LooseSuits

Most of the people I work with are older than me and it really hasn't been an issue. I just get made fun of when I say, "Oh yeah, that song was a real big hit when I was in junior high."

As an 'older' guy in terms of web years I think the successful youngsters are the exception.

Probably a very old saying but the reality is we do learn more from our mistakes than our successes, so in order to make mistakes and learn we need time!

I received an email last week where someone over 30 was terrified of signing up for Facebook because they felt unwanted. Crap, that's not a good work. Infringing I guess would be it. The person felt the doors were open to other 20 yr olds not in college, not people out of their generation but that couldn't be said without a backlash.

I don't use Facebook much (or any social site) because of the 9rules but I gotta tell ya, some of the apps are a draw but with the addition of apps, Facebook reminds me of the old AOL. It's almost just like it.

@CMarshall - that's what I'm saying so I'd be very surprised if a VC firm went with someone younger and didn't have a lot of strings attached.

@Tyme: In regards to the "the Google story" not being "the norm" people need to keep in mind that both Larry and Sergey were well out of High School and almost done with college when Google was born... they were in their late 20's and now hitting the mid 30's.

I agree that kids education should come first and with Google, they were lucky to have what they were doing in college become a billion dollar business (and also a $100,000 investment check to kick things off).

You can be sure that many of the investors at Facebook are dying to get rid of Zuckerberg, but know they can't due to the backlash that its users would cause. I think they keep him around more for the cool factor (college dropout story is always a good draw) than anything else. Then again though, sometimes experience can work against you as you sometimes tend to outsmart yourself. We are still very young in the internet age so it's great to think that one success can be repeated multiple times, but as we know in life that isn't always the case.

I've always thought that experience mixed with the courage to venture out and try something new was a good recipe for success.

We have less experience, so that's a disadvantage on the deployment, business, efficiency, end of things.

Technology moves fast. With web development, most of the learning materials are online for free [9rules, AListApart, other Blogs, del.icio.us, ThePirateBay-Photoshop], so it's accessible. That evens out the playing field a bit.

Kids have an advantage in developing software for other kids - Facebook and Yaqqr are examples.

But we're also occupied with high school, so that's a big, big disadvantage.

Turgenev, "Fathers and Children"

I kind of disagree that people need to have a wealth of widsom and experience to be successful. At least it seems that way with the internet and computer technologies. There are some obvious examples that support both sides and as far as I know Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are on the side of "the uneducated" in terms of university for when they started their ventures.

My biggest thought on this topic is that the older generation with their wisdom and experience are generally more conservative with their ideas and so more often than not they're not the ones that come up with the next big thing. It's the kids and the young guns that seem to more readily think outside of the box or maybe believe there isn't a box and really shake things up.

If we look back a few years wasn't Bill Gates one of those "kids", too? Same age as Zuckerburg, right? Buffet started his own company in high school.

Perhaps the fact that they get out there and try to gain the experience (read: make mistakes) quickly helps them?

Age makes absolutely no difference to me.... 7 year olds can come up with ideas as brilliant as 15, 30, and 80 year olds. They can also come up with ideas as stupid as 15, 30, and 80 year olds, though. And they can implement their ideas wrong - just like 15, 30, and 80 year olds can. But life experience can definitely be a plus, which, I believe, is why I've noticed more likeliness of success as age increases. But you never know, I've met some 7 year olds with really feasable saving-the-world plans.

The entire area of technology in all its forms screams out to me daily to be the area of "young VS old" but not for the typical reasons. There is a comfortability factor that the younger have with that piece of the world. I'm not speaking of design or usability etc. I mean just the extremely first steps of finding ways to optimally use technology; the net used as part of a grass roots political campaign is an example.
It is through experience, though, that many ideas comes from so it is a partnership. The world needs both.