
Survey shows surprise decline in US startups run by young people - jklp
https://gigaom.com/2015/01/05/survey-shows-surprise-decline-in-us-startups-run-by-young-people/?utm_content=buffer4c161&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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rcarmo
I, for one, welcome anything that will get VCs to stop blindly believing
"young" equals "better investment", especially when most VCs I come across are
only interested in short-term gain.

That and state/corporate-sponsored "youth startup" things. I deal with enough
of those to have seen oodles of fickle, immature teams who don't know the
first thing about working, let alone building product.

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bsenftner
I don't believe they think "young" equals "better investment", I think their
process expects "young" to equal "controllable".

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coding4all
Since when did innovation and skill become a characteristic of being young?
What's the new age ceiling for when skill meets opportunity? Does this have
anything to do with adults working jobs that would have been occupied by
minors just 20 years ago?

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ecocentrik
Youth culture has been responsible for social and cultural innovation (art,
music, fashion...) for as long as they've had the extra leisure to devote to
it. The growth of the merchant class, the growth of the middle class and the
abolition of child labor all resulted in increased leisure for youth segments
of society. Your second question must be missing some punctuation because I'm
going to suggest you look into Yanni.

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ecocentrik
Why did I get down-voted? I answered the question and added a little humor.
"Innovation" is not analogous to "invention". (Here's Alan Kay on the subject:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAghAJcO1o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAghAJcO1o))
TLDW: Technological adoption follows patterns of consumption like fashion.
When we talk about "innovation" we're really talking about technologies that
succeed in the marketplace and were successfully adopted by society.

Over the last decade we've seen major tech growth in two areas: mobile
computing (computers as fashion accessories) and social networks. Both happen
to be areas where youth culture has historically served a role as early
adopters. If you're looking for historical perspective to figure out when 20
somethings were given the keys to the tech kingdom, it happened over the last
decade when tech companies started using youth culture to drive consumption
and "innovation".

Why do we need companies full of 20 year olds?

1) Because 20 year olds develop products for other 20 year olds. Most of them
don't have the experience, wisdom or maturity to do anything else and they are
fundamentally still trying to please each other and define themselves as a
generation.

2) 20 year olds have a ton of energy, health and are willing to work
ridiculous hours on bad code for lower pay.

3) Making millionaires out of a few 20 somethings every year helps feed the
fire.

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auganov
TLDR 3.6% of households headed by adults younger than 30 owned stakes in
private companies, 10.6% in 1989, 6.1% in 2010.

Private company != startup. The article is irrelevant to the startups we talk
about here.

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debacle
I agree. It's a worrying statistic for sure, but it has nothing to do with
startups.

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aaronbrethorst
The "decline" is strictly in terms of percentage. I'm sure a sizable amount of
this is due to older cohorts making a similar jump. Bad statistics, sheesh.

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sam_lowry_
Percentage is what matters. You are less likely to start a startup than your
parents were.

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iansane
there are situations where percentage is misleading.

10% of people start a startup today, 5% 5 years ago.

20% of young people start today , 30% 5 years ago.

chance of a young person starting today? 2%, 5 years ago? 1.5% . therefore
young people are more likely to start a startup today than 5 years ago

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samastur
To clarify I think what you meant in your example is that 20% of those who
start today are young while there were 30% of the same cohort 5 years ago.

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StylusEater
How is this surprising? Young people are graduating with a crushing amount of
debt so now they're faced with a choice between entrepreneurship versus a
steady paycheck at zombie corp. It seems most are choosing the job at zombie
corp in order to pay a huge pile of bills staring them in the face.

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jeffreyrogers
I don't think this is a valid criticism. Most of the VC funded startups I'm
aware of are founded by graduates of top US schools (Ivy or similar), where
almost no one graduates with debt.

An alternative hypothesis that fits the data equally well is this:

As startups become more popular, the low hanging fruit is quickly picked over
(social networks, mobile apps that require very little initial capital, etc.).
Concurrently, startups have become more mainstream and seen as less risky
(whether justified or not). As such, many "older" (by which I mean not in
their 20s) people with narrow domain expertise have begun to start companies
with the goal of addressing some narrow need that isn't addressable by the
typical smart, CS-grad, startup founder with little to no real world
experience outside of tech internships.

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tbenst
> Most of the VC funded startups I'm aware of are founded by graduates of top
> US schools (Ivy or similar), where almost no one graduates with debt.

Not true. Although not bad, students typically graduate with $15k in debt.
Families with income just above the aid cutoff point or with high assets but
lower income tend to get hit hard; I know some individuals that are graduating
with $50-100k in debt from undergrad at Ivies.

[http://www.browndailyherald.com/2014/04/07/brunonians-
highes...](http://www.browndailyherald.com/2014/04/07/brunonians-highest-debt-
ivy-league/)

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StylusEater
> Most of the VC funded startups I'm aware of are founded by graduates of top
> US schools

I know plenty of folks that graduated with debt from top schools.

> graduating with $50-100k in debt from undergrad at Ivies.

Indeed.

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iansane
households headed by people under 30 is somehow a good indicator of college
dropouts? would not be suprised if there were other effects like college
students living in their parents garage to bootstrap their startup.

could have measured the growth in accelerator applications by college students
as an alternative

