
Older Entrepreneurs Do It Better - jkuria
https://www.wsj.com/articles/older-entrepreneurs-do-it-better-1518098400
======
ejlangev
This just in: People who have some experience doing things in general tend to
be better at doing those things.

In my experience of working at startups they are generally too focused on
"disruption" and tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Sometimes
existing industries do things for valid reasons that you just don't understand
yet and you need to in order to change them. Instead the community looks up to
those fortunate (often just lucky) enough to be successful and tries to derive
a signal about why they succeeded in the first place that doesn't really
exist.

Experience in business or an industry gives you understanding of things it
might take years to learn and helps you avoid making simple mistakes that can
ruin your company.

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nikanj
Older entrepreneurs are much less willing to sacrifice their health for the
change of making someone else rich. They’re generally harder to push around
and intimidate too, making them much less attractive targets for investment.

~~~
eli
I can't tell if you mean it that way, but that sounds like a good thing.

~~~
kajecounterhack
Your point is unclear.

The point _you responded to_ is saying that silicon valley investment favors
youth because they can get better ROI by working younger folks harder and
extracting better terms. They're saying older folks are harder to do that to,
and you're saying "that sounds good" without specifying who you think it's
good for.

It's good _for entrepreneurs_ to have more work life balance, not get burned
out, and capture more return for their hard work. It's good _for investors_ to
get max returns from their investments. There's a set of parameters to
maximize returns for both parties.

You don't clarify what you mean by "a good thing."

~~~
mycelium
> You don't clarify what you mean by "a good thing."

To be fair to the grandfather comment, that was the point.

~~~
kajecounterhack
The grandfather comment was making an observation, not asserting something as
being good or bad. The child comment didn't add value because it was unclear.

~~~
chandru89new
> The child comment didn't add value because it was unclear.

I'd like to paraphrase it. "The child comment was unclear so it doesn't appear
to add value."

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vadimberman
Overall, I agree with the premise (seeing all the silly mistakes the younger
folks - including myself earlier in life - do), but it also differs by area.

"Hip" stuff, B2C, is an area where the younger folks may fare better because
they know the segment of the market which is willing to spend more (namely,
other younger folks).

On the other hand, B2B requires an extensive network of connections, knowing
the corporate bureaucracy, and a lot of patience. It's very unlikely under-30s
will have advantage here.

All in all, us old farts are less likely to play by the VCs' destructive
narrative of "all or nothing" and aim at the more realistic "much or
something". Seriously aiming to be a Facebook or a Google is like including a
lottery win in your budget.

And, of course, bullshit radars honed by experience never get obsolete.

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montrose
I believe this is true for businesses in general, but that doesn't mean it's
true for startups. Startups are a tiny proportion of businesses, and things
work very differently in that world.

Exactly how and why they work differently is a fascinating (and very useful)
topic. And yet instead of exploring that interesting topic, reporter after
reporter goes for the easy debunk-the-young-hotshot-myth article, using an
argument based on conflating startups with businesses in general.

------
bigtunacan
Non subscriber link available?

~~~
aplorbust
Full article always available via ampurl:

[https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/older-entrepreneurs-do-
it-b...](https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/older-entrepreneurs-do-it-
better-1518098400)

Use "Reader" mode in the browser to avoid AMP advertising or do something like

    
    
       curl -o 1.htm https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/older-entrepreneurs-do-it-better-1518098400
       sed -n -i '/<title>/,/<\/title>/p;/<p>/,/<\/p>/p' 1.htm
       firefox file:///1.htm
    

For even better results use a text-only browser for reading the news. AMP
pages look great in a text-only browser. No ads.

~~~
montrose
The amp url just stopped working. Do you know an alternative?

~~~
neonate
[http://archive.is/ni2yb](http://archive.is/ni2yb)

I go to [http://archive.is/](http://archive.is/), put in the paywalled URL,
and get a link like that one back. It usually works.

~~~
montrose
Thank you!

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staunch
This is just semantic confusion. A local restaurant is not a highly scaleable
technology company. They're both "new businesses" but radically different in
every other way. It's an apples and oranges comparison.

One good definition of a Silicon Valley "startup" is Paul Graham's:

 _" A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not
in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work
on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of "exit." The only
essential thing is growth. Everything else we associate with startups follows
from growth."_

[http://paulgraham.com/growth.html](http://paulgraham.com/growth.html)

