Episode 9
· 18:50
So I just wrote this blog post about what's happening with founders over the age of 40. And actually calling it a blog post is a bit of a stretch. It's really an amalgamation of 3 podcasts I listen to and my notes on those podcasts. So the first was Paul Jarvis announcing that he had retired from Fathom Analytics. The next was Matt Wensing talking about stepping down from Summit and taking a job at customer.
Justin:Io. And then the 3rd episode I listened to was Brian Cassell and Jordan Goll talking about building a SaaS at this stage of life. And I just thought it was interesting to take these different anecdotes and to describe, you know, something that I I've seen happening, especially for founders over the age of 40 who have been doing this for a while. And I didn't expect this to, really get that much traction, mostly because it's just bullet points and some quotes, but it landed on Hacker News and it clearly resonated with people because, they wanted to talk about it. And I've been writing this other draft forever, which is currently titled I'm 44 and my brain is getting worse, which talks about this idea of crystallized versus fluid intelligence.
Justin:And what researchers have noticed is that our cognitive capacity at a certain age, changes. Now one of the observations I make both in this blog post and in this draft post I've been working on forever, is that at 44, I don't feel like I still have the raw horsepower in terms of creative mental energy that I did 20 years ago. A lot of my thinking here is based on Arthur Brooks' book on crystallized versus fluid intelligence, where he shows this research that fluid intelligence, which is that raw, energetic, mental power that a young person has, that that starts to decline in your forties. Now it doesn't just drop off a cliff. It declines.
Justin:And for some people, that decline starts in their mid thirties. For some people, it doesn't start until their fifties. But the research he's referencing says that this type of research, this kind of raw mental horsepower that you have that allows you to stay up all night and just grind through something, to have kind of this unlimited boundless gas in the tank, that that does start to decline as you age. And I'm just being honest. I've felt that.
Justin:It used to be, for example, that I would write my newsletter almost every Friday night. So I would put the kids to bed and start writing it at about 8 o'clock and often wouldn't finish it until 1 or 2 in the morning. And I've just found that my ability to do that, to work a full day at work, to come home and do all the things that my family needs, to do dinner and clean up and put the kids to bed, and then have a full other workday working on something. I just don't have the same gas in the tank that I used to. Now, in his book, Arthur Brooks says there's another form of intelligence called crystallized intelligence that increases during this time.
Justin:So none of this is pessimistic. He's just pointing out that you need to change gears at a certain point in your life. So as this type of intelligence and kind of raw horsepower is declining, you just change gears into something else. And, yeah. A lot of people pushed back on this.
Justin:This was a popular one. I strongly believe that whatever we believe, strongly the body and brain will obey. It wants to stay consistent with what we believe our internal image. And this is a fair point. You know, if people were pushing back and saying, well, maybe, Justin, you're just believing this and then it's becoming true.
Justin:There's also quite a few people that brought up nutrition, exercise, sleep, and the, the general idea being we can slow down or even reverse some of the effects of aging. And some of this is true. If you eat well, if you sleep, if you get lots of exercise, you can, slow down some of the effects of aging. You can't reverse aging, though. This isn't a pessimistic thing to say.
Justin:Our bodies and our brains do change as we age. This is true when we're going from age 0 to 10. It's true as we enter puberty, and it's also true as we get older. And one criticism of both posts actually came from women, who wanted me to talk more about menopause and the effects that has on them as they age. So let's bring up ChatGPT's, web search here.
Justin:Menopause marks the end of a woman's menstrual cycle and fertility, typically occurring between the ages of 4555. Cognitively, many women experience challenges during the menopausal transition. Common complaints include forgetfulness, difficulty concentrating, and a general sense of brain fog. 40 to 60% of women report such cognitive issues during this time. So pointing this out isn't pessimistic.
Justin:This is reality for women. You know, bodies change as we get older. And if we ask, the same web search, you know, what do men go through? It says men do not experience a direct equivalent to menopause. However, they can undergo age related hormonal changes that may impact cognitive function.
