Supposedly Julius Caesar was worried about this same thing. When he was around 30 he came upon a statue of Alexander, who at his age had conquered the known world. Caesar had very little to show for himself at that point.
He was in his late thirties and early forties before he had any remarkable success or power.
Success isn't measured in critical acclaim. He was in many popular movies including some blockbusters like Jurrassic Park and was quite successful long before Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction was far more notable for reviving John Travolta's career than doing anything for Sam Jackson.
If Jackson himself measured success in the amount of supporting roles he could land, then sure he was "successful" prior to Pulp Fiction. Surely you'd agree that he didn't play in any noteworthy lead roles until AFTER Pulp Fiction...
Ray Kroc's book Grinding It Out is a fantastic account of his work creating McDonalds. He definitely did his best work later in life, and proof that you can make your mark at any point in your life. It's a great read.
Frank Lloyd Wright, though successful early in his life, had all kinds of rises and falls in his career. He's also a terrific story about Renaissance in your own life.
Reagan was elected as a two term president and remains one of the more popular presidents in recent history.
Reasonable people may respectfully disagree about whether or not he was a good president and whether or not he took the country in the right direction, but I think anyone saying he was not a successful person is using a very different definition of "success" than the common meaning.
Yeah, It wasn't the unsustainable economic, political, social and environmental system that was Soviet totalitarianism. It wasn't the thousands of political dissidents in Easten Europe who were active, organizing and being persecuted before Reagan was even elected.
No, it was all because your Actor-President gave a nice speech and ran a deficit.
(If I was American I'd probably vote for Democrats most of the time, but it's funny how users seem to know exactly what did or didn't cause the fall of the Eastern Bloc)
There's a lot of comments here and on quora supporting the idea that you can be successful at anytime in life. However, I think that by your late 20's you should be well on your way to developing a formidable skill set for achievement in your field of choice.
From what I've observed, success is often a step function and emerges after a critical mass of preparation has already been done. For those persons being quoted as 'making it' in their 30's, 40's and above, there was in almost every case important learning experiences being built in their 20's.
So if you're in your 20s and haven't 'made it' yet, don't be concerned that your time has passed by, but sure as hell don't rest on your laurels. This is the decade of your life when greatness is forged.
People change fields all the time. I personally love diving into an area where I have no expertise. My father goofed off until he was 35 (at which time he was driving a cab in Des Moines) and went on to build/sell companies. I was working minimum wage in a bookstore at 25 and feel like I went on to do okay. I know-- the plural of anecdote is not "data", but still-- I've met lots of people with similar stories.
Success comes from giving a fuck + talent/wisdom (mostly the former). It might take folks a long time to find their muse (whether it's money, fame, or building something they love).
Quote from Jessica Livingston:
"I wish now that I’d started a startup in my twenties instead of wasting those years in a series of boring corporate jobs. But the idea never occurred to me."
I wonder if you think Jessica built a "formidable skill set for achievement" in her boring corporate jobs that prepared her to be an author or a partner in a seed-stage software fund/incubator? My experience with great founders is that they spend more time doing stuff that they've NEVER done before than doing stuff that they've practiced for years.
> This is the decade of your life when greatness is forged.
As is any other decade in your life.
It's not like the years 0 to 19 didn't build the foundation of your intellect, and you certainly don't stop developing (sometimes essential) new skills when you turn 30.
It's not like the years 0 to 19 didn't build the foundation of your intellect, and you certainly don't stop developing (sometimes essential) new skills when you turn 30.
Serious question: do you really think that was the previous comment's claim?
It certainly was implied, though my statement was really more directed at a certain cult of youth in the Valley where they really do seem to think that people suddenly can't build cool things anymore when they're older than 25. But to answer your question: yes, I do believe "the 20s are where greatness is forged" is a misleading claim.
I don't think it was a constructive response. No, the original post was not literally true.
But I don't think many people would deny that one's 20's are a key decade. In fact, if I had to pick a most important decade, that would be it. In your 20's, you're expected to start a career, and to do something valuable for society. You're going to meet the people who, 20 years later, will be willing to work with you because "I've known him for decades." 20-somethings have more energy than older people, but more direction than younger people.
Nobody seriously thinks people "suddenly" can't build cool things at a particular age. But I know very few people who would think that someone's intellectual output or energy keeps growing past their 20's. Of course, very few people expect a 25-year-old to be as wise or well-connected as a 45-year-old; if I were betting on who would start a better law firm or hedge fund, I'd bet on the older guy.
I disagree with everything you said, including the offhanded remark about the constructiveness of my response. As far as being constructive goes, I clearly laid out what I believe without attacking anyone, which is more than I can say about your question "Serious question: do you really think that was the previous comment's claim?" that I perceive as a mock inquiry despite the disclaimer of being serious.
