{"slug": "these-40-something-founders-say-they-have-something-the-ai-kids-don-t", "title": "These 40-something founders say they have something the AI kids don't", "summary": "Amir Elaguizy, a 42-year-old serial entrepreneur who sold his first company to Zynga in 2011, says his age is an advantage in the AI startup boom, citing his decades-long familiarity with AI and a 'vibe shift' among older founders returning to code. Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan predicts an 'age of the unc,' with a new class of unicorn founders in their 40s, despite the accelerator's declining average founder age of 24 in 2025. Stanford University's Venture Capital Initiative data shows the average age of a unicorn founder was 39.9 in the 2020s, up from 35.4 in the 2010s, compared to 35 for a random sample.", "body_md": "Amir Elaguizy has books about neural networks from the '60s.\n\nThe 42-year-old serial entrepreneur doesn't believe that being younger means you're more AI-native. Elaguizy emailed with Geoffrey Hinton, the \"[Godfather of AI](https://www.businessinsider.com/godfather-ai-warns-its-very-scary-when-ai-develops-goals-2026-8),\" before Hinton started working at Google. He's been learning about AI's roots for decades.\n\n\"For me, AI is a continuum,\" he said. \"I watched it the whole time. It's not like it came online for me in 2022.\"\n\nFor Elaguizy, his age is a perk. It's a sign to investors that he's serious and knows how to build a business. (Elaguizy sold his first company [to Zynga](https://www.businessinsider.com/check-out-the-millionaires-and-billionaires-zyngas-ipo-minted-today-2011-12) in 2011.) It also shows that he's dogged, he said, and not taking his earlier cash-out and retiring.\n\nThese days, his age cohort wants in. Elaguizy said that many of his friends were coming out of retirement to launch new AI startups. \"You have all these old guys who are not just back at it, but back at the keyboard, typing code,\" he said.\n\nElaguizy called it a \"vibe shift,\" something Garry Tan would likely agree with. The [Y Combinator](https://www.businessinsider.com/y-combinator-applications-longer-em-dash-ai-writing-2026-8) CEO posted that we were entering an \"age of the unc.\" (\"Unc,\" for those unfamiliar with [Gen Z parlance](https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-slang-definitions-2025-8), is a shortening of \"uncle\" to call someone old.) Tan expected a new class of unicorn founders in their 40s.\n\nThe founder in their 40s with taste and discernment is the new gentleman unicorn founder\n\n— Garry Tan (@garrytan)\n\nBecause there can be 100x to 1000x of them working at their beck and call via agents and software factories all the time[https://t.co/VV5GOgI12h][July 5, 2026]\n\nIt's a bit ironic, given Y Combinator's [declining average founder age](https://www.businessinsider.com/yc-founders-younger-under-more-pressure-beacause-ai-2025-8). In 2025, one cohort had an average age of 24. That's a hallmark of the AI era: founders in their early 20s who pop Zyns and troll on X. Indeed, Business Insider once called it [a \"youthquake.\"](https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-young-founders-ai-gold-rush-to-grow-up-2025-9)\n\nBut these founders say that their age is a benefit, not a bug.\n\n## 'The age of the unc'\n\nMichal Cieplinski described AI as a reset — one that affected both older and younger founders.\n\n\"We had to learn Claude Code at the same time,\" he said. \"It's not like a 21-year-old kid had a start on me. No! We all had the same starting point.\"\n\nCieplinski is the 48-year-old founder of HiJenny, an AI home manager. He referenced the [internet discourse](https://www.businessinsider.com/taste-new-core-skill-ai-debate-memes-2026-2) about \"taste.\" The thinking goes: in the age of AI, technical skills will be less important than your sense of judgment.\n\nWith age, you have a better sense of taste, Cieplinski said. \"I'd add to it: with age, you have persistence.\"\n\nAre older founders actually** **experiencing a renaissance? Throughout my chats, founders pointed to the ages of the CEOs of the AI labs. Sam Altman is 41. [Dario Amodei](https://www.businessinsider.com/anthropic-dario-amodei-does-not-trust-sam-altman-openai-2026-6) is 43. They're not college dropouts sleeping on futons.\n\nStanford University's Venture Capital Initiative compared the average age at founding between a random sample and unicorns, or companies worth over $1 billion. The average age of a unicorn founder was 39.9 in the 2020s, compared with 35 in the random sample.