Older founders' main contribution is a larger war chest of experience to draw from, even if they also have larger personal networks and some personal savings to make them less dependent on the seed-stage investor. I personally believe that if investors were more willing to make the startup calculation reasonable for stable adults, we'd have far better results at the macro level. 20-somethings are cool, but they are still very young and very naive. It seems most non-tech industries have already internalized that. Tech will eventually mature into that realization as technically-adept generations age.
Being naive - in the sense of looking the world through the eyes of a child - is one of the best qualities in a founder because startups are so counterintuitive.
How many grown-ups with lots of industry experience said no for young Microsofties, Googles or Facebooks?
- A social network for college students? What a stupid idea!
As a founder, you only get to invest in one business at a time, so the high chance of $10M is worth more than the longshot chance of $1B. Even if the latter has higher EV, the former has higher average quality-of-life EV.
Working as an employee vs owning a $10M business is a BIG lifestyle jump. From $10M to $1B, not as much.
>Being naive - in the sense of looking the world through the eyes of a child
This is not the sense that I meant. I meant naive in the sense that they're ignorant of many subtle but important behavioral practices in both corporations and people, and that they often haven't developed much personal discipline. It's not their fault, of course; they're just young. Youth is good for its zeal, but corporations should generally not be run by zealots, they should be run by mature, calculating, and sensitive persons (and very few young people qualify). Zealots belong in the marketing and sales departments.
By the age they become founders, I think most people have had most of the child-like wonder beat out of them, and in fact I think the early and mid 20s are a dark time for a lot of people, with the pressures of exiting the scholastic world and entering the professional world, frequently with a beast of debt on their backs, and the rejection and failure incumbent in trying to date and find a lifelong companion.
Founders aren't children. They are typically post college graduates. And they typically must include one that has an engineering degree, hopefully with some pedigree to it.
