The Best Entrepreneurs Are Older, Have Less Ego

http://mashable.com/2013/02/11/entrepreneur-test/

by jonnycombust • 13 years ago

201 97 13 years ago

mindcrime7• 13 years ago

Great, I've got the "older" part nailed (turn 40 this year), but the other bit... um... yeah. I think my ego is about the size of the Death Star, so that might be a problem. :-(

Still, it is encouraging to see any research that dispels that idea that you have to be a 20-something to succeed as an entrepreneur.

callmeed• 13 years ago

Well, you can't get younger but you can always work on taming your ego :)

I'm 37 and have had moderate success as an entrepreneur. I would consider myself competitive but not really egotistical. I just try to hire/work with people who are smarter/better than me so I can always be learning.

mindcrime7• 13 years ago

Eh, I may be overstating things a little bit. I definitely have a substantial ego, but I don't think it's too the point that it's damaging to me. I'm definitely competitive, but I also value being humble. Certainly I acknowledge that there are plenty of people around who are smarter than I am.

Maybe it's not even so much ego, as it is a crazy high sense of self-efficacy. I still buy into that "I can do anything, if I'm just willing to work hard enough" mindset.

benaiah2• 13 years ago

I just posted a long comment that's apropos to the discussion, relating to the young Silicon Valley types who categorically dismiss "old people". I won't repost it here, but here's a link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5203133

dmk23• 13 years ago

Ego is usually the bigger issue than age, though typically there is a relation and experience moderates ego.

Age is just a number, ego is something that could cause self-destructive behavior and bad decision making.

salimmadjd5• 13 years ago

Age discrimination is a major issue in the valley but no one wants to admit to it since everyone is violating it.

For example, why does YC application asks for Age?

loumf• 13 years ago

It could be for demographic/statistical purposes. They are trying hard to learn about who to invest in -- data is key.

Also, do age discrimination laws apply to VC's? Not that it would be right to do it -- but is it illegal?

salimmadjd5• 13 years ago

No it's not. However, I am pointing out the underlying hypocrisy. In the valley we are for equal right, gay rights, which I fully support. But it seems like when it comes to age we all look the other way. That's all I'm pointing out.

over40guy4• 13 years ago

Then why not ask for gender while we are at it. And race as well.

Collecting data selectively is how discrimination starts.

But you are probably right, it's not illegal.

jiggy20115• 13 years ago

Perhaps being younger is an advantage in the sort of "go big or go home" swing for the fences entrepreneurship?

Lack of experience is probably helpful if you are doing something which is basically a bad idea but because of a bunch of factors clicking into place ends up being an awesome idea.

When you are older you are probably not in such a position to just run with some crazy idea.

salimmadjd5• 13 years ago

You mean like Elon Musk that bet everything on Tesla?

See the problem is, there is no real data there and these guys are betting on anecdotal evidence. Generalization is the root of all discriminations.

mindcrime7• 13 years ago

Perhaps being younger is an advantage in the sort of "go big or go home" swing for the fences entrepreneurship?

Counter-scenario: Perhaps being older is an advantage in the "go big or go home" scenario, since the older person feels like they have less time left to achieve their dreams?

Personally, as a 39 year old, I feel like I hear the clock ticking pretty loudly and that motivates the hell out of me. I use a lot of sports analogies, and the way I look at it is this: It's like I'm down by 6, with 1:37 left in the 4th quarter, and have the ball on my own 20 yard line. That means it's "4 down territory" and maybe time for a "hail mary" or two. It's do or die time here.

(Apologies to anyone who isn't a fan of American football, if the above analogy makes no sense).

Seriously, I don't feel like I have a lot of "at bats" (to use a different sports analogy) left, and I'm feeling a strong sense of 'do it now, or "the water under the Golden Gate is freezing cold"'.

radley2• 13 years ago

I was one of the oldest applicants and it never came up as an issue. Another in my batch was older than me by a year.

salimmadjd5• 13 years ago

May I ask your age? If that wasn't an issue then why even ask it on the application.

waterlesscloud2• 13 years ago

PG himself admits to a slight age bias.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5191894

"There's an age bias in that our standards get higher as the founders get older. You can't reasonably expect a 19 year old to have achieved as much as a 35 year old. But there's no sudden cutoff."

Even though I'm older, I have to admit it makes sense.

dpiers2• 13 years ago

I'm 23.

I don't like people my age, including myself. We are inexperienced and foolish, and think much too highly of ourselves. The only cure for our folly is experience, which I believe does not temper ambition, but instead directs it towards wiser pursuits.

