Tech’s latest golden boy is crypto platform boss Sam Bankman-Fried. SBF, as he is known, looks exactly how you’d expect a young founder to look. The precocious 30-year-old wears shorts and T-shirts, is known to sleep on beanbags and became a billionaire when he was in his 20s. But what makes him stand out is his lack of peers. Where have all the prodigies gone? The tech sector seems to be missing its latest batch of 20-something founders who become household names. The only other example I can think of are the Collison brothers, now in their early thirties, who created payments giant Stripe.
For decades, very young company founders have been a stand-in for the innovation, disruption and vision that the tech sector prides itself on. Youth equals a high tolerance of risk and a healthy disregard for the sanctity of existing systems. Some of the best-known success stories were teenagers when they started the companies that made their name, including Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Steve Jobs co-founded Apple when he was 21. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were 25 when they set up Google and had just turned 30 when it became a public company. Evan Spiegel was 21 when he founded the disappearing message app Snapchat and 26 when its parent company went public as a $20bn-plus company.
The mythology of youth holds strong. Zuckerberg’s hoodies are still referenced when describing Silicon Valley’s unique business culture. Never mind that Zuckerberg is now 38, a father of two and more often photographed in expensive-looking crewneck jumpers.