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May 02, 2008 8:40 a.m. Article Structure
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US Tech Company Founders Older and Wiser than ThoughtDisplaying mentions in this article, for full text please visit source.  Youthful college dropouts such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg may be the archetypal technology entrepreneurs, but founders of US tech companies are actually twice as likely to be over 50 than under 25 and are also likely to be highly educated, according to new research* funded by the Kauffman Foundation.
“Even though Bill Gates and Steve Jobs founded two of the world’s most successful companies, they are not representative of technology and engineering company founders. Indeed, a larger proportion of tech founders are middle-aged, well educated in business or technical disciplines, with degrees from a wide assortment of schools.”
The twenty-year-old wunderkind is the exception, not the rule.
Earlier research found one particularly striking demographic: “From 1995 through 2005, skilled immigrant founders established 25.6 percent of all the startups nationwide, and 52.3 percent of those in Silicon Valley.” So, the Kauffmann Foundation asked the questions, What about U.S.-born tech entrepreneurs? Were they young college dropouts or well-educated? Were they graduates of elite schools or a diverse set of schools like the immigrant company founders? Where did they locate their companies?”
Their major findings:
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.
The vast majority (92 percent) of U.S.-born tech founders held bachelor’s degrees. Additionally, 31 percent held master’s degrees, and 10 percent had completed PhDs. Nearly half of all these degrees were in science-, technology-, engineering-, and mathematics- (STEM) related disciplines. One third were in business, accounting, and finance.
U.S.-born tech founders holding MBA degrees established companies more quickly (in thirteen years) than others. Those with PhDs typically waited twenty-one years to become tech entrepreneurs, and other master’s degree holders took less time to start companies than did those with bachelor’s degrees (14.7 years and 16.7 years respectively).
U.S.-born tech founders holding computer science and information technology degrees founded companies sooner after graduating than engineering degree holders (14.3 years vs. 17.6 years). Applied science majors took the longest (twenty years) to create their startups.
These tech founders graduate from a wide assortment of schools. The 628 U.S.-born tech founders providing information on their terminal (highest) degree, received their education from 287 unique universities. But degrees from top-ranked universities are over-represented in the ranks of U.S.-born tech founders. Ivy-League universities awarded 8 percent of the terminal degrees to U.S.-born tech founders in the sample.
Education and Tech Entrepreneurship, by Vivek Wadhwa (Duke University), Richard Freeman (Harvard University) and Ben Rissing (Duke University).
via Kedrosky.
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