[phsource]

Just to be clear, the "capital" here is not really money, but instead, machines and equipment. Think a car company (e.g., Tesla) buying a used car factory (i.e. the NUMMI plant [1]) or a biotech company buying equipment cast off from Genentech or Pfizer.

> To document the interaction between firm and machine age, we lean on 1.56 million transactions covering 70,000 models of machines. Across a wide range of industries and equipment types, young firms acquire older capital, whereas older firms are more likely to buy new capital

This seems to line up with what I've heard from friends in biotech and mechanical companies. One friend lamented that "at Apple, we had the best of everything: suppliers, equipment, machinery. Here, we make do with what we've got and find creative ways to work with them." Similarly, on the YC forums, we often see used lab equipment listed for sale, and there are whole industries around this.

Pretty neat! Definitely a part of the startup or industry network effect I haven't thought of before. I wonder what other examples of startups working with super-janky second-hand machinery are out there.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI