

The age fallacy of entrepreneurship. - sahillavingia
http://sahillavingia.com/blog/2010/10/29/the-age-fallacy-of-entrepreneurship/

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CulturalNgineer
There must be many factors that go into 'what makes a good entrepreneur'...
and many fallacies as well.

I'm 60. My background is neither in entrepreneurship, business nor computer
technology... but rather a strange combination of cultural anthropology and
the arts.

A few years ago, out of my interest in cultural evolution I came up with a
simple idea... an easy way to think of it is as similar to x-box points but
instead of for games... its for political/charitable contribution... (small
money, large numbers and immediate feedback as a response to "Citizen's United
decision... is more powerful than might at first seem apparent).

(Anyway, patent has been just granted for the method. If anyone's interested
there's a demo at <http://www.Chagora.com> which was all I could afford to get
built.)

My only point here is that whether its because of age or lack of experience or
the fact that neither political party wants anything changed I've been unable
to get any interest at all from entities I'd have believe would at least have
a few questions.

Of course it could be just a dumb idea... but I don't think so considering the
feedback I'm finally starting to get. But it took a patent before anyone would
pay any attention to a 60 year-old, non-techie old hippie... (and bankruptcy,
foreclosure and credit ruin).

Sorry for the slight rant but its been a tough 4 years.

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gregpilling
I agree, it is a fallacy. But use it to your advantage if you can, it won't
last long. I started my first real company at 20 years old, but I am now 41. I
no longer get the "wow is he young to do that" response, but at least I now
have 20 years experience running a company. It balances out in the end.

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cj
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=918417>

There's some good discussion about teenagers who call themselves CEOs of their
"startups" at the link above, with a comment from PG.

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danielnicollet
You can call yourself anything you want, entrepreneur, CEO, etc. It may be a
fallacy to measure entrepreneurship by age. But I am not sure it really
matters though. The only thing that matters in this game are bottom line
results. If you want great results, it's better to accept the natural
tendencies of the media, investors and the public and exploit them where you
can. Because for every advantage you have (being young for the media and
investors for instance) you'll find equal disadvantages now or later (being
young for hiring more experienced execs as you grow your company for
instance). Good luck!!!

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britta
There's an odd mismatch when a person says: "I'm tired of people emphasizing
youth, because actual experience is more important. And I'm only x years old!"
- it undermines what you're saying.

It'd also help to link to specific examples of people getting press coverage
because they're young. Otherwise it's easy for me to say "Nah, those stories
usually say 'Blah blah didn't have much experience, being so young, but they
still came up with a good idea and had the maturity to follow through on it,
wow.'"

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sahillavingia
Passion + rant = rambling. Let me know how I can improve!

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rhizome
Personally, my first step would be to remove every assertion that has a
"maybe" near it.

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sahillavingia
Ugh, I do that a lot. Thanks!

