never.

Apparently what he means is the power to have stuff marketed to you, to be a targeted demographic. I don't see how that's desirable.

The power to be marketed to is the power to have mass create Music, TV, and Movies that you like. Just compare the amount of TV designed for 10-15 year olds with TV designed for people in the 95-100 year old demographic.

In the linked report, the significant change is that the 45-54 group has overtaken both the 35-44 group and the 55-64 group since 2007, but there is pretty regular fluctuation so I wouldn't read too much into it.

More interesting is that the latino population has seen a marked increase (+100%) in entrepreneurial activity since 2000.

Yes, the title makes it sound like older entrepreneurs are a new phenomenon, when the report makes it clear they have been and continue to be the norm. Which makes sense, younger people generally lack the money and connections to start a business. Twenty-something tech startup founders have always been rare among the ranks of entrepreneurs generally, though of course they dominate discussion in a forum like HN.

Also, I think at 55-64 lots of those people have decreasing responsibilities -if they had children, fewer are underage (and thus their charges), also their mortgage payments could be nearing maturity. With fewer responsibilities they have greater flexibility to take chances.

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