The whole point of this endeavour of mine was to examine what this person had said about these brilliant minds realizing what they would by the time they were 20, but unfortunately, with these short bios, we only see, generally, when these folks acted upon pre-existing ideas. For instance, when did Quentin Tarantino begin piecing together his plan/ideas about the world, career, film? Only an in-depth look at these people would yield such.
With that in mind, I have here a list of the age at which each person listed here so far made their first big achievement/whatever, listed next to the age. Then, I’ve averaged out the ages to see what we end up with for the mean age of the innovators.
Bill Gates- 20 Alltair BASIC Program
Paul Allen- 20 ditto
Larry Page- 24 Google
Sergey Brin- 24 ditto
Steven Spielberg- 29 Jaws
George Lucas- 28 American Graffiti
Quentin Tarantino- 31 Pulp Fiction
Kevin Williamson- 30 Scream
Linus Torvalds- 22 Linux
Michael Dell- 19 Dell computers
Augusuc Caesar- 25 took over Rome
Warren Buffet- 31 First million dollars
Jim Carrey- 30, between Living Color/Ace Ventura
Sam Walton- 27 Wal Mart
Ralph Lauren- 28 Polo clothing
John Rockefeller- 31 President of new Standard Oil
William Randolph Hearst- 23 takes over San Francisco Examiner
Oprah Winfrey- 32 show
Walt Disney- 35 new Disney Productions takes off
Ted Turner- 32 begins assembling broadcast system
Melnichenko- 21 MDM bank
Sergei Popov- 27 coal mines
Wong Kwong Yu- 18 store
31
25
25
Howard Stern- 32 national radio
Peter Jackson- 26 Bad Taste
Will Smith- 22 sitcom
768, which divided by the 29 people =26.5 years old
That means 26.5 years old for the first big achievement, I should reiterate, not for when they figured out what they would.
um… the OP didn’t say the geniuses “were discovered”. It says that they discovered what they were going to do, at least in terms of a general field of study.
a) I’d quibble about counting her as a genius, partially because
b) I remember her as a really, really bad local news reporter on (IIRC) WJZ-13 in Baltimore before getting her show. I mean unbelievably bad.
On the bright side, it’s, perhaps deservedly, become a cliche that the most brilliant scientists, mathematicians, and computer geeks do their most innovative work before they are thirty. Figuring on the classic “three score and ten” we all get, they look forward to forty years of decreasing relevance. Ah, you just can’t beat being washed-up before your first gray hair to make you feel good all over!
There are several mechanisms by which early bloomers may have disproportionate representation among “geniuses”.
(1) People who start a project early in life have more years to see their vision flourish than people who start a project late in life. Projects started by older geniuses may fizzle at a higher rate because the older genius succumbs to diseases and maladies associated with old age.
(2) People who start a project early in life have more years to reap the financial benefits of their genius, and hence, tend to make better stories, and become more well-known than their corresponding older peers.
(3) Older people who show genius late® in life may be associated with companies or other enterprises where they end up not receiving personal recognition for their genius. The company gets a patent and the inventor gets a pat on the back.
My personal opinion is that people who innovate creatively do so throughout their lives. The mark of genius isn’t one-time success but a string of successes. (see Watson and Crick of DNA fame)
In 1981 he went on tour with his Demented band or whatever after appearing on the tv show, and then the details are hazy (Wikipedia doesn’t have much interest in when people ‘make’ it, unfortunately ), so I’ll count that as his beginning, which was at 22. Thus bringing our average age for these now 30 folks to: 26.3 years old.
Andrew Lloyd Webber–Had his first works published when he was eight, had a working toy theatre where he wrote music and presented plays, wrote Jesus Christ Superstar at 20 and became a self-made millionaire at 21, and managed to maintain control over much of his empire.
His father once told Andrew and brother Julian “Only go into music if you can’t find anything else.” Obviously they didn’t listen (Julian is a classical cellist).
), so I’ll count that as his beginning, which was at 22. Thus bringing our average age for these now 30 folks to: 26.3 years old.