Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship
Pierre Azoulay,
Benjamin Jones,
J. Daniel Kim and
Javier Miranda
No 24489, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc
Abstract:
Many observers, and many investors, believe that young people are especially likely to produce the most successful new firms. We use administrative data at the U.S. Census Bureau to study the ages of founders of growth-oriented start-ups in the past decade. Our primary finding is that successful entrepreneurs are middle-aged, not young. The mean founder age for the 1 in 1,000 fastest growing new ventures is 45.0. The findings are broadly similar when considering high-technology sectors, entrepreneurial hubs, and successful firm exits. Prior experience in the specific industry predicts much greater rates of entrepreneurial success. These findings strongly reject common hypotheses that emphasize youth as a key trait of successful entrepreneurs.
JEL-codes: J24 L26 O51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-ino and nep-lma
Note: PR
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)
Published as Pierre Azoulay & Benjamin F. Jones & J. Daniel Kim & Javier Miranda, 2020. "Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship," American Economic Review: Insights, vol 2(1), pages 65-82.
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w24489.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
Journal Article: Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship (2020) 
Working Paper: Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship (2018) 
Working Paper: Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship (2018) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24489
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w24489
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().