I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words. —- Hesiod, Eighth Century B.C.

Youth has been a hot topic of late in Silicon Valley. Whether lamenting the fact that the smartest (young) people in the room are wasting their ingenuity on sexting apps, or questioning whether Silicon Valley is in the midst of a crisis of ageism, those darn whippersnappers are the center of attention, and billions of dollars. Yiren Lu’s Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem is an elegant piece of writing from an admirably self-aware, embedded reporter, but her claims that Silicon Valley is in the midst of a crisis of misspent talent ignores both history and the present beyond her lens. Ms. Lu seems most concerned that the überjungen are wasting their ability on things of little import.

“The talent — and there’s a ton of it — flowing into Silicon Valley cares little about improving these infrastructural elements. What they care about is coming up with more web apps.”

While the plethora of nearly indistinguishable vowel-less startups is certainly cause for eye rolling, young people have always done stupid stuff. Even smart young people. Especially smart young people. Newton almost blinded himself staring at the sun. Darwin ate many of the animals he was recording for science. Tesla gambled away all of his tuition money while in college. Making poor choices has always been a crucial part of the process of growing up. Without those poor choices, and the associated failure so near and dear to Silicon Valley’s heart, innovators throughout history would never have stumbled upon the advances for which they are famous. More troubling is her assumption that the tech people she’s talking about are the smartest, and youngest, people in the room.

“…if the traditional lament at Ivy League schools has been that the best talent goes to Wall Street, a newer one is taking shape: Why do these smart, quantitatively trained engineers, who could help cure cancer or fix healthcare.gov, want to work for a sexting app?”

Back in 2007, then 22-year-old Mark Zuckerberg famously said that “young people are just smarter”, and asked why most grand masters in chess are under 30. (One wonders if he’s thinking differently now, having just last month turned 30.) While it may be true that the plasticity of the mind makes advancements of the purely abstract difficult as we age, our strength lies not solely in the power of our intellect, but in the ability to supplement and magnify our thinking with years of hard-won experience. Putting aside the fact that the healtchare.gov debacle was due to contractor incompetence and borderline corruption, and that plenty of smart, young people are working to address cancer, focusing only on young, wildly successful entrepreneurs ignores the advancements of many older entrepreneurs. I

t’s no surprise that the tech industry would be predisposed to youth. Interest, and money, have always been attracted to the shiny and new. It’s easier to tell a story about a bunch of kids toiling away night and day than it is to lay out the often convoluted path of the serial entrepreneur or experienced engineer. Exposing the shortcomings of this fetishization of youth prevalent in Silicon Valley is the goal of Noam Scheiber’s The Brutal Ageism of Silicon Valley. With a cast of colorful entrepreneurs and youth-restoring plastic surgeons, Scheiber makes a strong argument that Silicon Valley’s focus on youth is undervaluing experienced tech workers, and ignoring their potential contributions to the industry.

One key part of Scheiber’s argument focuses on the idea that venture capital firms —the gatekeepers and fortune-makers of Silicon Valley financing — are predisposed toward younger entrepreneurs. Some VCs, most notably Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, have pushed back against this idea a bit. Still, even Wilson acknowledges that VCs are biased towards younger founders, and the growing power of investment firms in the innovation ecosystem means that ageism can have a bigger impact than ever before.

As valuations grow to record proportions, the role of VCs in both funding and signaling industry confidence has never been larger. They, and associated culture of accelerators, can literally make or break a startup. This means that the power of these firms has grown relative to the entrepreneurs. There are two key reasons why this lead to a predilection for younger founders:

1. Young founders are more marketable

2. Young founders are more malleable Fame is a valuable currency in Silicon Valley. Young, prodigy types fit a coherent story that is easily understood by both peers and public. This is the legend of Apple Computers, and the story of The Social Network. As much as it may be poking fun at the Valley and everything in it, HBO is currently pumping fresh air into the trope with the new “Silicon Valley”.

From the perspective of established venture capitalists, the success of young teams serves to both confirm their preconceived notions, and to cement their status as excellent judges of talent. Many VCs seek fame as well, and it’s more rewarding to be seen as a brilliant mentor than as an exploitative “vampire”.

This leads to the second point — young startup founders are more malleable. Experienced entrepreneurs are less likely to need either technical and managerial guidance, and are more likely to have a detailed plan in place for their startup. This may make them less attractive to VCs, as they would seemingly be less open to input or pivots that the investors may deem necessary. This isn’t meant to be a nefarious point, simply to highlight that when given the choice of smart people that may be more open to guidance than other smart people, those holding the purse strings are likely going to bet on their own ability to help influence a positive outcome.

The irony here is that some of the most famous Silicon Valley success stories consciously avoided just such investor influence. Larry Page and Sergey Brin avoided venture capital for years in order to maintain control over the direction of Google. Mark Zuckerberg did the same with Facebook, and infamously showed his disdain for the industry by showing up at a VC pitch in pajamas. (It should be noted that he’s since expressed remorse over this…and netted the firm in questions billions with Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp.) More recently, big-data company Palantir avoided short-term-focused investor oversight by spurning venture capital, opting for government backing instead. While it may be harder for more experienced entrepreneurs to gain access to venture capital, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Startup founders come in all ages. With such small samples it’s impossible to say whether youth, or clear vision, tenacity, and excellent execution, is responsible for the success of prodigy-companies such as Facebook and Google. Still, it seems clear that older founders are less attractive to traditional investment options for a number of reasons: they don’t fit the pre-established narrative, can’t deliver as much buzz, and simply don’t need the non-pecuniary help as much. As Scheiber’s New Republic article argues convincingly, this means that older founder teams are undervalued in Silicon Valley. Their sweet spot of passion, ability, and experience may outweigh whatever benefit pure youth may have in freedom and hip-ness. As for Ms. Lu’s concern that the smartest young people of our generation are wasting their lives, well, there’s life past the first job. Bill Gates has said as much:

“Innovation in California is at its absolute peak right now. Sure, half of the companies are silly, and you know two-thirds of them are going to go bankrupt, but the dozen or so ideas that emerge out of that are going to be really important.”

What’s more is that half of those companies with silly ideas may pivot to something more meaningful. Twitter famously began as an enterprise messaging service, for example, and Youtube started as a video dating site. Companies, and people, mature and change. There is no one path to innovation. While fame and fortune may flow to a fortunate few who strike gold early, creating a lasting impact happens at all ages. If you’re over 30, however, it may not be a good idea to bank on venture capital. This article is cross-posted at Medium. Follow InnoSpring on Twitter and WeChat (QR code below), and sign up for our Newsletter to keep up with all the latest content on cross-border innovation.