I believe that in large it can be attributed to a large number of experienced invited/appointed executives who make an exit. Not necessarily being a founder.

> We found that the average age of entrepreneurs at the time they founded their companies is 42. But the vast majority of these new businesses are likely small businesses with no intentions to grow large (for example, dry cleaners and restaurants)

From your first link, this is the key passage.

People are conflating two data points (startup founder and average age of a business owner when they founded their company). The later is a bigger population than the former.

"Startup Founder" is synonymous with growing a business to be huge, so you should exclude founders from the calculation who are NOT attempting to grow a business to be huge.

I imagine when you exclude said individuals, the average age of a "startup" founder to be much younger.

https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-succes...

The article also says:

> The average age of people who founded the highest growth startups (i.e. the startups in the top 1% by growth) is 45.

So contrary to your intuition (and mine!), the average high growth startup founder, at 45, is older, not younger, than the average "startup" founder, at 42.

This is not that surprising when you think about it. These are usually serial enterpreneurs so they learned from their previous companies and can somewhat evade the mistakes that were made there. In the startup world this usually comes with bigger check sizes too, which can help you grow faster.

Ten years to overnight success...

> "Startup Founder" is synonymous with growing a business to be huge, so you should exclude founders from the calculation who are NOT attempting to grow a business to be huge.

By the YC and VC definition. But we can also go by the indie hacker or bootstrapped definition, making enough money to replace your job and if it's even more, then great, but it's not expected to make billions.

I‘m very interested in starting my own business, I’m not interested at all in making it huge, at least in terms of staff.

Same to both

Most people, not just VC's, would define a startup as a business which is geared for growth. How is a business that just pays the bills a startup? Isn't that just a small business?

isn't it that all businesses are for growth? apple is expected to grow too, but I would not call it as startup..

I have'nt seen any (except non-profit ones) company which would intentionally claim " we are aiming and loweri g our revenue" or "let's keep it as it is" :)

I tried to do a startup in my early 30s. I'm in my late 30s now, and all I can say is having personal money and savings is HUGELY underrated. I had a LOT of stress from trying to live off a founder salary in my early 30s (AND with $8K+ of medical expenses every year), and I imagine that if I go at a startup again in my 40s it will be when I have a decent chunk of savings in the bank.