Comments on: The Young Entrepreneur Stereotype Bites the Dust

By: Entrepreneurship in the News – Week of 6/15 « The Acton School of Business

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:09:22 +0000

[...] The myth of the 20-something entrepreneur is just that, a myth, according to a new study. In reality, the people with the most entrepreneurial activity are between the ages of 55 and 64. The 20-34 age bracket, those we normally identify with risk-taking youth, like the founders of Facebook or Google, has the lowest rate of entrepreneurial activity. (Gigaom) [...]

By: Robert W Price

Robert W Price — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:19:33 +0000

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By: Michael Wolf

Michael Wolf — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:58:10 +0000

@vinay – first – not sure what proof you have that older entreprenuers are less successful than younger? Any data to prove this out?

More importantly – much of this is related to the evolution of the entrepreneurial personality through their life. I think successful younger entrepreneurs likely move into new roles as they get older – meaning often the older entrepreneur personality moves on after a successful (or not successful) attempt at their own company to a new roll such as becoming a VC or angel investor. This allows them to put their hands into many pots. I think many of the roles people play at certain ages isn’t so much because “younger people are more creative” or ‘younger people get the new tech and old people don’t”, but more that there is a generational element to what type of entrepreneurial activity people play as they move through life.

By: vinay

vinay — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:03:51 +0000

Hmm..let me set the cat amongst the gentle pigeons. Real tech entrepreneurs are young, 20 somethings, eating survival food, and cranking up clever code. This is not a myth, it is reality. While age brings knowledge, financial stability, street smartness and whatever goodies that can be claimed, it also brings with it a number of effective blocks to success (for tech entrepreneurs), unless you are into serial entrepreneurship. Statistics, like the report quoted here, have their element of truth, but are based in certain contexts, as rightly pointed out in many preceding comments. If there were really so many older entrepreneurs out there, how come so few of them are successful? (not counting the serial entrepreneurs, of course). Either the law of averages fails in this case, or there are not so many older first-time entrepreneurs, especially in the high-tech world.

By: virtual online worlds for kids

virtual online worlds for kids — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:38:59 +0000

Hmm that’s no surprise. Naturally only someone in their 30s are more stable to start a business, you need to have a stable financial source to start with.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:46:41 +0000

Not even sure the young coder stereotype works anymore. I’ve been working at hi-tech startups since 1999 and by far the majority of the engineers I’ve encountered in these startups have been ages 30-40 with numerous over age 40, very few under age 30. They may have started out as young coders at high-tech startups like Sun and SGI, but Sun and SGI didn’t stay startups and they got itchy feet for a challenge and left. Note, however, that I never worked for a dot-com (I’m not an idiot!) so I have no idea what *their* demographics were…

By: Artruro Jayson

Artruro Jayson — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:45:15 +0000

I can agree with this. There is no boundary for age, sex, background, whatever when it comes to pursuing the idea. A lot of us seem to focus on the young coder because we’ve been there so recently, or at least watched from the sidelines. This, too, is a form of forced entrepreneurship. You force yourself to want to do something like someone else did, or maybe better, to make an impact where you think it should be made. In this way, all entrepreneurship is forced and a natural necessity, but so could be the restraining forces of such developments.

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:31:27 +0000

“Forced entrepreneurship” is ALWAYS a major part of entrepreneurship. Historical studies have shown a high incidence of e-ship among immigrants, former drug dealers, “early retirees” over 50, and persons with criminal records.

These groups have trouble getting hired and become entrepreneurs by necessity.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:28:32 +0000

I wish people would read Peter Drucker “innovation and entrepreneurship” he defines what it means to be an entrepreneur which is not someone who starts a business like a pizza store or something that has been done before, or independent consultant, etc. Most people don’t use this to define the term, but people should as it is a very defining definition.

By: Gadget Sleuth

Gadget Sleuth — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:26:48 +0000

I’m glad you put in that last paragraph…there are many older workers with more free time on their hands than ever before.

By: Kimber Lockhart

Kimber Lockhart — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:11:39 +0000

There is a big difference between the definition of high-growth startup entrepreneur implied via the ramen-eating example and the definition of entrepreneur used in the report.

The latter includes independent consultants, self-employed folks, mom and pop corner stores and other ventures that don’t exactly fit the definition of high-growth. This is not at all to knock the lifestyle entrepreneurs, on the contrary, every single venture backed entrepreneur could probably learn a thing or two from the owner of the corner store down the street. I know I have.

My point is given the inclusion of lifestyle entrepreneurs, I do not believe anything in the report is all that remarkable.

By: Stacey Higginbotham

Stacey Higginbotham — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:45:34 +0000

The report does cite info across all industries, but it doesn’t offer any proof that tech entrepreneurs are all young (it doesn’t disprove this either). I use the ramen-eating, coder example because it’s likely the most familiar entrepreneur for our readers.

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Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:50:39 +0000

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By: Marcelo Calbucci

Marcelo Calbucci — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:28:30 +0000

Stacey, I think you are misreading the report. It gives the age with the highest level of entrepreneurship across all industries, which will include a new restaurant owner, a consulting company, etc.

The stereotype of 20-something code is for high-tech only. Not sure if the report has that info, otherwise the myth continues to hold true.