"Founders in their early 20s have the lowest likelihood of successful exit or creating a 1 in 1,000 top growth firm.
Across the 2.7 million founders in the U.S. between 2007-2014 who started companies that go on to hire at least one employee, the mean age for the entrepreneurs at founding is 41.9.
The mean founder age for the 1 in 1,000 highest growth new ventures is 45.0.
The most successful entrepreneurs in high technology sectors are of similar ages.
The “batting average” for creating 5 successful firms is rising dramatically with age. Conditional on starting a firm, a 50-year-old founder is 1.8 times more likely to achieve upper-tail growth than a 30-year-old founder.
Younger founders appear strongly disadvantaged in their tendency to produce the highest-growth companies. Below age 25, founders appear to do badly (or rather, do well extremely rarely), but there is a sharp increase in performance at age 25.
Between ages 25 and 35, performance seems fairly flat. Starting after age 35, there is increased success probabilities. Another large surge in performance comes at age 46 and is sustained toward age 60."
Across the 2.7 million founders in the U.S. between 2007-2014 who started companies that go on to hire at least one employee, the mean age for the entrepreneurs at founding is 41.9.
The mean founder age for the 1 in 1,000 highest growth new ventures is 45.0.
The most successful entrepreneurs in high technology sectors are of similar ages.
The “batting average” for creating 5 successful firms is rising dramatically with age. Conditional on starting a firm, a 50-year-old founder is 1.8 times more likely to achieve upper-tail growth than a 30-year-old founder.
Younger founders appear strongly disadvantaged in their tendency to produce the highest-growth companies. Below age 25, founders appear to do badly (or rather, do well extremely rarely), but there is a sharp increase in performance at age 25.
Between ages 25 and 35, performance seems fairly flat. Starting after age 35, there is increased success probabilities. Another large surge in performance comes at age 46 and is sustained toward age 60."