This is definitely food for thought. However, I'm not sure it tells the whole story. I'm interested in the size/valuation of the companies in addition to a count. I'd argue that it's a lot easier to found a tech startup and call yourself founder/CEO than it is with more traditional MBA-geared companies. Also, the survey sample is probably pretty skewed since it uses Identified and Facebook.
Hey kthyqn, I put to together the statistics for the white paper. Our data is necessarily skewed and is not a perfect reflection of reality. Our data is comes with several caveats, namely we probably somewhat over represents startups and under represents large companies.
Nevertheless, it is largely a reflection of reality. A study from Harvard Business School was recently released that came to the same conclusion.
I didn't even consider the facebook issue. While lots of people are on FaceBook, busy, older CEOs are probably the least likely to be on it and the least likely to put "CEO or Founder" on their profile.
That would also explain why the average age has gone down so much.
