
How Old Are Successful Tech Entrepreneurs? - jensv
https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/younger-vs-older-tech-entrpreneurs
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denzil_correa
Previous Discussion :
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16794228](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16794228)

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vonmoltke
What is the threshold these days for flagging something a dupe? I clicked that
expecting to see a post from, say, 5 days ago; I found one from 78 days ago.

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slededit
There seems to be a middle ground where someone posts a link to the older
thread, and people upvote the current one depending on how interesting it is.
Dupes aren't against site policy unless they are spam; however they do seem to
offend a small minority.

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computerphage
Link to the paper: [https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/jones-
ben/htm/A...](https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/jones-
ben/htm/Age%20and%20High%20Growth%20Entrepreneurship.pdf)

The abstract: Many observers, and many investors, believe that young people
are especially likely to produce the most successful new firms. We use
administrative data at the U.S. Census Bureau to study the ages of founders of
growth-oriented start-ups in the past decade. Our primary finding is that
successful entrepreneurs are middle-aged, not young. The mean founder age for
the 1 in 1,000 fastest growing new ventures is 45.0. The findings are broadly
similar when considering high-technology sectors, entrepreneurial hubs, and
successful firm exits. Prior experience in the specific industry predicts much
greater rates of entrepreneurial success. These findings strongly reject
common hypotheses that emphasize youth as a key trait of successful
entrepreneurs.

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jasode
_> The mean founder age for [...] is 45.0. [...] Prior experience in the
specific industry predicts much greater rates of entrepreneurial success._

To me, "prior experience" favors B2B startups and those tend to be founded by
40-something entrepreneurs. (I made a previous comment about this.[1])

In contrast for B2C, many observers (VCs like Bill Gurley, Fred Wilson, etc)
have noticed that experience doesn't necessarily help consumer-facing internet
companies and viral smartphone apps. (E.g. Twitter founder Ev Williams started
Medium at age 40 but it's still losing money and it's not as successful as
Twitter.)

The counterintuitive conclusions about median age of 45 may be happening
because the study doesn't group the data between B2B vs B2C. It's the B2C
startups that have more exposure in mainstream media and they dominate pop
culture conversation. The numerous B2B startups become hidden as a sort of
"dark matter" in the business universe because they probably comprise most of
the successes but ironically get the least amount of news coverage.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16902662](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16902662)

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jath
I presume one reason could be at 40 you dont make the mistakes you made at 20.
I was 20 once and when i built a product i tried to load it with
features/options. Now at 30 i make things as simple as possible. I don’t
discuss which DB to use. I straight away use SQL. I don’t discuss scaling
issues. I dont bother about 80% of the issues i used to discuss when i was 20.
I’m better of now.

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TekMol

        I don’t discuss which DB to use. I straight away use SQL.
    

That is a language though, not a DB.

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kiloreux
Did you really have to be that guy ? What he meant basically is using a
relational database. Please refer to the HN guidelines before commenting. It
strongly encourages to have comments that add value to the discussion.

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jazoom
I agree with TekMol that it's an important point. Nowadays we have new types
of SQL databases emerging. Some examples:

TiDB (distributed)

CockroachDB (distributed)

Crate (uses SQL but isn't even relational)

They all use SQL.

Picking between these and more established SQL databases is worthy of
discussion.

Heck, based on what I see on Hacker News, picking between the established ones
generates a lot of discussion, usually with people preferring Postgres over
MySQL, etc.

Then there's SQLite, which is completely different again.

OP probably has a favourite database as a go-to regardless of the application,
but for some projects SQLite might be a better fit than the others, for
example. That would warrant discussion.

In conclusion, I believe you were too harsh to TekMol.

Edit: Fix autocorrect fails and add clarity.

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beaconstudios
one of the community practices here is that you should take the most
charitable interpretation of what is written. This precludes nitpicking. It's
clear that the OP was referring to "I just use SQL" in terms of picking the
most mature/standard database approach (relational databases) instead of
getting caught up in the quagmire of niche and specialist database schemas.

