No less than Albert Einstein once remarked that “a person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so.” Or, as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, a mere 22 years old at the time, put it to a Stanford audience in 2007, “Young people are just smarter. Why are most chess masters under 30?”
Einstein and Zuckerberg, whiz kids in their own right, are hardly alone in their belief that creativity, innovation and even genius are the near-exclusive domains of the young. Sure, the silver-haired have the advantage of wisdom and experience, but once you pass the age of 30, you might as well give up on ever entering the hallowed halls of genius.