Justin:Testosterone levels in men gradually decline at a rate of about 1% per year after the age of 30. This reduction can lead to a condition known as late onset hypogonadism or andropause characterized by symptoms such as fatigue, depression, irritability, reduced libido, cognitive difficulties like impaired concentration and memory. And, Chat GPT continues here, cognitively, both men and women experience changes as they age, including declines in processing speed, working memory, and executive functions. And this is, the source for this one is the National Institute on Aging. And personally, I don't find any of this pessimistic.
Justin:It's just real. This is what happens to people in their forties. And in many ways, I'm pointing this out. I'm saying, wow, I'm going through this. I'm seeing some of this in myself.
Justin:I'm seeing some of this in my peers. And if you're in your twenties or your thirties, here's just a heads up. This happens to people. You're not going to have the same kind of mental acuity at 44 as you did when you were 24. Another common objection or response to the blog post was this research here, which showed that among the fastest growing new tech companies, the average founder was 45.
Justin:And furthermore, a 50 year old entrepreneur is nearly twice as likely to have a runaway success as a 30 year old. I'm not a stranger to this research. I actually wrote about it back in 2022. And this is also my story. When John and I started working on transistor together in 2018, I was 38 years old, already in my late thirties.
Justin:And, we kind of made it when I turned 40. So by the time I was 40, Transistor was making a good amount of income. Both John and I were full time on it. And, you know, that's my my big success really happened after I turned 40. So I'm not saying that if you're in your late thirties, your forties, or your fifties, you can't start a successful company.
Justin:The reality is more nuanced, though. So when the researchers behind that report I mentioned, you know, that older entrepreneurs tend to do better. When they asked, you know, why do entrepreneurs get better with age? The answer was that founders with 3 or more years of experience in the same industry as their startup are twice as likely to have a 1 in 1,000 fastest growing company. So one of the variables that contributes to success is experience, accrued wisdom.
Justin:And so if we're talking about blanket statements, a statement that is not true is that every 40, 45, 50 year old has the potential to build a great business. That's not true. And the age attribute alone does not contribute to success. It's the other attributes that come with age that contribute to success, namely experience, who you know, your network, and accrued resources. Those three things really can give you a leg up when it comes to starting a company.
Justin:And there's also a stage of life consideration. So I'm 44. My wife and I have 4 kids and I'll be 48 when all 4 have graduated high school. At 48, at 50, at 55, I'll be an empty nester. And I may feel like it's time to start a new company with all of my accrued wisdom, resources, and connections.
Justin:And if I do that in an industry that I have experience in, or I understand, yes, I'll probably have a better chance of succeeding than a 20 something that's just coming into that industry with none of those attributes. I think another misunderstanding, at least about my experience is I'm not ready to slow down or be less ambitious or retire. Although all of those things would be fine, and there's evidence that other founders who are my age are shifting gears a little bit. It's okay to say, you know what? I don't want to be a founder anymore.
Justin:And somebody has just offered me an incredible job. That's going to pay me a lot of money and going to fulfill me personally without all of the added stress. I'm going to do that. That's a great option. It's also okay to say, you know, I've been working at this online business thing for 15, 20 years, and I'm ready to retire.
Justin:I'm ready to sell my shares and do some gardening and do some surfing or whatever. All of those things are fine. For me personally, I don't think I'm less ambitious, at least at this stage of my life. I still have ambition. Some people brought up this Dylan Thomas, poem, do not go gently into that good night.
Justin:Rage, rage against the dying of the light. I'm not ready to not ready to expire. You know, I'm still here. I'm I'm working on Transistor every day. I love the challenges there.
Justin:I'm investing on the side. I love parts of that. And, you know, I'm thinking about other projects and all of that is true. I think what I'm just recognizing is, you know, these things sneak up on you. It's like gradually and then sudden.