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jazoom
That might not be so obvious to someone who isn't familiar with SQL databases.
To those people, the "nitpick" added clarity.

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1ba9115454
The article talks of old and the young as if they were different people. All
of the old people were young people once.

If you consistently try to build businesses through side projects, or other
means, there's a good chance you're getting better at it as the years go by.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise to find you may eventually succeed.

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jmartrican
In the article Zuck is quoted as saying "Young people are just smarter" or
something to that affect. If that's the view of the Valley as a whole, as the
article alludes to, does the Valley think that people get dumber as they get
older or that young people are just coming out of HS/college smarter?

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technofiend
So has he set the date for his retirement, yet? I mean the board should have
his ouster lined up by the time he hits 30, right? Oh crap! He's already 34.
Nice knowing you Mark but it's time to move over, old man.

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madaxe_again
You spend half your career being told that you are too young by prospective
clients and investors (I was rather astounded when we were turned down on this
ground at first, rather than anything to do with the product or service, but
eventually grew to accept it), and then the next half being told you are too
old by the same.

Ah, to be forever 34 and eight months.

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onion2k
Whatever reason an investor gives for turning your investment down, it's
actually code for "I don't think _you_ can pull this off."

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tonyedgecombe
Or "you look like the guy that ran off with my wife".

Like interview feedback, it's generally useless advice because people make
emotional decisions rather than rational.

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ganeshkrishnan
Ha true! Regardless of the bullshit the VCs feed about traction, team and such
nonsense everything boils down to how charming you are. Worked with plenty of
startups that essentially sold perpetual motion machine but the founders could
convince you to buy ice in Antarctica

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bitL
Could this be a result of wide-spread ageism? People >40 are basically forced
to be entrepreneurial and can't afford to waste time on unimportant stuff like
they did in their 20s.

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codingdave
As someone in their 40s, that perspective is completely alien to me. As my
kids are getting older and no longer need 24x7 supervision, I am getting more
free time in my 40s to "waste on unimportant stuff". I'm doing more side
projects, more art, more reading, and still getting my job done and sharing
time with my family. Combine that time with more experience and a larger nest
egg to support time away from salaried work... and any entrepreneurial efforts
are not because I am forced into them, but because all the pieces of my life
are aligned well to try something new.

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fapjacks
This is exactly my experience, as well. I started companies twice in my life
before out of necessity, literally to pay the rent. Now, I'm doing it because
I want to do it and I have the resources available.

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DataDisciple
After parsing the comments, I have not seen one person mention management or
leadership. Someone with 20 years experience hiring and leading teams is going
to be much better than someone doing it for the first time in their life. The
ability to know your weaknesses, surround yourself with good people who fit
your vision/culture and address those weaknesses, is not something most 25
year olds can do. Most at 25 have no idea what their weaknesses are. which
makes it all the more impressive when people like Zuck, Spiegel can scale into
massive companies.

But I also understand why you would want to invest in a 20-something. On
average, they are going to be more aware of emerging tech, and guided with the
right advisors can get a company off the ground and then supported with the
necessary pieces.

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amelius
Can we make a distinction based on:

\- High-tech/low-tech. It makes a difference if the entrepreneur simply glued
together existing technologies, or invented a new technology.

\- The amount of investment money.

\- The amount of failed companies of the entrepreneur.

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andrewn32
Industry expertise and decades understanding how others solve problems in your
field, larger network, etc. make a successful outcome much more likely.

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harrydry
How are people believing this shit. Complete BS.

There's several independent variables (money / trial and error / twitter
following / coding ability etc ...)

this clickbait paper makes it sound like age is the independent variable. when
age is merely CORRELATED with these independent variables. Age itself is of
little importance.

You may as well say:

"A person who has already started _5_ startups is 4.9X more likely to found a
successful startup than a person has _never founded a startup before_ "

Google "Multicollinearity" before you vend BS clickbait.

