On Age...

I've been thinking a lot about age recently.  As my age catches up to my rapidly graying hair, I'm realizing that I'm no longer the youngest guy in the room...

Today, Business Week released their list of "Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs", where they highlight eleven "of the tech industry's most promising players aged 30 and under...whose ideas and innovations are likely to make the biggest impact on technology in the coming years." 

While I have always said that my fund, First Round Capital, seeks to invest in incredible entrepreneurs, I was amazed to learn that we had funded 4 of the 11 finalists.  So, while I'm still coping with the fact that I'm too old to make any "young" list myself, I can take comfort in the fact that we had backed more than a third of the finalists.

Congratulations to:

• Garrett Camp, StumbleUpon
• Aaron Patzer, Mint.com
• Matt Sanchez, VideoEgg
• Jia Shen, RockYou

Comments

[VC Dan]

I hear ya Josh. The really cool commercials aren't aimed at us anymore!

Congrats on backing such a strong group of young entrepreneurs...

[Donna]

You proved the point w/ your investments. Age is in our mind. I had a few years where I felt old - now as my son prepares to enter college/is a high school senior, I feel young again. I ask more questions about new media and interactive design (his focus) than any of the incoming freshmen, let alone their parents.

[Cory Levy]

"Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are."
-Muhammad Ali

I am usually the youngest guy in the room. Attending entrepreneurial/start up events, in Houston at first, was uncomfortable.

My first event I attended was a Rice University Web 2.0 conference. I wasn't sure where to go, so I asked a woman who looked like she might be attending the event. She looked at me, turned away, looked at me one more time, laughed, and thought I was kidding her.

Walking into a room knowing no one, can be tough. After meeting more and more people, it has, however, become better and better after every event or meeting attended.

[RAGZ]

You want to stay young? Direct your investment here, and speed up the R&D. Depressing to think that our generations might JUST miss the benefit of this kind of research.

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/124831.html

In the meantime, life longevity means living through your children.

[David Ulevitch]

Hopefully I won't hit 30 before I get the opportunity to work with you. :-)

[Deva Hazarika]

Josh,

Congrats, you're obviously doing a great job at finding and backing good young startups. But don't you think there's a lot of selection bias due to FR and YC being obvious great places to source candidates for a list like that?

[Paul]

I think there is a strong correlation between Tech's Youngest entrepreneurs and Tech's Luckiest entrepreneurs. When will this fact be talked about openly?

[MD]

Nice Josh, I guess you know hot to pick em! Or this writer knows a certain fund to source his choices :)

At least this wasn't a "30 under 30" article. Has anyone done a study of long-term success of people written about in those pieces?

A lot more talk about age these days...it seems to me that "success" of 20-somethings is more related to height of bubbles than long-term value-creation of companies. Present company (and portfolio investments) excluded of course. :)

[Sean Glass]

Josh, great to see recognition for so many of FRC's young entrepreneurs... Glad I'm still on the right side of 30 according to these types of articles :-)

[elliott kelly]

I just thought i would thank you for posting your advice to potential entrepreneurs looking for capital on your site. it has helped me refine the vision of my site and i am working on revising, simplifying and getting the management and technical talent ill need to produce a better product.

[Stephen Sprouse]

love it