There has been a recurrent debate about the relative importance of age and experience in high-tech entrepreneurship where the uncertainty not to say non-existence of certain markets and products may render knowledge less critical than in established industries. Are the famous entrepreneurs in their early and mid-twenties exceptions? Some recent studies claim that the average age of entrepreneurs is closer to forty years old. We revisited the topic and analyzed not only the age of founders but also their roles when the company reached success and the links with geography, fields of business, value creation and venture capital.

1. 1BCERC 2014Hervé Lebret
AGE AND EXPERIENCE
OF HIGH-TECH
ENTREPRENEURS
Hervé Lebret
EPFL
Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference
London, Ontario, June 4-7, 2014

2. 2BCERC 2014Hervé Lebret
Why revisit the topic of age?
Diverging messages about age of high-tech entrepreneurs. 2 examples:
 At MIT, “the median age of first time entrepreneurs has gradually
declined from about age 40 (1950s) to about age 30 (1990s)”.
Hsu, Roberts and Eesley 2006
 “The average and median age of U.S.-born tech founders was
thirty-nine when they started their companies. Twice as many were
older than fifty as were younger than twenty-five.”
Wadhwa et al., 2008

3. 3BCERC 2014Hervé Lebret
The famous young entrepreneurs
Company Year Founder Age Company Year Founder Age
HP 1939 W. Hewlett 26 HP 1939 D. Packard 27
Intel 1968 R. Noyce 40 Intel 1968 G. Moore 39
Intel 1968 A. Grove 32 Oracle 1977 L. Ellison 33
Microsoft 1975 B. Gates 20 Microsoft 1975 P. Allen 22
Apple 1976 S. Jobs 21 Apple 1976 S. Wozniak 26
Genentech 1976 R. Swanson 29 Genentech 1976 H. Boyer 40
Sun 1982 V. Khosla 27 Sun 1982 B. Bechtolsheim 26
Sun 1982 B. Joy 28 Sun 1982 S. McNealy 28
Cisco 1984 S. Lerner 29 Cisco 1984 L. Bosack 29
Amazon 1994 J. Bezos 33 Netscape 1994 M. Andreessen 23
eBay 1995 J. Skoll 30 eBay 1995 P. Omidyar 28
Yahoo 1995 D. Filo 29 Yahoo 1995 J. Yang 27
Google 1998 L. Page 25 Google 1998 S. Brin 25
Dell 1984 M. Dell 19 Facebook 2004 M. Zuckerberg 20

4. 4BCERC 2014Hervé Lebret
The results
Source: 577 founders from 278 high-tech companies
http://fr.slideshare.net/lebret/equity-in-258-high-tech-start-ups-lebret-mar2014
Number of
co-founders
# Average age Standard deviation
1 53 39.1 9.6
2 203 38.4 9.8
3 170 37.4 8.5
4 71 37.3 9.8
5 48 41.4 9.5
6 32 36.2 10.7
7%
14%
24%
20%
14%
8%
8%
5%
under 25
26-30
31-35
36-40
41-45
46-50
51-55
above 55
c-geography
Geography Nb. of
founders
Age Age at 1st
start-up
Silicon Valley 243 36.5 34.1
Boston Area 77 42.9 39.5
East Coast. 51 42.9 41.6
California 52 42.4 41.0
West Coast 29 34.8 33.7
USA/Canada 20 37.2 35.9
So. America 4 35.7 35.7
China 16 34.0 32.4
India 4 46.0 43.0
Israel 3 27.7 26.0
France 44 34.1 32.5
Switzerland 9 41 37.9
UK 11 36.6 34.6
Other Europe 14 31.3 28.3
Total 577 38.2 36.0

