[austincheney]

The youth buzz has nothing to do with engineering potential.

Young people tend to be more free of external responsibilities: marriage, children, job contracts, consumer debt, professional associations, expensive educational entanglements, and so forth. This makes young people more available to take giant risks with less apprehension (they have less to lose).

There is also giant marketing buzz when an uneducated 18 year old female creates something vaguely interesting, but nobody cares when a 45 year old man creates something absolutely revolutionary until they old it in their hands. Case in point: Elizabeth Holmes.

[guylepage3]

I used to think the same way but what I have witnessed over the years is that my entrepreneur friends who are married with children tend to be just as risk taking as young single ones.

I feel entrepreneurship is a mentality. Entrepreneurs will always take risk where they see opportunity. The risk just seems to become less foolhardy as they get older. No stats on this just an observation.

[georgeecollins]

I don't think the poster is talking about propensity to entrepreneurship. I think the poster is talking about the propensity to generate media buzz. Young people make appealing subjects and it is exciting when they are smart and ambitious.

[gexla]

> This makes young people more available to take giant risks with less apprehension (they have less to lose).

Is this a contradiction? How can there be risk if there's nothing to lose?

[Infernal]

Maybe a valid rephrasing would be "This makes young people more able to take actions that older folks with more obligations would consider to be giant risks".