Tech Entrepreneurs - 17 Year Old Kid Hackers? - Not!
People have the idea of Silicon Valley or Technology Companies in general being built by freckle-faced, gawky 17 year old teenagers with a knack for building companies in a garage from nothing!Think more like a balding 39 year old with Masters or PhD degrees, having gained a lot of experience in mature companies before they venture out into Entrepreneurship!Tech Entrepreneurs Older, More Educated Than Stereotype is an article summarizing a study done by Kaufmann Foundation, set up to foster innovation, entrepreneurship, venture investing, etc.
It seems that the atypical, 17 year old, collge drop out, Technical Entrepreneur is only 1% of all the tech entrepreneurs.
Of course some of those 1% like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison have been very successful but seems like a small percentage of the total population of tech entrepreneurs.
The study also shows that many of these people have worked many years in business before they venture out into entrepreneurship.
A large percentage of them have Bachelors Degrees, Masters and PhDs. This is sort of understandable. At least in Software you really don’t need any degree to be successful at what you do professionally or to even build great software companies.
I cannot imagine a chip company being led by someone who has less than a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering. The newer promising areas like Nano Technology, Alternative Energy, Biotechnology, etc may need PhDs, not just Masters’ degrees, just because of the demands of the industry they are in.
The 17 year old hacker making it big are just like kids interested in basketball. Statistically, a small percentage of them have any chance of making it big in professional basket ball! Seems like the same principles apply here also.
Interesting study and sobering conclusions!