5. 5BCERC 2014Hervé Lebret
The results
a-field of activities
Field Nb. of
founders
Age Age at 1st
start-up
Biotech 159 45.6 43.3
Medtech 18 38.0 33.9
Energy/Env. 24 39.9 39.0
Semiconductor 89 36.8 34.8
HW/Comp./Tel. 86 36.7 34.6
Software 62 32.2 31.3
Internet 129 33.3 30.8
Others 10 38.1 34.6
Total 577 38.2 36.0
b- period of creation
Period Nb. of
founders
Age Age at 1st
start-up
1965 10 35.4 32.3
1970 4 32.3 32.3
1975 11 28.8 28.8
1980 38 35.2 35.1
1985 13 36.1 36.1
1990 73 34.8 33.3
1995 141 38.1 35.9
2000 170 38.5 36.2
2005 105 42.6 39.2
2010 12 40.1 35.8
Total 577 38.2 36.0
Source: 577 founders from 278 high-tech companies
http://fr.slideshare.net/lebret/equity-in-258-high-tech-start-ups-lebret-mar2014
f-value creation including M&A values
Value
creation
Nb. of
founders
Age Age at 1st
start-up
>$100B 20 28.0 26.9
>$10B 42 35.9 33.0
>$1B. 185 35.8 34.2
<$1B 250 40.0 37.6
Private 75 41.7 39.3
Ceased 5 43.0 34.6
Total 577 38.2 36.0

6. 6BCERC 2014Hervé Lebret
The results
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
under 25 26-30 31-35 36-40 41-45 46-50 51-55 above 55
Before 1995 (sample size: 159)
1996-2001 (sample size: 187)
2002-2011 (sample size: 207)
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
under 25 26-30 31-35 36-40 41-45 46-50 51-55 above 55
Age of founders
Age at first foundation
Age excluding professors and biotech
Age of CEOS
Age of advisors
Age of former employees

7. 7BCERC 2014Hervé Lebret
More results
Full paper on
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2416888
beta se t p
28.3543 1.6117 17.5932 0.0000 ***
Year of foundation
(relatively to 1960)
0.2441 0.0398 6.1298 0.0000 ***
Biotech (0/1) 5.3818 0.9337 5.7640 0.0000 ***
Software/Internet (0/1) -4.9262 0.7898 -6.2373 0.0000 ***
Professor (0/1) 5.0013 1.0748 4.6533 0.0000 ***
CEO (0/1) 0.4596 0.7816 0.5881 0.5567
Former Employee (0/1) -3.8122 1.6322 -2.3356 0.0199 *
Silicon Valley (0/1) 0.1380 0.7018 0.1967 0.8441
beta se t p
28.9637 1.7600 16.4569 0.0000 ***
Year of foundation
(relatively to 1960)
0.1884 0.0470 4.0049 0.0001 ***
Value creation ($10B) -0.2627 0.0888 -2.9579 0.0033 ***
VC 1st
round ($M) 0.1179 0.0357 3.2993 0.0010 ***
VC total amount ($M) -0.0045 0.0003 -1.5009 0.1340
CEO (0/1) 1.0430 0.8586 1.2147 0.2251
Professor (0/1) 10.4935 1.1084 9.4674 0.0000
Former Employee (0/1) -3.9357 1.8840 -2.0890 0.0372 **

8. 8BCERC 2014Hervé Lebret
Food for thought:
 Galenson (2012) has two distinct kinds of innovators:
“The first is the conceptual innovator. […] They boldly
break away from accepted standards. Take Picasso. He
completed his most important work by the age of 26.
Experimental innovators create in a different manner. It
takes time for them to hone their craft. They return to
familiar ideas, trying to perfect them. […] They devote their
life to learning, seeking answers to their unsolved
questions. In our society, we tend to glorify young prodigies
at the expense of late bloomers.”
Age and creativity
 The idea that major (scientific, artistic) creators are young individuals is not
new. In mathematics, the Field Medal is only awarded to less than 40-year old
individuals.
 But in science, the situation has evolved: “Comparing discoveries made
before 1905 with after 1985, the average age at which physicists made their
discoveries rose from 37 to 50. Chemists' average age rose from 36 to 46 and
that of medical scientists from 38 to 45. Before 1905, 20% of prizewinning
work was done before age 30, but by 2000, this fell to almost zero.”
Jones and Weinberg 2012.