Between so many aspects I'd like to focus specifically on what I perceive to be the core issue where you state:
> "But I know very few people who would think that someone's intellectual output or energy keeps growing past their 20's."
Let's not even try to discuss how many people we think are on either side of this. Let's instead talk about what we personally believe. And in this context I assert that it's very sad and indicative of a huge waste if a person's output doesn't increase meaningfully with increasing age, after all of the experience that should have gone along with it. It also sounds like there is a pseudo-biological assumption here that the brain basically goes into standby mode after you a person goes through their twenties; I don't believe that's true.
I don't think we're going to come to a consensus about this.
On the other hand building a skillset is not necessarily what people think. It's also what you gain when you're not paying attention to "building a skillset" or making it big.
For example I have met few good software engineers that are also good at design or marketing - but those few rare gems out there are fuckin' awesome individuals.
sure as hell don't rest on your laurels
IMHO, some rest is precisely what many of us need.
I think this is a great comment. (but downvoted). Even if you are not successful at 30. You should be building knowledge, experience, connections or whatever is going to be the basis of success when you are older.
I've hated school since about the 2nd grade. I was forced into an "alternative" program in High School where I learned little or nothing but how to play backgammon and eat snickers bars and drink Mt. Dew. I've taken some college courses (Community College) but never came close to graduating. I worked shit jobs until I was 30.
Since then:
I've run for office - lost, but learned a lot. I've been asked many times since to do it again, but I have no interest in becoming a politician.
Founded two companies and sold one of them. The other one we started with $300 and has now grown to over 250K in annual sales and we plan to hire 5 people this year (it is a lifestyle business, but we'll see, it may turn into something bigger).
I've climbed partway up the corporate ladder and currently lead a group of six software developers/DBAs.
I have 2 kids and a wonderful wife. The kids are in a private montessori school which we all love (btw, their school experience is 180 degrees different than mine). We go on vacations together and have no debt.
Am I a billionaire, no and I don't think I ever will be, but I'm 42 now and think my best years are ahead of me.
I don't care how old you are or what your background, you can overcome your obstacles. My God, don't give up at 25, get going!
You can be successful at any age, and you can fail at any age, too.
Most people experience both, in copious amounts, at any age. The idea that success is something that comes from inside of people and either happens from the start or will never be there doesn't make sense - it's a lie told by the privileged and the lucky. In reality, it takes skill and a lot of luck to be successful at something. This is why statistics dictates that you have to try again and again until you get it right. And once achieved success isn't a permanent state, either.
The more interesting question is why there is incredible pressure in Silicon Valley and other tech hubs to be successful by 30. In other professions, particularly ones that require graduate education such as law or medicine, it's almost impossible to be "successful" by 30.
I suppose the easy and simple answer is: one must be young to "understand" what the youth market wants. Facebook went after the college market at first, and Zuckerberg was a college student, so that makes sense, right?
Well, life is what you make of it. Sometimes circumstances prevent young successes. That doesn't mean that anyone should give up. In fact, it may be a self-fulfilling prophecy - people are so enamored with the idea of being a billionaire by 25 that if they don't make it by age 28, they give up.
Life is your own story and you are the only writer.
This is kind of a good point, but I have a feeling that this will change over time. The internet is still fairly young remember, and there are still plenty of middle-aged/older people who have very limited exposure to it. As people of our age (20s/30s) get older, I think the fact that we've grown up with the internet will make the elderly a much bigger market.
Yes, excellent point. I was thinking about that as well. Just to expand on your comment, it's interesting to think more about the generational differences. I know that my generation (I'm in my mid-20s) was one of the first generation that had kids learning programming and starting internet businesses in high school.
My dad who is in his 70s now studied computer science, but he sees computer science as more of an academic area rather than practical.
I think you're right - the younger generation will continue cutting their teeth on the internet phenomenon throughout their 30s, 40s and (gasp) 50s.
Once again, just because most of the famous billionaires-by-age-25 are internet wunderkids doesn't mean that youth is a necessary ingredient for entrepreneurial success.
I built my very first plain HTML website when I was 25, I spent the next year learning software on my own while bartending. In the intervening 9 years I worked at both corporate and boutique software companies, I started a software shop in Sydney that has a successful kiosk product (installed in 90+ malls in Australia and the US). I moved to NYC, sold my share in the old company and my newest startup is just starting to generate revenue.
Last week I was at Harvard where I watched the awards ceremony for an Innovation Challenge—which I was invited to judge. A humbling experience, I might add, those kids are bloody amazing.
