Golden Oldies: Entrepreneurs: The Value Of Old People
by Miki SaxonPoking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.
Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.
In a country still focused on youth it’s good to remember that Rob Hull was no spring chicken when he founded Adaptive Insights in 2003, was rejected 70 times by VCs and survived the 2008 recession. Adaptive is now a software unicorn that seems to have no interest in chasing spring chickens when hiring — just great talent of whatever age — and ranks 3.9 on glassdoor.
Read other Golden Oldies here.
Who does a company, with explosive growth, founded and built by old folks in their forties and fifties all with extensive executive management experience, turn to when moving to the next level?
The company hasn’t disclosed exact revenue figures, but it says it grew new annual recurring revenue by more than 50% in 2014, and claims more than 2,500 companies, including Coca Cola, Toyota, and AAA use its software. It’s raised $100 million in funding from investors like Salesforce, Norwest Venture Partners, and Bessemer Venture Partners.
The company is Adaptive Insights and the guy is Tom Bogan, an even older guy, with even more experience.
A guy who is (gasp) 63 years old.
Gasp, because according to a recent study, old people shouldn’t even go out in public.
When a large sample of Facebook groups created by 20- to 29-year-olds was examined by a team based at the Yale School of Public Health, three-quarters of the groups were found to denigrate old people. More than a third advocated banning old people from public activities like shopping.
Of course, one assumes that the ‘old people’ to which they refer aren’t their relatives.
(I’d like to hear them on the subject 10, 20, 30 and 40 years from now.)
There is enormous value in having ‘been there/done that’ through multiple economic cycles, cultural change, globalization and technology evolution/revolution.
But to take advantage of it you need to be comfortable enough in your own skin to admit you need to learn — like Mark Zukerberg and Larry Page.
Image credit: Adaptive Insights