The Age Question (continued)

I walked into a minefield a couple weeks ago when I posted about the age of the entrepreneurs we've been backing. That wasn't really the point of the post. I'd been thinking about my entrepreneur friends who are my age and have accumulated a lot of wealth in the past decade and what motivates them these days.

But the age question was the thing that got everyone's attention. I mentioned that we have tended to back young entrepreneurs in their 30s and even in their 20s.

Well now Valleywag's got a follow-up post (yup, they are drafting on me so I'll gank an image from them), saying that mid 20s is the best time to start a company if you want to hit a home run.

It's a sobering data set. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Google guys, Yahoos, Paypal, eBay, Skype. All founded in part or in whole by entrepreneurs in their 20s.

I don't totally buy that age matters. I think, as I said in my original post, that age is a mind set.

But just last week I met with the son of one of the best entrepreneurs I've ever backed. The son is 20, and a junior in college. And he's busting at the seams to go build something big and disruptive. Andrew pointed out to us in that meeting that most of the best and brightest kids he knew at Stanford were gone from school by senior year. The pull of the big idea was just too much.

Let's recall that the Stones had made all of their great records (other than Some Girls) by the time they were 30. I have heard that the great scientific discoveries are almost always made by the time the person is in his/her 30s. Of course, there are exceptions to this pattern and painters certainly seem to get better with age as do many authors.

So I don't know if youth is an advantage in the tech/startup world, but it certainly isn't a disadvantage. And I see our job as being able to work with young entrepreneurs in a way that allows them to be their best while helping them where they need it. It's something we are working very hard on perfecting.

The other thing you can take from that list from Valleywag is that many of those founders were at their companies for quite a while. Many still are. Most of the others stayed through the exit. Pushing founders out of their companies is something that is done way too often in our business. We need to figure out how to build companies around the founders, particularly these younger founders who might lack experience but have something even more valuable, a talent for building things that work incredibly well online.

So let's celebrate youthful enthusiasm and the blind ambition that powers many of these companies. Figure out how to harness it and work with it. The results speak for themselves.

Comments

[Gordon]

Youth vs. experience? I dunno. But I do know that Exile on Main Street came out in 1972. Charlie Watts & Bill Wyman were both in their 30s by the time it was released. (Charlie was born in 1941, and Wyman in 1936.)

Now, that other influential British band (from Liverpool) were all under 30 when they called it quits.

[John S. Kim]

thank you for the inspiring post.

[cyanbane]

I have always heard 'the 20s are for learning, the 30s are for earning'... but where the hell does that leave for creating?

I can't wait to turn 29 next year.

[Sumitra Menon]

Silicon Valley entrepreneur and strategy consultant Sramana Mitra's has conducted a series of interviews on seriel entrepreneurs. This is really inspiring for beginners!! Check out!!

[bill perlman]

If anyone knew the percentage of business-start-up attempts that succeed, as a percentage of all business-start-up-attempts - and then factored these percentages by age, we would all know a lot more about entrepreneurial success vs age. Is everyone confusing the likelihood of starting a tech business when you are under 30, with the likelihood of succeeding when you are under 30?

[Life Done Right]

Couldn't resist riling up the troops...

Hopefully you woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. If you did, haul your ass-mind over to A VC and plunge into the debate about whether anyone over 30 doesn’t qualify as an entrepreneur, at least in Silicon Valley. Is there some mental barrier that prevents “older” people from starting successful tech companies? Or is this VC merely another turd on the age discrimination pile. Whatever your thoughts, the louder you express them, the better the spectacle. Remember, a mind that goes numb may one day be wandering the streets looking for a way home, despite the fact that it’s right in front of them.

http://tinyurl.com/3yl4s3

[Jon]

I'm confused. It's not really possible to assess what you're saying without understanding the age distribution of people seeking funding relative to those that get it. Are older potential entrepreneurs asking for money and not getting funded? Or are fewer oldsters asking so that the funding and hit rates are comparable but with varying sample sizes?

Many other questions, but would be good to get the facts.

Thanks for a thought-provoking post,

Jon

[Warren S]

I am 49. I’ve been in startups all my life. I love what I do. Sometimes that conflicts with having a partner, starting a family, or having what other people consider to be a normal life. Ok, then. Ten years ago, I heard Mark Kvamme state that his VC firm only looked for entrepreneurs in their 20s. Well, fork that!

At the time, I had just “retired” so to speak, after 7 years at a VC funded startup. We were having some small success, back then. But, it wasn’t my passion. Instead, I followed my heart. In a couple years later, my savings ran out. A year later my credit-cards were topped out. And then came the crash, along with my old company’s ill timed IPO. So, what did I do? I raised a little bit of money from Angels. A year later came 9/11. Still, I kept going. It came to a point where I was living out of my car and writing code for 12 hours straight in a café while friends would buy me food.

Then, I got a “nice job” writing code for a high profile startup. But, I got antsy; I had unfinished business. After a year, we parted ways. I had been frugal; I had saved up enough money to write code for a year. And when that money ran out, I borrowed some money from a friend. He’s a bit embarrassed by the terms, but I think it is a good deal. I am still in the game. Time, as always, is running out. But, I love it!

It is never too late to change the World.

[Life Done Right]

Tiecon seems to have a different point of view about the "face of entrepreneurship"

"The face of business is dramatically changing as Baby Boomers, the Generation Y, mid-career women, mompreneurs, and new business leaders are coming together to create the most diverse and innovative pool of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs of today have broken age, language, geography, and money barriers. Clearly, the recent start-ups represent the emergence of a new face of entrepreneurship."

http://www.tiecon.org

[Eded1122]

My friend Erland went off to start one of the first biochemistry labs in Columbia when he was 59 for Rockefellar University. Don't look back.

[Wesley]

I believe that the ageism in the valley is as real as it is in Hollywood or Milan. But unlike most "ism"s, it might simply be the result of smart investor playing the odds based on past experience. In the end, capitalism will win out over all other forms bias and if the person and idea are worthy, it will get funded. If not and if this happens too much, watch for a specific fund (the Grey Beard Capital) to target the overlooked segment.

link to our thinking

[Ross C Brown]

I'm 17 and somewhat entrepreneurial myself so I'll pitch in my two cents now.

Maybe the reason for young entrepreneurs is the risk factor. All business is risky and right now (for me at leasT) I'm on top of the world. Have have little (other than money) to lose and an entire lifetime to fix it if things do not work out.

I have no commitments etc and that has allowed me to set up a few things etc. Maybe that's why so many start ups are lead by the youth of today...

[napkin-rings]

And because technology adoption willingness tends to trickle up in terms of age the little experience there was to have in these businesses was concentrated in the young folks with decent clock time to good deal approximately on affairs look-alike the online and PCs. (