In May, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg caused a stir after he showed up for an investor meeting wearing his signature attire: a hoodie. Besides drawing the ire of Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter -- who told Bloomberg TV, "I think that's a mark of immaturity" -- Zuckerberg and his fashion choice reinforced the widely held view of what an entrepreneur is: male, based in or around Silicon Valley and young.
However, recent Kauffman Foundation research contradicts this stereotype. Entrepreneurs age 45 and up comprised 49 percent of all new entrepreneurial activity in 2011, while 45-to-54-year-olds showed the biggest increase in entrepreneurial activity rate. In fact, over the last 15 years, the Kauffman Foundation discovered that the number of 55-to-64-year-olds participating in entrepreneurship increased significantly, from 14.3 percent to 20.9 percent.
