<story><title>Age and high-growth entrepreneurship</title><url>https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aeri.20180582</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>georgewsinger</author><text>Studying &amp;quot;1-in-1,000 fastest growing new ventures&amp;quot; is completely misunderstanding tech. Startup returns are about power-laws and &lt;i&gt;extraordinary outliers&lt;/i&gt;. If we instead study the age of founders of tech companies which actually generated almost all of the ecosystem gains over the past few decades:&lt;p&gt;1. Apple: $2.65T&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  - Jobs: 21

  - Woz: 26
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
2. Alphabet: $1.73T&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  - Larry&amp;#x2F;Sergey: 25ish
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
3. Microsoft: $2.22T&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  - Gates: 19

  - Allen: 22
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
4. Amazon: $1.45T&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  - Bezos: 29
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
5. Facebook: $0.84T&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  - Zuckerberg: 19

&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
Looking at just the age of founders instead of other substance is stupid. But if we&amp;#x27;re &lt;i&gt;just&lt;/i&gt; looking at age and nothing else, then younger founders make for better outliers, and generating outliers is the whole point of this endeavor.&lt;p&gt;-----&lt;p&gt;EDIT: With its high market cap, Tesla belongs on this list, and actually had some older founders.  Problem: the older founders left the company&amp;#x2F;were forcibly removed, didn&amp;#x27;t retain much equity, and aren&amp;#x27;t credited with much early success when they were actually in charge.  Still, some interesting data points.&lt;p&gt;Tesla: $0.94T&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  - Elon Musk: 32

  - J.B. Straubel: 28

  - Martin Eberhard: 43 (forcibly removed due to late&amp;#x2F;over budget Roadsters)

  - Marc Tappening: 39 (left Tesla in 2008)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>civilized</author><text>No - it&amp;#x27;s statistically unsound to focus on extreme outliers, &lt;i&gt;even if they account for most of the economy.&lt;/i&gt; Suppose a single company accounted for 99% of the economy and was founded by an 18-year-old. Would that mean that we should expect 18-year-olds to be the best entrepreneurs in general? Of course not. You can&amp;#x27;t base broad conclusions on a sample size of one, even if that one is disproportionately influential.&lt;p&gt;Look at the top 20, 50, and 100 to get a better idea of whether the top 5 observation is robust.</text></comment>
<story><title>Age and high-growth entrepreneurship</title><url>https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aeri.20180582</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>georgewsinger</author><text>Studying &amp;quot;1-in-1,000 fastest growing new ventures&amp;quot; is completely misunderstanding tech. Startup returns are about power-laws and &lt;i&gt;extraordinary outliers&lt;/i&gt;. If we instead study the age of founders of tech companies which actually generated almost all of the ecosystem gains over the past few decades:&lt;p&gt;1. Apple: $2.65T&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  - Jobs: 21

  - Woz: 26
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
2. Alphabet: $1.73T&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  - Larry&amp;#x2F;Sergey: 25ish
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
3. Microsoft: $2.22T&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  - Gates: 19

  - Allen: 22
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
4. Amazon: $1.45T&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  - Bezos: 29
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
5. Facebook: $0.84T&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  - Zuckerberg: 19

&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
Looking at just the age of founders instead of other substance is stupid. But if we&amp;#x27;re &lt;i&gt;just&lt;/i&gt; looking at age and nothing else, then younger founders make for better outliers, and generating outliers is the whole point of this endeavor.&lt;p&gt;-----&lt;p&gt;EDIT: With its high market cap, Tesla belongs on this list, and actually had some older founders.  Problem: the older founders left the company&amp;#x2F;were forcibly removed, didn&amp;#x27;t retain much equity, and aren&amp;#x27;t credited with much early success when they were actually in charge.  Still, some interesting data points.&lt;p&gt;Tesla: $0.94T&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  - Elon Musk: 32

  - J.B. Straubel: 28

  - Martin Eberhard: 43 (forcibly removed due to late&amp;#x2F;over budget Roadsters)

  - Marc Tappening: 39 (left Tesla in 2008)&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>erosenbe0</author><text>Too much analysis of software giants. It&amp;#x27;s all industry specific.&lt;p&gt;2&amp;#x2F;3 Intel founders were about 40. Sam Walton did not own a store until at least age 35. Bell founded AT&amp;amp;T, maybe in historically relative terms the most successful tech company ever, at 37. Jensen founded Nvidia about 30. Warren Buffet bought up Berkshire in his late twenties.</text></comment>