Age vs Experience
There’s this post about how if you want an explosive startup that changes everything i.e. Virgin, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. You should be young because youth=energy. Additionally, you have fewer responsibilities and can then further increase your efforts into the business.
However, I think this assertion is misguided. The companies that transcend industries are ones that are enabled by advancements in technology. More importantly, the people behind these companies have used them for much longer and have more experience than most other people. Thus those that are younger have the ability to approach new technologies with a fresh mind & have boundless imagination to create new opportunities. Yet being young is not correlative: what’s interesting is approaching advancements in technology without bias.
When you look at the list of explosive growth businesses, you’ll notice that when the company needs to hit scale they hire executives with more experience (and age). Younger people have no advantage in terms of energy because directed, focused energy will reap greater benefits. Most entrepreneurs in their first startup, will expend a ton of undirected energy on trying stupid shit out and adapting to mistakes. Also, there’s no indicator that creativity declines with age as proven the same entrepreneurs that run explosive growth companies: Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin/Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, etc.
Additionally, starting a company younger has historically required a departure from the norm thus attracting a rebellious type of person. One that’s willing to buck tradition is most likely to take a novel approach to business-creation. On the other hand, starting a company is likely to fail so a person that has to learn the basics can adapt it better to the given environment vs. someone who is using prior knowledge/bias. As an example, humans are the most incapable species at birth. However, humans are continually adapting their brains i.e. thinking patterns to the current environment instead of one inherited through evolution & genetics (horribly slow process of adaptation).
Other Lessons Learned From Greats:
When starting a business, re-learn everything and start from scratch so you can adapt your understanding of the new environment. Passionately understand your problem space + technology and advance your interests in the simplest possible form using data to guide your next steps.
Create a polarizing impact on the market i.e. make something people love which will inherently have an opposing effect.
Try a ton of shit out as cheaply as possible to solve problems in your intended domain until you observe an audience reaction.
Maintain an intense focus on your problem domain which is why a following your passion is critical. Shifting domains compromises depth for breadth of knowledge.
You don’t know what you don’t know thus you think you can solve any problem thrown at you and if you do, you win. As you get older, you start to discriminate between problems you can solve and those that are beyond your domain. However, the most successful young entrepreneurs are able to find people (easily & cheaply on university campus) to help them solve these difficult problems. An easy point of access to a highly dense network of especially intelligent talent that segment themselves in terms of knowledge/interest by colleges. Are you looking for a genius designer? Try the art department. Computer developer? CS department. Mathematical savant? Obvious. Finally, you can just reach out to professors and ask for the top people in X.
As you get older, all your genius friends are in jobs and have other responsibilities. Additionally, poaching college students gets tougher since they know you want to build a business as opposed to working on little projects with other friends thus need higher financial incentives.
Thank you for reading my drafts: Raul Oaida