\n\nThe average founding age of a unicorn is also going up: in the 2010s, it was 35.4.\n\nEven if the data suggests older founders are more closely associated with unicorn status, it's not clear that investors are eager to bet on them.\n\nIsmail Pelaseyed, the 40-year-old cofounder of the cybersecurity startup Superagent, said he felt the push in Silicon Valley: \"You have to be young, straight out of Harvard or Stanford.\"\n\nPelaseyed was 39 when he went through Y Combinator. He said he felt like a father to many of his [ultra-young batchmates](https://www.businessinsider.com/quang-hoang-y-combinator-evolution-2026-2).\n\n\"I think that most venture capitalists want someone young, because it takes a long time to build something big,\" he said. After all, Mark Zuckerberg was 19 when het met [Peter Thiel](https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-peter-thiel-influence-adam-grant-give-take-2020-5), Facebook's first outside investor.\n\nElaguizy disagrees. Sure, there's lots of money in the AI market right now, opening doors for founders with little experience. But what about when the going gets rough?\n\n\"In an environment where capital is less free, us old guys are a little bit more attractive,\" he said.\n\n## Does age equal experience?\n\nBoth of [Carmen Li's jobs](https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-demand-boosts-gpu-prices-silicon-data-ceo-carmen-li-2026-4) require deep technical experience.\n\nLi is the 40-year-old CEO of two GPU-related businesses: Compute Exchange and Silicon Data. While a 20-year-old may be able to kick-start a social app — especially with the ease of [modern AI tools](https://www.businessinsider.com/beginners-guide-ai-vibe-coding-lovable-base44-claude-2026-6) — it's harder to work on the compute side, she said.\n\nStill, that doesn't mean she benefits from her age. Li said that she benefits from her experience — and that the two aren't necessarily tied.\n\n\"You can be a 40-year-old who's done nothing with your life,\" she said. \"You'll be a worse startup founder than a 20-year-old. 40 is just a number.\"\n\nThere's one demographic that Li said did particularly well in their 40s: women.\n\nMany [women founders](https://www.businessinsider.com/microfeminism-female-founders-execs-career-journeys-empowerment-voices-dei-2025-3) leave the industry in their 30s to have kids, Li said, before returning to entrepreneurship in their 40s. (Li also clocked the subtle gendering in Tan's post, which referenced the \"gentleman unicorn founder.\")\n\nMo Shaikh is a fan of older founders, precisely because of their experience. \"They draw from all these lessons that they've learned,\" he said.\n\nThat doesn't mean that they're serial entrepreneurs, the 40-year-old cofounder and general partner of Maximum Frequency Venture said. Rather, he's looking for people with deep technical knowledge in their field.\n\n\"There are many founders out there that don't know that they're founders yet,\" he said.\n\nThe founders I spoke to quibbled about whether it was a better or worse time to be a mid-40s entrepreneur. Li said it's always been a good time to be older. \"They're just not the sexy story,\" she said. \"They're regular people.\"\n\nBut Elaguizy was firm about his \"vibe shift.\" The industry was embracing a \"what's old is new again\" mentality, he said.\n\n\"For every 22-year-old in a hoodie, I'm seeing a couple of 40-year-olds not in hoodies,\" he said.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/these-40-something-founders-say-they-have-something-the-ai-kids-don-t", "canonical_source": "https://www.businessinsider.com/startup-founders-40s-ai-kids-skills-age-unc-2026-8", "published_at": "2026-08-10 09:33:01+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-10 09:40:30.771052+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-startups", "ai-research"], "entities": ["Amir Elaguizy", "Geoffrey Hinton", "Zynga", "Garry Tan", "Y Combinator", "Michal Cieplinski", "HiJenny", "Sam Altman"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/these-40-something-founders-say-they-have-something-the-ai-kids-don-t", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/these-40-something-founders-say-they-have-something-the-ai-kids-don-t.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/these-40-something-founders-say-they-have-something-the-ai-kids-don-t.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/these-40-something-founders-say-they-have-something-the-ai-kids-don-t.jsonld"}}