While the story of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook has undoubtedly inspired an entire generation of young entrepreneurs and reshaped their imaginations about what’s possible, people too easily forget that a big part of what makes the story compelling is that it’s so unusual. Mark Zuckerburg is not only an outlier — he’s an outlier among outliers. By Ian Hathaway.
Researchers have known for a while that peak age for general entrepreneurship occurs around mid-career (mid-30s to mid-40s), but an influential academic study published last year shows just how misguided the popular narrative is that twenty-something tech billionaires are the norm even for high-growth, high-tech entrepreneurship.
Economists Pierre Azoulay, Benjamin Jones, Daniel Kim, and Javier Miranda, analyzed administrative government data on the founders of all U.S. businesses that were started during a recent eight-year period (2007-2014). This restricted-use dataset at the U.S. Census Bureau allowed the researchers to get an accurate and comprehensive view of all business startup activity in America.
Source: https://startupsusa.org/the-myth-of-the-young-startup-founder/
The authors calculated the average founder age (at the time of founding) along key startup characteristics (industry, financing, patenting, location) and outcomes (hyper-growth, acquisition, or IPO). Below is the average founder age along these dimensions:
- All companies (with at least one employee): 42 years
- Fastest growing 0.1% of companies: 45 years
- High-tech industry: 43 years
- Venture-backed: 42 years
- Filed patents: 45 years
- Successfully exited (acquisition or IPO): 47 years
- Located in Silicon Valley: 42 years
- Located in an entrepreneurial hub: 41 years
Founders aged in their 20s and 30s are less likely to start high-growth companies compared with their share of total companies founded. Conversely, founders aged 40 years and above are more likely to start high-growth businesses relative to their contribution of total companies founded. Super interesting read!
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