August 2015: Middle-aged entrepreneurs will be critical to the next trillion-dollar business

Middle-aged entrepreneurs will be critical to the next trillion-dollar business

 

Tim Cook and Steven Jobs both shattered the notion that tech companies should be led by young entrepreneurs only. VC’s still favour the young over the matured however. Why is that?

 

Unfortunately most investors feel that entrepreneurs over 32 are not investable. After 32, the “cut off point”, most investors are skeptical at best. A significant group of investors even feels that with 25 being the peak of an entrepreneur, anything late 20’s should be avoided.

 

But let’s look at some scientific data. Research on successful technology firms by Duke and Harvard in 2008 reviewed companies that were generating at least $ 1million in revenue. The research revealed that the average and median age of their founders was 39. Twice as many were older than 50 as were younger than 25. In a follow-up project, the backgrounds of 549 successful entrepreneurs in 12 high-growth industries were researched. The average and median age of male founders in this group was 40, and a significant proportion were older than 50…..

 

The claim that only the young can effect change has been by founders, inventors, innovators, and executives at almost every major technology company, including Google, LinkedIn, Salesforce.com, Qualcomm, Apple and Intel.

2014-11

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facebook ceo Mark Zuckerberg to an audience at Stanford in 2007: “It is untrue that people “die in terms of new ideas” as they approach 45 or that “young people are just smarter”.

 

Link to original article: http://venturebeat.com/2014/10/31/why-middle-aged-entrepreneurs-will-be-critical-to-the-next-trillion-dollar-business/

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