4 ms·

While not exactly what you asked, here's a Kauffman study (http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/the-coming-entrepreneurial-boom.aspx http://www.kauffman.

by misham 16y ago

While not exactly what you asked, here's a Kauffman study (http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/the-coming-entrepreneurial-boom.aspx http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/the-coming-entre...) about average age of an entrepreneur. I don't have a source, but I read another study which showed majority of companies were started by 30+; this would merit the assumption that most companies are started by people who worked at other companies, including large corporations. This rings true since working for other companies allows you to build a network and find out where the pain points are in different industries.

_delirium 16y ago
I wonder if it varies by field? The abstract indicates that most entrepreneurs are 35+ in that study ("The 20-34 age bracket has the lowest rate of entrepreneurial activity"), but all the major tech companies I can think of, at least American ones of the past few decades, were by people under 35: Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, eBay, and Dell were all twentysomethings; Nvidia, Oracle, PayPal, and Cisco were early 30s; and I have to go back to AMD (founded 1969) to find a 40-year-old cofounder. I could be totally missing some, but I did just look down a list of biggest American tech companies to see if I could find anything.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  There seems to be a pattern where you're much less likely to succeed as a younger founder, but when you do succeed, you're more likely to succeed big. I can think of a few reasons why that might be so. Big companies that change whole industries tend to be started on the leading edge of sweeping technological changes (eg. the PC for Microsoft and Apple and Dell, the Internet for Google and EBay and FaceBook); usually these trends are too minor for an established career professional to bother looking at. Even if they do look at them, someone inexperienced has the advantage of looking at them fresh, without any preconceptions. A large number of the original dot-com bust companies were started by 30- and 40-somethings, and the bulk of them just imitated the brick-and-mortar shopping experience or old media experience. It took someone without industry experience to realize that search would be bigger than content, and that social networking isn't just media consumption.

by misham 16y ago

_delirium 16y ago

I wonder if it varies by field? The abstract indicates that most entrepreneurs are 35+ in that study ("The 20-34 age bracket has the lowest rate of entrepreneurial activity"), but all the major tech companies I can think of, at least American ones of the past few decades, were by people under 35: Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, eBay, and Dell were all twentysomethings; Nvidia, Oracle, PayPal, and Cisco were early 30s; and I have to go back to AMD (founded 1969) to find a 40-year-old cofounder. I could be totally missing some, but I did just look down a list of biggest American tech companies to see if I could find anything.

nostrademons 16y ago
There seems to be a pattern where you're much less likely to succeed as a younger founder, but when you do succeed, you're more likely to succeed big. I can think of a few reasons why that might be so. Big companies that change whole industries tend to be started on the leading edge of sweeping technological changes (eg. the PC for Microsoft and Apple and Dell, the Internet for Google and EBay and FaceBook); usually these trends are too minor for an established career professional to bother looking at. Even if they do look at them, someone inexperienced has the advantage of looking at them fresh, without any preconceptions. A large number of the original dot-com bust companies were started by 30- and 40-somethings, and the bulk of them just imitated the brick-and-mortar shopping experience or old media experience. It took someone without industry experience to realize that search would be bigger than content, and that social networking isn't just media consumption.