I'm a high school dropout and I'm completely self taught.
I'm not where some people are, and I'm certainly not wealthy (yet), but I'm quite happy with the trajectory of my life, having just turned 34.
The question seems oddly charming to me because I might have asked the same question at the time.
You see, I had had a rough go of it up to that point. A bad situation had led me to drop out of high school and to enter the Army. My dad had promised a college education so the whole time in the Army, what kept me going was that as soon as my ETS date rolled around I was going back to school.
You see, I wanted to be a computer programmer.
But when I got out and asked about college, dad told me the day I raised my hand to join the Army that I had forfeited my college fund. That I was a man now and had to make my own way.
So at 21 I decided that come hell or high water I was going to be an awesome computer programmer and that no matter how long it took I was going to have a college degree.
In 1987 getting access to a computer though, was somewhat difficult for a long-haired high school dropout. But I managed by weaseling my way into a SysAdmin job - herding a pair of AT&T 3b2 machines. I had no idea what I was doing, having only read about Unix from library books. But I knew enough to get access to two multi-user Unix machines and an idtools diskette.
At that job I saved enough money to pay for a Computer Programming course at a now defunct school called Control Data Institute. The job placement office got me my first programming job in 1989 - hacking C for a consulting firm.
That btw, was the last time the Control Data Institute credential ever helped me to get a job.
And getting past HR without a college degree has always been a challenge. Without it, you are not "a member of the club".
But somehow I've slugged it out for a couple more decades. I haven't always been a programmer -- I've spent about half that time as a SysAdmin -- I've even spent some of it homeless.
But it turns out in retrospect that I have in fact spent most of my adult life doing what I wanted to do and it has so far been a messy, scruffy and somewhat scrappy success.
But a success nevertheless.
I don't think I'm an awesome programmer yet but I'm still working on it. I do know that I'm better than most but sadly it's just because I'm merely competent while most are incompetent. Stay in the business and you'll see what I mean.
And eventually I'll get that college degree too. Extra points to the universe if I get to do it as poetically as Woz did.
So now that I've rambled on and typed more than most will want to read, I finally come to an answer: the only way you can fail to succeed is to give up. So suck it up young man, and dig in for a long fight.
At 25 I was a one-time college dropout, husband, and father just finishing my bachelor's in Linguistics and working for $8 per hour at a textbook typesetting company.
At 30 I am a husband and father with a master's in CS making software for Amazon. Except for mortgage and school, we are debt free.
But the big question is how you define success, which is only a couple of whys away from what the meaning of life is.
If you don't have a reliable, justifiable success metric, you can't be successful. But you can keep chasing rainbows.
That is inspiring. Can you tell us in detail what worked for you besides the hard work? Was it the school, some courses, internships, connections that landed you in Amazon?
I underwent a sea change regarding school. In my first undergrad stint, I didn't reflect on what I was learning or why. More important I didn't try to think about my strengths and desires, and try to fit my program to that. My second time through was laser focused on CS, math, and engineering. For me, that translated into close to two letter grades.
One thing I had picked up in between was a strong desire to learn the computer. I didn't grow up programming, so Perl was something of a revelation to me. I picked up C after that and read Code Complete, another revelation. About then I figured out that I wanted to work on software professionally.
I continued to work on programming skills and CS outside of the four walls of my program (and I still do).
There was no secret sauce in getting into Amazon. They were (and we still are) desperate for people, with hundreds of engineering openings today, who know CS fundamentals, are not one-trick ponies (ie, work at many levels of the stack, from UI through service to DB), and can code their way out of a paper bag. There is a ton of customer-impacting work to do and never enough engineers to do it all.
It is not an exaggeration to say that if you can solve algorithm, coding, and design questions in phone screens and on the white board, and communicate your thought process along the way, you will be head and shoulders above the vast majority of the candidate pool. Having a work record of delivering software products helps too. That said, you are not likely to pass the interview loop if you try to fake your way through.
After I finished the MS CS, I worked at a defense contractor and shipped some software in C++/Qt/MySQL. I learned a lot and loved my coworkers, but the defense industry environment was not for me. I read Steve Yegge's posts about Amazon and services and the rest, and that was for me. The ones about interviewing are all still relevant for the Amazon interview. The specific questions have changed, but the areas to bone up on are basically timeless.
Then I submitted my resume online for a position in Amazon's Recommendations team. I didn't know anyone in the company (although it turned out that I ran into acquaintances after I joined). I didn't get picked up by them but somebody else needed people badly and started the hiring process with me.
