"Young people are just smarter," Mark Zuckerberg infamously said to 650 aspiring entrepreneurs at a Y Combinator Startup School event in 2007. His logic was straightforward—young people lead simpler lives, so they're able to focus on big-picture problems. Now that Zuckerberg is in his thirties, I'm not sure he'd still agree—in fact, I'm confident he wouldn't.
But this idea continues to resonate. Silicon Valley still fetishizes youth, and a lot of people probably see 22-year-old Zuckerberg as the archetype of a founder. Research confirms that many people perceive young entrepreneurs to be more driven and more capable of solving significant challenges.
There's just one problem. A substantive and growing body of data tells us this picture is dead wrong. A study released in 2017 reveals that the average age of a startup founder is 42. The rate of new entrepreneurs in the US is actually highest among those aged 45-54, and lowest for 20-34-year-olds.
Public misconceptions don't stop with age. In the U.S., immigrants are twice as likely to start businesses compared to native-born citizens. Meanwhile, women-led firms consistently bring in better rates of returns. The number of Black-owned businesses in the US increased by 400% between 2017 and 2018—Black women are the fastest-growing demographic of entrepreneurs. And more than half of moms we surveyed report interest in starting their own business.