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There are a few things which younger entrepreneurs have advantage over older ones: 1. Experience (or lack thereof): It's a double edged sword, you may stop mak

There are a few things which younger entrepreneurs have advantage over older ones: 1. Experience (or lack thereof): It's a double edged sword, you may stop making any progress through paralysis-analysis. Progress is the best motivator and when you don't it starts affecting you in ways you will be surprised. 2. Cost of living: As you get older the cost of living only climbs up. You will be shouldering a lot of more responsibilities but biggest of all which I experience personally is associating dollar-cost with my time. You start valuing cost of money over cost of opportunity. If I am not making money that means I am loosing money. 3. Social pressure: We are social beings and when you see your friends moving ahead in life and you tend to remain where you are ( think first 1k days https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L03vBkOKTrc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L03vBkOKTrc), you need to have a certain kind of personality to be able to get through that period. Not vacationing, living a frugal life & compromising at every stage takes a toll on you personally. It starts affecting your mind in weird ways. This is by no means a comprehensive list but it's my own experience & it's a constant battle especially when the chips are down. EDIT to clear #1 speaking as an older developer.

ssivark 9y ago
To add one more thing, I think there's a significant selection bias at play, when one sees successful risk takers. For all the reasons mentioned above, older folk have a lower affinity to risky ventures. Younger folk often take up risky ventures; a small fraction succeed, but they get a lot of attention.
skylark 9y ago
I think the biggest factor is actually time. Raw time. In college I had 12+ hours/day I could spend doing anything I wanted, even accounting for classes, studying for midterms, etc. Multiply that across 4 years and you have 17,000 hours to spend all of your energy on. Some people do choose to go down that rabbit hole, and out of those people some will be successful. Now that I've been working in tech for a few years, I feel lucky if I can find the mental energy to work on something for 4 hours/day outside of work.

ssivark 9y ago

To add one more thing, I think there's a significant selection bias at play, when one sees successful risk takers. For all the reasons mentioned above, older folk have a lower affinity to risky ventures. Younger folk often take up risky ventures; a small fraction succeed, but they get a lot of attention.

skylark 9y ago

I think the biggest factor is actually time. Raw time. In college I had 12+ hours/day I could spend doing anything I wanted, even accounting for classes, studying for midterms, etc. Multiply that across 4 years and you have 17,000 hours to spend all of your energy on. Some people do choose to go down that rabbit hole, and out of those people some will be successful. Now that I've been working in tech for a few years, I feel lucky if I can find the mental energy to work on something for 4 hours/day outside of work.