I think, generally speaking, you get less "hungry" as you get older across the board.
Sure, you could become excellent at guitar in your 40s, but unless you're extremely motivated, you probably don't care about learning it as much as a teenager would. Same goes with learning or becoming anything else.
I disagree, the avg age of someone starting a company is 42[1] :)
I honestly think its truly just about filtering BS. I get hungry about the right things. Just like I get passionate about the right relationships. But not goin to drop everything for someone that shows the tiniest bit of interest me like maybe when I was young and had no idea what kind of relationship I wanted.
By hunger I mean the raw chutzpah and energy to do something bold, or commit to going in a brand new direction. Not necessarily the capability to do so.
Older people typically have more money and connections. If anyone could start a company I guarantee you more young people would start companies.
And not to mention experience. You may want to start a company when you're younger, but it's harder when you don't know what you're doing.
> By hunger I mean the raw chutzpah and energy to do something bold, or commit to going in a brand new direction
I haven't actually noticed a decline in that with age. But what I have noticed is that the more experienced a person is, the sooner they're likely to spot when a new direction is probably a dead end and avoid going that way in the first place. Less experienced people tend to have to actually walk in that direction for a while before realizing it's going nowhere.
Sure, you could become excellent at guitar in your 40s, but unless you're extremely motivated, you probably don't care about learning it as much as a teenager would. Same goes with learning or becoming anything else.
(Of course, everything here is on average.)