No, founders are not adopting Bryan Johnson’s regimen to reverse aging. Quite the opposite : the average founder raising capital ages six months every year.1

Median founder age trend over time

I suspect founder age has been increasing steadily for three reasons. First, venture capital has shifted toward AI, which grew from roughly 10% to 60% of investment in just three years.2 AI founders skew older. Many AI labs are started by PhDs who spent extended periods in school & often come from industry, commercializing initiatives from major labs or hyperscalers.

Second, the shift toward B2B rewards experience. B2B founders benefit from established relationships with potential team members, design partners & expertise selling to enterprises. These networks take years to build.

B2B vs B2C Series A capital allocation trend

Third, press coverage distorts perception. Media tends to spotlight younger founders pursuing product-led growth or consumer strategies. The Cursor team, fresh from MIT, captures the zeitgeist. But there are many founders who grow up within an industry & then go out to upend it.

Perhaps venture capitalists should start funding reverse aging programs. If this trend holds, the typical founder will be a decade older in 20 years.

  1. Methodology : Data collected through systematic web search & aggregation of publicly available founder information. Analysis focuses on median trends to reduce sensitivity to outliers. Time series analysis identifies cyclical patterns in the data. ↩︎

  2. PitchBook Q1 2025 data shows AI captured 58% of global venture capital in Q1 2025, up from roughly 14% in 2020. ↩︎