Why we are already in the Era of the Silver Economy?

In the world of startups, do you know what the biggest lie is?

The biggest lie is when they tell you that a startup, a young company, an innovative company, is something for young entrepreneurs, nerds, people who were born in front of a computer or with a cell phone in their hands.

This myth is harmful to the business world. And to the truly talented and innovative professionals, with a vast knowledge of the economic and social reality that support thousands of companies created every year.

This seems to condemn a segment of the population to an unproductive retirement, simply because some crazy people have ruled that people over 60 are not creative and cannot have successful companies.

There is an immutable truth that many seem to ignore. You cannot build anything solid on an eggshell. You need solid ground and good construction techniques. Why am I saying this?

Have you heard of the Forbes magazine report that lists the 500 largest companies in the world? Well, a study by the Madison Trust Company in 2024 on the age range of the CEOs of the 500 largest companies in the world is quite revealing. See the chart.

The average age range of the CEOs of the 500 largest companies in the world is almost 60 years old, or 59.2. But there is a large contingent of executives aged between 60 and 70. The group considered to be successful nerds (Zuckerberg and company) are in the age range of 40 to 49. There is even 1 executive aged between 90 and 99 and this guy is the investor Warren Buffet, CEO of the Berkshire Hathaway group, which manages billions of dollars in financial resources.

This means that the most solid companies in the world, those that move the largest financial volumes, are not run by nerds. They are run by veterans, experienced professionals, who have followed significant paths of knowledge and learning to get where they are and with success.

Now, look at an even more enriching fact.

A study by the Israel Venture Center of 10,000 startups between 1999 and 2014 reveals some devastating information. Only 4 out of 100 startups manage to succeed in Israel. Not much, right? But worldwide, this rate is only 2 out of 100. In other words: startups in Israel have a 100% higher success rate than startups in other parts of the world, including the US.

What explains this success?

Many will say that this has to do with the fact that Israel has a more favorable environment for innovative companies, which may be questionable. The pro-startup environment in the US is much more favorable, since there is more access to capital and there are states where taxation of these companies is zero, which is not the case in Israel.

So, where is the answer?

In the last few months, I have been dedicating myself to intensive research on Israeli startups, analyzing information from portals such as Startup Nation Central. This portal lists one by one the more than 7,000 Israeli startups in various segments, with very rich data. And it was precisely in this process that a valuable piece of information emerged: the average age range of startup founders in Israel.

In segments such as agribusiness, for example, the majority of Israeli startup founders are industry veterans, especially professors and researchers from Israeli universities such as Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva. They are not nerds! They are people aged 60+ with a solid career in research, including in the biotechnology segment. In these companies, the younger executives are allocated precisely to the areas of marketing and communications. In the aerospace and defense segment, the same phenomenon occurs. Veteran engineering professionals, many of them from the Israel Defense Forces, are the founders of most of the startups in the sector. And in the transportation and mobility sector, we see numerous engineers and technicians from transportation companies behind startups that innovate in this segment. No nerds!

So, let's move on to our equation to better understand the reality. The country with the highest startup success rate in the world also has the highest number of veterans in the startup creation stages. Is this by chance? Of course not!

Longevity

It is a fact that people are living longer. Israel has a life expectancy of 83 years, just below the life expectancy in Japan, which is 87 years and one of the highest in the world. In this sense, many men and women who retire at the age of 62 still have 20 or more years of a life that can be productive, as long as these people are encouraged to continue in the business world with all their experience and knowledge. This is what we see in many Israeli startups.

A Brazilian human resources consultant who works in the longevity segment once told me that the dream of many executives who were about to retire in Brazil was to dedicate themselves to fishing. It's that simple: fishing! These people were around 60 years old in a country with a life expectancy of 76 years. Now imagine dedicating 16 years of your life to sitting on a bench in front of the sea or a river and throwing bait into the water in the hope of catching a fish. Ridiculous, isn't it? Many of these retired fishermen didn't take more than a month to realize that their dream was completely meaningless and an open door to deep depression.

But if these ridiculous ideas are part of the imagination of veteran professionals, the government's responses are not encouraging. For people who are about to retire, government programs are limited to yoga classes on the beach, healthy eating tips and senior groups focused on physical and mental health. This is profoundly stupid and condemns to complete uselessness a contingent of people who are of extraordinary value to countries that need to generate companies, jobs, income and wealth. Why not encourage these people to create their own companies in the segments where they have worked throughout their professional lives, thus creating space for the generation of jobs for young people seeking fulfillment in the job market?

Brazil is a terrible example in this regard, because communist governments have no interest in people becoming entrepreneurs. Therefore, there is no incentive whatsoever in this regard. So, as long as communists are in charge of the Brazilian government, there is no chance of success in this area.

But when we look at the United States, Israel, now Argentina and Paraguay, or even Portugal and Italy, in addition to Hungary, countries governed by conservative governments, we notice that there are large potential markets for encouraging veteran professionals to build their own successful companies. And that is the goal of Silver Startup, an initiative by Future Press Israel, in partnership with its partner Future Press Brasil, the online training portal LinkEDU and the training companies IDE PNL.

We want to show many veteran professionals or even academic professors that they have a better chance of success in the business world than mere nerds who have no idea how to run a company. The high failure rate of startups in the world can be explained precisely by the poor training of young people who believe themselves to be innovators. Just note that the biggest dream of these pseudo-innovators when creating a startup is to sell their companies to some giant managed precisely by veteran professionals. Isn't that incredible? How have we given value to this in the last 3 decades?

When Moses complained to God that the burden of leading the people of Israel through the desert was beyond his capacity, what was God's answer to Moses? God asked Moses to gather 70 elders to help him lead the people of Israel, easing the burden of leadership and allowing more people to participate in decision-making. Why 70 elders and not 70 young people? Why 70 elders and not 35 elders and 35 young people? Think about it, because God's guidance makes perfect sense, even today. Elders are not useless; they can and should be in leadership positions that help countries get through difficult phases of innovation and growth.

There is a huge contingent of people around the world, with extensive professional experience, who are better prepared to create innovative companies and who, right now, are being encouraged to think about yoga classes and fishing. This market of ready-made, highly experienced professionals is waiting for someone to help them create successful companies that they can pass on to their children or grandchildren. The time to act is now. That is the proposal of Silver Startup.