I know I will soon reflect on the things I create now and realize how flawed they were, but I've decided not to let it stop me. I know I will make mistakes, I know I will chase the wind, and I know that five years from now all of my running may leave me tired and broke, but what choice do I have?

The best things I create in my life will likely come ~15 years from now, but in the meanwhile I am left to do what I can with the resources I have, which are currently youth and ambition.

I will be a better entrepreneur when I am older, for now I will be the best I can be today.

tesmar2• 13 years ago

I'm 27 and so much this. If I could find a 45 year-old wise person who can redirect me to work on something awesome in his area of expertise, that'd be awesome.

Perhaps a new site to connect would-be 45 yr old entrepreneurs with 20-something hot shot programmers?

benaiah2• 13 years ago

Sugar Daddy Programmers?

/joke

johns• 13 years ago

Prove your hot shot abilities through OSS and countless companies will line up to put you in that kind of environment.

DigitalJack2• 13 years ago

Time passes faster the older you get. It's something you ought to be noticing by 27, but sometimes it takes people a little longer.

Your 30s are going to go by in a flash, and when you are 45, you are going to chuckle at what people in their 20's think old is.

mindcrime7• 13 years ago

I'm 39, almost 40. I feel the same way.

The moral of this, IMO, is that the answer to the question "Am I there yet?" is always "no" in life. No matter how old you are, you always have more to learn, and you can always look forward and say "in 15 years I'll look back and think I was pretty silly now".

This is not to discredit the value of experience. I feel like I make better decisions about certain things now, than I did, say, 20 years ago. But by the same token, don't discredit the energy and ambition of youth.

In the end though, at any given time all you can be, is who you are. Make the most of it and just accept that you'll make some mistakes. Always keep learning and trying to grow and eventually you'll realize that the more "wise" you become, the more you just realize how much you don't know.

stevenameyer• 13 years ago

I think that both ambition of youth and experience based wisdom are incredibly valuable in most areas. I think one of the major mistakes that people make is trying to focus on why one is better then the other rather then seeing what each of them has to bring to the table. I personally would love to work in an environment where both are present and valued.

dpiers2• 13 years ago

You're right.

Experience is only a treatment, not a cure, for folly. People will always be imperfect, regardless of how much they improve, and will always make mistakes. We just get better at avoiding the easy ones.

michaelochurch2• 13 years ago

I'm 23.

I don't like people my age, including myself.

I'm 29. It doesn't change. I've no problem with the average 29-year-old (or the average 23-year-old) but the types of people who do well, young, in VC-istan are pretty irritating.

The types who do well at older ages aren't much better.

For people, I prefer Wall Street. No, I'm not kidding. The work isn't as interesting, but the people are more decent.

nodemaker2• 13 years ago

Have been reading your comments for a while now, I honestly thought you were in your 40s.

biot2• 13 years ago

Having also read your comments for a while, I keep seeing your use of the term VC-istan. I can guess what you might wish to convey with that, but perhaps you could explain in your own words what you mean by that? (My apologies if I missed a previous explanation.)

dreamfactory• 13 years ago

I wouldn't be so sure, it's far more common to peak creatively when you're younger.

shard• 13 years ago

I think the correlation is that creativity matters less in entrepreneurship than execution.

ahoyhere• 13 years ago

Not liking yourself is a serious hindrance to a happy life. Learn to accept yourself with compassion, flaws and all, or you'll pay the price later!

danielpal• 13 years ago

I am not sure if this study is accurate. It seems like 675+ companies is a good sample size, but I have yet to see a very successful Founder Institute Company, maybe Udemy?.

If this test is so accurate why aren't there bigger successes in Founder Institute?

I am not pro or against age. I actually believe it's probably not a very good indicator of success or lack of it. Age is probably a very weak indicator.

anewguy999• 13 years ago

Founder institute has the worst terms of all. You give them equity for no investment. So I wouldn't expect entrepreneurs with options to apply.

larsonf• 13 years ago

I wonder what this means:

'The best entrepreneurs are ones who work in their field first, gaining valuable real-world knowledge and experience for a decade or more.'

The definition of 'best' here is massively important. If 'best' means 'has an operating business with ~1 million in revenue', then perhaps no one will doubt that a slightly unconventional, experienced, agreeable, 34-year old is predictive.

