Old Dogs with New Tricks

In the mad 1990?s of dot com boom, ?entrepreneur? meant someone under 35 in jeans and T shirt. A recent article in the Economist titled ?Gerontocapitalism? highlights a few old entrepreneurs who have not lost the passion or ability for new tricks. Here are a few examples:

* 88-year-old Las Vegas-based corporate raider Kirk Kerkorian has bought almost 10% of General Motors and is pressuring the company's management, to get his man on to the board to shake the place up.

* Sumner Redstone, the 82-year-old boss of Viacom, outmanoeuvred his rivals at NBC Universal, and snatched away the prize of the Spielberg created DreamWorks SKG film studio.

* At the age of 74, Rupert Murdoch has launched a bold new internet-based strategy for News Corporation.

* Carl Icahn, a mere adolescent 69 is stalking Time Warner, the world's largest media company.

* Ray Kroc launched the McDonald's restaurant chain at the age of 52, and built it up over the next 30 years.

The Economist?s take on all of this for the aspiring 50 year old entrepreneur is as follows. First, be your own boss, then nobody can sack you or force you to retire. Voters and managers, who control the fates of politicians and of ordinary workers, are susceptible to ageist prejudice. Shareholders, by contrast, don't care how wrinkly a chap looks so long as he delivers the dividends. Second, never retire ? it rots the brain. Mr Murdoch once returned an advance he had been given to produce his autobiography, remarking that sitting down to write his life story would be like admitting it was all over.

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