Read This in Big Type.The Best Founders Are at Least 50.

Silicon Valley’s idea of an entrepreneur is someone who launched a startup in adorm room. This investor hunts for people who graduated in the 1990s.

Bridget Johns has always been entrepreneurial. She had just never actually been an entrepreneur.

She grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania and ran a corn stand in her driveway. Instead of getting an allowance, she got piglets that she raised and sold at the county fair.

After college and business school, she held a series of jobs at luxury retailers in offshoot divisions that felt to her more like startups. Then she worked as an executive at an actual startup.

But she had always dreamed of building a company of her own. A few years ago, she decided that if she didn't take the risk then, she never would. So she did.

Johns became a first-time founder-at the age of 51.

A suburban mom with decades of experience in her industry might not be the first person who comes to mind when you picture a venture-backed entrepreneur building an AI-powered company.

As it turns out, that's exactly why Katerina Stroponiati chose toinvest in her.

Stroponiati is a venture capitalist with a contrarian theory of entrepreneurial success: She believes that older founders can make for better founders.

In fact, she recently launched a small fund to back founders of early-stage tech companies with qualities that every investor looks for-and one that no other investor looks for.

They have to be a certain age: at least 50 years old.

That's because older founders Continued from page Bl have lots of advantages that tend to go overlooked by investors who are obsessed with discovering young talent.

They have connections. They have credibility. They have industry experience, domain expertise and the kind of relationships that can take years to cultivate. They've seen it all, so they can spot opportunities that others miss. They know the rules of their businessand how to break them. They also know which problems need to be solved because they have encountered those problems too many times themselves.