[bachmeier]

Yeah, the idea that you can't do something like this at 60 is just the rambling of someone that doesn't know what they don't know. Not as bad as the comments on HN that talk about cognitive decline at 40, but still badly uninformed.

[sabbaticaldev]

old men yelling at clouds

nobody said they can’t. Statistics show they don’t do it the at the same rate so it’s an accomplishment when some do

[devjab]

Which statistics are those? https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/knowledge-at-wha... seems to indicate that 45 or 55 are the “best” ages to start a business. And since the average was 42 between 2007 and 2014 it would seem to indicate that at least a good amount of founders are “old”.

If I were to guess I think most founders would be either young or above middle age. Living “poor” is less of a problem when you’re young, and then once your children grow up and you have both experience and stable finances you’re again free of a lot of life’s responsibilities. Meanwhile you’re likely going to be struggling to even find enough hours in your life to take a shower in your 30-40ies with small kids and jobs, and you’re also likely to actually depend on paychecks during this period.

[bachmeier]

Well, nobody except the author of the article we're commenting on.

> At first, I doubted if he could run a business at his age. I wanted him to relax at home.

As for this

> Statistics show they don’t do it the at the same rate so it’s an accomplishment when some do

51% of US business owners are at least 55: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2020/comm/busi...

[jasode]

>51% of US business owners are at least 55: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2020/comm/busi...

The impetus of this particular thread and context of gp (sabbaticaldev) comment is "starting" a business at age 60.

On the other hand, your cite seems to be survey of all businesses and gets a snapshot of whatever ages the business owners happen to be when the survey was done. In other words, maybe many of those 55+ business owners started when they were much younger?

[taylorius]

Plenty of people have definitely said they can't. But the lesson is - just don't listen to anyone, because nobody knows the future, and you can do whatever you want and let the chips fall where they may!