There is a common misconception about today’s entrepreneurs, with the mainstream media regularly portraying them as younger recent graduates. While there are certainly many brilliant entrepreneurs in their 20s who are building disruptive and lasting companies, the truth is, the middle-aged, mid-career entrepreneur is more common than we think. Harvard Business Review found that the average age of a high-growth startup founder is 45. That’s across the board. If we look at the inventors of the true unicorns, the billion-dollar founders, the story is similar. According to the book Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups, the median age of founders of billion-dollar companies was 34, which means that half were older, with the oldest topping out at 68.
