Mark Zuckerberg was 19 when he started Facebook. Bill Gates was 21 when he started Microsoft; co-founder Paul Allen was 23. Steve Jobs was 21 when he co-founded Apple; co-founder Steve Wozniak was 26. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang were 30. 

Yet they’re the exceptions, not the rule. A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found the average age of entrepreneurs who start a company and go on to hire at least one employee is 42. A study conducted by the Census Bureau and two MIT professors found the most successful entrepreneurs tend to be middle-aged, even in the technology sector. After compiling a list of 2.7 million company founders who hired at least one employee between 2007 and 2014, researchers found the average age of those who founded the most successful tech companies was 45.

And then there’s this: In general terms, a 50-year-old entrepreneur was almost twice as likely to start an extremely successful company as a 30-year-old. A 60-year-old startup founder was three times more likely to launch a successful startup than a 30-year-old startup founder, and nearly twice as likely to have launched a startup that ranked in the top 0.1% (in terms of revenue) of all companies.

More broadly, a review of studies published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the age at which scientists and inventors reach their moment of “genius” is rising: While the average age used to be younger, the majority now make their biggest contributions to their fields after the age of 40. 

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As the researchers write: 

This research consistently finds that performance peaks in middle age: The life cycle begins with a training period in which major creative output is absent, followed by a rapid rise in output to a peak, often in their late 30s or 40s.

Makes sense. True mastery typically takes time. As the researchers write:

The link between creativity and extant knowledge may depend not just on the acquisition of extant knowledge via training, but may depend on the nature and difficulty of the cognitive processes involved in drawing together and extending sets of extant knowledge.

Or in non-researcher-speak: It’s not enough to just know things; you have to know how those things fit within larger frameworks in order to make new connections and new breakthroughs. 

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