A new study found the average founder of the fastest growing tech startups was about 45-years-old — and 50-year-old entrepreneurs were about twice as likely to have a runaway business success as their 30-year-old counterparts.
The findings have implications for both older and younger entrepreneurs, who may gauge future success on industry biases, as well as for venture capitalists, whose propensity to invest younger may be having adverse affects on their returns.”
Young people are just smarter,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg once said.
Zuckerberg’s bias is not uncommon in Silicon Valley. Young people are digital natives, thought to be cognitively sharper, less distracted by family and less beholden to current industry paradigms, according to the study.
Source: Research shows older entrepreneurs are likely to be more successful
The bias to youth is, in part, because media stories frequently focus on the unusual (versus the important), and a young, successful entrepreneur met the unusual criteria.
VCs invest almost exclusively in firms started by very young entrepreneurs.
