I'm not convinced that ones age has anything to do with it. Personally, I think it has to do with maturity.

A person is simply the culmination of ones experiences, training and beliefs. For some, it takes 40 years to build those things and for others it takes 20 years.

Although age and maturity usually correlate directly, it's not always true. We've all met people in their 40s that act like they're 18, and 18 (ok, maybe 25) year olds that act like they're 40.

Disclaimer: I'm in my 20s

When I was in my 20s, I would have said the same thing. :) I agree that there are mature 18-year-olds and immature 40-year-olds. I think you're discounting the role of practice, though. Someone with 20 years of experience has spent almost 40,000 hours at work. It's very hard for a 25-year-old to compensate for that no matter how smart they are or how many experiences they've had.

Story time: My grandfather was a soft-spoken old cowboy, but you should have seen him charm and intimidate cattle buyers. At 70 years old, he could hold his own with the slick-talking young buyers because he had gone through that same negotiation 100 times and there was no trick they could pull that he hadn't seen.

Disclaimer: I'm 39.

I used to think that way too when I was in my 20s. High achiever, very smart. Now I'm in my 30s and I can say that my opinion has changed. Not hugely so, but definitely some.

The older you get the more your perception of time changes. I think this is part of the reason that there are so few 20-something leaders of huge companies. Partly it takes time to prove yourself to enough people to get a shot. Partly because it takes a long time to be patient enough to where you can be effective at the job.

I dunno. I'm 33. My opinion has changed, and then it changed again.

I think I'm definitely not the same person now as I was at 24, or even 29. The thing is, I wasn't the same person at 29 as I was at 24 either, and I doubt I'll be the same person at 40. In other words, the process of change and growth doesn't stop - ever. Probably that's the biggest lesson I learned in my 30s.

I think the biggest mistake many 30 and 40-somethings make is to fit everything into an overarching narrative of growth and maturation. "I was young and foolish then, now I'm older and wiser." Because the narrative doesn't actually stop - we are still young and foolish, hopefully - and trying to fit yourself to it just ensures that you remain stagnant at wherever you were at 30. Instead of a narrative of growth and experience, it's really one of adaptation, of recognizing progressively more subtle distinctions in the environment and changing yourself in response to them. And in that narrative, it makes sense to listen to everybody, even to young people, so you can pick out the parts of their experience that are new and unfamiliar to you.

Yeah, I'm not saying that I'm "older and wiser" at all. Older yes. Wiser maybe. More risk averse for sure, and a lot of people equate that with wisdom. I don't, but many do.

I'm in my mid 20s too and I strongly agree with what you said.

Maybe it's because we've both lived in Chile? :P

I find C to be interesting -- my gut suspects it's probably correct & accurate, but not having ever been married I'd be interested in hearing you elaborate further on that point specifically.

Marriage is not the only way to acquire the skills mentioned.

At 15, I was living in a small village in Chile, without parents. There were 2 English speakers in this town, and we learned to work together to learn a new language, adopt a new culture, reconcile differences, and more.

Those experiences have shaped my outlook on everything from relationship management to problem solving to effective communications.

IMHO, a great way to become an effective entrepreneur is to immerse yourself in high stress, difficult situations that require on-the-fly problem solving over and over again.

I just mean that married people have experience partnering closely with another person to achieve shared goals, and will have hopefully developed some strategies to do that effectively.

And dealing with young kids, which sometimes is the same as dealing with some founders :)

I'll say this: a start-up experience is excellent preparation for marriage.

Your marriage is more important to your long-term success than your start-up is, too.

I've watched founders in their 50s face these same struggles as startup founders. Most were married people had spent most of their careers in large corporations where they managed hundreds of employees. It's just really, really hard for 2-3 driven, Type A people to work through disagreements when they care deeply about a product.