SmallBusinessNewz

Imagine a roomful of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and you'll probably see a bunch of Mark Zuckerberg look-alikes.  New data shows that these guys' moms and dads are more likely to have started something successful, though.

According to Vivek Wadhwa, the Kauffman Foundation took a look at the Dunn and Bradstreet Million Dollar database, which "only contains companies with more than 1 million in revenue and 20 employees."  Data pertaining to the period between 1995 and 2005 then went under the microscope.

In the end, it seems that around 45 percent of tech founders were between 35 and 44 years of age when they created their companies.  About 26 percent of them were between 25 and 34, while 18 percent were between 45 and 54 years old.  Just five and six percent of founders fell into the under-25 and over-55 categories, respectively.

Hopefully you'll find these statistics encouraging; they seem indicate that the average person can succeed in tech.  And if we're to pay any attention to tech stereotypes about youth, then the odds of success must be even greater outside the industry.

Note, too, that the range of years encompassed by the study includes both boom and bust periods, so this should be at least one piece of information that'll be unaffected by any sort of recession.