Maybe I'm totally wrong on this but I feel that not many people are selling their things, moving to silicon valley and missing a good deal of their youth in order to have a successfully operating business in which they hold a little equity, thus putting them in the ranks of perhaps a certain type of 'best' entrepreneurs. I would go even so far as to say that SV's 'best' is massive success--like 'billion is cool'--where perhaps you couldn't even do a predictive test because the outcome is that rare. I mean how many people are really set out to achieve non-power-law-type success if they are in the 'founder' game? Are angels looking for that? Perhaps picking founders by lowest car insurance premium? VCs?

neltnerb• 13 years ago

I love that reading things like this makes me think in sequence:

1. Awesome, because I barely think I can accomplish even the simplest of goals!

2. Wait, but I'd better not let that make me overconfident.

Hah!

grellas• 13 years ago

The best entrepreneurs are ones who work in their field first, gaining valuable real-world knowledge and experience for a decade or more.

I don't think one can meaningfully say that the "best" entrepreneurs come in one type or another. Certainly the YC juggernaut tends to confirm that young entrepreneurs can be extremely able and can lead ventures to spectacular forms of success.

But the statement above emphasizes for me what has always seemed obvious and yet has often been brushed aside in, let us say, the impetuousness of youth: that is, that experience can and often does make a huge difference for entrepreneurs and it is a mistake to ignore its value in assessing startup prospects.

Someone, somewhere, somehow needs to have "been there before" for a startup to work in a big, complex, and disruptive field such as those targeted by the most promising startups. If it is not the founders themselves, it is those with whom the founders surround themselves. If those persons are not there, it has been my experience (having represented countless founders) that the founders will tend to stumble around to their detriment. I believe the main value of the YC network, for example, is that it gives young entrepreneurs precisely the sort of connections and guidance by which they can connect up with and be guided or even mentored by those with solid experience in their respective domains. Without that, their chances of flubbing it are magnified by a lot. A VC with deep domain experience can add similar value, with or without YC, but of course its connections with key VCs is one of the ways that YC links its entrepreneurs with seasoned hands in a given field.

It follows ipso facto that entrepreneurs who are older and can bring direct experience to a venture will also often have it over younger, inexperienced ones. The opposite may be true as well and that the value of such experience in any given case may be limited or worthless. My point is that having key experience, when it is authentic and coupled with the right level of talent, is extremely valuable and should be eagerly welcomed when brought to the venture by older entrepreneurs.

We learn from our mistakes. That is a recurring theme on this forum. Those lessons don't simply take the form of "fail fast, fail often" because the virtue is not in the failing as such but in the lessons learned from the process - and that same virtue attaches to any quality experience by talented people who have tilled the soil in their areas of expertise for lengthy periods. That group may or may not be the "best" entrepreneurs but there will certainly be large numbers of them who will wind up being among the best by virtue of the depth and expertise that only quality experience can bring.

freshhawk2• 13 years ago

> I don't think one can meaningfully say that the "best" entrepreneurs come in one type or another

Of course you can, if the data supports it. If they had explicitly added terms like "the best entrepreneurs generally tend to come from people with many of these attributes" would that make it meaningful?

They were taking those as a given, since it's obvious that they apply when you compile data like this.

Just because a map is not the territory doesn't mean the map isn't useful.

And rejecting the data driven answer and then filling in your own interpretation retroactively is not a good way to arrive at conclusions that turn out to be correct.

sirclueless• 13 years ago

> And rejecting the data driven answer and then filling in your own interpretation retroactively is not a good way to arrive at conclusions that turn out to be correct.

That sounds like the scientific process to me. You look at a bunch of data points and say, "I'm going to reject the notion that this is an arbitrary correlation, and hypothesize that in fact there is some underlying cause X that drives the correlation." Then you control for everything else and do an experiment.

In tech startups, this might mean saying, "I think age doesn't actually matter, what matters is that someone in the founder's immediate circle (perhaps oneself) has a wealth of domain information." That's a perfectly testable hypothesis, even though the experiment would be expensive and difficult to do cleanly. You just take a bunch of older and younger founders, and have them found companies outside their domains. Some of them you provide with VCs and advisors with plenty of domain knowledge, others you just give money. If the domain knowledge proves more valuable than the age, you have confirmed your hypothesis. If the age matters more than the domain knowledge, you have rejected it.

Now of course you wouldn't find older entrepreneurs who would willingly forgo VCs and advisors with domain knowledge, and most founders choose industries they are familiar with. But maybe you could find some markets where this happens naturally. Maybe you could do an analysis of some industry like online education or fashion or something where you have a mix of types of founders, and see who has success. In any case, rejecting correlational data in favor of testable underlying causes is fundamental to scientific induction (it is only the difficulty of actually controlling ancillary variables that makes this practice hard to apply to sociological hypotheses).

stcredzero8• 13 years ago

> Certainly the YC juggernaut tends to confirm that young entrepreneurs can be extremely able and can lead ventures to spectacular forms of success.

