Nonagenarian startup founders?

Hola,

The cult of Zuck, and by that I mean the worship of the teenage startup founder, has distorted expectations among professionals. 

Too often, I hear young folks starting bright careers lament that they have not yet founded a company or made billions. Are successful founders in their early twenties really the norm? Let’s look at some facts that paint a different picture of founders’ relative grizzle. 

So far, the top 7 tech startup exits of 2019 (in an IPO year that is shaping up to be record-breaking) collectively involve 12 founders. Their average age in 2019 is around 38.5 years old. 



Some may have been in their twenties when they founded their companies (Lyft and Pinterest’s founders). But others like Eric Yuan of Zoomand Ethan Brown of Beyond Meat were 40+ and in their late thirties, respectively. Hardly pimply adolescents.

It’s time to end entrepreneurial age anxiety and the ageism that is its flip side. As long as there is an idea inside someone's skull, there’s time.

To quote a wise man, “Time is a flat circle.”

BTW, my estimates are on the conservative side — when missing an exact birth date, I assumed the founders had not yet had their birthdays in 2019.

And I'm in my mid-thirties, lol...I wish.


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Have a great rest of the week.

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