

The Innovation Age Bias At Sequoia Capital - thafman
http://www.siliconbeat.com/2010/01/05/the-innovation-age-bias-at-sequoia-capital/

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willwagner
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.

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chris123
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!

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chris123
Got an interesting reply and links from guest TechCrunch writer connected with
UC-Berkeley, Harvard, and Duke: [http://www.siliconbeat.com/2010/01/05/the-
innovation-age-bia...](http://www.siliconbeat.com/2010/01/05/the-innovation-
age-bias-at-sequoia-capital/#comment-8868). Bottom line was: "You have
explained why."

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replicatorblog
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.

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ilamont
"... 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.

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krakensden
Was android really that innovative? I was under the impression that it was
written by ex-Danger people, in a style similar to their previous OS for the
sidekick.

Open sourcing it doesn't make it innovative.

Likewise, OS X, especially in the beginning, was NeXT with the benefit of
hindsight. Not innovative, polished.

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geebee
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.

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chris123
The guy is not skeptical, he's just talking his book, as they say. I.e., he
has a conflicted interest. See the comment thread to the article.

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hegemonicon
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.

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michael_nielsen
Possibly this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=180204>

It's based on actual data, not what sounds like a clueless VC's musings.

Statistically, the VC may even be right that people in their 20s innovate
more, on average. But their problem is to figure out whether a specific person
will innovate, not what's happening on average. Using non-causal correlates
like age (or, for that matter, race, or citizenship, or a bunch of other
things) is a bad mistake, in my opinion.

To be a bit more concrete, proportionally I'd guess that more whites than
blacks have built silicon valley companies that are successful, by any measure
you like (say, IPOing). But to use that fact as the basis for judging a
potential founder wouldn't just be discriminatory and unethical, it'd be lazy
and stupid.

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byrneseyeview
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.

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gruseom
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.

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

I am in my 20's.

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aaroneous
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?

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JoeAltmaier
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.

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JoeAltmaier
Hey! I didn't mean to imply that discrimination is right - just that it works.
I'm 50 btw.

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

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

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keefe
lol I'm 29, I better apply!!! I'm gonna have to remember to point out that I
registered my domain and started work on my idea when I was only 25

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keefe
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.

