
Portrait of the Entrepreneur as an Old Man - revorad
http://myjunto.com/portrait-of-the-entrepreneur-as-an-old-man
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ojbyrne
The canonical case is Ray Kroc, who took over and ran a small company called
McDonalds at age 52:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kroc>

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weel
I think the reason many entrepreneurs are young is not so much that young
people have inherently better ideas as that young people are in a better
position to take some risk. That is why a good fraction of companies that are
started by older people seem to be started by older people that already have
money in the bank: they, too, are in a position to take some risk.

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rfawal
Great point. I constantly joke that I'm somewhere between being a
gazzillionnaire and living in a van down by the river.

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Todd
+1 for the Matt Foley/Chris Farley quote

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karensky
I agree completely. How much talent would be wasted because people believed
someone who told them they couldn't do something? Does Steve Blank think
institutional knowledge, business savvy, world experience, etc. count for
nothing? There are other ways to achieve your goals besides being willing to
kip up on someone's sofa.

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Poiesis
A question about Watchparty: isn't the trend for people to be not watching the
same show at the same time? I mean, I can see networks desperate to stop this
trend so I could see how some established network might want to acquire you.
And that's not a bad plan but I'm not sure if that is going to reverse the
trend.

I mean, if _anything_ gets people watching at the same time it will be social
interaction. I just don't know if it will be enough? Or do you have some way
to connect people who are viewing asynchronously? If so, I'd love that
personally. I do often want to share with other people but I _never_ watch
when originally aired. Somehow connecting me with everyone else sounds great
except for the fact that at that point you're pretty much talking about a
forum at that point and there's plenty of those.

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iron_ball
On the XBox 360, Netflix coordinates with the XBox Live to enable a "watch
with party" function. You watch a streaming movie in sync with the other
people in your party -- an ad-hoc invite-only group -- while retaining the
platform's built-in voice chat with your party.

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rfawal
Yes, we're looking at similar kinds of approaches for WatchParty users. In all
likelihood we'll build something that works with GoogleTV and AppleTV, but who
knows?

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Albin
Its no surprise that people in our society spend so much time dealing with the
fear of old age.

But the truth is that you grow old when you lose interest in life, when you
cease to dream, to hunger for new truths, and to search for new worlds to
conquer, and this can happen at any age.

But when your mind is open to new ideas, new interests, and when you raise the
curtain and let in the sunshine and inspiration of new truths of life and the
universe, you will be forever young and vital at any age.

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rfawal
Live life with a child-like imagination no matter how old you are. Just don't
be child-ish.

~~~
jamesbritt
Indeed.

Get older, not old.

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da5e
Ageism (in either direction) is like other forms of bigotry. It tells you
nothing about any particular individual. It might be time for old rocker, Neal
Young to bring out a song, "Young Man, take a look at your life. I'm a lot
like you'll be."

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rfawal
I love that. Absolutely great line. And Neil Young is my all-time favorite
performer.

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Bricejm
Sometimes it takes experience to come across a problem that needs a solution.
It's hard to come up with an answer until you fully understand the problem.

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moron4hire
I agree completely. When does this "entrepreneurship" era end that young
people are ostensibly good at, and what does it become that would account for
the fact that most successful companies are not currently being ran by
20-somethings?

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terra_t
hell yeah!

