{
  "id": 6565401,
  "title": "The entrepreneurial advantage in a 100-year life",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/10/the-entrepreneurial-advantage-in-a-100-year-life",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-09-10T09:09:14.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Sifted",
    "slug": "sifted",
    "url": "https://sifted.eu/articles/the-entrepreneurial-advantage-in-a-100-year-life-brnd/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "If you're building a company, it can feel like everything hinges on this one chance. As one founder noted, they question whether they're creating the right business or simply using all their energy on their only opportunity. The prevailing narrative in startup culture often presents entrepreneurs as young, fast-moving visionaries like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg – individuals who forge remarkable successes in their twenties. This has inadvertently led many to believe that building a successful company should happen early in life, or else it's too late. However, research by Pierre Azoulay and colleagues, examining over a million new ventures in the US, reveals a different truth. Founders of high-growth companies are typically older than the popular culture would suggest. In fact, entrepreneurs in their forties are significantly more likely to create high-growth businesses than those in their twenties. While the Azoulay research highlights the significance of entrepreneurs' ages, it also points to a broader truth: entrepreneurship offers something even more valuable – a lifetime of opportunities to create work. As more of us can anticipate working into our seventies and beyond, starting a business can transition from a once-in-a-lifetime gamble to an ongoing possibility throughout a much longer working life. This longer life may unfold in multiple stages: launching multiple businesses, spending a decade in a larger organization before starting a new venture, returning to employment to acquire new skills, mentoring younger founders, or investing in emerging companies. In this extended life, entrepreneurship is no longer the defining moment of a career; instead, it becomes one of several avenues for creating value. Entrepreneurship also plays a crucial role in developing the same capabilities needed to thrive in a longer, less predictable career. Navigating the traditional three-stage life of education, work, and retirement required minimal personal design. It relied heavily on institutions like colleges, companies, and government policies to manage the transitions. However, the multi-stage life changes this landscape, introducing more choices, transitions, and opportunities for reinvention. It's less about getting the first career decision right and more about developing the judgment and adaptability to handle numerous decisions over decades. The skills honed in building a business are precisely the skills required to manage repeated transitions in a longer life – between roles, identities, and stages of life.",
  "summary": null,
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": "The shift to a 100-year life repositions entrepreneurship from a high-stakes, one-time event to a recurring possibility, allowing individuals to develop valuable skills and adaptability for a longer, more dynamic career.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}