题　目：Bring an Adult into the Room? The Complementarity–Coordination Tradeoff for Young Founders

嘉　宾：Qian Wang, PhD Candidate, Cornell University

主　持：王薇, 助理教授, 上海交通大学

时　间：2026年10月14日（周三）13:30-15:00

地　点：上海交通大学安泰经济与管理学院包兆龙图书馆A305室

内容简介:

Young founders often face early-stage resource constraints. This study examines whether teaming with a senior founder helps young founders overcome financial constraints. I theorize a complementarity–coordination tradeoff: senior founders contribute accumulated experience and help signal venture quality, but age gaps within founding teams can also create coordination costs related to control, commitment, and decision-making. Using data on U.S. venture capital-backed startups, I find that startups with young founders receive larger initial VC investments when teaming with a senior founder. However, this financing benefit is weaker when the senior founder does not serve as CEO or maintains outside employment. Moreover, startups with young founders take longer to secure their first VC financing when teaming with a senior founder.

演讲人简介：

Qian Wang is a Ph.D. candidate in Management at the Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University. His research lies at the intersection of entrepreneurship and strategy, with a focus on founder demographics. He studies how startup founders overcome early-stage constraints through the lens of human capital and institutional change. His work has been published in Management Science and Organization Science, and has been recognized with the 2026 Bradford-Osborne Research Award (UW Foster & UCLA) and the 2025 DRUID Steven Klepper Award for Best Young Scholar Paper.

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