[mikert5671]

Selection bias, if you're starting a company at age 43, you are risking your career and monetary stability. The type of person who can afford this is probably already part of an elite financially secure class. How misleading is this article? They are comparing apples to oranges, people starting companies in their 20s are not the same as people starting companies in their 40s. Take the set of people in their 20s who would be capable of starting a company in their 40s (meaning they have career success, a cushion of money, etc) and compare them to the entrepreneurs in their 40s, then you have a statistic. This is false otherwise.

[nightski]

I'd actually argue the opposite. If you sacrifice retirement savings in your 20s, it's going to hurt a lot more than sacrificing some contributions in your 40s.

[mikert5671]

This completely misses the point of my argument.

[leecarraher]

in light of this article (https://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene...) featured on hackernews 3 years ago, it would appear that both 20yo and 40yo entrepreneurs where both part of the financial elite prior to founding a startups.

[kown223]

you are risking your career and monetary stability, at your 20s too, if you start a company and fail, you risk going homeless and having a huge gap on your cv.

[DoreenMichele]

I would like to see a citation for this assertion that, if your company fails, you are at high risk (or higher than normal risk) of homelessness. This doesn't fit with what I know for what puts a person at risk of homelessness.

And there's no gap on your CV. You put down "Worked on launching x startup from X date to Y date. It sold, folded, whatever and I'm looking for a job now."

Thank you in advance if you can come up with a cite.

[ericand]

My understanding is that failing is more of an issue outside the US. In the US, which is where the data is from, I tend to agree with DoreenMichele: Startup failure is fairly easy to recover from. You mostly risk opportunity cost (lost wages, lost promotion periods).

[TomMarius]

Actually cost of failure is much lower in Europe due to welfare state and generally lower cost of living.

[jarsin]

What is career stability now days anyways? Guys working at amazon right now are scared to death everyday they will get fired. I know people who lost jobs at almost every FANG company due to politics.

Not sure the difference anymore of working for the man and losing your job or doing a startup and failing.