‘Mature Disruption’ — The Startup School for Over 50s

It must be the soft prejudice that goes most without saying in the worlds of technology and start-up entrepreneurialism — that it’s a young person’s business. From the nested mythologies of our most pre-eminent social network and its founders, to the whole practice’s gruelling and often family-unfriendly pursuit of the gains of unsociable working hours, — if there’s one thing you’re less likely to find front-and-centre in the diorama of startup idealism than a defaced California Republic flag or a tablet of consequentialist ethics, it’s people over 50 (or much over 40, for that matter).

There is a generational factor behind Big Tech’s worship of youth that at least partly explains the absence of elder statespeople at the proverbial table — the fact that the industrial changes brought about by the startup movement have been both swift and comparatively recent. That has engendered a competency lag. As one anonymous young founder complained to Forbes, in their midst of the pursuit of experienced, older professionals for their company, “Our industry is brand new…Older candidates don’t bring any relevant experience, but come with a higher paycheck.”

The youthcentrism of Big Tech is not solely attributable to a skills deficit, however. Another statement by another, equally anonymous founder[1] struck with a rather different ring to…