4 ms·

Not only was their first unicorn/public company started by college students (dropbox), arguably some of the largest companies of the recent era were started by

Not only was their first unicorn/public company started by college students (dropbox), arguably some of the largest companies of the recent era were started by college kids (facebook).

dd36 8y ago
Some. Not most.
- noobermin 8y ago
  If that's the average, the only way it'd be "some, not most" would be if there were a bimodal distribution significant young portion and a significant older portion >35.
FPGAhacker 8y ago
Another datapoint, average age of a successful startup is 45. No mention of median https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-successful-startup-founder-is-45 https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-succes...
- cheez 8y ago
  Well, if we assume that there are few successful founders, but enough people to skew the average age higher, then the oldest a few people to shift _that_ much could be are ~90. Since that is unlikely, it's likely that the median is close to the average.
- thecleaner 8y ago
  What's the median ?
- analog31 8y ago
  This could be just a weird statistical bias. Founders start businesses at all ages, but the younger you start, the more tries you get before one of your businesses succeeds. And once your business is successful, then you're unlikely to start another. This would make successful founders tend to be older than unsuccessful founders, but it's like always finding something in the last place that you look, or (happened to me) you're most likely to get injured on the last ski run of the day.
  - BerislavLopac 8y ago
    > And once your business is successful, then you're unlikely to start another. Let me FTFY: once you start a successful business, it's unlikely that another you start will be nearly equally successful. Most entrepreneurs are serial ones, and successful ones -- particularly those who leave their business behind (e.g. by acquisition) tend to try again. But contrary to popular belief, having a successful business in your past doesn't make it easier to make your new ventures successful -- it just makes it easier to start one.
onion2k 8y ago
It could be the case that over the entire portfolio of YC companies they've made money more consistently from more mature founders, and they're seeing fewer successes from young founders now. Dropbox and Facebook are more than ten years old.. What successes have YC had in the past 5 years?
- dd36 8y ago
  I would also argue that the pains a social network or a cloud drive solve can be pretty well experienced by a college or younger kid. Many industry specific pains require industry specific experience.
abledon 8y ago
Your forgetting that the college kids of them only had to know basic php and JavaScript to build a server + front end web UI. Now it’s at minimum 2 years to learn the deep fundamentals of react/redux/graphql then tying it into lambdas on the backend , maybe another year of study to learn full kubernetes integration , then another year to fully grasp how to set up and side chain in a deep learning pipeline with proper selection of production grade ML framework. Learn them all then choose which one works best. After that to reach youth in mobile sector , take 1.5 years to fully learn iOS and android native platform builds . Etc etc . It’s not that college kids are too young . It’s that they need to take the recommended time to learn and deploy all the necessary tech to launch a successful startup! EDIT: this was a \s piece but obviously it went over some peoples heads lol
- cheez 8y ago
  I think you're exhibiting some wishful thinking there. It's still not hard to create a FB MVP with tuts.
- mandeepj 8y ago
  You can still start with plain old html, js, Ajax and a data store. Once, you reach some scale or in parallel, you can hire someone else to do it. There is a lot of open source tech now, which was not available before.
- kristiandupont 8y ago
  Most of that isn’t necessary until you’re pretty far into the game. I’d argue that the barrier to starting a startup gets lower every year.
- Animats 8y ago
  Now it’s at minimum 2 years to learn the deep fundamentals of react/redux/graphql then tying it into lambdas on the back end, maybe another year of study to learn full kubernetes integration , then another year to fully grasp how to set up and side chain in a deep learning pipeline with proper selection of production grade ML framework. Learn them all then choose which one works best. After that to reach youth in mobile sector, take 1.5 years to fully learn iOS and android native platform builds. By which time the web crowd will have moved on to something else.
nostrademons 8y ago
Drew and Arash were both 24 when DropBox was founded. Drew already had a couple years of work experience at the time (notably with Bit9, which is a security company that basically reverse-engineers ALL the things - see the connection with DropBox's early success?), and had founded one previous company, an SAT test prep business.

