Does Entrepreneurship Have An Ageism Problem?
By Ryan Holmes
Quick — picture a successful tech entrepreneur. In your mind’s eye, how old are they?
Maybe you instinctively default to an image of someone in their twenties — young, digitally native, ready to shake things up. You’re not alone. No less an authority than Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator, has noted that, “The cutoff in investors’ heads is 32 … After 32, they start to be a little skeptical.”
Turns out, this is dead wrong. Surprising (some would say shocking) preliminary research shared last year suggests that Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who have a successful exit have an average founding age of 47. And this pattern extends well beyond the world of tech. The average entrepreneur is a ripe old 39 when starting a company, according to the Kaufman Foundation. Overall, their research shows mid-career entrepreneurs are five times more likely to still be in business five years later than those starting a business out of college.
To me, this is an important wake up call. Even though I’m in my 40s myself, I still often think of entrepreneurship as a young person’s game. In fact, throughout my career I’ve been a fierce advocate of clearing away hurdles for youth entrepreneurs. I founded a charity called League of Innovators expressly to build entrepreneurial acumen for 15 to 25…