Justin:And there's actually research that I'll link to that shows that aging might happen in these bursts where, we have these sudden movements just like puberty where it's just like like you just grow a ton or in the case of aging, you have this massive, this massive, boost of aging as depressing as that sounds. And so instead of denying that these realities exist, I want to be aware of them. And that might mean, yeah. You know what? I'm gonna take my nutrition and my health and my sleep and my exercise more serious.
Justin:You know, Peter Attia is telling all of us in our forties, we need to be hitting the weights because if we don't hit the weights now, we'll never be able to build up and retain that muscle. So now's the time. You gotta do it now. And I think that's reasonable, right? That's one response to the reality of aging and mentally cognitively creatively.
Justin:I think it's also good for us to start thinking about changing gears, about shifting gears. And that might mean if you've been doing this for 20 years, this online business thing, It's it's time to shift into a different role. Maybe, like Rob Walling now has sold his company and now he invests in companies. He does education on YouTube and in books and on his blog. And he runs these events for entrepreneurs.
Justin:And he's really kind of made his whole life mission for this stage of life to mentor, inspire, and, invest in entrepreneurs. I think that's great. That's a different gear than he was in when he was building DRIP. So none of this has to be dire. It can just be a recognition of how am I feeling truly?
Justin:I think one of the advantages of talking about this is it gives people who have been experiencing these things silently and have never heard them articulated, it gives them a chance to respond. Like in this case, somebody on my newsletter list responded, I've been struggling with the same thing. I never quite had the terms to define it so clearly, but what you've said captures it perfectly. Until the last few years, I've been able to do anything I wanted with the confidence that I could figure it out. But now I feel like I can't learn anything new.
Justin:It just falls away like a magnet on wood. Nothing sticks. I have to clear my schedule, concentrate, take supplements, stay up late, and take copious notes just to make a bit of progress on anything. And if you're in your late thirties or your forties, your fifties, or your sixties, and you're experiencing that, it's just so nice to know that somebody else out there is experiencing that too. That you're not the only one.
Justin:And that yeah. Sure. We're we're gonna get more sleep and we're gonna we're gonna eat better. But there's part of this process that we can't control. And it's nice to know somebody else is experiencing it as well.
Justin:And again, if if you've been working at a job your whole life and now you're 55 and you feel like, you know what? I've got the energy and the wisdom and the resources to launch a company. You should do it. If that's what you wanna do, you should do it. I'm not trying to tell anybody that they shouldn't pursue entrepreneurship because they're older.
Justin:And you might not be as burnt out as, you know, someone who's 5 years younger who's been doing this their entire life. Trying to build businesses, you know, going through bankruptcies, going through the grinder Maybe that 45 year old who's been doing it for a long time is more tired and worn out than you are at 55. Go for it. I'm not trying to discourage you. But we can't deny the passage of time and how it affects us as humans.
Justin:Again, we changed a lot from birth to age 10, from age 10 to age 20, And we're going to change a lot from age 20 to age 40 and beyond. I'll end with this. I really love this 2,004 interview with 60 minutes where the interview asks Bob Dylan about his early hits.
Ed Bradley:You ever look at music and say, wow, that you've written and look back at it and say, woah. That surprised me.
Bob Dylan:I don't know how I got to to write those songs.
Ed Bradley:What do you mean you don't know how?
Bob Dylan:They were, those early songs were, like, almost magically written.
Bob Dylan:That there's a magic to that and it's not Siegfried and Roy kind of magic, you know. It's a it's a different kind of a penetrating magic. And, you know, I did it. I I did it at one time.
Ed Bradley:You don't think you can do it today?
Bob Dylan:Mm-mm.
Ed Bradley:Does that disappoint you?
Bob Dylan:Well, you can't do something forever and, I did it once and I can do other things now, but I I can't do that.
Justin:For me personally, I wanna have the same self awareness that Bob Dylan has. You know, you can't have the same kind of energy or creative firepower forever. I did that. I can't do that anymore, but I can do other things now.
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