The first words he uses to illustrate cofounders you shouldn't bring in are "grey hair". If I could recruit anyone in the world as a cofounder, a lot of the top contenders would have gray hair.
> The first words he uses to illustrate cofounders you shouldn't bring in are "grey hair".
Not so fast. The actual description was "They all had grey hair and so-so backgrounds. Over the course of an hour, I learned one of the three was a relative who, after hearing about the idea, pushed himself onto the team as 'the business guy' and then promptly brought in a couple of former co-workers as co-founders. "
And he favored people with no background over people with "so-so backgrounds." If you haven't been out in the world, its easy to have a spotless background.
I'm curious what other experienced people think about this article. I've been working as a consultant for about 5 years now and recently started working on a startup, so while I like working with a constant team (as opposed to a different client each project) and large projects (website, marketing, services, etc) I don't have the experience in starting a company and thinking long term about teams.
Besides not dismissing "grey beards" (which I don't tend to do, most that I've worked with have a lot of experience and resources to bring to the table, while most 20 somethings have lot of energy and usually a deep understanding of a small area of expertise.) is there anything else I should take away from this article with a grain of salt?
I think you might have missed out on the part about so-so backgrounds. When you're young and just starting out not having much background or experience is to be expected. That's not the case once you've been around for a long time.
