So everyone on Techmeme is talking about The Age Question, the idea that someone who is over 25 or so is no longer able to come up with a new idea for the internet. Frankly this is a stupid argument, Venture Capitalists by the very idea of what they do shouldn’t care about someone’s age. Now granted of course they will look at someone with less experience running a company as a riskier investment, however this is one of the reasons that VC’s can help the company with finding suitable management. Also look at the dotcom bust, many of those companies were run by smart educated people with MBA’s, did that make their companies somehow a safer investment? I think not.
Age does matter, but not as much as I feel the blogosphere is making it out to be. If a smart young person came to me a great idea that I thought had a chance to succeed and I could and was willing to risk the money would I, yes. Now, if that same person was older than 30 or so, would I feel safer? Not really, the risk is essentially the same. The product isn’t judged on the management or the creator, but rather on the product, especially when it comes to Web 2.0 offerings.
Saying that just because someone is older than 25 they no longer have any new ideas to add to the Internet negates a whole group of people who look at things in a different manner than those under 25. And looking a the same thing in a different way is where invention is most likely to occur.
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