The spectacular success comes from a slim minority of the YC pool.

philwelch• 13 years ago

That's true for any sufficiently large collection of startups that isn't selected on the criteria of having already succeeded.

snambi• 13 years ago

YC entrepreneurs are successful with the support of YC. Will they be as successful without YC? probably not.

dvanduzer2• 13 years ago

I'd like to read more background on the graphic's apparent contradictions.

It calls IQ irrelevant, but values a metric of "high fluid intelligence" including logic, pattern recognition, and abstract thinking which... IQ is supposed to measure? If they've developed a more effective measure of general intelligence that correlates to actual success then why isn't this huge news? Why hasn't IQ already been supplanted by this metric?

And more personally relevant, what is the difference between "project completion skills" and the supposedly irrelevant "conscientiousness" metric? Something to do with intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation?

crucialfelix2• 13 years ago

I took the test and did fairly well I think. There were a lot of pattern matching tests and some interesting things where you had to spot rotations, mirrors and various swaps/transformations. Those were the more standard intelligence tests. Then there are tests for emotional intelligence. Situations, relationships, how you react, what you value.

The structure of the session and course material itself were kind of a let down though and they let a lot of people in who don't seem that stellar.

stcredzero8• 13 years ago

> It calls IQ irrelevant, but values a metric of "high fluid intelligence" including logic, pattern recognition, and abstract thinking which... IQ is supposed to measure?

Do you know any persons who have scored or would score high on IQ tests who are ungraceful and awkward in social situations? Have you seen such persons unable to take advantage of their abstract thinking ability to avoid awkwardness in social situations? (Example: Failing to realize what they said implied about someone present.) Have you seen such persons persist in making logical arguments concerning a certain point, long after it should be obvious that the audience has ceased to care? Have you sat by and watched someone on your team do that in an important meeting?

> The difference between stupid and intelligent people - and this is true whether or not they are well-educated - is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. --Neal Stephenson

I've scored decently high on IQ tests and have been plenty stupid nonetheless.

dvanduzer2• 13 years ago

I love Stephenson more than the next guy, but the subtleties of intelligence you're inferring aren't at all hinted at by the graphic. Well rounded people can handle ambiguity, but intentional ambiguity in communication needs to be less vague to be effective.

arbuge• 13 years ago

My takeaway on this subject is that if you're in good physical and mental health, you have a chance. If health isn't an issue, it's been done at pretty much any age, from the teens up.

stcredzero8• 13 years ago

    Bad Founder DNA:

    - Predatory Aggressiveness
    - Excuse Making
    - Deceit
    - Emotional Instability
    - Narcissism

I see much more than I'd care for, of the above in the Bay Area, most of which manifests as a doppelganger of good qualities and/or ideas. There's a lot of Predatory Aggressiveness which takes the form of scoring points or humiliating others, deniably disguised or justified by some principle like "Just Say No," but which comes with a degree of smugness more suited to Reality TV than to a group of intellectuals genuinely trying to change society. This is often seen in combination with Narcissism and Deceit, where a self conception as a superior entitles someone to receive good fortune and to mete emotional abuse to others, and justifies (at first) small lies so long as they serve an ultimate "good" goal.

You see this happen with "scenes," like a music scene or an art scene. When a scene is new and truly obscure, everyone is genuinely open and supportive. Newcomers are welcomed and encouraged, as colleagues whom one can talk in common with about generally misunderstood ideas. When success and significant money starts to ramp up the competition, things change. Values change. Much of this isn't really "bad" so much as necessary: Fame and money invariably attract undesired attention.

dylangs1030• 13 years ago

I would agree it's a myth that being 20 years old and ignorant of your own inexperience is a formula for success in Silicon Valley.

That being said, this article seems to have a bit of a slant against that demographic. I think it's a wonder so many of the people that age succeed the way they do, given their competition.

I'd also point out that Paul Graham has a good point when he talks about some of the advantages being under 25 has if you make a startup - for instance, that you're more likely to learn more tools and not become "set in your ways" so to speak.

anonuser15243• 13 years ago

This article is way too full of generalizations to really say anything about what it takes to be a "successful entrepreneur."

My personal anecdotal experience is that older entrepreneurs tend to be better at certain types of entrepreneurship -- I know several older folks who are renowned in a particular very technical area of innovation. There are probably 10 people in the world that could found a company in their space and it takes years to develop that level of specific domain knowledge.

