[balls187]

> This data probably doesn't reflect the insane number of 20 somethings chasing ideas in markets like the dating space right now. Most of them fail.

Without being ageist, I think that you see a disproportionate number of younger founders simply because their current situation better allows for taking risks. When you have a family and are are responsible for at least 1/2 the household income, that choice becomes a lot harder.

My theory is that age is only a proxy for success, given that most businesses fail because they run out of money. Older founders may have access to larger war chests than younger founders.

[cookiecaper]

Older founders' main contribution is a larger war chest of experience to draw from, even if they also have larger personal networks and some personal savings to make them less dependent on the seed-stage investor. I personally believe that if investors were more willing to make the startup calculation reasonable for stable adults, we'd have far better results at the macro level. 20-somethings are cool, but they are still very young and very naive. It seems most non-tech industries have already internalized that. Tech will eventually mature into that realization as technically-adept generations age.

[scardine]

Being naive - in the sense of looking the world through the eyes of a child - is one of the best qualities in a founder because startups are so counterintuitive.

How many grown-ups with lots of industry experience said no for young Microsofties, Googles or Facebooks?

- A social network for college students? What a stupid idea!

[beat]

Look at it this way... older founders may be less likely to create a unicorn, but they're more likely to create a business.

[fsk]

I'm more interested in starting a business that has a 90% chance of being worth $10M than a business that has a 1% chance of being worth $1B.

A business that has a 90% chance of being worth $10M isn't suitable for VC.

[balls187]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but the expected value is higher on the 1% chance for 1B

[fsk]

As a founder, you only get to invest in one business at a time, so the high chance of $10M is worth more than the longshot chance of $1B. Even if the latter has higher EV, the former has higher average quality-of-life EV.

Working as an employee vs owning a $10M business is a BIG lifestyle jump. From $10M to $1B, not as much.

[cookiecaper]

>Being naive - in the sense of looking the world through the eyes of a child

This is not the sense that I meant. I meant naive in the sense that they're ignorant of many subtle but important behavioral practices in both corporations and people, and that they often haven't developed much personal discipline. It's not their fault, of course; they're just young. Youth is good for its zeal, but corporations should generally not be run by zealots, they should be run by mature, calculating, and sensitive persons (and very few young people qualify). Zealots belong in the marketing and sales departments.

By the age they become founders, I think most people have had most of the child-like wonder beat out of them, and in fact I think the early and mid 20s are a dark time for a lot of people, with the pressures of exiting the scholastic world and entering the professional world, frequently with a beast of debt on their backs, and the rejection and failure incumbent in trying to date and find a lifelong companion.

[balls187]

Founders aren't children. They are typically post college graduates. And they typically must include one that has an engineering degree, hopefully with some pedigree to it.

[alaskamiller]

Microsoft invested in Facebook 3 years after it was made at a 15 billion dollar valuation and everyone laughed.

[beat]

I feel that pain. I just spent months building the alpha of my own software, making no money with grownup expenses. Then my wife got laid off, so I had to jump in and get another dayjob so someone would be making money.

I don't really have access to any sort of a larger war chest. What I do have is a much better idea than Snapchat for Drunks, because I have a lot of real-world professional experience, and I know how to actually build complex software, because I've been doing it for decades.

My killer is overcoming the cautious nature of too many years in the enterprise. It's easy to overbuild and not be lean.