Data and charts
Who starts, and who builds fast
Founders are older than the usual picture, and the fastest-growing firms are older still.
Founder age is one factor among many and the data shows an association, not a cause.
These figures describe all new U.S. businesses, not WE's results.
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Starting rates by age
The monthly rate of new entrepreneurs aged 35 to 54 has risen since 1996, while the rate for ages 20 to 34 has stayed flat.
- Rate of new entrepreneurs
Show the data as a table
| Group | Series | At year 1996 | At year 2000 | At year 2005 | At year 2010 | At year 2015 | At year 2020 | At year 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ages 20 to 34 | Rate of new entrepreneurs | 0.28% | 0.22% | 0.27% | 0.26% | 0.24% | 0.28% | 0.26% |
| Ages 35 to 44 | Rate of new entrepreneurs | 0.31% | 0.27% | 0.30% | 0.40% | 0.40% | 0.41% | 0.43% |
| Ages 45 to 54 | Rate of new entrepreneurs | 0.36% | 0.30% | 0.26% | 0.35% | 0.37% | 0.49% | 0.43% |
| Ages 55 to 64 | Rate of new entrepreneurs | 0.34% | 0.34% | 0.33% | 0.39% | 0.37% | 0.41% | 0.37% |
Source: Kauffman Indicators of Early-Stage Entrepreneurship, National Report 2025 , May 2026
Retrieved 2026-10-15. Values are copied as printed (Table 5): the percent of non-owners in an age group who start a business in a month.
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The fastest-growing firms and their founders
In all nine groups of firms studied, the founders of the fastest-growing 1 in 1,000 were older, on average, than founders of all startups. The ranges overlap: this is a tilt, not a rule.
Show the data as a table
| Group | Mean age of all startups’ founders (years) | Mean age of founders of the fastest-growing 1 in 1,000 (years) |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 41.8 years | 45 years |
| California | 41.4 years | 43.5 years |
| Massachusetts | 41.7 years | 43.2 years |
| New York | 41.5 years | 44.2 years |
| Silicon Valley | 41.7 years | 44.3 years |
| Entrepreneurial hubs | 41.2 years | 42.6 years |
| Technology employment | 43.2 years | 45.9 years |
| Venture-backed firms | 42.4 years | 43.4 years |
| Patenting firms | 44.4 years | 46.2 years |
Source: Azoulay, Jones, Kim and Miranda, Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship (NBER WP 24489; AER: Insights 2020) , April 2018 (working paper); March 2020 (AER: Insights)
Retrieved 2026-10-15. Values are copied from Tables 5 (panels A and B) as printed.
Sources and method
Every figure is copied from the publisher or computed from published numbers by simple arithmetic, and says how. Figures that could not be verified are left out. These figures describe all new U.S. businesses, not WE's results.
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National Report on Early-Stage Entrepreneurship in the United States: 2025
What WE did. Table 5 (rate of new entrepreneurs by age group, 1996 to 2025) is copied as printed.
- The rate of new entrepreneurs is the percent of people aged 20 to 64 who do not own a business in one survey month and start one in the next with 15 or more hours worked a week.
- Estimates come from the Current Population Survey and include businesses with no employees.
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Trends in Entrepreneurship: Who Is the Entrepreneur? 1996 to 2021
What WE did. Table 3 (share of new entrepreneurs by age group, 1996 to 2021) is copied as printed.
- Current Population Survey estimates; the four age groups cover ages 20 to 64 only.
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What WE did. Table 5 (mean founder age, standard deviation and count by growth tier and region or type of firm) is copied as printed. A band drawn from the mean minus one standard deviation to the mean plus one is our arithmetic.
- Table 5 covers firms founded 2007 to 2009; growth is employment five years after founding, so the "top 0.1%" tier is 1,700 founders.
- Successful exit means an IPO or an acquisition; those were about 0.15% of founders.
- Association, not a prediction for any one founder.