I’ll go ahead and weigh in on the age question. In my view, age really has very little to do with things. It’s really about an innovation mind set, your assumptions and the tools (skills, risk tolerance, network, etc) you use to execute what you think of. So - if you’re 45, you’ll have a different set of tools than a 25 year old. But the innovator’s mind set is the same. Whenever I interview anyone, I look for intellectual curiosity. That is fundamental to anyone I want on my team (other than button pushers, but that is for something else). Innovation stems from intellectual curiosity. And intellectual curiosity is found at any age. Me, I am 35. I am constantly working to hone the edge of my tool set. The other question here is one of self-full-filling prophecy. Is the success chart that Valleywag shows due to the entrepreneur, or the VC? If a VC will only invest in people under 30, well, then - you’ll get success stories only from people under 30. To me, that is the antithesis of intellectual curiosity. Kudos to Fred Wilson for not playing that game.

Originally published on WordPress on May 22, 2007. Migrated to this blog on May 29, 2025.