There are a broad range of teams and experiences at Amazon. Some teams are high pressure, high reward (Kindle comes to mind). Some are redefining industries, like AWS. Front-end vs. back-end. Huge resources, many dependencies, and a two-year roadmap vs. two guys launching a brand new business.
> At age 28 Genghis Khan had nothing and was barely starting to get control over his own small tribe. He eventually ruled over the largest land empire in human history.
To a European this is hilarious. Over here, at 25 you'll have just left university with a master's degree if you started university just after high school, or with a bachelor's degree if you took a gap year or two (which is extremely common in Europe). In America, apparently you're expected to have a career and already have "succeeded"(!) by the time you're 25!
I assume you're talking wealth here. Not only can you become successful later in life, if you are so fortunate to become wealthy in your lifetime it's the most likely scenario. It's actually very unlikely to happen in your 20s. The 20-something self-made millionaire is much, much rarer than you would think reading articles on HN.
The One Ring maybe, but still I'd rather see more elves with rings then men.
It's the same fallacy, really. Even if politics is as corruptible as it's made out to be (which I tend to doubt), still I'd rather have more people with my viewpoint entering it...
Ray Kroc started Mcdonalds when he was 59 years old. Henry Ford started the Ford Motor Company at age 40 after his first attempt failed. Edison didn't patent his Light Bulb until he was 33.
There are thousands of other examples but that makes the point.
I think you can. Or at least try and have fun doing it.
My personal story:
I was very successful at 27. I reached my peak at this age.
I had to reinvent my self and I was somewhat successful again in my 30's.
At 40, I had to reinvent my self once again. I am doing ok. I am still trying to improve my self.
Forrest Gump was right: "You never know what you are going to get in life". Life is a long road, you will have many ups and downs. I want to be the guy who is 70, still active and competitive.
The media constantly promotes the idea that success is more important when you're young. For example, it really sells magazines when they publish an article about a 20 years old billionaire. On the other hand, a 50 or 60 year old billionaire is just another number in the Forbes list...
The entire ecosystem in which we all dwell seems to promote it as some kind of holy grail that we become "successful" by our mid-20s. However, there is SO much that one cannot know at that age. Is there any data on the ages of YC and other startup incubator attendees?
No. There is no historical account of anyone accomplishing anything with their life beyond the age of 25. After 25, it is all downhill. If this is a serious question, then my answer remains the same.
One of the popular answers from Quora hit the nail on the head. A lot of "early acheivers" i.e. those that achieve some form of success before 30, end up blowing the dough due to bad investments, reckless spending, etc. At least that's what happened to me.
I'm 31 & on my 4th business. The last biz was reasonably successful at one point, that is until I blew the cash and became reckless with both my personal and business' finances.
Now I'm starting from scratch, no exit strategy for the foreseeable future, but all the desire and ambition I had when I was 18 in my college dorm room pondering on how to be a millionaire by 30. I seriously doubt I've missed the boat
1. Many entrepeneurs do not achieve an exit until they are in mid thirties to late forties. What is this obsession with the exit? I want to build an empire, one death-star at a time. Think Warren Buffett, but crappy little me instead.
2. Learning can be a bit like compound interest. The more you learn, the better you become at learning. Fortunately, your competition are 99% shit, so you still have time to get on that horse yet.
3. You can't be successful in your mid twenties if you haven't succeeded by then.
Speaking from experience, success is MUCH harder to attain after your mid 20's but is by no means impossible. As an example, I'd launch my company tomorrow if I could find a way to cover my expenses. Unfortunately, I live 800 miles from my parents and I can't pay my rent with equity.(believe me, I've tried) My bills will continue to come month after month until I can figure out a way to make a better income than my job creates now. Until that happens, I have to work. So it'll be harder for me, but I don't think it's impossible.
Looks like I'm a little late to this... but one silly heuristic to questions like this I've stumbled upon is, if the negative answer makes you feel crappy and the speaker seem like an ass, then the answer is likely actually a positive.
In other words, "If I haven't succeeded in my mid 20s, could I be successful in the rest of my life?" "No, just give up on being successful now".
... of course, I'm not at the mid 20s now, and can only imagine the feeling... same when I reach mid 30s.... or 40s... or 50s.
Leonhard Euler was contributing to the field of mathematics until the day he died and Paul Erdös was still writing significant papers at an age when most people have long retired.
Rodney Dangerfield started writing jokes when he was 15. He finally hit it big when he was 52.
Ray Kroc was 52 when he started McDonalds.
Orville Redenbacher was 58 when he founded his popcorn business.
Ronald Reagan was a B-List actor who was 56 when he became Governor of California and 70 when he became President of the United States.
Grandma Moses was 78 when she started painting.
Tina Turner was 44 when she recorded her first #1 hit.