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Perhaps, but Y Combinator has previously indicated that's more or less the median age of their accepted founders. And beyond YC, the hype is most often for yout

Perhaps, but Y Combinator has previously indicated that's more or less the median age of their accepted founders. And beyond YC, the hype is most often for youth, people under 30. This isn't just the situation in tech, but it's interesting to see the industry's mythology isn't supported by data, when it claims to be a data/results-driven industry.

eru 9y ago
One reason Y Combinator starts so young is to give repeated founders the early failures (and successes) they need to learn how to do things right. Also, the young ones have less opportunity costs. Failure is comparatively cheaper for them.
- lsc 9y ago
  >Also, the young ones have less opportunity costs. Failure is comparatively cheaper for them. People keep saying this, and it's simply not true. I spent about a decade on my company, give or take, getting serious-ish when I was 25 or so. If I had taken 10% of the cash and opportunity cost I spent on that failed venture and stuck it in a whole market index fund? or in some real-estate? or really any other conventional investment, I would be pretty well off now. If I invested 30%? I would be able to retire now. Compound interest is an incredible force, a force that is strongest when you are young. As a young engineer with a good starting salary? you are uniquely positioned to win through passive investing.
  - KekDemaga 9y ago
    How did your wife and kids take it when you lost your house and you all had in move in with your mother?
    - lsc 9y ago
      you can start a family at 19, and you can start a family at 35. Either way, yes, it's going to change your entrepreneurial options. I personally see the question of how you have a business with children to be largely orthogonal to the question of what age it is optimal to have a business. Also, if I owned my home and had a million in stock (I'm 37 and got my first coding gig at 17, so a million in the bank is totally reasonable if I was frugal and invested in low-cost broad index funds, and there have been several points during that time where a bay-area abode could be had for very reasonable money.) Then maybe, I mean if the corporation was setup correctly so that liability didn't fall through to me, then maybe I wouldn't have to move back in mom's basement when my business fails. I chose not to have children, and I don't regret that choice, but let me tell you, if I did want children? it would be a lot easier to do had I used my 20s to build up resources rather than trying to compete outside of my field of expertise, outside the fields where my innate abilities help me.
  - eru 9y ago
    Depends on when you started investing. Compounding interest is only a powerful force in your favour when (implied) interest rates are above zero. And still: every working hour of older people is on average more expensive to give up on some startup.
    - lsc 9y ago
      >Depends on when you started investing. Compounding interest is only a powerful force in your favour when (implied) interest rates are above zero. There's no point in my life at which I could have started investing wherein I would be underwater now. No point in my parent's lives, either. if you take a 'buy and hold' approach with broad low-cost indices, you are going to have a hard time finding a date where if you bought and then sold ten years later you wouldn't have beaten inflation by a reasonable margin. >And still: every working hour of older people is on average more expensive to give up on some startup. This bites both ways. I can point out several mistakes I made running a business in my 20s, mistakes largely due to inexperience that had I not made those mistakes, my business would have been opportunity cost profitable and then some. Yes, I get paid more now than when I was 25, but I also produce a lot more value, and a lot of that extra value, the "wisdom" as the old people like to call it, is outside of my abilities as a unix tech or a programmer (though I'm better at those things, too.) I am worlds better socially, and have a dramatically deeper understanding of business. (you can argue that the business skills are because I spent my 20s running a business... and you wouldn't be wrong, but I would have learned some of that working for other people, and my social skills? those are just me getting better at life, in fact I think my social skills would be better still had I kept an office job during that time, and having better social skills will help you dramatically in business.) I personally think that my increased pay does not nearly capture my increased value. I am dramatically better than my first coding job... and I only make like 4x what I did then, and that's not counting two decades of inflation. Running a business is one way to capitalize on both your technical and your social skills.
      - eru 9y ago
        Thanks for the write-up! (As an aside for what it's worth, I'm on track for around ten times my first salary from my early twenties these days. I'm in my early thirties now. All as an employee. I keep meaning to start a business, but life is cushy.)

eru 9y ago

One reason Y Combinator starts so young is to give repeated founders the early failures (and successes) they need to learn how to do things right. Also, the young ones have less opportunity costs. Failure is comparatively cheaper for them.

lsc 9y ago
>Also, the young ones have less opportunity costs. Failure is comparatively cheaper for them. People keep saying this, and it's simply not true. I spent about a decade on my company, give or take, getting serious-ish when I was 25 or so. If I had taken 10% of the cash and opportunity cost I spent on that failed venture and stuck it in a whole market index fund? or in some real-estate? or really any other conventional investment, I would be pretty well off now. If I invested 30%? I would be able to retire now. Compound interest is an incredible force, a force that is strongest when you are young. As a young engineer with a good starting salary? you are uniquely positioned to win through passive investing.
- KekDemaga 9y ago
  How did your wife and kids take it when you lost your house and you all had in move in with your mother?
  - lsc 9y ago
    you can start a family at 19, and you can start a family at 35. Either way, yes, it's going to change your entrepreneurial options. I personally see the question of how you have a business with children to be largely orthogonal to the question of what age it is optimal to have a business. Also, if I owned my home and had a million in stock (I'm 37 and got my first coding gig at 17, so a million in the bank is totally reasonable if I was frugal and invested in low-cost broad index funds, and there have been several points during that time where a bay-area abode could be had for very reasonable money.) Then maybe, I mean if the corporation was setup correctly so that liability didn't fall through to me, then maybe I wouldn't have to move back in mom's basement when my business fails. I chose not to have children, and I don't regret that choice, but let me tell you, if I did want children? it would be a lot easier to do had I used my 20s to build up resources rather than trying to compete outside of my field of expertise, outside the fields where my innate abilities help me.
- eru 9y ago
  Depends on when you started investing. Compounding interest is only a powerful force in your favour when (implied) interest rates are above zero. And still: every working hour of older people is on average more expensive to give up on some startup.
  - lsc 9y ago
    >Depends on when you started investing. Compounding interest is only a powerful force in your favour when (implied) interest rates are above zero. There's no point in my life at which I could have started investing wherein I would be underwater now. No point in my parent's lives, either. if you take a 'buy and hold' approach with broad low-cost indices, you are going to have a hard time finding a date where if you bought and then sold ten years later you wouldn't have beaten inflation by a reasonable margin. >And still: every working hour of older people is on average more expensive to give up on some startup. This bites both ways. I can point out several mistakes I made running a business in my 20s, mistakes largely due to inexperience that had I not made those mistakes, my business would have been opportunity cost profitable and then some. Yes, I get paid more now than when I was 25, but I also produce a lot more value, and a lot of that extra value, the "wisdom" as the old people like to call it, is outside of my abilities as a unix tech or a programmer (though I'm better at those things, too.) I am worlds better socially, and have a dramatically deeper understanding of business. (you can argue that the business skills are because I spent my 20s running a business... and you wouldn't be wrong, but I would have learned some of that working for other people, and my social skills? those are just me getting better at life, in fact I think my social skills would be better still had I kept an office job during that time, and having better social skills will help you dramatically in business.) I personally think that my increased pay does not nearly capture my increased value. I am dramatically better than my first coding job... and I only make like 4x what I did then, and that's not counting two decades of inflation. Running a business is one way to capitalize on both your technical and your social skills.
    - eru 9y ago
      Thanks for the write-up! (As an aside for what it's worth, I'm on track for around ten times my first salary from my early twenties these days. I'm in my early thirties now. All as an employee. I keep meaning to start a business, but life is cushy.)