Not only was their first unicorn/public company started by college students (dropbox), arguably some of the largest companies of the recent era were started by college kids (facebook).

dd36 8y ago

Some. Not most.

noobermin 8y ago
If that's the average, the only way it'd be "some, not most" would be if there were a bimodal distribution significant young portion and a significant older portion >35.

FPGAhacker 8y ago

Another datapoint, average age of a successful startup is 45. No mention of median https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-successful-startup-founder-is-45 https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-succes...

cheez 8y ago
Well, if we assume that there are few successful founders, but enough people to skew the average age higher, then the oldest a few people to shift _that_ much could be are ~90. Since that is unlikely, it's likely that the median is close to the average.
thecleaner 8y ago
What's the median ?
analog31 8y ago
This could be just a weird statistical bias. Founders start businesses at all ages, but the younger you start, the more tries you get before one of your businesses succeeds. And once your business is successful, then you're unlikely to start another. This would make successful founders tend to be older than unsuccessful founders, but it's like always finding something in the last place that you look, or (happened to me) you're most likely to get injured on the last ski run of the day.
- BerislavLopac 8y ago
  > And once your business is successful, then you're unlikely to start another. Let me FTFY: once you start a successful business, it's unlikely that another you start will be nearly equally successful. Most entrepreneurs are serial ones, and successful ones -- particularly those who leave their business behind (e.g. by acquisition) tend to try again. But contrary to popular belief, having a successful business in your past doesn't make it easier to make your new ventures successful -- it just makes it easier to start one.

onion2k 8y ago

It could be the case that over the entire portfolio of YC companies they've made money more consistently from more mature founders, and they're seeing fewer successes from young founders now. Dropbox and Facebook are more than ten years old.. What successes have YC had in the past 5 years?

dd36 8y ago
I would also argue that the pains a social network or a cloud drive solve can be pretty well experienced by a college or younger kid. Many industry specific pains require industry specific experience.

abledon 8y ago

Your forgetting that the college kids of them only had to know basic php and JavaScript to build a server + front end web UI. Now it’s at minimum 2 years to learn the deep fundamentals of react/redux/graphql then tying it into lambdas on the backend , maybe another year of study to learn full kubernetes integration , then another year to fully grasp how to set up and side chain in a deep learning pipeline with proper selection of production grade ML framework. Learn them all then choose which one works best. After that to reach youth in mobile sector , take 1.5 years to fully learn iOS and android native platform builds . Etc etc . It’s not that college kids are too young . It’s that they need to take the recommended time to learn and deploy all the necessary tech to launch a successful startup! EDIT: this was a \s piece but obviously it went over some peoples heads lol

cheez 8y ago
I think you're exhibiting some wishful thinking there. It's still not hard to create a FB MVP with tuts.
mandeepj 8y ago
You can still start with plain old html, js, Ajax and a data store. Once, you reach some scale or in parallel, you can hire someone else to do it. There is a lot of open source tech now, which was not available before.
kristiandupont 8y ago
Most of that isn’t necessary until you’re pretty far into the game. I’d argue that the barrier to starting a startup gets lower every year.
Animats 8y ago
Now it’s at minimum 2 years to learn the deep fundamentals of react/redux/graphql then tying it into lambdas on the back end, maybe another year of study to learn full kubernetes integration , then another year to fully grasp how to set up and side chain in a deep learning pipeline with proper selection of production grade ML framework. Learn them all then choose which one works best. After that to reach youth in mobile sector, take 1.5 years to fully learn iOS and android native platform builds. By which time the web crowd will have moved on to something else.

nostrademons 8y ago

Drew and Arash were both 24 when DropBox was founded. Drew already had a couple years of work experience at the time (notably with Bit9, which is a security company that basically reverse-engineers ALL the things - see the connection with DropBox's early success?), and had founded one previous company, an SAT test prep business.