On the other hand, when it comes to building a consumer-focused app targeting 20 year olds, it's going to be difficult for a 40 year old to relate.

As far as ego goes, my experience is that SV CEOs tend to be some of the biggest ego driven maniacs on the planet. Not all, but I would certainly say more likely than the population at large.

cupcake-unicorn• 13 years ago

What?? What about Christian Grey? This has totally thrown off the book's realism for me.

stretchwithme• 13 years ago

Its probably a normal curve peaking in the thirties or forties.

Energy and ability to learn and change peak early. But our experience and deep understanding of things can keep expanding for many years.

virtualwhys• 13 years ago

The best entrepreneurs are dead.

They have less ego than anyone living and a great deal more experience to draw on.

Young people should therefore consult the dead first, resorting to their older counterparts only as a means of last resort.

mhartl• 13 years ago

The lack of correlation between success and IQ is interesting, but I suspect it's only true on the margin, and is largely the product of selection bias. For example, I wouldn't be surprised to find that, among full professors of physics, there's negligible correlation between IQ and Nobel Prizes. Of course, that doesn't mean that a high IQ doesn't help you win a Nobel Prize in Physics—it simply means that all physics professors already have high IQs, and on the margin it's not an important factor in winning a Prize. Similarly, my guess is that virtually every entrepreneur in the OP's sample was already smart enough to succeed. In particular, I'd wager that IQ is still helpful in entrepreneurial success—I'd be very surprised if the average IQ of their sample wasn't substantially above average.

hazov• 13 years ago

Above 130 (2 SDs in a 15 SD IQ test) an IQ test will lose its predictive power, with this over 99% of people are bellow, theoretically. This is a problem only if they are not close to the this theoretical limit, it would be easy to test something like that.

crucialfelix2• 13 years ago

There is another selection bias: the companies that are declared successes are those that went through the FI 4 month boot camp and founded a company.

But they have a 60% drop out rate.

Why do people like myself (and several very intelligent people in my session) dropout of FI ? We all dropped out because we found the course wasn't well planned, the weekly assignments were often annoying and non-sensical and got in the way of doing important work on developing the company. They dump surprise assignments on us during Christmas while we are at our relatives. I wasn't getting important questions answered and found better info elsewhere.

So intelligent people are dropping out and then FI reads this as: intelligence is not correlated with success. So they reduce IQ from the entrance test. Correlation does not imply causation.

alan_cx• 13 years ago

Or, young entrepreneurs should hire older staff. They provide a lot of calming stability and bring so much experience that the young "leader" can make great use of.

hef198984• 13 years ago

Like my grandmother said: Being too young is a flaw that corrects itself over time.

ChrisNorstrom• 13 years ago

Next month: "Studies show the most successful entrepreneurs are young, narcissistic, 30 somethings with a chip on their shoulder." (Which is what so many VCs have been saying)

There's good points. But this feels like a bad case of "blind eyed data worship". That's like saying "the best entrepreneurs are women" because when you compare data, female entrepreneurs grow their companies faster, with less risk, and are profitable sooner (all true facts, go ladies!). Yet when we look at startups and businesses we see men all over the place, at the top of billionaires lists, with massive companies, worldwide reach, huge patent portfolios. All despite there being 10+ million female entrepreneurs in the US. This is another case of the data not matching up to real world results. Maybe because there's more to being an entrepreneur than the data recorded. Like aggressiveness, risk, market, idea, management style, etc...

Every time an article like this comes up I can always think up of numerous examples that prove the exact opposite. From Egotistical Puppet-master Steve Jobs (RIP), to Numerous VCs that have stated over and over that they find "young, narcissistic guys with a chip on their shoulder" to be really good entrepreneurs, to real world examples all around me. Can someone explain this?

Because my explanation is that data patterns like this only explain: "what has happened, not why it happened or what will happen." Sometimes, numbers and data are only as useful as the places and methods you use to collect them, and the way you re-arrange and present them. Which very often is "poor".

TLDR: The Best Entrepreneurs are people who adjust to change and get shit done.

tehwalrus• 13 years ago

The phase "Entrepreneur DNA" in the article is a shame - Entrepreneurship is a behaviour, and behaviours are learned, not inherited.

Obviously, people have varied aptitudes for behaviours, based on a whole set of genetic and environmental factors (especially early developmental environments) BUT, anyone can practise at entrepreneurship and get better, which is why I'm not surprised older people with business experience are more successful.

The Best Entrepreneurs Are Older, Have Less Ego

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