Last year I wrote Is 30 Too Old To Start A Tech Business which referred to a list of Silicon Valley start-ups and the age of their founders published by Valleywag (the average age being 26). As I pointed out at the time the table misses out some important tech start-ups and is far too small a sample to really prove anything. Recently however the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has in collaboration with researchers at Duke and Harvard universities has carried out a more detailed study of high-tech start-ups. The study analyzed U.S. engineering and tech companies founded from 1995-2005, representing the most current decade of data. The results have been published in the paper Education and Tech Entrepreneurship.

They found that most technology and engineering company founders are middle-aged, well-educated, and hold a degree. In fact, according to their research twice as many U.S.-born tech entrepreneurs start ventures in their 50s as do those in their early 20s.

They also blow a hole in the myth that college dropouts are behind many tech start-ups, as highly ranked schools are over-represented in the ranks of these founders, and Ivy-League graduates achieve the greatest business success; however, 92 percent of the founders graduated from other universities. Having read the excellent The Illusions Of Entrepreneurship by Scott Shane earlier this year I’m not at all surprised by the results of the study. In his book Shane notes that the better educated the founder the higher the chance of success, those with a masters degree having the highest level of success especially those with a some industry experience - all of which would actually suggest a more mature person.

The study also includes some other interesting facts that support Shane’s findings:

• The average and median age of U.S.-born founders at the time of starting their companies was 39.
• Only about 1 percent of U.S.-born founders of tech companies were teenagers.
• 92 percent of tech founders held bachelor’s degrees, 31 percent held master’s degrees, and 10 percent had completed PhDs. Nearly half of these degrees were in science-, technology-, engineering- and mathematics-related disciplines. One third are in business, accounting and finance.
• Tech founders holding MBA degrees established companies more quickly (13 years) than others. Those with PhDs typically waited 21 years to become tech entrepreneurs.

The final point is yet more proof that an MBA has value for entrepreneurs.

Hat tip to Shannon Cherry at Startup Spark from drawing my attention to the story.

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