
Why Great Entrepreneurs Are Older Than You Think (2014) - plessthanpt05
http://www.forbes.com/sites/krisztinaholly/2014/01/15/why-great-entrepreneurs-are-older-than-you-think
======
jamesroseman
For what it's worth, I'm a 20-something working in the industry while my peers
are off starting start-ups.

I agree with the article, at least as far as technical knowledge goes. Some
friends of mine who I graduated with are starting an Instagram for music app
called Cymbal in Brooklyn, and I talk to them somewhat frequently about what's
going on tech-wise. They're seed-funded and have runway for the next while,
and have produced a really quality app. Whether or not they'll succeed, I
don't know, but I know the quality of their work isn't in question.

My takeaway from conversations with their back-end engineer is that he's
getting a lot of experience building an infrastructure from the group up
that's taking a lot of traffic, learning what to do and what not to do by
things failing. He's developing the "right way to do things". By contrast, my
time at Twitter as a backend/fullstack engineer has taught me a lot about what
that infrastructure looks like when it's mature, and I've learned the Twitter-
approved "right way to do things". We're both learning what scalable robust
infrastructure looks like, but while he gets the benefit of familiarity with
every part of the stack and learning first hand what works and why, I get a
huge jump in general knowledge with less details.

Which is arguably better? We'll only know for certain when I start my own
startup in a few years, but my gut feeling is that the skills I'm gaining here
by perusing scaled-up systems that face hundred of millions of requests every
day will serve me more. I've learned so much about good ways to build things
in just my past few months that have already radically changed how I face my
own personal projects, that I can't imagine sticking with code I wrote before
I had this knowledge.

I know the article is more about industry experience as applied to creating a
network of peers and the business side of things, but I'm confident it extends
to the technical side as well.

Thoughts?

~~~
mikekchar
I don't know anything about your friends or their app, but one thing to keep
in mind is that the quality of work in a young startup is rarely in question.
Mostly the people who work at them don't know what questions to ask.

At the risk of being very unfair in my generalisations young programmers often
come in one of 2 shapes: 1) They think people over complicate stuff. As long
as you have talented people and maintain your common sense, you will end up
with good code. 2) They have read many, many blog posts and books like Code
Complete and they are sure they know how to "do it right". As long as you
adhere to this process you will end up with good code. 1 and 2 are not
incompatible, but for some reason I rarely see people who exhibit both at the
same time.

I've said it many times before, but in reality nothing teaches you to be a
better programmer than watching something you worked on (and thought you knew
what you were doing with) collapse under its own weight over a period of 5-10
years. The problem with young startups is that either your startup fails in
the first year or two (and you never get to see why what you did was a
mistake), or it is successful and you end up being CTO before you get to see
why what you did was a mistake.

This leads to people who fit (again) one of two patterns: 1) The serial
failure artist who wanders from one project to the next, staying for a year or
so, writing horrible code without realising it and then moving on to do the
same on the next project 2) The "why are all my underlings so incompetent"
manager who can't understand how the next generation(s) of people who joined
the team fscked up everything beyond comprehension. It's not so difficult!

As I have some experience learning and teaching foreign languages, I have
drawn some parallels with being fluent in writing code and being fluent in
speaking a foreign language. Even native speakers take 15 years or more to
reach an adult level of fluency and proficiency in a language. When you are
learning a foreign language, you have to expect to spend similar amounts of
time and to immerse yourself in the target culture before you can reach an
adult level of fluency and proficiency. This is why virtually all students of
foreign languages fail to reach that level.

It is the same with programming. It takes a good 10 years before you start to
understand all the subtleties that are important in programming. If you
surround yourself with other young programmers and only ever read your own
code, you end up becoming fluent in a kind of baby talk of your own invention.
Alternatively if you obsess with meta issues like process you will become like
the guy who can talk for an hour on verb inflections but can't order a drink
at MacDonald's.

Ideally, what you want to do as a young programmer (IMHO) is to immerse
yourself in a mature culture of fluent and proficient adult programmers.
Unfortunately because virtually every single one of us started out the same
way (either becoming baby-talk masters, or obsessing with meta details, or
god-help-us-both) there are almost no such extant cultures.

My advice (based on my abject failure to do so when I was young) is not to
think about this as a "should I join a startup and get a lot of
responsibility" or "should I join an established company and learn industry
methods" point of view. Instead take a long term view of your apprenticeship.
Accept that it will take the better part of a decade. Try to spend time in
many situations. But above all, seek out and cultivate relationships with
mentors who can help you grow. It can be in your job, but it doesn't have to
be. Go to meetups with established programmers and trade beer for wisdom.
Write as much free and open source software as you can and get feedback. Go to
conferences and search for the people who look like they've already had their
preconceived notions shattered a thousand times.

~~~
rhizome
Well said. I'll only add a quote from my non-programmer cousin who was about
to travel the world as an English instructor: "Teaching is like a second
language."

------
DelaneyM
20-somethings start companies which serve 20-something customers (Facebook,
Snapchat, etc).

30-somethings start companies which serve 30-something customers, or
enterprise customers of the type they've worked at (where purchasing decisions
are made by 30-something directors).

There are exceptions to those rules, but they're pretty consistent.

What's important is that entrepreneurs be consistently visible across
age/race/gender/class/origin/etc demographics, so all markets are best served.

~~~
fma
When I was in college I help found to startups that focused on college market.
When I graduated I focused on markets relevant to my employer. Now that my
first born child is coming in focusing on parents and kids. I focus on things
that solve my problems, and try to make some money on the side too.

~~~
skylenewman
I am in your target market. Do you care to share what you're working on?

------
Mendenhall
Knowing how to play the hand you are delt is important. If you are young play
to those strengths if older play to those. I find you can succeed at any age,
but I do find with age certain experiences etc can come into play that you
just didnt have earlier.

I find I am better at almost every area of business than I was 10 years ago
for a number of reasons.

Learn and put what you learned to use, doesnt matter if you are young or old.

------
dhruvkar
>>we found that the typical successful founder was 40 years old, with at least
6-10 years of industry experience

being a successful gounder requires many good years to get there. I recall
seeing a number as large as 7-10 years. Combine that with the 6-10 years of
industry experience, which most likely includes previous failed startups, it
means they started in at least their mid-20s.

What I take away from this is - start the starting of your company early (20s)
and if you keep at it, you'll be successful by the time you're 40.

~~~
nojvek
I like this a lot. I had a startup, failed, went back to full time job, save
more, start again. Every iteration I learn more. Hopefully someday I'll make
it.

------
ianstallings
I don't assign any value to age honestly. I've been surprised by old and young
alike. We all age differently and aptitude isn't age-restricted.

------
dredmorbius
Splash page and won't open as an article in Pocket.

~~~
danjoc
Also requires javascript served over http. I just closed the window. I can
live without it.

------
mootpt
when you are free of expense, you are free to do whatever. Living in a dorm
with nearly no expenses is an incubator for the ambitious.

------
LionessLover
_Do_ turn your adblocker on for that site. I had at some point turned it off
to be nice to them - but what I got this time was too much for me. Flashing
everywhere, a third of my browser window for ads, and then an ad popup
floating across the text that I had to manually click to close.

