What are 10 things people will do before they die?

Vinod Khosla spoke at #FailCon about how startups are a young person's game, in terms of going after crazy ideas. He said, "People fundamentally stop trying things at about 30. After 45, people basically die." Do you agree? Why or why not?

• The quote comes from a CNet article by Rafe Needleman. Here is the context: ... Khosla also points out that, on the startup side, this is a game for the young, those whose lives allow them to take crazy risks, where the downsides of a business flameout are relatively small. As a young entrepreneur, he realized that when dealing with a VC, "If we win, we win. But if we fail, you lose." Khosla, 56, also said, "People fundamentally stop trying things at about 30. After 45, people basically die."

• Answer:

  It all depends on the person, not age. Ever hear of Steve Jobs. The choice to slow down or not risk after forty is just that—a choice. Benjamin F. Jones wrote in 2007 Great achievements in knowledge are produced by older innovators today than they were a century ago. Using data on Nobel Prize winners and great inventors, I find that the mean age at which noted innovations are produced has increased by 6 years over the 20th Century A researcher’s output tends to rise steeply in the 20’s and 30’s, peak in the late 30’s or early 40’s, and then trail off slowly through later years (Lehman, 1953; Simonton, 1991). I show that the great achievements in knowledge of the 20th Century occurred at later and later ages. McDonalds was started by Ray Kroc, when he was 52 years old Colonel Sanders. He was 65 years old when he started Kentucky Fried Chicken. Wallace Amos, Jr. started his  Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookie Company in  when he was 41 years old. Dr. Ruth Westheimer gained fame at the age of 53, as a sex expert and continued to teach courses at Yale Universities into her 80's. Julia Child was 49 years old when she started to write her cookbooks. At 51, she became a television personality. At the age of 47, Sir Alexander Fleming, a British doctor and scientist specializing in studying bacteria discovered penicillin. Thomas Edison was 44, when he invented the motion picture camera. at age 49, he invented the fluoroscope, which photographs x-rays. That same year, he also invented the fluorescent electric lamp. Ben Franklin was 46 years old when he experimented with electricity using his kite. At 47, he won the Copley Award, an early version of the Nobel Prize. When he was 47 to 49 years old, he invented bifocals, the catheter, and the Franklin Stove. Henry Ford introduced the Model T automobile when he was 45 years old. At the age of 60, he created the first car assembly line. Soichiro Honda was 42 years old when he formed the Honda Motor Company Charles Darwin wrote the Origins of Species when he was 50 years old through his years of observing nature. Momofuke Ando, The Japanese businessman, at the age of 48 invented instant Ramen Noodles with his company, Nissin Foods, which he started 10 years before. Jack Cover, was a nuclear physicist who invented the Taser, He was 50 years old when he started his company, Taser, Inc. Janet Rita Emerson started her company Bashen Corporation when she was was 37 and in 2006 at 49 was awarded a patent for her software invention becoming the first African-American woman to receive a patent for a web-based EEO software invention, LinkLine. Hans Camenzind, invented the 555 timer when he was about 40. Just after he started his company, InterDesign. There are so many more. That said, In my Corrections days, There was a statistic about how they didn't have to worry as much about prisoners being so violent after 40. Something does change and most people do seem to succum to it. Innovative thinkers are innovating later than they used to. While conventional wisdom holds that creative thinkers do their best work when they are young, a study by NBER researcher Benjamin Jones shows that over the past century the average age at which individuals produce notable inventions and ideas has increased steadily. In Age and Great Invention (NBER Working Paper No. 11359), Jones considers data on Nobel Prize winners in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, and Economics over the past 100 years, and on outstanding technological innovations over the same period. For comparative purposes, Jones also considers the ages of track and field record-setters and ball players who have received Most Valuable Player awards. The data on the innovators reveal three initial characteristics. First, there is large variation in age: 42 percent of innovations came about when their creators were in their 30s, while 40 percent occurred when the inventors were in their 40s, and 14 percent appeared when the inventors were over 50. Second, there were no great achievements produced by innovators before the age of 19, and only 7 percent were produced by innovators at or before the age of 26 (Einstein's age when he performed his prize winning work). Third, the age distributions for the Nobel Prize winners and the technologists are nearly identical. The most striking finding, however, is that the age distribution shifts over time, with the mean age of great achievement rising by five or six years per century. This parallels another study showing a similar upward trend in the age of persons receiving their first patents (NBER Working Paper No. 11360). Jones finds the trends among great innovators are significant and robust, even after controlling for nationality and field of study. Indeed, these controls strengthen the age trend, causing it to rise to about eight years over the course of the twentieth century. This suggests a compositional shift in great innovation towards fields and countries that favor the young. the process of shifting paradigms You either live it, love it, and move on...or you sit on your butt and watch it pass you by. And I'l stop with a gaggle of quotes. Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. ~Mark Twain A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams. ~John Barrymore At 20 years of age the will reigns; at 30 the wit; at 40 the judgment.~Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac The process of maturing is an art to be learned, an effort to be sustained. By the age of fifty you have made yourself what you are, and if it is good, it is better than your youth. ~Marya Mannes, More in Anger, 1958 Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing. -Oliver Wendell Holmes