
The 20 year old entrepreneur is a lie - kNawade
http://mitsloan.mit.edu/newsroom/articles/the-20-year-old-entrepreneur-is-a-lie/
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merricksb
Previous discussions about this study:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16794228](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16794228)
(241 points, 13 days ago)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16808737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16808737)
(93 points, 12 days ago)

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kNawade
wonder if this warrants a [dupe] though. Different article, different
thoughts, different authors.

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mrleiter
It is easier to sell a story of a wunderkind than of some 42 year old person
who has 20+ years of experience and (hard) work. It keeps alive the idea of
"anything is possible". Of course that is true, but the probability of that to
happen is far greater the older you get in general.

Factors like related experience, savings, peers etc all add into that.

Naturally, there are always exceptions to the rule. But this is confirmation
bias, like when you drop out of college because some highly successful people
also did.

What I want to say is this: if your first principles are right and you have
the skills to build a product, you can do it, sure. But chances of you
succeeding are probably higher when you are a bit more experienced.

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nugget
For many decades society has told the smartest and most ambitious 18-25 year
olds to go to college and climb the largely pre-defined ladder of success.
What would happen if society told a bunch of them to pursue new innovations
and ventures instead? I think we're headed in that direction and I'm excited
to see how it unfolds.

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Angostura
I think you'd probably need to institute a programme to cope with quite a few
29 year olds with zero higher education and a failed startup behind them.

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majewsky
So?

Why do we feel the need to hard-code educational paths? If someone coming out
of high school would like to pursue a startup idea now and attend university
after that, I don't see a problem with that.

Saying that we need to "cope with quite a few 29 year olds with zero higher
education" is like saying we need to cope with a ton of 18 year olds with no
higher education. "Coping with people with no higher education" is precisely
what higher education is for.

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Lionsion
> Why do we feel the need to hard-code educational paths?

Because we have some idea of what the reliable paths to a stable career are.
It's not a perfect understanding, but I'm confident that college is a better
default choice than "found a startup."

> If someone coming out of high school would like to pursue a startup idea now
> and attend university after that, I don't see a problem with that.

Where are these high-school graduates going to get the money for a startup?
"Found a startup" is an option _chiefly_ for kids with connections to
disposable wealth. Taking on real debt for such foolishness is an even worse
idea than loading up on student loans to go to college.

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ggg9990
The average successful entrepreneur is in their 40s, but the founders of the
absolute most massive tech companies were mostly in their teens or 20s (Apple,
Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and in a previous generation companies like Dell
and Compaq). There are several more founded by people in their 30s and 40s
like Amazon and Netflix. The outlier exception is Qualcomm whose founder was
51.

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baxtr
My basic conclusion about this topic is this: There are many young
entrepreneurs because the "risk" of founding is so low at a young age. If you
"waste" 3-5 years you don't have to worry too much about your broader future.
However, if you are 35+ AND have children, then you can't take that risk so
easily anymore.

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apsec112
To the extent their claim is true - eg, the average age of all business
founders, including barber shops and so on, is greater than 20 - I doubt
anyone ever believed otherwise. And to the extent they're trying to refute a
real, commonly-held belief, eg. something like "the average founder of
venture-backed social media companies, weighted by valuation, is in their
20s", their data can't refute it because it's not fine-grained enough. The
most detailed category they use is "Data Processing, Hosting, and Related
Services", which covers quite a lot of ground.

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cyberferret
I'd be interested to see a similar statistic where there were more than 1
founder, i.e. the average age of ALL founders. I am wondering whether the
_spread_ of ages is also a factor - in terms of familiarity with pop
culture/current trends vs experience/skill etc.

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arthev
Presumption: entrepreneurship is a skill(set). Data: entrepreneurial success
hits strongly at 43 on avg. Wisdom: mastery takes serious time and effort
Hypothesis: probably worth it to encourage the young lest avg age increases to
63

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apsec112
Can someone please change the clickbait title?

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cbcoutinho
It might be clickbait, but that's the title of the article

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amingilani
That's alright. HN Guidelines allow you to edit the title if it's linkbate[1]:

 _... please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait ..._

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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Mortiffer
all these articles coming out actually make me feel better

